Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen

Brief Summary ART OF UNLEARNING is a masterfully illustrated 130 page graphic novel about a young adventurer known as Gituma, son of the dictator King Ego, who discovers his father’s role in a notorious genocide. He is unable to outrun his traumatic past and realize his creative potential until he is challenged by three wise teachers who hold the keys to unlock his mind from the past. Unlearning is simply an inverse vision of learning. Whereas the traditional view of learning was about accumulating information, unlearning recognizes the abundance and ubiquity of digital information and therefore emphasizes instead how we can discover our innate potential or passion and share it. Passion is the rocket fuel behind all learning pursuits. Unleashing this energy is the purpose being The Art of Unlearning. To illustrate this better, consider the very delivery of this book to you. It has meant consuming volumes of books and articles on such diverse subjects as: crowdfunding, exponential technologies, spirituality, and the similarities between dark-room photography and ink illustration. It has meant sitting still and integrating remarkable experiences with human beings all around the world. It has meant failing forward and living simply in rural Eldoret with my parents for the many months of creation, a time I cherish all the more now that my Dad is far away recovering from cancer treatment. It has meant appreciating nature. It has also shown me the power of community. Most of all, I ‘found’ my number one crazy nut fan — and the love of my life, Sarah. Passion is the true power of the polymath. In this series of Blog Posts about The Art of Unlearning, I will explore the bliss and inevitable blisters of finding a new learning path for a new generation of digital natives who are negotiating the most transformational period in human history without a map. But wait! We do have a map, dumbo! Comics and graphic novels have been raving for decades about a post-singularity and post-scarcity humanity who having achieved energy abundance, universal connectivity and near-omniscience. Without the arousal of survival anxiety which so animates us at present, how will these beings flower? Will they be a boundlessly creative and generous community untethered from ignorance, disease and war? Science fiction writers have also explored the unsettling potential dangers of making human labour redundant to the goals of capital, as has been done to our environment already. ISBN:ArtofUnlearning001 Author:Chief Nyamweya