#4: Keep Learning

This is the Rose and Shine podcast featuring the Swedish sisters Josephine Bruce and Victoria Russellson. They used to stop from New York which experiences from our international lives and careers. Hi, good morning. This is Josephine from New York and Victoria's sending from Stockholm.

This episode is all about learning. Oh yeah, so it's going to be really interesting. But first of all, can you recap me a little bit about this week? Yeah, sure.

I've had an excellent week. I've been traveling a lot. I've had the pleasure to be in London for an advisory board meeting for HSMIE which is an hospitality organization. Then I've been delivering a great workshop with an executive international leadership team for three days.

So as a result, you hear my voice is a little bit, you know, a combination with the flights and a little bit of a cold and everything. What about you? So a sexy podcast voice. Yeah.

No, it's been a really good, quite hectic week as well. We've been having this crazy weather in New York. Just like so dark and so great. Really kind of end of the world weather.

But now finally this weekend, like the sun is coming out again and we had a lovely weekend going out in nature and just escaping the city because it really felt something like something out of a Batman movie or something. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's been really kind of end of the world. But anyways, the world is still here and the sun is out.

And it's been fantastic week in the sense that we've been getting so many new subscribers. People are listening. I know. Yeah, it's super cool, right?

So people are listening to our podcast and checking out the website and joining the community. So yeah, we have people from Sweden and the US and Holland and what else? Yeah, I've seen UK, Spain, Thailand, by India, Myanmar. But those are the countries we know of because we obviously don't know all of them.

Yeah, no, exactly. But yeah, it's really, really fantastic, really exciting. I know, I know. And actually it was quite fun during the sport meeting.

I got the question from a former colleague of mine who was like, is this really needed? We talked so much about female and female leadership and growth and everything. And then we looked around the room and I think it was about 20% of women there only. I was like, yeah, well, I think we still need a bit of an umf and positive force to really grow the female community.

Yeah, yes. Yeah, no, and I think a lot of women that we are talking to, they do feel it quite naturally. I think sometimes you need to explain it a little bit more to men. And I sometimes find that it feels a bit difficult to divide into female and male because I've always been a big champion.

I'm like, why should women be excluded? And the idea, of course, is not of this to be exclusive, but really to kind of, like you said, bring an umf into the female community. Yeah, exactly. So all are welcome to join the community and listen to the podcast, but the clubs we do keep for our female only, right?

Yeah, for now, that's the way that we're dealing with it. If big changes happen and we can open it up. But for now, it's women only in the clubs. Yeah, yeah.

So today's topic is all about my favorite topic in the world, learning. Yeah, we talked about it before, right? You've had like most of your titles have had some kind of learning part in it, right? Yeah, I mean my work titles.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. And just, yeah, in general, and I think this episode was a little bit inspired by the 100 Day Learning Challenge that I took on this spring if you remember. I do. I do remember you calling me up, you're like, I got this new book and I'm really excited.

I really love all of these books where you can fill things in and really, well, you know, get deep into it. So, but what can you tell us a little bit about it? What is the 100 Day Learning Challenge? Well, it's not really that the book was a 100 Day Learning Challenge, but the book was like a 100 Day Challenge.

And the book wasn't so great actually, so after a while I ditched a book. Okay. But I kept on with the challenge. So I really set up for myself an idea that in the next 100 days I'm just going to be much more open to learning.

And I'm going to learn new things and I'm going to go into different topics that I don't really normally think about. So that's really what I've been doing. And that's led to quite a few different things ending up in my world. So what are the things that you have been digging into?

What's the kind of learning that has there been 100 days already? Yeah. No, I'm done. Okay.

Just about now. So what have you learned these 100 days? Well, I've read different books than I normally would do, but I do normally read a lot of books. So maybe that's not such a big thing.

But I sort of challenged myself when it comes to technology, which I'm not really that interested in, but I've learned about editing. I mean, we both learned about setting up web pages, etc. And I've been more involved than I thought I would be. Yeah.

Just because I wanted to see how it really, really works. And actually that was one of the reasons where I ultimately decided to accept and go on on the yoga teacher training. Because that kind of said, well, that's a brilliant way of testing and trying and doing something new. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, no, I feel like I've been without having, you know, actually been thinking so much about this 100-day challenge. And all of this podcasting and setting up Rose and Shine has certainly been a real learning experience and a lot of new things. And yeah, especially as you say, the technology around it. And it's really good because it's very transferable to work and to other areas as well, because we're using it so much in terms of communication and reaching out to people and building brands and so on.

It's part of most jobs now a day, I would say. So that's quite cool. Yeah, I agree. And I think that's the entire idea, really.

And when you start to open up for new learnings and learning new things and actively searching for that, I think you make life a little bit more fun and interesting, really. Yeah. So this podcast episode, what we really wanted to talk about was to try to see, you know, what are we even learning, but also then how do the listeners, what are the things, why should they do that. What are the things, why should they be learning or what should you be learning and how to go about it, right?

So it's really setting up your own learning after this episode and getting inspired. Exactly. Yeah, we want to inspire you a little bit and we want to give you some new ideas and help you think of new ideas that would increase learning in your life. And I just read this article that the first 200 year old person is born actually.

That's a little bit terrifying, but fantastic. I know, I know. And we are most likely going to live until we're 100. So just imagine that.

So if we live until we're 100, shall we only be going to school for the first 20 years and then that's it, you know, and just continue. I think it's a great way to see that. Probably we need to learn so many new things in the span of our lifetime. Yeah.

It's not like our grandparents got one profession and they worked for that and then they retired when they were 65 and then they were really quite old and hired. Yeah, I mean, if we're going to live until we're 200 years old, but the people that were just born to 200 years, then of course they could have five different professions completely. It's quite fascinating. Yeah, so that's one of the reasons why we really think that learning is so important.

And I read about this guy who did an experiment on a bike. So he got this bike that whenever he turned towards the right, the bike would actually turn to the left. Okay. And that of course was super difficult for him.

And it took him over two weeks to actually learn to ride this bike to perfection. Two weeks are just really practicing every day. I also just love the dedication, like that's not even a learning to ride a bike the wrong way. It's like, yeah.

Yeah, I guess he was really dedicated to learning. I think what's interesting is that whenever you learn something new in your brain, it will expand because you need to make new connections so it will grow. And ultimately, I guess that will also help your brain to stay alert longer. All right.

So we talked about school and we said, you know, we don't go to school that long in our life, but is school really the best way to learn? What do you think? Well, I think it's so individual. I think that the big answer now would probably be to say no, that there are so many different ways where we can learn and we can develop and we can learn in a way that maybe it's more, suitable and more adaptable to our personal needs.

Personally, for me, school worked really well. I mean, I really enjoyed going to school. I really thrived in that environment and therefore I guess kept on educating myself for longer and longer. So I finished my last school when I was 28 or so.

But no, I think that there's so many more ways of doing it. And especially if you think about a country here, like in the US, where it's so incredibly expensive to go to college and to do masters and so on. You might have to think about whether it's actually worth it in terms of the money that you put in. And there are other ways that you can learn.

I mean, you can even write about people that kind of are developing their own masters programs for a year, spending an equal amount of money that they would spend or even less that they would spend on tuition to a top university and just trying to see what could they do with that money in terms of investment, in terms of finance and really basically doing your own master and spending that money maybe more wisely and potentially going out with less students. Yeah, that's really interesting. That being said, I was super happy going to my masters and doing that, but I think for some people I think it's a great idea. And really, so what we're saying is, I mean, it's a great way to learn for many of us to go to school and universities and take courses and everything.

And that's a great way. However, there are many other different ways to actually learn. And if we see learning as something that you need to commit for a year to really learn, then I think you miss out of many great opportunities to really learn. So we thought of a couple of different or quite a few different ways to actually learn that helps us.

So shall we talk about them a little bit? So one of the things that you can do is, of course, to challenge yourself to do things that are outside of your comfort zone or outside of your daily life or daily routine. And I know you have had a fun experience from that from recently. You want to tell us about what are you thinking about this?

Oh, you're crazy yoga experience. Yeah, that was definitely outside of my comfort zone. So this was a couple of weeks ago. And actually, when I think about it, I did learn quite a few different things from that.

So it was a couple of weeks ago. It was actually just a week before I was going to have my knee surgery. So I was going to the local gym where I do lovely yoga sessions and I was going to do a nice yoga session. And I was really looking forward to these 90 minutes of yoga and quite excited about it.

And you get into the gym and you roll out your yoga mat and you lay down and you're really sort of waiting for the yoga teacher to come in. But just that there didn't come in a yoga teacher. And I was like, okay, so now I've really been lying. And there were lots of people in the room.

And then the gym center manager came in and she goes, well, I'm really sorry, but there's been a big misunderstanding. And I'm in my head. I'm going like, oh, no, because I'm really looking forward to this. Yeah.

So she goes, so I'm sorry, but there won't be any yoga session today. It's canceled. And we're really sorry about that. And then I kind of hear myself saying out loud to this entire group like, no, but what if we kind of, oh, here, why don't we try to do a yoga session anyway?

And then, you know, I'm adding on to this. I'm training to become a yoga teacher, which is not entirely true because as you know, we're going in November to this yoga teacher training. And right now we're just really reading the theory to prepare for it. But even right, I got the books.

I read some. Anyway, so I'm like, and this just comes out of me. So, and then everyone is like super enthusiastic like, yeah, good. Yeah, let's do that.

And the manager of the century, she's like, that's an excellent idea. So she was in there when you said that. Yeah. Yeah.

So I put my mind in the middle and I'm like, okay, let's, let's go for this. And I'm thinking like, okay, so this is something that we should all do together as the group, you know, and I'll start off a little bit. And it takes about one minute and then someone is like, excuse me, can you move a little bit more to the front so that I really can see here properly? And it sort of really quickly becomes clear to me like, this is not something we're doing together.

You're the yoga teacher now. I'm the yoga teacher now. And then I'm really like, Victoria, what am I doing? So that's going on in my head.

And then I'm like, okay, so what do you say that we start with some sense of limitations? Which is actually one of the exercises that we're practicing for already in advance for the yoga training. So I start and in the meanwhile, there's this one late participant that is entering the room. Super well trained man.

And he puts his yoga man just in front of me, right? Like really so close. And he of course doesn't know that I'm not, and he's like super fit. So I'm kind of in the middle of the sensation, kind of whispering to him.

I'm not really the yoga teacher. I'm just jumping in. He's like staring at me like if I'm something in here. So while I'm doing the sense of rotation, I'm focused on two things entirely.

One is that. I can see it in front of me. You're just like, I'm not the yoga teacher. Who's this week?

Why is she pretending to not be the yoga teacher when she's clearly the yoga teacher? Oh God. So in my head, two things are constantly spinning. One thing is, okay, this needs to look good, you know, which is very interesting.

Because I'm so focused on that my own moves need to look like I'm actually knowing what I'm doing, like I'm professional. And the second thing that's going on in my head is, okay, so what's my next sequence going to be? Yeah. So I'm like, okay, let's do one more.

And then, so for the first like 20 minutes, that's all that is sort of in my head. And then slowly, I'm starting to look up, I really look around in the room to look at all the participants and see what they're doing. Yeah. So this class is quite, it's normally 90 minutes.

I mean, I did 60 minutes. I'm like, okay, this must be enough. Right? But I was really expecting everyone to be extremely good at this.

And I mean, most people were, but then I started looking like, oh no, my goodness. They really don't know how to do this. So then I'm moving from the paradigm that I just have to be looking good up there to like, actually, I need to help to explain people what they and how they actually should do. So I did my best to do that.

So anyway, this goes on for, well, an hour. That's how long I do. And I do the different sequences and, you know, giving instructions and trying to get back into, okay, really I should give them a lovely experience. And also it was so interesting to see how some of these women in this class were you sending me such lovely energy, you know, really like, yeah, giving me that encouraging smile and everything.

And that made me feel so good. And I also felt like, okay, they're pitting me a little bit, you know, which is fine, but it's amazing, you know, I'm hearing it. Yeah. And it was actually quite funny.

So then the hour ended and people went out, you know, like, bye, thank you. And some people were like, welcome back next week. Well, next year. But it was so funny because I really felt like, I got lots of lovely energy and I learned quite a couple of things I learned.

One is that it's much more difficult to do a yoga session than I would have thought because there's so many things to think about that I never had. And I mean, after all, I'm used to stand up in a classroom and train leaders. That's what I do for a living. Yeah.

So that wasn't the challenge. But really, how do I plan the thing and everything? So it's a great learning experience and probably will make me much better yoga teacher in the future. Another thing that only just a week ago that I realized was that I did leave with the feeling that people appreciated that I had done this class, but also that they kind of felt that it wasn't that great of a quality.

Yeah. But then last week I was back at the gym with my daughter to arrange for her membership. And then the gym manager was there. She's like, oh, there you are.

And I thought, and her voice, she's like, hang on, don't go because she was with another client. And I thought, oh my goodness, now someone has sued them or something because they've strained their back. Or, you know, so I was like, okay, what's going to happen? She's like, wait, wait, don't go.

I'm like, okay. And then she comes up to me and she goes, well, thank you so much for doing that class. And there were so many people that came downstairs and said that you were brilliant. So are you done with your yoga training?

Because we actually, we need some more yoga teachers. I'm really interested. Anyone loves this? So you have a job before you could completely chase your career and become a yoga teacher now.

You have even a expert. Yeah. Well, but the interesting thing, and that goes for when we challenge ourselves to learn new things, we almost always kind of, well, often think that we're not really good enough. Yeah.

So here I was all the time thinking that people really, really didn't like it. Yeah. Actually, they thought it was really good. Yeah.

I think, yeah. And I think people really enjoy when, well, it's not always like that. But often, I think people actually appreciate when other people take leadership and put themselves out there. Because really, that's what you did.

You really threw yourself into the deep water there. And I think that's what we need to do once in a while, actually, if you want to learn. What other things can we do to learn and put learning more into our everyday life? Well, just then, regularly asking a little bit more when you don't know something.

So do you have any examples of doing that? Well, I think people in general are quite scared of letting it, you know, showing that they don't know. We would benefit so much more from asking. And I'm thinking of so many strategic meetings I've sat in with, where the figures are thrown into left and right and center.

And I'm guessing that maybe 20% really knows exactly how this thinking is going, what the figures means. But most people just don't ask. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a little bit about being a braver. I really agree. I think there's so many work meetings where we sit quiet and not really understand. Yeah.

And we don't ask that clarifying question. Yeah. I know. And when you start to then ask, you can immediately see that people are like relaxing because they had the same question, right?

Relaxing or you even see that people don't have the answer. It would be that people are uncomfortable either relaxing or they get uncomfortable because people are pretending to know now will kind of show that they don't know either, right? Yeah. But it is the thing of not, yeah, of actually putting yourself out there and asking this stupid question because often it's not very stupid at all.

Yeah. Exactly. And I also think that using the opportunity, like when you meet with different departments at work or different organizations or clients meetings, just really asking and seeing and trying to understand what is it that I can learn from them today, things that I didn't know before, rather than putting on the hat that I know all the things as well. Yeah.

And my experience is that people also really love when you take an interest. So if you're really trying to learn or understand what they are doing, that's actually a great way of developing your relationship further or building a relationship with a new client or with a new colleague or partner or whatever, because that's how you really show that you care about what they do. That's actually kind of, yeah, I agree. And that's sometimes, you know, when you go to parties and you end up sitting next to someone that maybe is in, you know, at first giving that much inspiration, then I try to think from, okay, so this could be a learning experience.

I could learn from this person about their life and see things that don't normally fit into my life and see how does it look from his or her perspective. So it's kind of a little sport I have when I go to parties and find myself with people that I don't really know actually. Yeah, that's a good sport. Yeah.

And another thing I think we should get better at, and some people are really good at this, but it's to get great at things you do well. Yeah. So that's the famous 10,000 hours that you should be doing something over and over and over again, really excel in this one area. Yeah, exactly.

Just like the toddler, repeat and repeat and repeat until you walk perfectly. Yeah, and it's fantastic to see Rafael is now two and a half and he will be just the way of approaching like steps. It would be just, you know, they just go up and down, up and down, up and down the stairs just to perfect it. It's actually quite, it's really great.

You really see a big level of grit there. So I think that's kind of something we could turn more into our adult life, actually being more persistent and think, hey, I'm really good at this. What would happen if I became great and really excelled at that? And usually we're good at things that we like, so that's also kind of pleasant to really think about.

So maybe then it's not so much. I mean, 10,000 hours would be, I mean, I'm not sure I would say to someone now, learn something new, spend 10,000 hours on becoming a podcast editor if that's not what you want to do for example. Obviously I spent like 10 hours. But it's potentially about learning something new around or spend that time to excel and learn more maybe about something that you're very interested in.

I think both matters, right? So learn new things and learn things that you do really well more. Another thing that I think really is a great thing is to turn like normal things that you do into learning opportunities. What do you mean?

So I'm thinking that, for example, experiences like going out for drinks with friends or family reunions and things. Could you add, could you spice it up with learning little new things? So for example, we are two couples that are great friends and we do a lot of things and we've decided to, well, twice a year at least, we go for like an art round. So rather than just going out and having a nice dinner, which is also included, we also try to learn something new and artistic.

And maybe it's going to an exhibition or going to a show or listening to this tour guide and learning new things. That's ways of learning. But we've also done like a little bit of crazy stuff like, well, not really crazy, that sounds awful because what I was going to give was that we've gone on a segue tour. Which is not really that crazy, obviously.

But for me, it's stream- And the way for it. What's that? Crapo. Crapo, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like a scream. Crapo. You should try it with all these little pebble streets. I think it was quite extreme.

So I'm thinking just do things out of your comfort zone. You're anyway going to have a nice get together and things. What can you add to Spice Ed app? We have this tradition that for birthdays for our daughters, they also get, as a birthday gift, they also get an experience that we do something.

So we've gone horseback riding and I know that you love horseback riding. I don't so much. So that was really out of my comfort zone. So we've gone doing pottery and doing different things.

And that's really, really fun. And it's also nice then when you're learning kind of together with your children as well. Yeah, that's a great idea. So I think learning something new really gives us the opportunities to discover things and open our mind a little bit to see and try things that you didn't really think that you would like.

But actually, what you do like, right? But this reminds me a little bit about, because all of these are kind of success stories in a sense, right? You learn something new and you dig in, it's all amazing. It does remind me about, do you remember when I travel to Guinea?

Yeah, vaguely, yeah. Yeah, so I was hired on this contract to go to Guinea to be working for Rio Tinto as a consultant on a big social impact study. So basically, traveling around the country to do a big study on how the mining operations at Rio Tinto would have an impact on the population. And this was all great and good.

I really needed a job. The only kind of slight challenge is that they speak French in Guinea. And I don't speak French. No, you're the Spanish speaker in a family.

I'm the French speaking person. Exactly. And I was very open with this to the consultancy that were hiring me. And I was quite clear.

I speak Spanish, but I actually don't speak French. And they were like, OK, but you can learn, right? And I was like, yeah, I can learn French in six weeks. I remember being because you were quite positive about it.

I'm like, wow, that's impressive. Well, I was quite terrified, but I was still thinking it could happen. And taking into account that I tried to learn French probably four times before in my life. I know it's a difficult language to learn.

We still, one of the only expressions I can say is, Pande Coron, which I probably say wrong, electric shortcuts, because I was studying this chapter with my mom when we were on holiday at some point, long story short. Anyways, so I go to Conakritu, the capital of Guinea for this four-week training session, before we're going to start out to go out to the villages and do the study, basically, the survey. And of course, I don't have French. Of course, everybody speaks French.

And the survey is in French. And I will just remember, I'm standing there after each session each day, on the treadmill at the gym, with this app listening to French. And really, I'm at the level where it's asking, can I buy a box of milk, please? Or counting to 20?

Were there no dialogue in this training session? Were they not asking you anything? How could you keep quiet throughout the entire day? No, but I asked things if I did in English.

I was never hiding the fact that I didn't speak French, because I never went there under the auspices of, I speak French. I did not speak French. I did not speak French. Luckily, I would have been dying if I had inflated my French speaking skills.

But maybe just to say that I was not invited back. I never actually did. I mean, it was not only that. It was loads of challenges for the project.

But in the end, can I have a box of milk, please? Level of French was understandably not enough to go out and ask people in communities what they thought about mining projects. So I guess, you know, it's good to be ambitious and wanting to learn new things. And we shouldn't let fear stop us or anything.

But sometimes maybe we should also understand and be humble to certain things. It does take some time to really learn about, right? Like languages or, yeah. I mean, that's it.

I think you'll appreciate other people's skills and talents much more, what they know how to do. Yeah, I think so. And then maybe also it wasn't such a disaster in a sense either. You know, you can try things and fail.

Yeah, exactly. And that's also okay. Actually, I think that's quite an important approach to learning, because if you are super afraid of failing, you will never try anything new. So in that sense, it's kind of a key starting point.

Don't be afraid. Yeah. And so we've been living in today's world with knowledge, nuttiness and so many other things, but a good positive thing is the new world of technology and globalization. And we can use like the YouTube tutorials and listening to podcasts.

And there are so many opportunities for smaller bite-tites, learning, etc. Don't you think? Yeah, no, certainly. I was overhearing at conversation at the, at the playground the other day, where this mother was, you know, they were asking, they were talking about who cut the kid's hair, right?

Do they go to the hairdresser? And the mom is like, no, I do it myself. You know, I just Google on YouTube how to do it. And then I, and then I just do it.

And I, that I heard some about this child that took his little sister to McDonald's and he learned how to drive via YouTube. So he got it. And I think he was like six or seven or something and he put his little sister next to him and they took the car and they drove drive through McDonald's and actually ordered burgers. And I think that's when someone called the police, but he got all the way to McDonald's through YouTube.

Oh my God. I said, I'm fine. No, but just to end the store then. So then the other person is asking the hairdro, the now hairdresser, the YouTube hairdresser.

So how do you get the kid to sit still? And she answers like, oh, YouTube. So my immediate thinking like, YouTube describes how to sit still and to my brain clakes. And I'm like, oh, okay.

So the kid watches YouTube. Why she watches YouTube. How to how to cut the hair. And you know, the boys seem to have a perfectly fine haircut.

You check that out too. Yeah. Like walking up closely. Yeah.

But I mean, that's how I learned editing was through YouTube really. Yeah. So so many things can be learned by that. So look for new opportunities like that.

And also when you start to search a little bit, I found in Stockholm there was this Google pop-up Academy this summer. So I've been going on little short classes and seminars all for free. It's been me and lots of millennials attending, but it's been really good. And I learned lots of new things.

I really think that learning new things is really important for our self is deep, actually, because it keeps us active and positive and seeing that we can do new things. And what we said earlier, it also keeps our brain cells active. So it's a positive thing in many, many ways. Yeah.

And like you said, I think there's so many, everyone could find online or there's so many opportunities to find new learning. Yeah. To learn new things that is completely for free and also if you live in a big city. I mean, there are many things going on at universities or so on that you can go and learn at.

Yeah. And the final thing I kind of want to share for a little bit is that everyone who's been in a workshop with me knows that I love this, but it's really the teach to learn concept. So there's been lots of- Yeah, that's really the idea about how do you make it, how do you make it sit, right? Like how do you- Yeah, exactly.

So it's what I mean. I mean, all the different research shows that the best way to really remember something and to really consolidate some learning is actually to teach someone else. So if you learn a new skill and then go to a friend or a spouse or a child or a colleague and actually teach them what you've just learned, that's really the best way to make sure that you remember what you learned and really to take your learning to a deeper level. Yeah.

So that's our big tip in order to make it stick, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So we prepare as always a kept sheet and a spreadsheet that we call Keep Learning on the Rose and Shine website, so www.roseandshine.com.

And there you'll have a number of questions that hopefully get inspired by this episode and then you will be checking into when you last learned something new, what did I always want to learn, what are the new things that you could learn that will challenge your brain and how you will achieve that. So we'll have a number of questions around that theme that you can then dig into and set your own 100 day challenge, for example. Yeah, if you wish. Yeah, if you wish.

And if you have any things that you do learn, let us know. We would love to hear what new learning adventures that you set up for yourself actually. Learning adventures and also maybe you can also share your best learning fails. Yeah, that would be great because that could be quite fun.

So if you want to do that, you can do it on Instagram. So we are Rose and Shine is our Instagram name. You can follow us there. Excellent.

Cool. So have a lovely week. Yeah, wishing you all a great week with lots of new learning, lots of fun and lots of energy and we'll speak to you soon. Bye.

Bye. Okay. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye.