Learning through Experience

I have a very clear memory of chasing Robin Rose down the hallway at college and asking her: “How can I be like you when I grow up?” I was fascinated with the way she invited people to step into learning through personal experience. Since most of my idea of learning involved lectures and assignments, this approach was refreshing and evocative. Discovering the power of learning through reflection on experience was a fundamental shift for me—and I never turned back. In this conversation, we discuss learning laboratories, the need for risk, and how leadership is, at its core, an art form.

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Learning through experience is an everyday practice — as Bill Torbert knows well. In this episode, he speaks about the power of surrendering to the part of us that is quite a “numbskull.”

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In this episode, family systems experts Phil and Carolyn Cowan talk with grace and wisdom about their process of confronting aspects of family dynamics that they experienced but did not wish to pass on. If there’s one thing you take away from our conversation, let it be this: pay attention to your story.

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In order to learn through experience, our doing needs a good pairing with reflective inquiry into what’s working.

Now that we’re halfway through the first season of “Learning through Experience,” I wanted to pause and take time to walk the talk. In this “check-in” episode, I share a bit of my reflection on what I am learning through the experience of podcasting.

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When I was coming out of my PhD studies, I was wandering in my own wilderness, trying to find my way. Wondering what else I could do besides clean my house to avoid my dissertation, I enrolled in the Coach Training Institute. And that’s how I met Karen Kimsey-House, who eventually became my personal coach, teacher, and dear friend. Karen helped me see how I could amplify the power of learning through the experience of my academic world filled with books, papers, and expertise. In this conversation, we discuss the power of reinvention, how to hear and heed your own truth, and the importance of creating spaces to craft understanding.

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I got to know Parker Palmer because I reached out to him after reading his classic book Let your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. He is an educator and activist who has penned over a dozen books. He is also one of the gentlest and kindest people I know—but the ominous relevance of the story he tells in his book scared me. Come learn why in this episode.

Like me, Parker was a University of California at Berkeley graduate student at one time. That felt like reason enough to call him up, but there were so many other reasons as well. The wisdom and perspective he gained through his learning journey resonated with me deeply. I wanted to bring his insights and willingness to speak about his personal expereince to this podcast so that we could usefully wrestle with some of the crucial topics he takes on. In this conversation, we discuss the intersection of spirituality and education and why creativity is about working with what’s possible.

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Not everything we learn in college comes from the classroom. When you think about learning and insights that have mattered most to you, you may find that the most powerful associations include people, events, feelings and places.

Barbara Tannenbaum and her living room came easily to mind for me when thinking about when and where I learned through experience. Barbara taught one of the most popular courses on campus. So why the living room image? Barbara would invite some students into her home for gathering circles in her living room — and I feel lucky to have been one of them. Her living room — outside the walls of my college classrooms — is an important marker in my ongoing learning journey.

I love how we all have the chance to learn outside the classroom (because that’s most of life). In this episode, we discuss power talk, removing linguistic anchors, and why when we have more voice, we welcome more beauty.

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In kicking off this podcast on “Learning through Experience,” Dr. Heidi Brooks wanted to invite us all to wonder how we trace a line across transformational learning experiences to the way we show up in the world today: How do we apply our learning? To delve into that question, she takes us to her own learning experience. This first season of “Learning Through Experience” is a set of conversations with Heidi’s mentors with an eye to this question: How do we apply what we learn through experience with our mentors?

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