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if we want to grow build our capability accomplish what we're going for it seems obvious to say that we're going to need to know things - but then when you think about it the most knowledgeable people aren't always those who seem to be thriving and in our own lives if we're really honest getting new knowledge doesn't always unlock us when we're stuck so is it that knowing doesn't matter? or is
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there something we don't know about knowing? and if we do want to grow and learn how do we go about getting the kind of knowledge that will really help us? my name's Rich Watkins from Let's Go and i'm interested in how we accomplish things with others in complex environments collaboration and how we develop our own mastery and share it with the world leadership in this video i want to
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shine a light on the work of cognitive scientist John Vervaeke from the university of Toronto now his work is incredibly rich with loads of applications but for my purposes i just want to explore one fragment of his thinking he says that we often have too narrow an appreciation of knowing focusing too much on one or two kinds of knowing but to live well in a complex world we need to effectively engage with four kinds of knowing and perfectly they all begin with a P
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the first kind of knowing he describes is the one that we usually talk about knowing knowledge and he calls it propositional knowing because it's the kind of knowing that exists in books where there are propositions facts beliefs concepts rules is how we win an argument persuade someone of something or describe a theory it's thinking knowing knowing about things in science philosophy
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history management we are in this business of knowing what is true and if we build this kind of knowing we become knowledgeable which is good for lots of things but it is insufficient because we also need to know how to do things and the second P is procedural knowing this kind of knowing is knowing the procedures that achieve results and it doesn't get us truth it gets us power an easy way to see it is the difference between knowing lots about bikes and knowing
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how to ride a bike you see this procedural knowing gives us the power to ride around and we all know people with great theory but can't turn it into great practice and with procedural knowing it's getting that embodied sense of how specific actions reliably get us specific results we call these skills and building our procedural knowing building our skills we become experts okay so imagine a person learns a lot about hammers and becomes very skillful with using one
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this is useful but is every problem a nail we might need another kind of knowing that sees the situation we find ourselves in and knows what skills are appropriate John Vervaeke calls this perspectival knowing it's not about knowing the truth or knowing how to enact something it's knowing how to perceive the world how to take it all in from our perspective and with this we will know how things feel and we can appreciate then what really matters
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or sense what is needed in the situation it's not just thinking about our perspective but really inhabiting it getting a taste for how things appear to us the result of perspectival knowing is presence and with presence we also appreciate the limits of our perspective and the value of other perspectives we become more aware we see how things fit together we put things in perspective we become perceptive and then there's a fourth kind of knowing that's not about seeing but being
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the p is participatory knowing knowing our place in the world being in a right relationship with the arena we're operating in being in a dynamic connection with other people who have their own perspectives and being in flow with what's around us notice how different it feels when you're out of sorts in a situation versus when you're really at home or in the groove in a situation when we know how to participate in an arena we can see what is relevant and anticipate what is
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next and we can improvise with little or no self-doubt or hesitation because we aren't thinking about it we know it and with this kind of knowing we're not just observing the world we're impacting it but not in that simple procedural sense we are dancing with the situation both influencing and being influenced and here we can handle complexity and ambiguity and novelty we can face things with good humor because we're at home in the arena building our participatory
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knowing we become co-creators with life so there we have four kinds of knowing knowing about things propositional knowing knowing how to do things procedural knowing knowing how to perceive the world perspectival knowing and knowing how to relate to the world participatory knowing these last two p's might sound like very advanced kinds of knowing may be reserved for great masters
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but in fact they're the foundations kids generally know how to participate in the world and how to be present to what they experience before they know how to do things or think about things and here's where i see these distinctions as useful for us you see we all have a lot to learn and often we know that we need to develop our leadership our collaboration how we navigate change build resilience creativity vision influence but learning isn't just about acquiring
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new knowledge and new skills sometimes we need new lenses to look through new ways of listening to the world sometimes we need new frames of mind that help us participate in the world differently and this kind of learning isn't about striving for hidden knowledge or hidden processes that will get us the things we want it's more like a settling in can we settle in to seeing and sensing the world more deeply being more present and perceiving what is really going on
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listening to the perspectives of others without worrying whether we have everything right can we settle in to a more comfortable participation in the arenas we're operating in becoming aware of the complexity and ambiguity but not trying to plot the perfect path through it that doesn't exist instead making friends with the situation and if we can perceive this distinction
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maybe we can participate in our learning and our growth in a more useful grounded way thanks for watching the video i'm still starting out with this whole video stuff so if it's helpful please comment please subscribe to the channel share the videos look around and see what else there is and let me know if you've got any questions or comments on anything
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