The Era is VUCA! A Recommendation for 'Transfer Learning' to Enhance Imagination

When I was a company employee, I belonged to a training group and was engaged in trainer duties. The learning methods I learned back then have recently become the foundation for spending my second life after retirement in a meaningful way.

Today, I will try writing about that.

Learning Models

You may not be familiar with experiential learning models, transfer learning models, or flipped learning models, but there are various methods for current learning styles.

The learning method that we Japanese have learned through compulsory education in the past is the worst learning method.
・Teachers only unilaterally provide information to students.
・Students only unilaterally input it.
・Knowledge verification is only through tests.
・There is no output, only memorization.

I think we have probably learned through this kind of learning style until now.

It is a teaching policy that completely crushes the future of children who have infinite potential. The Japanese curriculum guidelines say to do exactly that. To put it simply, it feels like, 'Crush the individuality of students and create cookie-cutter soldiers!'

The super-controlling teacher side has it easy, but it's unbearable for the students, isn't it?

What is Transfer Learning?

Japanese people who have learned through such teaching policies feel somewhat shallow and unable to think for themselves. Having worked at an American company, I have realized the difference between Japanese and American education.

First, the depth of one's own experience is important. If this experience is lacking, I think it is impossible to gauge the author's thoughts when reading a book or the depth of other people's conversations.

Our brains work to use skills learned from information we have seen, heard, or experienced for other skills.

This is called transfer learning.

If you have deep experience and learning regarding some case, when you come into contact with new, unknown information, you can use your own experience to infer and imagine the unknown.

People who have deeply mastered something are good at applying transfer learning from their past experiences when facing inexperienced events, and they are good at grasping the essentials in a short time.

However, if you do not have the experience of deeply mastering something, you can only infer unknown things from your own shallow experience or limited information, which leads to a lack of imagination.

Imagination is an essential skill for surviving in the uncertain VUCA era. You must use your imagination to form hypotheses even for things you have never tackled or things where the correct answer is unknown.

As a listening skill, even if you hear an important story, if the sensitivity to receive it has not been cultivated, you will not be able to discern what the important points are for you, or you will not be interested in the story in the first place.

How to make transfer learning effective

Even when I hear helpful stories, my lack of experience prevents me from absorbing them as useful advice. So, what can be done to make transfer learning effective?

If you want to acquire a broad education, I think the first step is to deeply refine at least one of your own experiences. Without that foundation, even if you skim through various educational materials, information, and articles, they will only be stored as disconnected pieces of knowledge.

The cause of this is a lack of output. It is because you are not acting on the knowledge you have gained. Unless you take actions such as combining information with practice or applying what you have learned, you will not acquire true education.

The pitfalls of information gained through time-saving methods

Is it part of your daily routine to watch book summary channels on YouTube, watch explanatory videos on topics you want to research at high speed, or watch movies and dramas at double speed?

This method of obtaining information is like just snacking. There is a possibility that it is not becoming knowledge at all.

You feel that surfing the net or mindlessly watching short videos is a waste of time, right? If you don't feel that spending just a few seconds watching something with a catchy message and upbeat background music is a waste, then you are someone who does not want to think about things.

Also, just feeling self-satisfied by watching knowledge-based YouTube videos might actually be a waste of time that ends right there. After all, this is entertainment, not learning.

I also watch Nakata's YouTube University and Ryogakucho's finance videos at high speed, so perhaps I might fall into this category as well.

To avoid that, it seems necessary to have a system in place where you can immediately put the knowledge you have just learned into practice.

Output is one major means of doing this, and for me, note is one such place for output. Also, holding study sessions where I act as a facilitator or teacher, or discussing a single case study with friends, are great opportunities for output.

By doing so, the input information and knowledge are digested and become part of who I am. I practice this by repeating such output habits, which I consider to be transfer learning.

An example of stepping into a new domain

This time, I stepped into the unknown territory of company establishment and management. I only thought I would try it once as a hobby, but instead of just reading books or hearing about it from friends, I actually went to the Legal Affairs Bureau, the Pension Office, and the Tax Office on my own feet to talk and consult with the staff in charge.

If you search for how to establish a company on YouTube, there are videos that explain it very clearly. Immediately after watching them, you feel like you can do it yourself, but when you actually try to take action, it is quite different.

People who are satisfied just by watching videos are shallow and cannot perform transfer learning. Those who can take action themselves based on that information are the ones who gain deep experience and can perform transfer learning.

Because of this experience of mine, I can now talk about the episode of establishing a company in my own words at any time, and even though it is a small experience, I can teach it to someone else.

The feeling of having accomplished one thing has become a great experience and source of knowledge for me.

Micro-Corporation Operation Study Session

I always receive information about Mr. M's corporation. We have previously held web study sessions related to micro-corporations and the Shibuya Lunch Corporation Establishment Discussion Group.

Mr. M suggested, 'Instead of a casual social gathering, let's do some serious studying,' so I created the study session invitation letter below.

Everyone must feel the importance of turning information gained through INPUT into action. I have shown here that creating a place for OUTPUT is one example of transfer learning in my case.

The foundation for tackling new things

I am sometimes envied by people who say, 'Mako-san, it's great that you can do anything so quickly.'

It is not something to compare with others, but looking back, I have had many experiences and many hobbies.

When I was a company employee, my work was completely unrelated to finance, asset management, or corporate management. In other words, I had no background information or experience in those areas. Even so, the fact that my imagination works efficiently in unknown territories might be because I am equipped with foundational skills.

The foundational skills referred to here mean the ability to execute something by deeply refining at least one of your own experiences, or the experience of having accomplished something.

Thinking about the background of this company establishment, I feel that the experience of deeply mastering one area—such as marketing, sales, or training—has become the foundation.

I am a very excellent business person (don't say that yourself, hey!), and I calmly interpret that because that is the foundation of my second life, I am able to incorporate new things I am interested in, put them into practice, and achieve results.

If that is the case, as Atsuhiko Nakata says in his YouTube University, 'Anyone can become anything,' so it might be worth trying to experience one thing deeply without giving up.

If you are someone who genuinely thinks, 'I am a person who can't do anything'—and I don't mean out of modesty—you should take a good look back at your past.

There is no way that a person who has worked for 20 or 30 long years as a company employee or self-employed person could exist in this world who cannot do anything.

If you envy the success of others, there must be a way to climb to that stage.

I believe that if you look back at your past, you must have your own skills, and if you use them as a foundation and continue to make efforts without sparing any, anyone can achieve results and become the person they want to be.

'Anyone can become anything, at any time'

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