When you hear, “The opportunity to learn something new.” What’s your reaction? What do you think about when you’re faced with something, an event, knowledge, a viewpoint, perspective that you’ve never seen, heard, touched, known before?

Are you scared?

Are you hopeful?

Do you get excited at the prospect of learning something new?

Did you know that your brain is made to adapt and adjust?

Do you know you’re not just the way you are because of what happened to you, but can change and adapt for the future?

Over the years of listening to leadership speakers, motivational speakers, and other prominent leaders in our generation, I’ve heard a lot about what is called neuroplasticity. Maybe you have as well. Neuroplasticity is the ability for the neurons (brain cells) to change or adapt to its external environment. It’s the ability to adjust parts of the brain, when other parts are not working.

Up until the 1960’s the idea of a neuroplastic brain was completely absurd. The prevailing notion of that time was that our brains were more like machines. Everything was framed up and explained in the sense of machines. Pumps. Factories. Assembly lines. And though this helped bring understanding to vital parts of our bodies, it also has implications that are limiting. Machines don’t adapt, machines are what they were made for, and if you needed a new function you needed a new machine.

But you can’t do that with your brain.

And brains change all of the time.

But you can’t do that with your brain.
And brains change all of the time.

Picture this. Let’s say you’re traveling from one city to the next and come across a ravine or crevice that is keeping you from getting across. At one time there was a bridge, but now, due to time and neglect, the bridge no longer works. Are you stuck? No! You would go find another path to get across to where you’re going. At first, the drive would take longer because you’ve never been this way before. It’s new and different. But the next time you need to take the same trip, it becomes more familiar and more natural to go the different way.

Eventually, the new way is so familiar you hardly remember going the old way across the bridge. And that’s how our brains work.

For a long time we might think about something a certain way. We process information in the ways we know how, listen to others in the ways we know how, talk in the ways we know how. They are well-worn paths our brains understand how to function in. Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow makes the case for how the analytical parts of our brains are inherently lazy. It means that what we think at first tends to be what we think always. Our initial response can ingrain a path in our brains that keep us on that path.

And then someone teaches us something new. 

It’s uncomfortable, and sometimes, awkward. But with time what we’ve learned becomes the well-worn path we need to take in order to function.

And that’s what learning is all about. The process of building new pathways in our brains to adapt and grow in our ever changing world.

A machine can’t do that. But our brains can.

I just picked up Norman Doidge, M.D.’s book The Brain that Changes Itself. I’m learning how the brain works and adapts to changes. I’m only in the first 20 pages, but I’m amazed at hope neuroplasticity brings.

If it’s possible our brains can adapt, then it’s possible to learn. And if it’s possible to learn, then nothing we do is “set in stone.” I don’t have to believe, that’s just they way I am. I’m excited to learn more and share it here.

Because when we learn, everyone gets better.

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