Back to school

My employer has sent me to a Dale Carnegie class on communication. It's in the format of a one-semester college course: three hours a week for twelve weeks.

In the first class, I found during the assigned exercises that I really like to talk about myself. When in conversation, it is a struggle for me to only listen to the other person. Discovering this was a surprise to me; I have scored as a strong introvert on every personality test I have taken, and being a bad listener is not something I expected out of myself.

In the assigned reading, I learned about studies that have shown we learn better in small increments. This will be useful in practicing for my music lessons: I like to just play the whole piece through, but I improve faster by restricting my practice to small portions.

Getting into the right mindset for the course is not entirely pleasant for me; I disagree with some things they present as "truth" and find in some areas the materials lie by omission. I believe their techniques work (even in the first class I've seen benefits), but believe the mechanism for some techniques is misrepresented. It has a mild resemblance to joining a religion that one respects but doesn't believe in.

Regardless, I think I (and thus my employer) will benefit from the class. I'm hoping the class will improve my blogging skills, too. It will be interesting to follow for the next few months.