Meta Learning

I wrote in my book about how I have learnt the importance of understanding the basic principle of any concept before trying to understand and absorb detail.

Discovering this was hugely important to facilitation of my effective learning.

The correct terminology for this is, I believe, meta-learning. Until I discovered it by chance in the recent past I didn't know about it or have any appreciation that it was a formal process.

There was a debate yesterday about this and the CEO asked a colleague to explain a the concept of Leasing to him simply.

My colleague said "when you buy an asset you acquire it; when you lease an asset you rent it, however....."

STOP: the CEO said that's enough; that's all I need to know! I can now go away and learn about it by myself; I don't need anyone trying to feed me more at this stage. I can always come back and ask further questions later if need be.

This is precisely the approach I now adopt. It prevents my AS relying on other people or me putting off learning until later or in other ways.

I would be interested if anyone else can provide similar examples and how they have built on this to develop their knowledge and learning?