Uncategorized – Page 2 – Improvement Dave

Close the Loop

There are loops all around us. Cycles that gain power when they are closed loops. All of these loops are connected to other loops and if a loop is changed it has downstream effects. Life itself depends on these loops, and our lives are enriched when we identify these loops and make efforts to close them. A sentence that is only started does not carry a message, but a completed sentence can effectively transfer a thought from my brain into your brain.

Seeds and Butterfly Lifecycles

My mom started a hobby a long time ago of planting the milkweed plant that attracts Monarch butterflies. Every year she purchased more plants and planted them on the path in the backyard. After we had children, I started collecting the seeds of these plants. When I planted these seeds, I completed a loop and now have an endless supply of seeds that attract Monarch butterflies.

In turn, these plants support the procreation of Monarch butterflies and increase the number of these amazing creatures on our planet. This in turn increases the number of pollinating insects on our planet, which I should not have to tell you is a good thing.

Moving Dirt in the Real Universe

This will be like MINECRAFT but in the real world

Minecraft Prelude

My son loves Minecraft, just like most 8-year-olds in 2024. I had heard about the game but didn’t understand how great it was until I went back to school to study Instructional Design. The power of Minecraft is that no matter what mode you are in, be it creative or survival, the game is based on you creating items from raw materials.

The Threat of Death Creates a Loop

Creative mode is much more open and the options are endless, but as my son has shared with me, survival mode is more challenging and proves you know how to play the game. You can’t die in creative mode, but in survival mode, you can.

When your character dies and is born again in a game you have closed a loop. Without that loop, the game is less interesting and less challenging, and as my son explained playing in creative is less impressive. It is more impressive to see a player do something amazing in survival mode because it displays that they really know how to play the game.

Minecraft as More than a Game

Now, for the uninitiated who do not live around children or who have never entered the Minecraft world, I want to open this up a bit. Yes, Minecraft is a video game that can be played alone or socially online. Yes, you can play in survival mode where you have to gather all of your resources and can be killed by “mobs” (that is what you call enemies in the Minecraft Universe).

Here is the part you might not be aware of. The new generation watches others play Minecraft on YouTube more than they play the game themselves. My 5-year-old and 8-year-old know more about Minecraft than I knew about anything when I was that age. Creators are now using Modified versions of Minecraft to create Television Shows. When my daughter was 4 years old she said, “I like that show (Mikey and JJ), I like watching that more than Disney.” This was completely unprompted and it really caught my attention. I mean, better than Disney? really?

Yes, because it is interactive. The players in this show are doing things that the audience can do because the audience is made up of users! Instead of watching your older sister play the game, you can curate playlists on YouTube of your favorite designer crafting things that interest you.

The Metaverse Has Arrived

Many people think that the Metaverse is a string theory abstraction that only high-level mathematicians believe in. If you are thinking of the Metaverse proposed by comic books and action movies then those people are maybe right, possibly. There is, however, another way to perceive the metaverse, a way where it definitely exits, and that is the worlds that we create in online games. We often reserve statements about the metaverse to augmented reality (think Pokemon Go) or even virtual reality (see image below), but on-screen games can be included as well because they are worlds rendered in a virtual “3D” space.

Bust of Apollo equipped with VR headset. Metaverse concept with copy space. 3D rendering

The network of online worlds created by the Minecraft community alone is nearly unimaginable, and that is just on the Minecraft platform. (I tried looking this up but only found that a block in Minecraft is equivalent to a meter, so if you find this let me know!) As interesting as the metaverse is, it is not a place in the real world, and I do not want my kids to live in a mental space where all that they know and love is based on imaginary objects. When you close a loop in the metaverse it does not connect to a loop in the real world. This imaginary universe of unbridled creation and design is beautiful, and part of me wishes I had something like that instead of the locked-down side scrollers of the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). There is another part of me that is very glad I did not grow up in the age of Meta-connection.

Pre-Metaverse Games

SAO PAULO, SAO PAULO – BRAZIL – AUGUST 13, 2023: Old NES Nintendo video game, with two-button control Nintendo Entertainment System 1985, 80’s, joystick gamepad console Black Studio Background

I had Super Mario Bros., Metroid, and Megaman, and these were fun games, and they were hard games. It was their difficulty that made them compelling. When you died you didn’t just lose items and go back to the building, you had to start the game over. There was no save and this made the gaming experience different. Indeed, they were not connected to the internet so the term Metaverse might not apply to them.

What makes Minecraft compelling is not as much of the difficulty but the novelty of creation, the beauty of the design, and the sublime ways we can interact with these worlds almost seamlessly. I want my children to benefit from these mind-enhancing experiences, but I also want them to have a solid grasp of the real world. So, when I had a hands-on project in the back yard I told my son, “This will be like Minecraft, but in the real world.”

One way of looking at what I did here is that I was closing the loop. I connected the design ideas of Minecraft with playing with dirt in the backyard. They are very different in many ways, but one could argue that they are more similar than different. Closing the loop is about integrating all the aspects of our lives and effectively transferring skills from one part of ourselves to another. Digging in real dirt has different challenges than digging in the Minecraft Metaverse. You can’t dig straight down to solid bedrock in several minutes no matter what your shovel is made of. (Not even an enchanted diamond shovel will help you in the real world.)

The Moment I first Uttered “Close the Loop”

I was still digging around in the backyard, and my kids had completely lost interest because somehow digging real dirt is more difficult and less rewarding in terms of instant gratification than in Minecraft.

My first idea was to dig out the area of our backyard in the far back. We have a rough makeshift firepit that I threw together with blocks that I found digging around our various beds and gardens of our 1-acre lot. My plan was originally to dig out a half-circle from the berm right next to the fire pit so that people could effectively sit on all sides of the pit. (I soon realized that this plan would not work because I had the current make-shift pit on an easement and I don’t want a permanent firepit in a space where the sewer company may dig, but that is a story for another post.)

Where to Throw the Extra Dirt?

The original question was where should I place the dirt I have removed? The answer was to place the dirt on another part of the berm that stretches across the back property line of our yard to make a ramp that we could ride bikes on. This idea of taking dirt from one project and placing it in a way that benefits another project was to me “CLOSING THE LOOP”. Instead of placing the dirt where it did not benefit another project I was benefiting two projects with minimal additional work.

Fires of Wood

The fact that this project is for a fire pit offers another example of closing the loop. We purchased the house right next door to my parents, so between the two families, we have roughly 2 acres of land, with a LOT of trees. So there is a limited supply of good hardwood for our indoor fireplaces, but an almost endless supply of wood to burn.

This is why I cobbled together this rough fire pit, to burn off the extra wood. We could pay someone to haul away the wood, but instead, we burn the wood off ourselves. This gives us a nice place to sit in the backyard (and pretend we are camping), but it also gives us free fertilizer for the yard.

The ashes from the fire, also called “pot ash”, are very rich in phosphorus, which is a vital nutrient for the roots of all plants. So keeping the wood, burning it, and laying it in my yard completes that cycle, it closes the loop.

Carpe Diem Dicey Bones

The events of this post happened at the end of October of 2023. During that Halloween season, I went to the pop-up Halloween Spirit store and bought a lifesize skeleton to hang on the spiderweb in our front yard. I named this plastic replica “Dicey Bones”. The skeleton is a universal symbol of death.

This was October when I was gearing up for No Shave November.

Death is our final destination and death is the final loop we will close in our lives. We can choose to dwell on the negative aspects of our mortal existence, we can focus on how our days are numbered. Or we can celebrate the days we still have. We can seize the day, suck the sweet marrow out of life and live our lives to the fullest. To do that this year I am focusing on integration, I am closing as many loops as I can to integrate all of my selves into a single unified drive forward. As the Japanese say “Zen Roku Wosusogu” or Focus your energies. Less I fall victim to a non-eventful life. To laying on my death bead and thinking “I would feel content if I would have…”

Conclusion

So, to summarize, this post explores the concept of “closing loops” in various aspects of life, and how the closed loops benefit from other closed loops. Trying new things is great, but closing the loop is about completing tasks that you have already started. By recognizing and completing these loops, we enrich our lives and create meaningful connections. Through examples like planting milkweed to support butterflies, playing and integrating Minecraft concepts to enhance our understanding of design thinking, and repurposing dirt efficiently for simultaneous backyard projects, I have attempted to shed light on the interconnectedness of our actions and downstream effects. Embracing the concept of closing loops becomes a way to celebrate life, recall the importance of seizing the day, and integrate all aspects of ourselves.

Being Integrated

I am choosing a word for each year and this is my post for 2024.

The ending of 2022 was about Honesty, mostly with myself but also with other people.

Then 2023 was about Consistency. I spent the year building up the consistency in my visual brand, teaching myself to model in 3D, and posting what I learned while I learned it in a 30-day 3D Model Challenge. In August I consistently posted for St. Jude charity with my Push-Ups for St. Jude where I did 50 pushups a day and they were not always pretty, but I posted all the videos anyway and raised over $537 US. Then in September, I went cycling as frequently as I could and posted as many videos as I could for my Consistently Cycling More often in September 2023 series. I received feedback from my English-speaking friends from the UK that biking is not used for the act of cycling in proper English so as to not confuse my English friends and colleagues I changed the title of those halfway through, so the early ones have “Biking” in the title. That was not very consistent of me!

Sprinkled around the year I posted about my health journey and even summarized the whole thing in my final post of 2023 Consistently Well.

Throughout the year I learned a lot about consistency. About what it meant to post to my blog consistently. How to consistently show up for my kids and my family. The main thing I learned was that consistency was less about a 30-day challenge, or posting every day on a blog. Consistency was about finding my true self and being that authentic person all the time. It is funny how it just tied back to my first annual word of honesty in that way.

And at the end of 2024, I knew I wanted a word about being complete… Something about completing things, Completing the cycle, or Closing the Loop. However, the word complete itself implies too much desire to finish a specific task. It implied so much around the idea that things are not just complete the way they are, that I am not complete as I am. That is not where I wanted to take this discussion. So, later I came up with the word connection or connected and I liked that word. That is until I remembered we are building an intranet at work and probably calling it Connect or Connections, so I wondered if my subconscious had just picked up that language from that project, and wanted this project to be separate from that. …So, it was New Year’s Eve and I still didn’t have a word I liked.

Then on New Year’s Day, I did some YouTube Yoga with my wife. We like to practice 30-day Yoga challenges with Yoga with Yoga With Adriene. While doing yoga Adriene called out the word of being integrated. Having the movement, the breath, and the mind all integrated, and at once I knew that was my word for 2024.

May 2024 be my year of integration.

Integrated

Improving my process

Improving the equipment I use

Connecting with my family, friends, and colleagues on a deeper and more meaningful level

Connected

Connect with my craft, my interests, and my Dad by creating learning content around real estate and not only why you should get involved in it, but how you can get started.

Complete

Complete posts I started on in 2023 that I wasn’t ready to create. Posts that belonged in the year of integration, not the year of consistency. Posts about the process, about art, about creation.

Complete art:

“If you have an idea you’re excited about and you don’t bring it to life, it’s not uncommon for the idea to find its voice through another maker. This isn’t because the other artist stole your idea, but because the idea’s time has come.”
― Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

Consistently Well

I started writing this post in March of 2023, but somehow haven’t found a way to finish it until December 29th, 2023. The additions I have just made in December before posting will be in bold text. I think it is because I feared I would not be consistent in this method. Another fear I had was that I have a bachelor’s degree in theater and a master’s of science in Instructional Design. I am not a medical doctor so giving health advice seemed like something I was not qualified for.

I went for a physical check-up with my PCP On April 19th of this year (2023) and after looking at my numbers he asked if I was doing anything differently. I said I was and explained a bit of what I have to say in this post. He said, “Well, whatever you are doing it is working. You could teach a class on this.” I agree with him, I don’t know if he knows that I work on learning, but, yeah, I could teach a class.

Picture of me walking outside of the Hospital after that very PCP visit in April, 2023

The main thing I want to stress is simply the weight gain I experienced. I acknowledge that weight gain is only a single measure, but if you are changing habits and are overweight, then weight loss is a good place to start. I am 6 feet 2 inches tall and the most I have ever weighed is about 250 lbs US.

I used the YMCA app to track my workouts and my weight. I managed to get down to about 202 right before our trip to Thailand. This screenshot was taken around June 8th when I was about 208 lbs. So this is what was happening with my weight a year previously to June 2023.

Then while we were in Thailand, (while I was on vacation) this happened.

This is what I looked like before all of this started

And this is what I looked like after.

Below this point is the original post I wrote in May of 2023, I will add more pictures and videos to support my point:

No More Sugar

I have made a promise to myself to explore the concept of consistency in 2023. Most importantly, I have successfully eliminated raw sugar from my diet. Cane sugar, corn syrup, maple syrup, and yes even honey are things that I simply do not eat for now. I will eventually go back on the Maple syrup and the honey I think, but for now, for consistency around not eating honey, they are out. In addition to that sugar has been shown in research to be not much better for your body than vodka, beer, rum, malt Liquor, Milwakees Beast, Nattie, Stag, etc.

“Your liver metabolizes sugar the same way as alcohol, and converts dietary carbohydrates to fat,”
Dr. Hu

“The effects of added sugar intake — higher blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, diabetes, and fatty liver disease — are all linked to an increased risk for heart attack and stroke,”
Dr. Hu

So how do I sweeten things, well, the short answer is Stevia or Monkfruit. Even certain sugar alcohols have no calories but tend to confuse the body and still disrupt the insulin cycle. So, for the most part, I don’t eat sweet things, but if I have a sweet craving I use the Steevia and Monkfruit packets I get at Costco.

The first video I watched that inspired this whole health journey is this one:

I understand that Dr. Berg is a chiropractor and not a dietician, but hell I’m an instructional designer, so I don’t have much room to judge. Still what he is saying is accurate, at least for the most part, and I am holding myself up as an example that it works.

While we are on the subject, I would simply like to bring up the point that the “practice” of medicine is still perceived to be an art as much as a science. I believe it was this podcast that explored the concept that the practice of medicine doesn’t look as much at the newest science but more along the lines of “This is how we have always done it.” Or, “This has worked so far so let’s just stick with it.”

Click on the image below to read the transcript and hear the audio.

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/bad-medicine-part-1-the-story-of-98-6/

Consistently Fasting – 16/8 to 20/4

If there is one thing other than sugar that I am consistently working toward it is insulin resistance, or finding ways to reduce the number of times per day my body starts creating insulin. This is a key to health because then when we actually do create some insulin our body reacts more effectively, and when we are not creating insulin our body goes into a rest state. The state of autophagy is when your body cleans itself out. It throws out all the junk, the bad mitochondria that lead to well, cancer.

Autophagy –

Consumption of the body’s own tissue as a metabolic process occurring in starvation and certain diseases.

Destruction of damaged or redundant cellular components occurring in vacuoles within the cell.
OxfordLanguages – Google

As the title suggests I have consistently undergone Intermittent fasting. I have vowed to skip breakfast and have not eaten it for just under 4 months (as of April 2023). I know that skipping dinner would be healthier because it would improve my sleep, but I wanted to start with something I knew I could be consistent with. I wake up and have a cup of coffee, If the day before was rough or a cheat day, I might add some ghee or cream in to make some bulletproof coffee but on a normal day, I only add stevia or cinnamon if anything. Two weeks ago I went for a two-day fast, on Thursday and Friday, and then ate a late breakfast on Saturday. It felt great and I was surprised I could do it.

At one point throughout this entire year, I fasted from Thursday to Sunday. I did not eat anything but water and coffee for over 72 hours. It was intense but overall I really enjoyed it. My fasting this year has ebbed and flowed, but overall I have fasted at least once per week to allow my body a chance to clean out the junk and decrease the chances that I have live cancer cells in my body. As I mentioned previously I have watched a lot of Dr. Berg’s videos, and here is his take on fasting. I like how these videos feel like a course in a classroom and he provides simple actionable advice.

The concept of fasting really did pick up for me later in the year. I can also use this opportunity to share another health goal I set for the year. This one is more about longevity and also focuses on no sugar, no alcohol, and fasting. I often listen to the Ten Percent Happier podcast on meditation. I first listened to the How to Get Fit Sanely series, and I listened to the episode with Dr. Mark Hayman before the others, and after listening to the others I still like this one the most.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ten-percent-happier-with-dan-harris/id1087147821?i=1000615889172

I like his concept of having a long health span not just a long lifespan. Live a long healthy life. He also uses research from the blue zones, and he gets a bit carried away with supplements, but I really like his concepts of hot saunas, cold water baths, and eating the fruit of wild stressed plants. I got his audiobook from the library and put it on my phone for my trip to Thailand. Well, both of these books actually.

His message is not really groundbreaking… basically, maximize the nutritional content in your food. Minimize carbohydrates and sugar. Eliminate alcohol. Add small stressors to your lifestyle like working out, hot saunas, and cold baths. This habit activates your recovery systems, but once the repair is completed these systems keep on working. The idea is that this will increase your “healthspan“, not just your lifespan.

I have listened to Young Forever the most and found it very compelling information. Some of the information on nutrition and supplements is overwhelming, but it’s easy for example to remember to eat loads of pomegranate and kiwi fruit. Overall, it is just the principle of what makes you feel healthy, so find ways to stick to that.

I have the audiobook on my phone now so tracks from that book will randomly pop up when I mow the lawn. On one such occasion, there was a statement that Mark Hyman made about how new science is always heavily criticized by the scientific community. He basically claimed that old ideas in the world of science usually die out when those who believe them die. So, paradigm shifts in the scientific world are incredibly slow. What is considered “true science” or “legitamine science” is a relative term and changed throughout the ages.

Now a skeptic would think, “Well, of course, Dr. Hyman would say that how convenient, because he is a quack and he is full of $#!+.”

…And yet another person could hear that and think, well all of these ideas are new and have not all been thoroughly tested beyond a doubt with conclusive controlled studies. That is what you get with new or cutting-edge science. I could give it a shot and see how I feel. That is more what I did and I have to say that it worked for me. People are all different and what worked for me might not work for everyone else. Finding what works for you is what the health journey is all about.

As I mentioned I got into Mark Haymen from the Ten Percent Happier podcast on meditation. They had a Get Fit Sanely series, and I enjoyed all of them. I recommend you check it out!

Of the series these were my 2nd and 3rd favorites:

612. Can You Get Fit Without Self- Loathing? I Cara Lai
614. Your Brain on Food I Dr. Uma Naidoo

Your brain on Food was especially compelling and I share some of the food I crafted later in this post.

I also gave the intuitive eating episode a go. It was very compelling because it was obviously the favorite plan shared by the host, Dan Harris, but it didn’t work for me as well. Intuitive Eating was something I attempted later in the year, and it really led to me overeating and basically eating whatever I wanted between most of November and December. You can look at the chart for the whole year to see the overall result.

So, you can see above that my year was a net loss of 14 lbs. The low point in the middle was July when we visited Thailand and was my main goal to have a trimmed physique. The flat part after that was a result of my 50-Pushups a Day Challenge. Then after that, I listened to the intuitive eating podcast and added cheat days. Then October and November became a cheat month.

Consistently Nice to Myself

It has not always been easy cutting out raw sugar and then not eating for more than half the day. When I first started on this path I was happy to have the guidance of Dr. Eric Berg DC. His videos on the “Healthy Keto” approach made a lot of things fall together for me. Healthy fat is important in this transformation. It is the key to letting go of sugar. This is because our bodies are geared to store energy as Ketones and then burn that energy as fat fuel. Fat is a very efficient fuel for us. Sugar was not part of the equation until recently.

Here is another Dr. Berg plug on how to get started on “Healthy Keto.”

I have added cheat days after implementing “The Four Hour Body” method by Tim Ferris. This has really helped with the psychology of keeping on track with this method. On Saturdays I can eat whatever I want, I still fast in the morning, but I break my fast with foods high in protein, fiber, and healthy fats. There are also extra exercises I can do on this cheat day but I am normally working in the yard anyway so I don’t do them! This concept of how to have a cheat day really worked for me so I recommend checking it out. I mostly just added the workout to my schedule 3 times a week from this method. I have also added carbs that are not “white”, any carb that is or can be white. So, bread, potato, pasta, and rice are out, but yellow corn, sweet potato, or purple potatoes can be eaten in moderation.

Overall the cheat days work well for me as a psychological break, but they often turn into cheat weekends, and then coupled with intuitive eating they become cheat months or cheat seasons. So, they work but they should be used in moderation. If you just eat whatever you want one day a week then you really are not on a real ketogenic diet, because a bad cheat day can kick you out of ketosis for up to 4 or 5 days after.

I would really like to emphasize the workout sessions from “The Four Hour Body” as those helped immensely to use the “Minimum Effective Dose” MED of exercise to stay healthy and save time.

Consistently Well

So, far this health journey has been a journey of learning. It really is about finding what works for me to stay fit, and feel better about myself. I would say that cutting out sugar and snacking are the two biggest accomplishments of the year, but eating loads of vegetables, working out more, and cutting alcohol almost out of the picture have all helped tremendously.

I have also gotten into cooking healthy food at home and post about that a lot on my Instagram account.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kolmer David (@kolmer5)

Above Tuna and salmon salad have high protein count and salmon contains leptin, which signals to your system it is OK to burn off your fat as fuel.

Parsley rivals kale in nutrients and has more vitamins K, A, and C, and it is very easy to grow at home.

Amid all this fasting and eating a Ketogenic meal plan, I also got into fermenting foods because why not!?

Cole slaw mix on left, and peeled garlic on the right, both in a sea salt and purified water brine

If you adhere at all to the concepts of probiotics or even pre-biotics then fermented food is a way to cultivate good bacteria that help your gut work properly. I am not sure exactly where I stand on the science of all this but when I eat fermented food I do feel better.

I have been talking a lot about alcohol but have not directly written about it in this post. I had a dry January and that stretched out to 5 months of no alcohol. On Father’s day, June 16th, 2023 I drank a LOT of good bourbon and learned that drinking while you are on a Ketogenic diet has disastrous results. You basically get two or three more times drunker than you normally would. I also gave a few of the new NA beers a shot because they taste good but most of them still have high calories and sugar. Before you roll your eyes, there have been strong developments in vacuum stills that manage to preserve the flavor of the beer while removing the alcohol.

This Samuel Adams was especially delicious but it was actually more of a NA malt beverage, and the calories were just under 100 so not terrible. Still, hands down the NA beer I liked the most and felt the best about drinking was by Athletic Brewing Company.

Let’s just call it what it is. Alcohol is a toxin. It is a poison that destroys every part of your body. It diminishes the body’s ability to produce muscle mass so it is not good for athletic recovery. Alcohol has been shown in multiple studies to have carcinogenic properties. More recently I have read that alcohol simply hinders the mitochondria in your cells which both provide energy to the cells and take out the trash. So, alcohol might make us feel good for some time but at the end of the day, it is just as bad or worse for you as sucrose or fructose.

So, this ended up becoming a long meandering post, but then again, it took me nearly a year to write it. I am happy you made it this far and I hope I brought up a concept or a guru that spoke to you. I would love to hear from you, and more about your personal health journey, and what has worked for you. Please send me a line or reply to this post.

It is NOT OK to Not Be OK, Unless…

A lot of times you’ll go out and you’ll see someone with a bag or a shirt that says, “It’s OK to not be OK. “I really like those shirts and I think that they’re great and I could understand how some people would maybe see them and say “What the hell does that even mean?” or “Hey why don’t you go F&$@ yourself!?” And I feel those are pretty reasonable responses to these types of T-shirts.

Is This Half Baked?

I would say that maybe they deserve another phrase or sentence, That would be: It’s OK to not be OK as long as you say, you’re sorry if you flip your top and lose your marbles. That’s what we call not being in control of your emotions. That’s what children do… Period, but, shoot I did that this morning and I’m 43 years old. I yelled at my kids because I got emotionally involved and I felt overwhelmed and I just lashed out and yelled. I lost my shit and I yelled at my adorable 4-year-old and 8-year-old.

Me the supposed “calm” dad. The same dad who promised after he started working out and meditating that he would never yell again. We celebrated that moment, my children and I. We jumped up and down in joy that I was committing to making the promise of not yelling again… but that promise is completely empty if this story ended when I lost control of my emotions, flipped my lid, and yelled at my children.

The Story Did Not End There, Nor Should it Ever

You better be damn sure that not 30 minutes later, I said I was sorry, I gave my kids a hug and I took a deep breath, then we made up and everything was cool. We were back to normal, talking about cheese-heads and joking about stuffed foxes eating flowers.

If I hadn’t admitted that I was wrong, then my children would still be in a state of shock, they would be unhappy. As Gabor Maté MD, instructs us, the moment a child does not feel safe in coming to speak with us, we are building a separation from them, and they are living in a state of trauma.

Two children quietly look outside as a flock of black birds fly away.

When I child has been yelled at they feel like they are not living up to whatever they are meant to be. When we: yell at them, or ignore them so we can look at our phone, when we insist that they eat a food they dislike. When we force them to do something that we want them to do (when it really doesn’t matter either way or safety is not an issue…) When we control them just because it feels better to be in control, we are lowering their self-worth. We are smothering their creativity.

We are taking away from their confidence that they are good enough. This is not a victimless crime; this will come back to haunt them. This will return as an addiction or a compulsory action they will not like later in their life. They will find a way to fill the void we created when we communicated that, “They are not good enough.”

Just Say The Words, Say Them Soon

The sooner I said, “I’m sorry that I yelled” the sooner we could start to recover from the disorientation and the painful ping of craziness from Daddy having a momentary inability to control his emotions. It doesn’t matter that you lost your shit as long as you pause (like stop everything) and say you’re sorry. It isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card…

AdobeStock_408427987_Editorial_Use_Only

…but if you really mean it, and then explain where you are and why you lost control then you have a moment of humility and generate yourself a second chance. It still matters that you let your emotions get the best of you, but if you own it, then you can start building emotional credit again.

Conclusion

If you FAIIL to acknowledge the moment that “You were NOT OK”, then you start building a rift. The moment you don’t own that “You were NOT OK” then it is no longer “OK to not be OK.”

Special thanks to Kyle Stockman for being a good accountability partner, for keeping me thinking, for calling me a guru that one time, and for giving me the idea of adding a hook to my featured image. Let’s get some sushi soon, Kyle… like tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!

David Kolmer is an Instructional Designer who holds a Bachelor’s degree in Theater and a Master of Science in Instructional Design and Educational Technology. Sometimes he shaves his beard and other times he does not. Usually he does not yell at his children and other times he does yell at them, but when he does you better be damn sure he owns that shit and says he is sorry.

linkedin.com/in/kolmer

Nothing For Her Birthday 🍰

If you have seen any of my November posts you might have heard me say that I was consistently not shaving my beard for November. It was No-Shave-November over here and my wife and my daughter were none too impressed. My daughter pretended to think it was cool but my wife was very open about how it made me look old and she thought it was not lovely.

This post should have come out at the beginning of December but I spent more time than I had anticipated on my last post: Long Rich Life of Novelty.

Dave at Target to buy minty beard balm with his adorables

Why did I have a beard for November? Well, I am not going to lie, I like having a beard. However, the movement is about more than just doing what you like. I have a good reason to shave my beard, my wife hates it. No Shave November is actually a movement that recognizes men’s health. It is a statement to open the door for discussions around types of man-specific cancer and mental health. When a person struggles with their health they often lose some or even all of their hair. No shave November is an opportunity to grow out the hair, appreciate that you have health, and be thankful that you are healthy.

A Simple Birthday Present

Luckily, my wife’s birthday was at the end of November, so I could shave the beard just in time for her birthday present. Unfortunately, for my wife, I still had the beard for our wedding anniversary but I think we look distinguished.

Dave and his wife, Jeab at the Ritz Carlton St. Louis

Dave and his wife, Jeab at Oceano Bistro, Clayton, MO

I Had Options

I do not have any pictures of after me shaving, to see that you have to watch the video of me shaving my face for my wife’s birthday.

In this video, my son documents my act of shaving my face

I did have options, but when I was searching around on the internet for beard knowledge I found pictures of other options I had. I found these images that I probably do not have the rights to use on this blog, but they are also probably a FaceBook post from an Instagram post from Reddit, so they have gotten around at this point.

Oakland A’s starter Mike Fiers

Some dude who is not famous like
Oakland A’s starter Mike Fiers

I don’t know what you call that type of curly “G” shave but I got some flac when I posted it on my social media. Then there is this guy who is all over the internet with his spiral beard but I can’t seem to find his name

Spiral Beard

OK I Lied, I Do Have a Nice Shot of Clean-Shaven Dave

We were fortunate to go to the Missouri Botanical Garden Light Glow with our good friends, the Prechtels, this year! Yes, I have friends. What? Why are you looking at me surprised like that?

You see!? Real friends, I have. I didn’t even pay them to hang out with me.
…Well, I bought the tickets but they paid me back on VENMO right away.

In conclusion, I feel that there was some friction around growing a beard for health awareness in men, but nothing that would deter me from doing the same thing next November 2024!

Thanks for reading!

David Kolmer is an Instructional Designer who holds a Bachelor’s degree in Theater and a Master of Science in Instructional Design and Educational Technology. Sometimes he shaves his beard and other times he does not. When he chooses to not shave his beard he always insists on keeping his beard well trimmed and adds minty beard balm from Target that his daughter says smells very good.

linkedin.com/in/kolmer

Long Rich Life of Novelty

I found myself at a bonfire last month explaining to one of my best friends, Ted, that I live my life according to the currency of experience. I admitted I don’t do much motivated by money. I live my life in a way that enriches my wealth of experience. In this post, I explain why and uncover evidence as to why this perception of life has unexpected benefits.

Essentially time perception researchers agree. There are two ways to perceive that you are living a longer life.

Live a very boring life. Act like you are stranded on an international air flight with nothing to do.
Live a very novel life. Try new things all the time and go to new places.

I will allow you to guess which I use:

In this photo, I am wearing a coat I do not own. It is a product for sale by Costco.
My children are taking pictures of me from their perch in the shopping cart.
The man in the green sweater is judging us and I am not aware and now that I am aware I do not care.
In the end, I did purchase this coat because it is so slick and novel.

Perception of a Long Life

The whole reason for this post is so that you go and listen to a Podcast created by Sindhu Gnanasambandan. titled The Secret to a Long Life.

http://www.wnycstudios.org/story/secret-long-life/
So go listen to that right now, or watch it on YouTube right here. Whatever floats your chicken boat.

My Reaction to This Episode

I listened to this Radiolab episode while I was mowing the lawn. Then I listened to it again during my son’s swimming lesson at the YMCA. Ever since listening to this episode, I don’t go and just watch my son at his swimming lesson. I bring my daughter too and we all get into the pool during the lesson and we all swim. I mean I am a member at the YMCA, so I should have done this before. We don’t mess around with the other classes and the teachers seem to like it.

To be honest, I saw a friend doing the same thing, but something snapped when I heard this, or it clicked, and then I started talking about what I was seeing more frequently and taking action.

A Novel Experience of My Own

Long story short I was jealous that the creators at Radiolab had this lengthy experiment on stretching time via novelty. So, when my buddy said they were going to a Speakeasy I broke my traditional rhythm of saying, “Oh, sounds like fun, but I’m a dad now and I have to mow my lawn and be a boring old person…” and instead I went!
Check out the video to see how it went:

The speakeasy is found near this shop:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/xkrkFnDPxKfFVHed8

You don’t need to travel the globe or even spend money to find Novelty. My son was given a balloon at school during the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade. He used some markers to make his balloon look just like his favorite Pokemon. He did so well that when I picked him up from school I assumed it was a store-bought balloon design. Creating art is free, it is pure catharsis and is the highest form of worship.

Creating art is pure novelty.

A picture of Vincent with his Peekachu balloon he made by hand.

Wonder is all around you. You simply need to pause, take a deep breath and observe. While on one of the bike rides my family took together for a biking challenge I covered on this blog my daughter looked up at me and asked:

“Does God make the song?… God made the song because God is special. God died and then God came back and now God is a ghost.”
Jasmine Kolmer – Age 4 – September 2023

Thanks to my Friends at TechSmith

In this video, I highlight the progression from using my computer’s built-in web camera and microphone to using suggestions from connections at TechSmith (Andy Owen and Matthew Pierce) to using my iPhone 12 mini as a camera via the free version of Camo Studio.

V2 of this video.

Camo Studio is Great

I am impressed that I can use Camo Studio by downloading respective apps on my Windows PC and Mac iPhone 12 mini. The free version is limited but really does more than I expected. The only limitation I see is that I can only record in 720p and not 1080p resolution. While working on this post to make sure my thumbnail was the right ratio I received information from TechSmith and there was Andy Owen again. So, thank you two times Andy Owen!

He looks surprised that he is being so helpful. Don’t be surprised Andy Owen, you are always helpful, and so are you Matt Pierce, you guys rock.)

Honestly, it might’ve just been another message for you, another part of your day, but it meant the world to me. It helped me move forward.

Microphone Improvements

I also updated my process by using the Microphone I obtained when I purchased the Comica CVM-VM10-K. In the video, I call this microphone a powered condenser microphone, but I don’t think it actually is. The microphone is simple a High-quality cardioid microphone. I am questioning if this really improved the sound quality of what My phone already has, but at least the mic is pointed at my face!

More on Mics

The MXL-990 condenser microphones

I also owe a big thank you to my friends, Caleb Willitz, who is a well-known audio recorder in the Chicago area. He has given me a measurable amounts of advice on how to build a better sound booth. Also, my very good friend Ted Schaefer has confirmed much of Caleb‘s advice, and then also recommended a pair of infamous condenser mics, that are known for high-quality at a reasonable cost.

I have purchased 2 phantom-powered condenser microphones but do not have my Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 compact audio studio hub, so more to come on my sound clarity! Not to mention my lighting, which I do mention in this video. Special thanks to my friends at Articulate for the free light, I won’t stop using it, but plan to add more lights.

Music

Polo & Pan – Ani Kuni (CC)

John_Kensy_Music – Mindfulness Relaxation & Meditation Music

If You Ask Barbie:

What we can learn about learning from the Barbie Movie.

Writing prompt courtesy of Betty Dannewitz.

Pink Barbie logo on the big TV screen with neon colorful background on wall. Dark room in home with TV screen playing Barbie trailer or movie. Realistic vector illustration. NY, NY-USA – July 9 2023 – Adobe Stock

Accessibility

The Barbie movie is accessible to all viewers. It is both a Hollywood eye-candy musical and a deep tragic world art film at the same time. It lives in both worlds simultaneously. In the same way, good training is accessible to all learners and offers differentiated content for both advanced and novice learners.

Accessibility is a bit of a buzzword in the Training and Development industry right now, but it is something we should have been talking about from the beginning and it is not something that will go away. Humans are all very unique and a one-size-fits-all was never the right choice and moving away from that approach has countless benefits.

The real way to do Accessibility is before design or development starts. Accessibility is not only adding a PDF transcript to be available with a video, it is about designing learning content to be easily consumed by a variety of learners right from the beginning. If you develop content that works for the visually and hearing impaired using simple language that we all can understand then it benefits us all. The content is easier to understand and we have more than one way to get the information into our psyche. Not only does this decrease concerns around Cognitive Load and Cognitive Overload but also offers the benefits of content repetition by consuming the content in multiple modalities.

Change is Difficult

Classic Barbie (Margot Robbie) slowly develops as a character and realizes her worldview is a facade. She is terrified and must learn that it is OK to feel not OK. The movie does not go out of its way to make Barbie look great. At the end of the day what we get is an honest portrayal of not only how children view the Barbie world but also how that can cause problems as we mature and enter the real world. Learning is hard. In fact, learning can hurt. It is not fun to admit you don’t know something. It is uncomfortable to change but in the end, it is usually best.

Buenos Aires, Argentina; 08-03-2023: Barbie the movie. Thematic horizontal background of a woman’s hands holding a cell phone that represents the success and fury for the Barbie movie. -Adobe Stock

Think back to a time when you failed at something. Think about a time when you didn’t make the grade. When you thought you had it all figured out and then when you stepped up you didn’t know what to do next. Maybe it was with a stranger on a bus where you missed the beat and offended them. Maybe it was with your significant other. Maybe it was with your drunk uncle at Thanksgiving. Maybe it was at work. Maybe it was something you tried to patch up with your children and failed. We have all been there, and if you haven’t been there then you are telling yourself lies.

“To err is human; to forgive, divine,” is the famous phrase from An Essay on Criticism BY ALEXANDER POPE. We all make mistakes babe, It’s OK. Forgive yourself and find a way to move onto a better path. This is how we take a step closer to clarity, to actually understanding the universe.

Own the Fail, Gain Credibility

The Barbie movie has a high E.Q. (Emotional Quotient.) The film is transparent as well as aware of its own brand. (Not unlike The LEGO Movie (2014).) These new “META” or self-aware type of brand-based movies embrace the failures of their past.

Tambov, Russian Federation – February 24, 2019 Lego Hard Hat Emmet and Lucy minifigures against Apocalypseburg background. The Lego Movie 2. – Adobe Stock

The pregnant Midge, Allan the “non-Ken”, the absolute pain of stepping on a LEGO block with bare feet; the potential sexist views of past products are not swept under the rug and ignored, they are discussed and explored. The fact that Barbie has not cured sexism and defeated the patriarchy is a core theme of the film. In the same way, we build credibility with our learners by owning our mistakes. Talking about misinformation we have provided our class in the name of clearly communicating the truth.

I trained people at a call center for a few years. I would train night classes of 30 to 40 people at a time for 3-week training cohorts plus a week of hands-on application. That is 120 hours of class time per class for a month. I was training people on the credit industry and how to use a proprietary data entry platform that was designed and developed by our employer.

Laws change, banks change their terms, and computer programs get updated. I had to live in a constant state of acceptance if I wanted my learners to trust me. I had to say things like, “Oh, thank you for clarifying that.” and “That is not how that worked last month.” Stay in the flow, and keep things real, people like that. If you are rigid in your knowledge and do not accept change easily people will learn that you recall things incorrectly because you can not update your perspective.

Cali, Colombia – June 6, 2023: “Barbie” movie on TV screen behind a bowl of popcorn and a remote control.
– Adobe Stock

This is all about modeling our instruction as a mirror against reality. When Barbie (and in fact Mattel) own their mistakes transparently, they are creating a platform that transcends where we were, where we are, and generates a vision or maybe even inspires us to dream of where we could be… A world of true equity.

Am I Kenough to Change You?

Improvement Dave dressed as Ken while his daughter watches him pretend he can wail on guitar. – Dave’s iPhone Mini

The fact that the movie was banned in Kuwait and Lebanon for promoting feminism shows that we have some room to grow as a species.

South Korea ranks last in gender equality among OECD countries. Even the president himself, Yoon Suk Yeol, defined feminism as a movement “that wants to criminalize men”.

Just some ideas, they might not be Kenough to change your worldview if you disagree.

The LEGO movie did not contain the word “LEGO.”

We Traveled to Savannah for Work!

Back in September of 2023, I took a lot of videos about all the fun I was having on a work trip. It took me a while to get to a point where I wanted to work through that video footage and share it. In fact, I grew a beard for no shave in November and have since shaved it off for my wife’s birthday. So here we are a whole beard later.

Are work trips always fun, well, not really, especially if you have to travel all the time for work. I have done that and after a few months, it gets old. However, there is a secret weapon that I plan to explore further and it threatens to be a theme for me moving forward. That concept is the one of Novelty. Specifically how novelty can increase your lifespan, or at least your perception of your lifespan, which to be fair is the same thing… more on that later, but for now, let’s talk about how amazing this short work trip was. I flew out to Savanna with a layover in Nashville on Southwest Airlines on a Wednesday morning. That night we had dinner with the whole team and on Thursday we had our big meeting. I could have flown home on Thursday but I snuck in a bit more novelty by hanging around Thursday night and flying home Friday morning.

I do not want to downplay the Pirate Nature of this work trip. So look out for the pirate themes… Not sure how ya could miss it ya
SWAB! offen’ ya goes ta swab Vee starbird bow. Make Haste! A.I. review shared that I jump around aimlessly from topic to topic here and do not have a point. How else should a good Pirate behave?

AdobeStock_467304940

Savannah Was Great

So, off to a good start on this business trip. We were in a fun town. It’s not easy to have such a novel experience when you are stuck in the belly button of Newark.
Luckily the video below starts at the Savannah airport and quickly progresses a restaurant called The Pirate’s House – ARGGHHH.

Travel for Work or Pleasure?

…

Yes.

Well, why can’t it be both? With a bit of intentional effort, it usually can.

Although the reason for this trip was to capture feedback from our talented SMEs on the EPEC training content provided by NAED, the footage I captured had very little to do with that process. This is in part because I simply didn’t think to capture that video of us working, but also because we were discussing learning content that is developed for sale by the National Association of Electrical Distributors, so I didn’t feel comfortable doing so.

In hindsight (Which is normally in 20/20 they say) I should have captured more video of us actually working on the training project itself. It is not exactly exciting, (unless you are a learning nerd like I am or an electrical products nerd like our SMEs,) but it is nice to see how passionate our reviewers are about being factual and transparent in presenting the landscape of the electrical distribution market. Moving forward I think our Marketing team would enjoy having that sort of content on hand, so I might make an effort to start capturing it.

What We Did While Not Working

Now I have only been on two of these trips, but from what I gather we normally find time outside of working hours to just walk around. This time we were tipped off by one of our talented SMEs that there was a Prohibition Museum within walking distance of our hotel. So we definitely hit that up, and that is definitely represented in the video above. My leader, Kitty, found a fantastic restaurant to dine at called The Pirate’s House – ARGGHHH. (I would like to point out that this “ARGGHHH” was not added by me but by the top Google result for the restaurant’s home page. So, yeah, that says a lot about how cool this restaurant is.

What Does Adjacent Really Mean?

Also, while wandering around we ended up in the Adjacent hotel lobby …or the Hotel lobby that was adjacent to ours. Actually, I am not sure if it was adjacent or what would even make it adjacent, but I do like the word adjacent a lot. It makes me sound smart-ified.
That Marriot Hotel Lobby which was adjacent to our Boutique hotel lobby was filled with Geode Gemstones. I will say, that I did read some of the words found on signs in this location. This was done to make me look more smart-fied in front of my Boss, Kitty, pictured right. While doing this reading of words, I learned that most of these GEODES are the largest samples of such crystals in all of the globe. That is laden with novelty!

Picture of Improvement Dave (David Kolmer) and Kitty Lasinski, (Dave’s boss) in front of the largest of this type of Geode known to the human species in all of the known meta-verses.

Geodes are really cool and fun to look at. I definately did NOT touch them. … well, not all of them, I mean.
Improvment Dave

Geodes for Days!

So, when I exported these images from iCloud to my PC laptop running Windows, they exported as HEIC files. Normally they do not do that and I am still not sure why they did that this time. I have seen HEIC file format when I export original files from the Mac “Photos” app to my Mac computer, but I have never seen that working on my PC.

At any rate, when I loaded Mac format images into ADOBE Premiere RUSH to create the video they all imported inverted (or upside-down for the uninitiated.) Maybe, I was holding my phone upside-down when I took this mess of selfies and my phone auto-rotated them? I normally only see this file suffix for images I have edited…

Color me Confused!

…and in awe of this ginormous silver Dinosaur skeleton!

So, I say all this to explain, that there is a group of photos I opened as a batch in my Microsoft image viewer and attempted to export as a batch but the batch export didn’t work. I still had to export them one at a time to convert them to PNG files, but at least they were not inverted like in ADOBE for PC.

Now, I could have probably used the HEIC files on my V-log here, because WordPress and the internet are both awesome! …but let me tell you I have had more problems working with these HEIC files than I can share here. I can’t submit them on government web pages, and they never work on the apps for my kid’s school, and that is being done on my iPhone that created them. So, I tend to go out of the way to avoid using the HEIC file format. Yes, Apple, I said it, your format stinks! It smells of wet lettuce. I am sure it is great for all these groundbreaking early-adaptor reasons that I don’t know about. Like some layered spectral benefit that will most likely never benefit me. Mostly they just make me wish I didn’t have an iPhone, and that says A LOT, because I love my iPhone, but I am a simple man.

For example, this is the largest GEODE of this chemical format in the world and it looks like a certain part of the male human anatomy which I will leave unsaid and unwritten at this juncture! Heh! it doesn’t even fit in the shot!

So, either way, many of the exports that I opened as a batch had the tint all messed up, but those are actually kind of cool! so I will post those now to add a dramatic effect to how cool these GEODES were! …I guess the tip was broken off. Oh Well! It’s still the biggest! Does size matter? Not when you are the biggest!

Kind of reminds me of something. It’s on the tip of my lip…

There was a gigantic skull in the floor! (Grammarly wants me to say “on” the Floor. No, Grammarly, NO, bad A.I., it was IN the floor, under glass, lying on a bed of sand… and some rocks and shells and such.)

Crazy Dino-Fish Skull IN the frakin’ FLOOR

So, of course, I laid my body down parallel to the floor for to photograph mine-self.
Hello!? I am Dave, have you ever met me!?

Remember the featured image of this VLOG post!? Well, it even got caught up in the Multi-dimensionally powered MAC/PC image tint fuede!

Who is in this photo!? Wouldn’t you like to know!
Do you really think they want to be associated with this disaster!?

Break down the Tiled Gallery Mosaic with Curved edges SELECTOR!

So, in conclusion, traveling with the National Association of Electrical Distributors of the United States of America is an Electrifying experience.

OK, I’ll stop. In all seriousness though….

It was a real gem of an experience!
Improvement Dave

Measurable and Quartzified.

MUSIC
Polo & Pan – Ani Kuni
French 79 – Quartz

Where Does Learning Live?

I would like to start this with a comparison or analogy from my personal life.
This is a comparison of the theatrical stage to the classroom, neither of which are where true learning takes place.

I Studied Acting

I started my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting. I soon realized that I love acting but I was not crazy about acting for the rest of my life to support a family. There is a good chance you will never make any real money and there is a better chance that you will have to go full-out crazy. Let that sink in…

I literally read an article in one of my classes that stated to be successful at acting you first need to snap and be crazy. While in school this sounded perfect. Just what I wanted as a 20-something artist with a need for wild abandon… but the more I thought about it and the more I read about philosophy and world religion the crazy sounded like a path I might not enjoy forever.

Improvement Dave dressed as a vampire for Halloween.

(I mean I have kids, and I still celebrate Halloween. The jester is not dead, but the aimless dreamer has left the building. Enter the motivated, directed dreamer with training in adult learning theory and educational technology…)

My point here is that if you go to study acting at anything less than a high-level conservatory, there is a good chance that the acting lessons are diminishing your ability to act well on stage. Meaning, that you no longer go on stage being believable but you go on stage and “Act” like you are living the role on stage. In other words, you just go through the motions, pick up tricks, and play off of television tropes instead of creating art. (To be fair this is more the result of a poor theatrical education and some of the training I received at Millikin University even discussed this and acknowledged the danger of mediocre acting training.)

This is a widely debated concept and I know there are modern reactions against Konstantin Stanislavski’s “method acting” or “living the part” approach… To be honest, those crazy method performers who commit to living the part fully are my favorite. Jim Carrey, Heath Ledger, Natalie Portman, Forest Whitaker, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Val Kilmer, Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman not to mention the classics, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, and Dustin Hoffman; these are by far my favorite performers to watch on screen.

Either way, life as an actor demands a certain detachment from the real world. You are always on the hunt for the next gig, you have to keep on the move.

So, the more you study acting in school the worse you get at acting, or the less believable you are on stage. Needless to say, part way through my BFA in acting I switched to a BA in Theater so I could broaden my horizons and take technical theater, language, art, and philosophy classes.

After theater school, I did some stunt work and stage acting in Colorado at Buckskin Joe in Canon City City, Colorado. It was hard work and I gave it my all. It was exhausting.

It was a fun job for $6 an hour, but it reinforced the concept that maybe acting was not my path.

Next, I would like to draw a parallel between acting and teaching.

I Became a Teacher Without Training

In 2004, I ended up finding a job teaching English as a Second Language in Thailand and I loved it. It was kind of like acting but you were just standing there talking to the audience face to face. It was the same thing, but instead of the focus being on entertainment and then learning, the focus was on learning and then I could add in entertainment to motivate the learners.

So, you could say that I used my Theater experience in the classroom, but I was never officially trained in how to teach for the first five of my seven years teaching in Thailand. You could ask any of my students and they would probably tell you I was not a typical teacher. I encouraged my students to teach me the Thai language and we discussed art, food, music, and whatever else we found interesting. So, learning was happening even though I was not teaching at them. I would say more of the exchange of ideas happened in the hallways of the school, at lunch, or grabbing a coffee out front of the school.

When I finally went back to get TEFL certified I just received formalized actions to do that resembled what I had been doing previously through experimentation and honest reaction. To be honest, my students gave me good feedback on my classes for the most part before I was certified. I was present in the room. I wasn’t “TEACHING” I was in the room with them as a learner. After I was certified and became a “Real Teacher” something changed. I just fell back on following the actions and the whole thing became more of a job than an experience. I actually stopped enjoying the work at a certain level and I would guess I was less effective overall.

While in Thailand, I wasn’t spending my time seeking out Western culture and where to get Western food. I spent time driving my motorcycle up mountains to grab handfuls of green tea from the field, and to learn from the nomadic hill tribe people. I worked on learning the Thai language, cooking Thai food, and finding ways to think more like a Thai person. I didn’t seek out Christian churches, I went on Buddhist meditation retreats. I didn’t go to Webster University in Bangkok, and take classes on Thai culture, I went to Turtle Island (Koh Tao) and went SCUBA diving off a wooden squid fishing boat with a Native Thai SCUBA Master.

Learning by doing concept. Hand turns a dice and changes the word "learning" to "doing", or vice versa.

You can’t “do” learning. You have to live it. You have to experience it firsthand.

Training is Not Always the Answer

When we have an issue at an organization we often hear from those at the top of leadership, “We should have a training.” What we often end up with is a canned eLearning that has some learning objectives somewhat related to the “opportunity.” I am not advocating against eLearning, but what I am saying is often times we have training because say, “The workplace culture is in the toilet.” and then when it goes from bad to worse we point the finger back at the training.

Displeased Caucasian boss scolding incompetent employee for bad work results at multiracial group meeting

Often times what needs to happen instead of a PDF sent out in the LMS, an eLearning purchased from a leading content developer, or even a custom eLearning developed by local staff who really understand the issue; is the culture needs to change. We are looking for a paradigm shift. We are looking for a behavioral change. That doesn’t happen in a classroom, that happens in daily exchanges with other people.

Learning Doesn’t Happen in a Class

We often jump to the conclusion that learning happens in a classroom with a teacher. Where the teacher tells the “learners” in the room what to think and then they think that thing. This is not how real learning works. We might get an idea in the classroom. We might gain a new perspective from a video or an eLearning. However, we do not internally learn something on a deeper level that promotes behavior change until we witness the same conclusion in the real world.

If the training is very similar to the real world and then the conclusion aligns with our worldview and our experiences in the real world then training can move the needle and cause change. If the training is not relevant, we can’t relate to it or it does not align with the learner’s experience then it will not change the way we behave. Learning happens while talking to friends. Learning happens on the sales call. Learning happens when talking to a stranger in the elevator.

Text Lead by example typed on retro typewriter

In other words, if you want the culture of your organization to be one of a growth mindset or a culture of learning then you have to build that culture. Assigning 10 compliance eLearnings about how learning is good will not get the organization to the next level. If you want a new culture, you have to live the culture. If you want a culture of learning, you have to live it.

So, what are you doing to promote a culture of learning in your organization? Are you living the role of a learner, or are you just going through the motions hoping nobody will notice?
! David Kolmer !