I gave this talk at #dareconf last week, the events took a few years to play out when I first came to the U.S. The theme of making learning a habit through experience is a lifelong passion of mine.

Valeria Maltoni: Make learning a habit and discover new opportunities from Together London on Vimeo.

Children feel the excitement of learning more strongly than the fear of the unknown. For adults the balance is reversed: we stop learning when we’re afraid of leaving the safety of what we know. When I arrived in the US I wasn’t fluent in English.

I realized that in order to get what I wanted, I needed to commit to change—to immerse myself in this new experience. Since then I’ve worked to make learning through experience a habit: a continuous process of commitment. When you make learning a habit, you connect with your inner child and discover new opportunities.

The techniques in the talk illustrate how to:

• make space for learning by letting go of habits that aren’t serving you well
• ask for help and trust the learning process
• experiment to discover what works for you

Like many important things in life, twenty minutes packed quite a bit of learning, and fun. Check out all the sessions.

[image courtesy JPG Photography]