. . . that has great heart and meaning for you.
There’s an apocryphal story that Kathleen Singh tells in her book, Unbinding about Keith Jarrett, the famous jazz pianist. When he was 3 or 4 years old his parents decided to take him to a strict Russian piano teacher. The teacher instructed Keith to start by playing one piano key – middle C – for eight hours a day, for a week. 88 weeks later, that first lesson was complete. The way Keith heard each of those notes at the start of every week was much different than the way he heard them at the end of each week. Why? Because the nerve fibers in his auditory cortex and associated areas had become greatly enriched. But here’s the critical piece from my perspective. Growing those brain areas one note at a time had very little “noise”/ stress interfering with the growth of those networks. Low-stress learning was what Keith was actually practicing. Low-stress learning is not compromised by stress-elevating distractions. Properly structured, it’s all “Green Zone Learning.”
My Low-Stress Learner’s Journey
I’ve taken on that low-stress learning protocol many times over the course of my life. For example, I learned to build houses by working with semi-knowledgeable friends who were also learning on the job. We learned together. The first houses were pretty funky, but they got better and better one by one.
After a less-than-remarkable inner-city (New Haven, CT) high school career, I started college at Los Angeles Valley College, a junior college that was a great fit for me. From there I transferred to UCLA (a poor fit for me) and I dropped out after two semesters. When I subsequently moved to New York, I transferred to SUNY New Paltz, a small, upstate college where I mostly took courses I was interested and comfortable in – Innovative Studies, Psychology of the Courtroom, Bookbinding and Production. I actually managed to graduate with a BA a half year early (at age 30).
Post-Graduate Pursuits
After several more false post-graduate starts, I got a Master of Arts degree in Family Systems from the University of Bridgeport (just before the Moonies took it over). At the time, it was one of the more highly regarded family systems programs in the country.
Another short stint in a PhD program at UCLA gave way to me transferring to a small startup school in Silicon Valley studying “Transpersonal Psychology” – something I was already studying independently on my own. Why not structure my studies and get a doctorate along the way?
And for the last 20 years – for a whole host of different reasons – I’ve been immersed in neuroscience and traumatology – reading and writing about it for my own good and others as well. Through it all there’s been one common thread – safe, low-stress learning environments.
Low-Stress Learning Makes It Happen
Recently, I’ve begun crafting another low-stress learning environment. I happen to have a friend who’s been very successful in the stock market over 40 years or so. Early on in his career his early success invited money to manage from other people. Guess what that did to his stress levels? Recognizing the adverse impact of that added responsibility, he soon decided to return all their money and go back to managing only his own. Along the way, a mix of high-stress and low-stress learning ensued. Once he had enough money to last the rest of his life, it was mostly low-stress from there. Guess what. Now he has even more money.
So, for my own low-stress learning where the stock market is concerned, I’ve taken a page out of Keith Jarrett’s piano teacher’s book: I’m starting by trading 5 shares of various low-priced stocks (think low-stress) until I have made 100 profitable trades (the elimination of brokerage fees makes this possible). The amount of money I make with each profitable trade doesn’t matter. It’s the low-stress learning that is key. Once I hit the 100 trade goal, I’ll up it to 10 shares. Then 15. Then 20. By the time I get to 1000 shares, I expect that will be very low-stress by simple virtue of the amount of low-stress learning I’ve been able to accomplish along the way (think robust neural network-building). I’ll report back after I hit the first 100 profitable-trade goal. When might that be? That’s of no concern. “When”,” and “how much” are simply distractions that would only amp up the stress.
Feel free to design YOUR OWN Low-Stress learning journey. I’d love to know what it looks like and how it unfolds. Email me at: floweringbrain@gmail.com
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