Spend Time Engaged in Learning

Engaged Learning is the third installment from the Productive Waiting series

“A watched pot is slow to boil”

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin first jotted down this quote in Poor Richard’s Almanac. Perhaps Franklin knew that solely focusing on the water to warm made the wait practically interminable. So, if it makes us more productive to shift our focus, where should we shift it? In this case, let’s focus on using that nervous energy to entertain ourselves through learning something new. You may be surprised how learning (even something unrelated) might help make your wait more enjoyable.

Stop Fixating

When you stop fixating on the watched pot to boil and turn your focus somewhere else, you create new opportunities. Let me give you an example:

Harrison Ford’s acting career began in the 1960s. He landed roles as extras in motion pictures and small roles in television programs. He worked for nearly ten years in relative obscurity. In fact, he didn’t even appear in the credits for most of his roles. He grew frustrated waiting to land an important role. He found himself to be too fixated on becoming a star.

In the early 1970s, Ford decided to change the situation. He took a break from seeking acting roles full-time. Instead, he aimed to become a self-taught carpenter. He wanted to learn do-it-yourself projects and to make money to support his young family. He still looked for gig roles but he focused on carpentry to earn a living. As it happened, since he was in Hollywood, he found jobs working for several studio executives. 

One of his jobs found him installing a door for Francis Ford Coppola. During the job, George Lucas arrived for a meeting. Harrison and Lucas ended up striking up a friendly conversation. The serendipitous meeting eventually turned into a professional relationship as Lucas cast Ford for Han Solo in Star Wars.

Join me as we take a look at other examples using learning to make a wait more productive. Learning during these times expands our horizons while the pot heats to a boil. Instead of water, let’s focus our attention first on something a bit sweeter. Let’s take a look at what we can learn about waiting from marshmallows.

Stanford Marshmallow Experiment

In the early 1970s, Walter Mischel, a Stanford psychology professor, conducted an experiment with children aimed at understanding delayed gratification. Various pre-school children were given a choice between receiving a marshmallow or pretzel stick. Or, they could wait 15 minutes and receiving an extra treat.

Each child was given a treat and then told that the researcher had to leave the room for a few minutes. Before the researcher left, the child was given a choice: If the child waited until the researcher returned, she could have two marshmallows. If the child simply couldn’t wait, she could ring a bell and the researcher would come back immediately, but she would only be allowed one marshmallow.

Some kids didn’t wait at all, while others endured several grueling minutes before caving in. A few even made for the full 15 minutes. Since then, more sweet experiments have been run and more results have been analyzed. Researchers have found that the kids more likely to delay gratification were also more likely to perform better in school and maintain a healthier body.

Most strikingly to this subject, the results seem to indicate that delayed gratification is most effective when the subject waiting removes their focus away from the future reward. If the kids spent the entire delay time focused on the marshmallow they were going to receive, they grew frustrated and stressed. Ultimately, they ended up dissatisfied with the final reward. If they were able to delay and not fixate, the rewards led to much greater satisfaction.

Learning as an Engaging Distraction

Learning is an effective distraction from waiting. We can see it in Harrison Ford’s carpentry career. From the marshmallow test, we find distracting ourselves helps the wait end in a more satisfying manner. Let’s see how it worked for King David.

When we last left David, he had returned to the pasture to meditate while tending his sheep. David knew he was anointed to be king, however he did not know when he would realize his reward. Instead of focusing all of his attention on the day of his coronation, he practiced his lyre and he learned how to write songs.

He practiced so hard, in fact, that he was summoned to play at the palace every time King Saul was stressed or angry about the current politics. David became the top aide and armor bearer to Saul. This role served as an apprenticeship, studying the customs and learning the workings of the palace. When David did ascend to the throne, he was ready for the power and he became the people’s most famous king.

David’s training provided him the knowledge, the network, and the leadership he counted on later when he actually became king, which transpired more than 10 years later. 10 years of waiting is a lengthy period of time, but it was just a drop in the bucket compared to the 27 year imprisonment of Nelson Mandela.

The Robben Island Bible

Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for life in South Africa in 1962. Mandela was charged with attempting to overthrow the white, minority government and attain equal rights for the native, black population of the country.

He was sent to an island prison named Robben Island. It was a harsh prison demanding all of the prisoners to participate in hard labor breaking up rocks in the quarries on the island. He was often confined to solitary confinement in a damp prison cell after laboring all day in the quarries.

Mandela could have become bitter and angry with his term in prison. No one would have blamed him. Instead, he continually tried to overcome his conditions. A spark of hope found its way to him from an unlikely source. Another prisoner had managed to smuggle in the complete works of William Shakespeare. Mandela and the other prisoners read Shakespeare’s stories and even acted out several plays from right within the prison’s walls.

Later, when Mandela was released from prison, the Robben Island bible was revealed to the public. Each of the prisoners had selected different passages in the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Mandela highlighted this section from Julius Caesar in 1977:

Cowards die many times before their deaths. 
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

Mandela took the learning principle to its highest level. He diverted his attention away from the waiting and enriched his knowledge through the writings of Shakespeare. He acted out these scenes and they came to personify his struggle. This new information clearly charted out a path to rise above his circumstances and affect the lives of others, including his captors and suppressors.*

The Common Thread

The examples of Nelson Mandela, Harrison Ford, and King David expose the benefits of taking your eyes away from the warming pot. Shifting your attention to learning a new skill, researching an interesting topic, or even acting out a new role disrupts the wait and engages the mind toward new opportunities. The current wait fades into the background for a time. It’s still there, but the focus is not.

The educational component ends up synergizing together with the waiting being conducted in the background. The acting did not shorten Mandela’s wait, but it put his role in the waiting into context. The way he treated his persecutors and captors once he was released was transformed because of what he learned. Likewise, Ford’s abilities were seen differently because of how he entered into his relationship with George Lucas.

Waiting periods allow opportunities to freely seek out new information then apply it to the struggle. Whether it is applied directly or in a round-about way, the information becomes a critical tool once the wait ends. It allows for patience and a greater understanding of what needs to be overcome. It creates context that is lacking when one is just waiting idly and otherwise non-productive.

The next installment of the series shares ideas regarding Challenging Practice. 

*Read about all of the many different materials Nelson Mandela used to learn and adapt while waiting out his prison sentence here. His learning paved the way for the multi-cultural, diverse government he established once he was eventually released.