The Learning Process Nobody Taught You, Because You Already Knew It

You learned to walk by watching people walk. You learned to talk by absorbing how the people around you talked, long before anyone explained grammar to you. That process — noticing how someone does something and unconsciously picking it up — is modelling, and it's arguably the most fundamental learning mechanism humans have. It's also the one almost nobody consciously uses on purpose.

John Seymour, in an article on the subject, made a sharp point: had you been raised by wolves, you'd walk and talk like a wolf. The process doesn't care what it's modelling. It just absorbs whatever is around it, consistently, without asking permission. Which means the question worth asking isn't whether you're modelling — you always are — it's whether you're modelling on purpose, or by accident.

The Shift This Requires

Used deliberately, modelling stops being something that just happens to you and becomes a tool you can point at anything. Someone who handles pressure well. Someone who runs meetings that actually end on time. Someone who seems to genuinely enjoy their work. You don't need a formal research project — you need curiosity, and a few specific questions: what do they do differently in the moment that matters? What are they paying attention to that you're not?

Pick one person whose competence in some area genuinely impresses you, and spend a week actively noticing — not admiring from a distance, actually noticing the specifics of what they do. That's modelling. It's how you already learned everything that matters. It's just usually running without your permission.

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