Learning as Growth

“Familiarity breeds trust. A lack of familiarity engenders distrust, but the discomfort forces you to learn and grow.”
— Mar 14, 2013

When I think about learning, this old tweet of mine comes to mind. Learning is never comfortable. It sits precisely in that space where what you know begins to dissolve, and what you don’t know pushes in. That discomfort is a signal. It’s one we often resist, but it is where growth happens.

Learning takes different shapes depending on the domain. In design, it is an act of seeing and feeling. In business, thinking and empathizing. In technology, building and unbuilding mental models. Yet beneath these differences is a shared cognitive architecture illuminated by neuroscience — a science that explains why learning feels the way it does, and how to make it work better.

Design: See Better, Feel More

“Participation (chewing) increases absorption (swallowing) of information.”
— Oct 7, 2013

Design education teaches you to look. To stare intensely. Not just to glance, but to see with intention, intensity, and utmost care. Classical design isn’t about decoration; it’s about cultivating discernment, training your eye to notice subtle shifts in composition, form, and space. This seeing is not passive. It is embodied.

Neuroscience explains this well. When we combine visual cues with verbal explanation, we engage more parts of the brain. This dual coding helps us retain spatial relationships better. The experience of beauty is more than surface-level; it lights up reward circuits, making the act of perceiving pleasurable and motivating. Manipulating elements with your hands, rotating forms, comparing shapes — these motor actions anchor patterns in memory.

Learning design is, in this sense, a full-body experience. It is participation, not observation.

Business: Think Strategically, Feel Empathetically

“Most deliberate change happens so slowly that when looking back afterwards: 1/ you’re satisfied yet tired, or 2/ you look to do more, faster.”
— Jul 27, 2014

Business learning through design thinking challenges us to move beyond metrics and spreadsheets into messy, human-centered realities. Here, learning is less about finding the right answer and more about framing the right questions. Role-playing, simulation, and iterative testing engage the brain’s social cognition networks, deepening empathy and sharpening judgment.

Neuroscience shows that we learn best when there is emotional salience. That’s the moment when what we are learning feels meaningful, even urgent. Failure is not a setback but a feedback loop. The brain’s prediction error system strengthens learning by highlighting where assumptions don’t hold.

Change in business is rarely instantaneous. It creeps, sometimes painfully slow, often requiring resilience and patience. But when it lands, like in this new era of AI, it can feel ever-present and overbearing. It is a moment of learning that takes you over like nothing else. Having empathy for those who find it harder to adapt is absolutely critical.

Technology: Build Systems, Shape Intelligence

“We learn faster by unlearning what we once knew.”
— Nov 9, 2014

In technology, learning is a constant cycle of building, testing, and unlearning. Computational design demands that we think courageously, but also systematically: abstract, layered, and dynamic. Neuroscience tells us that active manipulation of models of different levels of abstraction sharpens mental representations and reduces cognitive overload when information is chunked properly.

Physical engagement matters here too. Dragging nodes through a visual flow or adjusting parameters grounds abstract ideas in intuition. Ideally, this happens with your whole body, but often all you have is a mouse or fingers sliding over glass. Regardless of the interface, engaging fully with this new kind of change means being open to unlearning. When we resist, we risk missing an incredible opportunity to grow. Don’t miss out.

The Neuroscience of Learning and Growth

What unites the domains of design, technology, and business is how learning optimizes attention, memory, and motivation. Novelty and aesthetic signals capture attention. Emotional salience and dual coding deepen memory. Agency and relevance sustain motivation.

Discomfort — the unfamiliar — isn’t a bug in learning. It’s a feature. The brain nudges us toward growth through unease. Curiosity awakens. Resilience builds. Understanding deepens.

Conclusion

Learning is not a linear process but a dance between knowing and unknowing, certainty and doubt. It asks us to see more clearly, think more deeply, and feel more empathetically. Whether through the sensory precision of design, the adaptive intelligence of technology, or the human-/customer-centered strategies of business, the lessons neuroscience offers can make learning richer, more intentional, and more human.

Embrace discomfort not as resistance but as invitation. The unfamiliar is the gateway — not a barrier — to growth.

This is where learning lives.
— JM