One of the first lessons you learn in Marketing is that people buy what they want, not what they need.
That’s why you don’t really see a lot of toilet paper selling online, but you can buy an ipod at several thousand websites.
So when Eben Pagan and Wyatt Woodsmall announced their "Advanced Learning and Teaching Technologies" seminar in Los Angeles, I was skeptical.
How are they going to fill the room?
Well, it turns out that about 150 people did fill the room this past week, and it was an incredibly eye opening event.
I was there for all five days, and I’ll boil down what I thought was the most powerful take-away from the event.
For most of us, Learning just means that you know something. It’s a simple thing to understand, right?
If someone tells you how to lose weight, for example, then you’ve ‘learned’ how to lose weight, right?
Not so, according to Wyatt and Eben.
What they teach is that "Learning equals Behavior Change".
In other words, learning isn’t learning, and matters very little if it doesn’t effect some change in you. If you know that you need to quit smoking but continue to smoke, you haven’t learrned anything.
This applies in all areas of life and business, too.
For example, if you are taught how to manage your time at the office, but you neglect to use the techniques you were told, then have you really learned anything?
No, you haven’t.
What I find most powerful about this idea is this…and you might feel the same way.
I’ve read lots of books about how to do certain things. I’ve taken many course and paid for a lot of advice. Each time, I’ve said "I’ve learned" what I was told. But I didn’t always take action on what I learned.
But if I believe that "learning equals behavior change" then I now must take action on what I am told…or I can no longer say that I have learned.
This one simple phrase raises the bar for me.
What about for you?
Do you think that learning equals behavior change? Or is learning purely a mental thing?
And if you agree that learning equals behavior change, how do you think that will make any difference in your life?
You can find out if you get the home study course, when it is released.
But for now, just leave your comment below.
-Mark Widawer