Learning is very fundamental. It is the reason evaluation happens. Most of the time it happens subconsciously. I don’t want to talk about “learning” a course in this post. I will talk about that “learning” you get when you do an action in real life.

I hardly heard anyone talking about “cross-learning”. It is not even formal. This is the phenomenon I observed and would like to share with you. Before explaining the main topic, let us see patterns that we learn by doing actions.

Patterns

This universe is full of patterns. Maths is full of patterns, science is full of patterns if you can see. These patterns overlap with different fields. Because I am a software engineer, this is what Wikipedia says about pattern matching.

In computer science, pattern matching is the act of checking a given sequence of tokens for the presence of the constituents of some pattern. In contrast to pattern recognition, the match usually has to be exact: “either it will or will not be a match.” — Wikipedia

Human minds are far more superior than computing machines. Computers can only have hard rules and cannot find matches at high order, unlike humans. This is the reason in real life it is not as simple as saying “matched” or “not matched”. Our minds can run a matching algorithm for the pattern of the problem that we are solving against the patterns we already know and come up with the best solution. Our minds can adjust the weights, tweak the matching algorithm, ignore a few nuances, and more and more. Our brains are powerful, we are powerful and you are powerful! It is about pattern matching.

Cross learning

Learning is straightforward. You do some action, see the result, think and learn what happened. Sounds very simple but it is not the most efficient way of learning in my opinion. We should figure out patterns from it as mentioned above. The more generic these patterns are, the more you are learning.

Let’s say you figured out taking a deep breath before giving a speech on a stage and in front of hundreds of people actually soothes you down, what you need to understand is when you are tensed, taking a deep breath soothes you down. Maybe it works even when you are under pressure or maybe when you are too happy too!

This example seems simple as we most often do this but it gets interesting when we combine two entirely different fields. For example, apply what you learned in your engineering course to the field of farming and agriculture. You may even apply what you learned while cooking to painting! There are endless possibilities. Just learn in as generic away as possible. Apply what you learned in cross fields. Cross learning!

Analogy

The best analogy I can give is what learned from one and a half years of gaming. I fell in love with a game called Apex Legends, it is an online multiplayer battle royale game.

This is the most intense and fast-paced game I have ever played. To just give the context, this is a match-based first-person shooter game. Each match runs anywhere between 40 to 50 minutes. It involves looting and fighting with other teams to last standing team to win the match. What makes this game stand out is it’s

Fast-paced
Each team consists of multiple legends with different powers
Tactics

What I learned from playing this game is the importance of team play, the importance of communication in a team, and the role of patience in long run.

Each team in the match consists of 3 players and 20 teams in a match. If you cannot coordinate with the team, the chances of survival are almost zero no matter how well you play. Another point is, as mentioned above, there are powers for each legend in the team. You need to coordinate to come up with a strategy to finish the opponent team in a fight. All this boils down to team management and communication.

I subconsciously learned the patterns and I was able to apply those things in my day-to-day work. I became better at communicating stuff with my team members. Cross learning!

Being patient is another aspect I learned from this game. When I started playing this game I was just dumb (noob) at the game. I used to die in the very first minute of the game 9 times out of 10 matches. It was so frustrating. But I did not give up. I tried and tried. I started playing okayish after maybe 45 days. The same is the case with multiple things in life. Nothing works instantly. You need to give time and be patient.

This quality is helping me in my entrepreneur journey now. I used to give up very soon when a particular product is not working out. I started being patient and not giving up here too. I am loving it. Cross learning!

Cross learning also needs practice. Just try to grasp the very generic pattern from the problems you face. One of my favorite sayings is

learn how to learn

Summary

Life is full of patterns. Learn as generic as possible so that you can apply this learning in a completely non-related field when you see a similar pattern. This will make you a really quick learner. This also needs practice. Learn how to learn. Cheers! All the best.