Your learning capabilities have evolved over time. Here are all the forces at work:

• Your brain matured and you developed a base of knowledge and experience to build on.
• You sometimes took direct action to develop your learning mindset and practices (e.g., you learned how to study for school!).
• The fast changing world challenged you to accelerate and upgrade your information handling and learning.

Think of your learning mindset and practices as software inside you. From time to time, it needs upgrading so you can handle your work and life challenges and keep up with the increasingly complex information environment. Most people have launched Versions 1 (Search) and 2 (School). Many have partially upgraded to Version 3 (Self-Directed). But today’s world requires a universal upgrade to Version 4 (SMART). 4.0 builds on and vastly extends all the capabilities you’ve built so far. It may also replace some learning habits that don’t serve you well!

• Learning 1.0 (Search): The learning capability you were born with: trial and error, imitation
• Learning 2.0 (Socialize): The learning capability you developed in school – study, organize, master the models and rules of society and knowledge areas
• Learning 3.0 (Self-Direct): The learning capability you developed as you dealt with the challenges of adulthood – on your own
• Learning 4.0 (Smart): The learning capability that draws on new brain science and psychology and helps you excel in the connected, digital, knowledge age.