I analyzed how I was swinging, when I was swinging, and what

16 Teaching Minds I analyzed how I was swinging, when I was swinging, and what kinds of pitches I was swinging at, and I came to many different con- clusions. I realized I needed to wait longer before I swung. I realized I had to stop swinging at inside pitches (the ones that almost hit you). I realized that I had to stop swinging at pitches that looked good but yet dropped in front of my feet. I realized I had to see the ball hit the “sweet spot” on the bat. I realized I needed to change my whole ap- proach to hitting, in fact. OK. I realized a lot. I had come to many conclusions. Now what? Just do it, right? Aha. Not so simple. You can’t just do what you know you should do. Why not? Be- cause your subconscious isn’t listening to what you have to say. This is why you don’t tell a little kid how to walk and talk. Apart from the fact that he wouldn’t understand you anyway, even if he could understand you, the part of his mind that would be doing the understanding is the conscious part. Cognitive process-based teaching teaches noncon- scious processes a good deal of the time. A child learns a lot more from falling down than he ever will learn from hearing Mom say, “Watch your step.” We are wired to learn from failure. Those who don’t learn from failure typically die young. We are descended from people who learned not to eat certain poisonous plants, and not to travel in a way that would expose them to danger, and to stay near their mates, and to protect their offspring. Those who didn’t do these things, those who didn’t learn from their own failures and from the failures of others, didn’t get to have surviving offspring. The human race exists precisely because it is capable of learning from failure, both individually and collectively. Did you ever wonder why what you learned in school isn’t still in your head, or why you can’t remember what your wife wanted you to get from the store on your way home? Or, why the things you have decided to do to improve your business or make more money or be a better person actually don’t ever get executed? The answer is simple: You can’t learn by listening—not from teachers, not from your wife, not from helpful suggestions from wise people, and not even from yourself. Why not? Because it is your subconscious that is in charge of ex- ecuting daily activities—from swinging a bat, to driving home, to talk- ing to people you want to make an impression on, to getting along with your wife. Your conscious mind can make decisions, but your HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_023762