1) Pioneer Learning Hat Trick

White Training Hat: Training is Learning to do - The training hat is the most natural form of learning for an America because we are trained from birth that we can do anything. Training is fun.

Black Education Hat: Education is Learning to know - The education hat is also easy to master. Ask a question, find the answer and inherently you are here by educated.

Gray Pioneering Hat: Pioneering is Learning to learn, unlearn & relearn - The pioneering hat is the most natural form of learning you will ever experience.  When you switch between the training hat & education hat, on demand, at the drop of a hat, you naturally become a pioneering pro.

The creation of the Pioneer Learning Hat Trick which ultimately led to the discovery of the 6 Spectrum's of Learning began asking one simple question. What is the difference between training & education? Finding the answer took nothing more than grabbing a dictionary and reading two definitions. Training is learning to do. Education is learning to know.

It was clear the only way to grasp the difference between training & education was to experience both spectrum's of learning firsthand. Instead of reading & studying about training & education in a classroom (which I hate with a passion) I set me sights on experiencing training & education firsthand. In my hunt for the best training organization on the planet I looked no further than the United States Marine Corps. Twenty years later, I experienced the awesome power of living & breathing life inside a world-class training organization. The Marine Corps disassembled me in Boot camp and reassembled me as a troubleshooting expert who learned how to learn so I could DO anything my heart & soul desired. The beauty of diving head first into training full time, was it didn't cost me a dime. In fact, according to social security records those jar heads in the Marine Corps paid me $352,000 over 20 years while letting me train to my hearts content.

There is an uneducated misconception that the only thing the United States Marine Corps can teach you is how to absorb bullets. This is not true. The United States Marine Corps spends everyday & night training its Marines how to dodge bullets. In addition to that incredible training the Corps also educated me, at an estimated cost of $250,000 over a combined two & a half year period, how to troubleshoot and fix broken complex air traffic control electronics systems in under 30 minutes. They did this so the the leathernecks in the sky (wouldn't die) and could safely return to base and land their multi-million war machines.

When upper-class rich & powerful civilians claim the Marine Corps has no class and jar heads are a lower class of citizens. They are right on the money. The Marine Corps is filled with devil dogs who would rather die than spend four years locked in a classroom. Instead of being stuck in a class system, Marines live & breathe to train.

My hunt for experiencing the all-mighty power of higher education officially started at the ripe age of 41 after my broken down body and my ability to train like a devil dog fizzled out. It made perfect sense. If your body is too broken and you're too lazy to train hard to do anything, a college education is the perfect avenue of exercising your brain instead of your body. Handicapped like the rest of the kids in college, I dove head first into higher upper-class education and was locked down in a classroom for 6 years. When I was finally paroled, I had earned a Bachelor of Science degree (which is total BS) in Organizational Management (Magna Cum Lande) followed up with the coveted Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree.

Both of these college degree's proved I had a brain all along. At the age of 47 years old,  following the higher education practice of "Listen, Study, Parrot, Test" in two ridiculous management fields of study at a cost of over $50,000 I was paroled. An all-powerful Wizard of ED (Erectile Dysfunction) appeared from behind the curtain and officially declared this scarecrow had a brain after all with two degrees of separation from my training background. These magical wizards even gave me a pretty piece of parchment to prove it. I followed direct orders from all my higher education professors and I learned to know (during two intensive reeducation programs), to know exactly what I was told to know, and no more. Luckily, thanks to the GI Bill, American taxpayers thanked me for my service with a free ride that covered all my tuition and also paid me $1,500 a month every time I admitted myself into the higher education asylum for training reprogramming. (Fun fact. As a training disciple I would have never submitted myself to the torture of being locked in a classroom if I wasn't paid $1,500 a month to suffer through it.

Here is my 26 years of analysis after being embedded in two distinct learning environments studying & experiencing the difference between a world-class training organization and and upper-class education. The Marine Corps molds low class maggots like me, into fearless learning to DO pioneers & leaders. Higher Education molds the upper class students like me, into learn to know exactly what you are told, hide yourself in a safe & secure bunker or fort settlers & managers. Here is the kicker. If you take the fearless road-less-traveled route to learning and service your country for 20 years you can bring home a whopping $352,000. If you take the high road and earn a golden ticket from higher education where you are trained & conditioned to shut up & Listen, Study, Parrot, Test locked in a safe & secure classroom for 6 years, following management orders to the letter. In just 15 years, if you only serve yourself, you can earn over $2,000,000 in our Nation's Capital gorging yourself on taxpayer dollars.

And now, back to the discovery of the Pioneer Learning Hat Trick and the learning to leadership Link. Once I knew the distinct differences and many benefits of training & education, coupled with my extensive experience in troubleshooting complex problems, I split the battlefield between these two titans of learning (training & education) and focused on the gray area that divides the two.This gray area is the link that ties the two approaches to learning together. It shows that training & education must work in tandem with each other. This is why it is a hat trick. If you plan on training to ride a bike 2656 miles across our land of the free from Reston, VA to Irvine, CA you better be able to switch hats, at the drop of a hat, and educate yourself on the danger points that could kill you. Once you become a training devil dog who can do anything & a education guru who can know anything you find yourself wearing the Pioneering Hat every time you venture into the unknown. To those higher educated classroom junkies, a Hat Trick is scoring 3 goals in hockey.

2) The Leadership Hat Trick (Linked to the Pioneer Learning Hat Trick)

White Dragger Hat: Cowboy up! - Think of a Marine Drill Instructor. Always out front when the DI is run dragging the rest of the Marines further than they want to go, then circling back around to the last person in the pack, to drag them back into the pack. It is linked to training in the known.

Black Doctor Hat: What is the problem? - Think of being in learning combat and needing to go to a Doctor when something is wrong with you to patch you up. The Doctor is a pro at fixing your learning problems, meeting your needs, satisfying your wants, and giving you great ideas how how to get back in the Performance Arena. The Doctor hat is linked to Education Hat and the known.

Gray Leadership Hat: I'll figure it out! - To pull off wearing the leadership you need time wearing both the Dragger Hat & Doctor Hat.  You wear the Leadership Hat when you are guiding a group into the unknown. The Leadership Hat is a direct defendant of the Pioneering Hat.

I stumbled onto the learning & leadership link by accident. After being raised by the baddest mother I have ever known, my father, I had a front row seat to what it takes to be a leader of men. My dad, who I guarantee can whoop your dad, spent 32 highly decorated years in the United States Marine Corps. He enlisted in 1942 after serving his country in the Conservation Corps ended. This was back when conservatives were cowboys who rode horses to work. He signed up to fight in World War II, fought in the Korean War and volunteered to fight back-to-back tours in the Vietnam War flying over 200 covert missions as a door gunner on a Huey helicopter when he was almost 50 years old. The only reason this flashback of a fallen hero comes to mind is he demonstrated to me like no other, the difference between a fearless leader & spineless manager.

While he was alive, my father who art in heaven, made sure to point out those who measured up to his lofty leadership standards. He was a firm believer that true, red-white-and blue All-American leaders served their country. Scumbag Managers (his words which are now my words) on the other hand were leadership posers who only serve themselves to get rich & powerful. His all time favorite leaders during the turmoil of the 1960's were only two men he proclaimed as great American leaders. One was President JFK (John F. Kennedy - World War II hero) and the other was MLK (Dr. Martin Luther King - Civil rights hero). As one might expect. I watched as a child when both of mine and my Dad's heroes were gunned down and assassinated. I moved into adulthood with three  hero's who set the standards for leadership for the rest of my life.

While this leadership/management dramatization main sound disheartening it is not. When I left the Marine Corps (which I will love to my dying day) I knew I was leaving leadership behind and transitioning into the cut-throat world of back stabbing rich and powerful managers who where dumber than a bag of hammers thinking they were leaders. Think of it like this. I got to serve my country and make my Dad proud for 20 years for a grand total of $352,000. I think my father, if he was still alive, would be equally proud that I left the Mighty Marines to become a Washington, DC management whore. I sold my broken down ass to the highest bidder and got paid over $2,000,000. In the end, sure as rain, management stabbed me in the back and left me for dead. I got foxtrotted. It came as no surprise that management cannot be trusted further than you can spit. So what. In my prime in DC for almost 15 years, I was the best management whore money could buy and I got to be rich and powerless in the end.

My point is, I was trained my entire life to spot a natural born leader I could join help journey into the unknown. I was equally trained to spot a self-serving sideline manager a mile away, who I would only work for if they paid me a lot of money. I knew that when you work for a manager you have to make sure to always wear a flak jacket, knowing sooner or later, management will (not if) stab you in the back at the drop of a hat.

During my time as a management whore surrounded my managers and classroom junkies I spent a lot of time studying leadership of the past after giving up trying to find leadership in the cesspool of management in DC. This is when I stumbled across the last will & testament speech given by JFK in Dallas, TX right before an unknown management team ordered a bullet in his brain. He started the speech, "Learning and leadership are indispensable to each other..." 

These eight words of wisdom, from a real America hero, sparked the connection that would later become the Learning and Leadership Link. This eye-opening declaration is what threw any thoughts or connection with manager into the trash bind. Managers will NEVER be in the same class. Management is night and day different than leadership. I translated JFK last speech into the learning & leadership link to the point, all I had to do was take the Pioneer Learning Hat Trick and link it to leadership.

Knowing there are three distinct spectrum's of learning and that learning is linked to leadership, it made perfect sense there had to be three distinct spectrum's of leadership. Having graduated from Marine Corps Boot camp as the Series Honor Man (Valedictorian for all you education nerds) I knew, when it came to training a Drill Instructor was without a doubt, the leader in training maggots into Marines.

Since there was no definition for this style of leadership I came up with "Dragger." If you ever want a World-Class training program you have to find a World Class Dragger. I picked this name because a Dragger wraps an imaginary rope around their waist, ties 50 maggots to end and starts running into the fight dragging these worthless maggots until there are sorry asses are dragging on the ground. There is no motivational speech ever given by Draggers like sideline managers. The Dragger simply ties himself or herself to the pack then charges the pack into the unknown.

Just like JFK said. The leadership "Dragger" is linked to training.

I knew, after earning my degree Magna Cum Lande, that the undisputed leader in education is what I call the "Doctor." To be clear, a true red-white-and blue leadership Doctor must be a "do no harm, have no fear" practitioner. They are a Doctor in the sense their sole purpose in life is to fix PROBLEMS. They fix people problems. Unit Problems. Mission Problems. The Marine Corps has tons of leadership Doctors who can solve complex problems at any given moment at the drop of a hat. You go to the leadership Doctor whenever you have a problem that will lead to mission failure. You call upon the leadership Doctor if you need anything to complete the mission. You drink a beer with the Doctor and tell them what you want to accomplish and they tell you how to do it. You feed the Doctor all the ideas you have to make the mission more success and enhance the lives of your teammates. To be even clearer. A leadership Doctor that is directly linked to education does not sit on the sidelines! They are not a manager in any sense of the word. This Doctor is running into the fight right beside you every step of the way.

Just like JFK said. The "Doctor" is linked to the learning to know education hat.

And last but not least is the time honored, gold medal standard, of the classic "Leader." To become a natural-born leader you must be a beacon of change. A guiding light that others can choose or not chose to follow along. A leader is a change agent. Their mission, which they always chose to accept, is to lead others into the unknown. To give you context into the difference between a leader & manager, management can only manage people within the known realm of a safe & secure fortress where they themselves can never be harmed. Managers have not problem sending their paid conscripts into battle, they however, will manage from afar.

A leader linked to learning is crazy as a loon. When a hat trick leader briefs their team on a mission, they never say, "I want to you charge up that hill and kill every SOB dug into those trenches."  A leader simply states, "I got this machine gun and my pistol with a bunch of mags and grenades. Wanted to let yawl know I'm going to run up that hill and kill every SOB dug into those trenches. If you want, more than welcome to follow me and get in on the action. I would highly recommend you don't. There is a good chance anybody who goes up that hill with me is going to die. With any luck, I see yawl at the top. Adios Amigos."

Just like JFK said. A "leader" is linked to learning to learn pioneer hat. What makes the Leadership Hat Trick so cool is one person (especially a natural born leader) can switch hats at the drop of a hat. During training they can put on the Dragger hat and drag their people into the unknown. During education they can dawn the Doctor hat and solve problems, meet needs, satisfy wants and capture a ton of ideas from those they lead. If a mission requires a change agent they can grab the Leadership hat and March into the unknown. Point is, a leader can switch hats at the drop of a hat. They are the ones who constantly pull of a Pioneer Learning Hat Trick as learning to do, learn and educate experts.

3) The Performance Hat Trick (aka The Action Agents) discovered in the "gray" area in between the learning & leadership that links them both together.

This hat trick has been buried by management who selfishly group all action agents into a "follower" category. They do this so management takes the credit for all outstanding performance and all that is good. To prove their narcissistic tendencies, when things go wrong the "blame" their stupid & lazy "followers" even when it was their stupid idea. When we completely erased management (trapped in the known) because they are not in the same league as Leaders (who venture into the unknown) , we could finally see the heart & soul of all organizations where these Pioneers are the ones who do & know everything.

White Mikey Hat: I'll do it! - What to call the all mighty "training" action agent came to life from a Life cereal commercial from back in the day. In this ancient commercial two boys didn't want to try eating Life cereal so they scream, "Let's get Mikey..(to do it.)" Sure enough Mikey is the first to eat it and liked it. This is where the title of "Mikey" the training action agents who says, I'll do it, was born.

Black Medic Hat: I'll know it! - The title of "Medic" for the link between the education hat and the leadership Doctor hat was the easiest of all. The medic goes into battle in the Performance arena right beside you. The run through heavy gunfire to render aid and get you back in the fight. They dodge bullets for every member of the team. The concept of the Medic gets me so excited it makes me scream. "GO NAVY!"

Gray Pioneer Hat: I'll figure it out! - You might think the concept of a Performance/Action Agent Pioneer was the easiest of all to fill in between the Pioneering Hat & the Leadership Hat. It was, only after it took me months to figure out what to call someone who had learned how to learn. There was no name or word for it. There were lots of folks who proclaimed how important it was to teach people how to Learn how to learn in the future but they forgot to give it a name. I literally had to put "No Name" in the middle of the Learning Hat Trick between training & education and "No Name" for the Performance Hat Trick in between Mikey & the Medic for months. One day I was watching a documentary about Amelia Earhart and the narrator referred to her as a great American Pioneer. Being a jarhead, I had to goggle the definition of Pioneer and low & behold a pioneer is: "a person who is among the first to research and develop a new area of knowledge or activity." Knowledge linked to the Medic and activity linked to Mikey. Winner, winner, chicken dinner! I pasted Pioneer into the Performance Hat Trick and had a name for the action agents who volunteers to figure it out! Thanks Emila! Rest in Peace!

Inside the definition of Pioneer was the verb "Pioneering." I jumped on it and it is defined as: using ideas and methods that have never been used before. Call me crazy but I translated Pioneering to mean someone who could learn to learn.

As a researcher into the difference between leadership & management you have to be careful not to get tunnel vision. If you keep your eyes open, you know you are going to miss obvious clues screaming for attention. This exercise was made even harder when an army of managers start blurring your brain proclaiming they are leaders. I call this the great education system con.

Thankfully, I was indoctrinated into leadership by the United States Marine Corps. Marine doctrine refuses to accept management as a leadership style. The Corps goes so far as to kick managers out of it's ranks for being rank.

With this doctrine burning in my brain, I kicked management to the curb with the understanding, trying to determine the difference in leadership in management is just plain stupid.Think of leadership as a piece of gold and management is a piece of dung. One will make you rich. The other stinks to high heaven. The differences are so great only an idiot would try to compare the two.

Once I flushed management down the toilet it allowed my full attention to focus on leadership as the gold nugget of leading people into the unknown. This lead me to the leadership hat trick and its link to learning. I celebrated this discovery brought to me by JFK. I felt like I was a genius.

Luckily, my older brother is a full time genius. I'm a part-time genius. The reason I say this is because my little brother had down syndrome and since I'm in the middle I like to think I swing both ways. One day genius, next day retarded. Fear not, I checked the PC handbook and it is OK to call yourself retarded but only if you have a down syndrome brother.

I realized my mistake, thanks again to the Marine Corps. I had the Learning to Leadership Link down pat but I also knew it wasn't picture perfect. I finally figured out what I missed. Knowing a true leader switches hats and can be one person, I ask the basic Marine Corps question of what happens if the leader is killed? I already knew the answer. The next person in line steps up and grabs the leadership hat and this cycle continues until victory or death to the last man standing. I knew the answer because the Marine Corps hammered into my brain for 20 years.

But what really opened my eyes to what was missing in the learning & leadership Link was a question I had to answer over and over again as to why after graduating USMC boot camp as the top devil dog, did I turn down the chance of a lifetime to go to the Naval Academy and become a United States Marine Corps officer like my dad and brother before me?

My answer has always been the same. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but I do know that they word "office" is dead center in what it means to be an "officer." Everyone would say, why don;t you want to be an Officer, and all I envisioned was being locked in an office all day and missing out on all the fun.

I should point out that at the time, I was young & dumb & ready to rumble. I quit college after basketball season because I would rather kill myself than spend another minute in a classroom being managed. The thought of being locked in an office as an officer was a fate worse than death.

I lived for action. I thrive in action. I had already perfected the learning hat trick playing competitive sports. I was a pioneer at heart. The cool thing about being a pioneer was, frankly my dear, I don't give a damn if anyone followed my or not. I loved to venture into the unknown, all alone.

This is when the Performance Hat Trick (manned by action agents like me) magically filled in the gap between learning and leadership as the most essential ingredient to this great nation. You can screw up leadership and call it management. You can toss training in the trash and place all your bets on education. The one thing you must have to is you need individuals who can performance at an extremely high level is volunteers who can do the hard things.

Over the years our education & business systems and their armies of sideline managers somehow managed to steal the leadership limelight and convince the lower class citizens of America that Management & Leadership were synonymous with each other. This is how management buried the concept of leadership and covered it up with Management Principles. Managers claim to fame was you were one of two things.  You were either a leader or a follower. The derogatory comments for the "followers" were they were all stupid and lazy and needed management to survive. These followers were so stupid & lazy they had to be treated like children and told exactly what to do and how to do it. They also needed to listen, study, parrot, test the exact words of management.

I only highlight this extreme level of duh grading behavior & disrespect by managers to their followers to give you an idea that there were no words that shined a light on how essential and awesome the American workforce can be. With no reference to great workers (other than follower) the missing link between learning & leadership had to be created from scratch. That's why the Performance Hat Trick was created from scratch Ex Nihilo (out of nothing) to honorably describe those who do all the work. To piss off all those managers who consider those who work for them, subjects, scribes, pawns & followers, at the end when the learning & leadership Link was picture perfect, I realized those monkey's in the middle were ACTION AGENTS who deserve 1000 times more respect than any manager on the planet. Eliminate all management today. Erase the entire concept of some idiot screaming orders from the sideline. In fact, eliminate leadership from the history books.  If all that is left to run this great nation is the Learning & Action Agents link, I promise you natural born leaders will blossom into leadership roles from the ranks of action agents and America would indeed, be great again.

In case you missed it. The main characteristic of any action agent is they are all volunteers, especially in a crisis. They are the first to do, know and learn new things. They are the first fight. They are the first to volunteer to venture into the unknown. They are the ones who say, "I'll do it! I'll know it! I'll figure it out." Bingo. After almost 20 years of research the concept of Pioneer Learning was born. The three hat tricks (learning, performance, leadership links) are now picture perfect.

Woo Hoo!

I hope you enjoy the future of learning unless the Education & Management Systems manage to erase training, pioneering,  Pioneers, action agents and leadership from the history books.