“How did you learn all this stuff?” He looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t. I just picked it up as I went along.” I thought of Phil while I was writing this book and how what he said all those years ago was a pretty good definition of informal learning. It’s not scheduled; it’s spontaneous. It just happens. It happens when we make a mistake. It happens when we observe others doing either well or badly. When we see someone walk across a wet road and step into a deep puddle, we register the information. When we need to cross the same road, we will give the puddle a wide berth. We noticed something,
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