#053 How to use geography for life-long learning

"Fish where the fishes are." - Charlie Munger

I've been fishing for 14 years. Not literally but cognitively. I've been trained in the UK all my doctor days. I've caught every lesson I could in those five thousand one hundred and ten days. The fishing has been good.

But as I progress in my career, I keep catching the same fish. With each familiar fish friend, there are still lessons to be learnt. But the new fish that spark reflection and original thought become less and less frequent.

That's why it's 5.42 am and the coffee's kicking in as I write this. There's a chorus of languages surrounding me. The sun has nearly finished coming up but the artificial airport lights continue to bear down.

I'm at Edinburgh airport about to fly to Kerala, South India. I'm going to visit a neurosurgery department and will arrive eager to fish. The fishing line and the bait will be the same but every catch will be new.

Each fish will force me to pause and consider the details of each scale. Even if it's a fish I've caught before, examining it under the same sun's rays delivered from a different angle with make me see it as new. I will be forced to think. If there is something of value, I'll add that fish to my haul. If not, I'll toss it back.

If you want to keep learning at some point you will have to go find some new fish.

So here are 3 ways you can leverage geography to learn and perform. (Travelling is not compulsory).

Personal

My greatest mentor frustrated me to no end. Every month he would take over part of an operation he had taught me. I knew he knew I was capable of doing this step. He would begin his interjection with, "Let me try something." At first, this would drive me bonkers.

Why does he keep doing this? What lesson is he teaching me?

Instead of cutting the skin with a scalpel he change to eletro-diathermy. Instead of closing the lining of the brain with sutures, he would switch to a synthetic patch.

The change was relentless. Then it dawned.

Forty years into his surgical career he was still testing, experimenting, and learning. He was doing the same thing differently and learning what was best for his patients in his hands. He was forcing something unconscious for his fingers into something effortful and deliberate.

The simplest way to keep learning without leaving home is to make the familiar unfamiliar. Deliver a well-worn presentation in a new format. Revamp your workspace. Take a different route to work. Observe how routine unconscious work is transformed into effortful thinking and see what appears.

Workspace

Google likes collisions. Not vehicular but personal. Their buildings are designed for the cross-pollination of ideas. Communal hubs aren't dispersed to every corner, they are centralised. So if Jimmy wants an ice-cold, refreshing beverage, he has to head to the watering hole at the centre of his building. When Jane has the same motivating thirst the chances of them colliding at the drink shack are high.

Why would Google want this? Won't this lead to distraction, idle chit-chat, or an extra-marital affair?

Maybe. But it might foster new ideas and innovation.

If Jimmy happens to be struggling with a grass-roots problem that Jane has already solved, then there is a good chance there will be an exchange of knowledge over a cold can of Cola. Jimmy wins because he solves his problem. Jane wins because her work satisfaction goes up. Google wins because its employees win.

I took this idea to the hospital. It's easier to pick up the phone to discuss a scan with my friendly radiologist rather than take a stroll. But when I decide to knock on doors instead of tapping keys, I'm always smiling as I walk back to my office.

That grin on my face? It's there because I've just improved a patient's care. Maybe I've arranged a more revealing scan that will answer their questions better than my original idea. Or perhaps I've helped the radiology team solve a problem I've tackled before in another area. These face-to-face chats often lead to unexpected wins.

Use geography to your advantage. If you're in charge of a team maximise collisions. If you're not in charge, go find them.

Career

Wakefield, England, where I grew up, isn't exactly a hotbed for software development.

If I were advising a young programmer in Wakefield today, I'd say this: Don't settle for the nearest college. Don't even chase the most prestigious name. Go where the action is. Head to Silicon Valley or Bangalore. Seek out places where innovation outpaces comprehension. That's where you'll find the richest learning opportunities.

You don't have to fly across the world to accelerate your learning. You can leverage geography in three ways:

• As an individual - do familiar things in different ways. Take a different route.
• As a group - design your environment to maximise creative collisions.
• As a community - seek out experts across the world. Go visit them.

As I write this, flying high above Hungary, I'm struck by a bit of serendipity.

Two rows ahead sits a fellow neurosurgeon from Edinburgh. We chatted at the gate, and he shared his remarkable journey. He came to Edinburgh from India, eager to become a neurosurgeon. But lacking UK experience, he was redirected to Plymouth. There, a mentor set him on course and pointed him toward Dublin. In Dublin, a phone call led to a consultant position - back in Edinburgh.

Ironically, the same department that initially turned him away now welcomed him as a colleague. Call it fate, providence, or just good timing.

The constant? He kept fishing where the fishes were.

Now he's jetting off to Bangalore to share his knowledge with medical students.

The cycle continues.

P.S. If you found these steps to leverage geography to learn, I can help you out some more.

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If you have any questions, comment below or contact me on X or LinkedIn. Happy to help where I can.