This paper looks at some research conducted with young carers and a multidisciplinary team of professionals as co-researchers. In this paper I suggest that action learning is a natural activity which occurs when programmed knowledge is combined with questions from colleagues/learners with different perspectives to create a shift in perception in the learner. I look at the "ingredients" which allowed this natural "action learning" to occur and identify a personal involvement which created the motivation and courage to follow the process together with the "comrades in adversity", who provided the confidence to learn and a locus of responsibility for action. In effect, learning is a gift, an innate propensity of humans, as primordial as life itself, which occurs whenever obstacles to learning are removed. I would suggest that action learning creates the motivation to learn in order to act and the empowerment, support and challenge to remove any barriers to learning.