How To Learn Any Skill So Fast It Feels Illegal — Transcript

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1. 0:00I've been obsessed with figuring out the
2. 0:02fastest and easiest possible way to
3. 0:06learn new skills for the last decade.
4. 0:08And after years of teaching people and
5. 0:10reading the research on this, I've
6. 0:12stumbled across a mistake that
7. 0:15guarantees an almost 100% failure rate
8. 0:20on learning any skill. And sadly, this
9. 0:22is a mistake that most people make every
10. 0:25single day. I call this mistake theory
11. 0:28overload. And I think it is one of the
12. 0:30most important things to know about when
13. 0:33you're trying to learn any new skill.
14. 0:35But first, we have to understand a key,
15. 0:37often overlooked ingredient to learning
16. 0:40any new skill that allows us to even
17. 0:44learn skills in the first place. And
18. 0:47this ingredient is experiential cycling.
19. 0:50So, if I practice shooting this bow
20. 0:53every day for a month, I should get
21. 0:57better,
22. 0:58right?
23. 1:01Maybe, but maybe not. Once I let go of
24. 1:05this arrow, I cannot control where it
25. 1:08goes midair. At least as far as I know.
26. 1:12Where this arrow lands depends on
27. 1:15everything that I did in the setup
28. 1:18beforehand. And by the way, like any
29. 1:20skill, learning to learn is the same.
30. 1:22Our exam results, our memory, our depth
31. 1:24of understanding, these things depend on
32. 1:26the processes we used before when we
33. 1:29were studying. Now, imagine I shot this
34. 1:31arrow and it landed
35. 1:34here. Not very good. But to do better
36. 1:37next time, I have to know what to change
37. 1:40to get it into the center. I cannot keep
38. 1:43just firing arrows off randomly
39. 1:46expecting to get better. I might get a
40. 1:48bullseye once in a while, but it's not
41. 1:50going to be consistent. And once the
42. 1:51target moves further away, it's not
43. 1:52going to work anymore. Same thing in
44. 1:54learning. If we get a bad exam result,
45. 1:56we need to know what did change. And
46. 1:57just because we get a better exam result
47. 2:00in a different exam, it doesn't mean we
48. 2:01actually solved the problem. So this is
49. 2:04essentially the experiential cycle. We
50. 2:07have an experience. We observe the
51. 2:10result. We think about what we need to
52. 2:13change and then we do an experiment to
53. 2:15see if it made it any better. Without
54. 2:18this cycle, we cannot learn any new
55. 2:22skill. This is pretty straightforward
56. 2:24and obvious. But here's the part that
57. 2:27traps people. Whether it's learning
58. 2:29about learning skills or learning to
59. 2:31shoot an arrow or learning any other
60. 2:34skill, the fastest way to learn any
61. 2:39skill is to learn more slowly. This is
62. 2:44the theory overload trap. Now, most of
63. 2:48you know that I've got a program that
64. 2:49teaches people to learn more
65. 2:50efficiently. And one of the things that
66. 2:52I can do on the program that I can't do
67. 2:53on YouTube is I get to observe how the
68. 2:57students behave and I can track their
69. 2:59progress much more closely. So take a
70. 3:02look at these two students and see if
71. 3:04you can guess which one ended up being
72. 3:06more academically successful. First one
73. 3:08to look at is this one here, Suresh, who
74. 3:12was on the program for 5 weeks and got
75. 3:15through 31%
76. 3:17of the program. And the second student
77. 3:20that I want you to look at is Enzo, who
78. 3:23was on the program for 54 weeks and got
79. 3:28through 20% of the program. Who do you
80. 3:31think improved the fastest? So despite
81. 3:35covering less of the course, it was
82. 3:38actually Enzo who ended up with better
83. 3:41academic results. He went from a
84. 3:44baseline of 62%
85. 3:46to the latest exam result of 92%.
86. 3:50Compared to Sesh, and this is the
87. 3:52surprising part, Sesh actually went from
88. 3:5680% to 71%.
89. 3:59Sesh actually got worse after working on
90. 4:02it for 5 weeks. Why did Sesh get worse?
91. 4:06I'll give you a clue. It's not just
92. 4:09because Enzo had so much more time to
93. 4:12work on things. Well, the answer is
94. 4:15theory overload. Okay, now imagine this
95. 4:18bowl is your brain.
96. 4:22Very smooth. Just kidding. Now, your
97. 4:24brain has a limited amount of cognitive
98. 4:28resources that it can spend. It's like
99. 4:31how much memory or RAM your computer
100. 4:33has. So let's say that these wooden
101. 4:36blocks represent your cognitive
102. 4:38resources. Now whenever we learn a new
103. 4:41skill, we're introduced to new things
104. 4:43that we need to think about. So each
105. 4:47thing takes resources to keep it in mind
106. 4:50and think about it. Hold my arrow more
107. 4:53tightly. Stabilize my core. Keep my
108. 4:57shoulders uh relaxed. Breathe more
109. 5:00slowly. Aim a little bit lower. You can
110. 5:04see that my bowl, my capacity is
111. 5:07becoming filled up. And on top of that,
112. 5:09there's a certain amount of resources it
113. 5:11takes to just perform the activity. Now,
114. 5:15once a new skill eventually becomes a
115. 5:17habit, the amount of resources it takes
116. 5:20goes down. But when you're learning a
117. 5:22new skill, it's not going to be a habit.
118. 5:24It's going to be unfamiliar and
119. 5:25difficult and awkward. And all of those
120. 5:28things take additional resources to
121. 5:31overcome. So more and more needs to be
122. 5:34invested into just doing the actual
123. 5:37skill. And as you can see now, we are
124. 5:41overflowing. We've overloaded our
125. 5:43brain's ability to think about things
126. 5:46because we have given it too many things
127. 5:49to think about. In the research, our
128. 5:51brain trying to think about lots of
129. 5:53different things at the same time is
130. 5:55called multiple element interactivity.
131. 5:57And it's a common reason why we enter
132. 5:59into what's called cognitive overload.
133. 6:01But here is the thing about learning a
134. 6:03cognitive skill like learning to learn
135. 6:06for example unlike learning a physical
136. 6:08skill like archery. For a physical skill
137. 6:11we burn energy using our body using our
138. 6:14muscles. For a cognitive skill we burn
139. 6:18effort with our brain. Which means that
140. 6:22the amount of cognitive resources it
141. 6:25takes to just perform the skill the act
142. 6:30of learning is innately very high to
143. 6:35begin with. It takes a lot of mental
144. 6:37resources to understand new information
145. 6:40and process it and organize it and think
146. 6:42about where it belongs and create new
147. 6:45memory. And all of this effort helps to
148. 6:48translate the learning into memory and
149. 6:51understanding. If we didn't feel this
150. 6:53effort, we wouldn't have any memory and
151. 6:56that would be called passive learning.
152. 6:58But with effective more active learning,
153. 7:01it takes a lot of resources to begin
154. 7:03with, which means adding just a few more
155. 7:08things can put us into overload very
156. 7:13quickly. So in that case, what is the
157. 7:16best way to learn a new skill,
158. 7:20especially a cognitive skill? Well, at
159. 7:22the end of the day, all of that means
160. 7:24that when we're learning a new skill, we
161. 7:27should only ever be trying to experiment
162. 7:29with one or two things at the same time.
163. 7:33So Sesh, who covered like 30% of the
164. 7:36program in a month, would have learned
165. 7:38over a dozen new techniques. And each
166. 7:40technique has two or three things to
167. 7:42think about. So that means that Sesh
168. 7:45would have been trying to juggle 20 or
169. 7:4830 things at any given time. He was
170. 7:51completely overloaded and therefore his
171. 7:54brain was not able to actually learn the
172. 7:57skill. And this is exactly why some
173. 7:59students, if they don't realize this
174. 8:02trap, can spend months or even years
175. 8:06trying to learn a new skill and feeling
176. 8:10like it is impossible to get it right
177. 8:12because no matter how much time they put
178. 8:14into it, they do not seem to be
179. 8:16improving. It is incredibly frustrating.
180. 8:18So, here's the secret to learning any
181. 8:21skill the right way. Always balance your
182. 8:26new theory with practice. If you
183. 8:29practice without any theory, it's
184. 8:31aimless. If you practice with too much
185. 8:34theory, you're getting overloaded. So,
186. 8:36the trick is to balance new theory
187. 8:39coming in with your existing skills
188. 8:43becoming habits. Like I mentioned
189. 8:45before, when skills become habits, your
190. 8:48brain figures out a more efficient way
191. 8:51to do it. It doesn't require so many
192. 8:54cognitive resources anymore. It finds a
193. 8:57shortcut. And so the amount of cognitive
194. 9:01resources it takes to perform the skill
195. 9:04goes down as more of this new skill just
196. 9:08starts to become an old habit. And
197. 9:11eventually what took a lot of
198. 9:13concentration to do now takes virtually
199. 9:16no thinking at all. and you can still do
200. 9:19it just as accurately and just as
201. 9:21consistently. We have freed up more
202. 9:23cognitive resources to take in some new
203. 9:26theory
204. 9:28and turn those into habits. For some
205. 9:30skills and techniques, it can take weeks
206. 9:33if not months to develop them into
207. 9:35habits. Whereas for some it can just
208. 9:37take a few hours. And by balancing the
209. 9:39theory with practice, we can achieve
210. 9:42optimum skill growth where we are
211. 9:46practicing and every time we practice,
212. 9:48we're improving with focus and
213. 9:50direction, but we're not getting
214. 9:53overloaded. So, here's what this looks
215. 9:54like in practice. Let's say we've only
216. 9:56got 5 hours a week to practice.
217. 10:00Now, that is not probably enough to form
218. 10:03new habits very quickly. And so we're
219. 10:05going to need to reduce the amount of
220. 10:08new theory we take in. And because we've
221. 10:11got a low amount of practice and
222. 10:14therefore a low amount of theory, the
223. 10:16two of them are aligned and we can
224. 10:18achieve our optimum skill growth. Now
225. 10:21let's say we now have a little bit more
226. 10:23free time and we want to dedicate a
227. 10:24little bit more time to learning this
228. 10:25skill. So we have now 20 hours a week
229. 10:29that we can dedicate to practice. So the
230. 10:31amount that we can practice has now gone
231. 10:34up,
232. 10:36which means we can also go up in the
233. 10:38amount of theory we can take in.
234. 10:42But it's proportional to the amount of
235. 10:45extra practice we're getting. So as a
236. 10:46rule of thumb, I usually say for every
237. 10:49hour of theory, we should have at least
238. 10:525 hours of practice. So, for example, if
239. 10:55we have 5 hours of practice, we would
240. 10:57only be able to take in 1 hour of theory
241. 10:59in this first example. Whereas, in the
242. 11:02second example, we've got 20 hours of
243. 11:04practice. Therefore, we can have up to 4
244. 11:07hours of theory. Now, unfortunately,
245. 11:10that's just a rule of thumb. And in
246. 11:12reality, it's a little bit more
247. 11:13complicated because 5 hours of
248. 11:15practicing a very complicated skill is
249. 11:18not the same as 5 hours of practicing a
250. 11:22very simple skill like a new way to tie
251. 11:23your shoelaces. In which case, 5 hours
252. 11:25of practice is probably overkill. And
253. 11:27so, what's more important and accurate
254. 11:30than just the number of hours of
255. 11:32practice is actually monitoring how
256. 11:35quickly we're able to form new habits.
257. 11:38When new habits form, we have the mental
258. 11:41space to take in more theory. So, if
259. 11:44we're very slow at forming new habits,
260. 11:47then we're going to be slower at taking
261. 11:50in new theory. And the way you can know
262. 11:52that new habits are forming is when you
263. 11:55can feel that things are becoming easier
264. 11:58and faster without compromising your
265. 12:02accuracy and your consistency. And most
266. 12:05of the time, you're able to get faster
267. 12:08without trying to get faster. The speed
268. 12:11comes with the efficiency that your
269. 12:13brain develops at just getting better at
270. 12:17doing it. Now, this is where I have to
271. 12:18give props to Enzo because Enzo realized
272. 12:21that he was developing new habits more
273. 12:23slowly than we would have anticipated.
274. 12:27And so, he took a year to cover 20% of
275. 12:32the program. So instead of 5 hours of
276. 12:34practice for every hour of theory, he
277. 12:36was doing more like 15 20 hours of
278. 12:39practice for every hour of theory. So
279. 12:42even though on the surface it looked
280. 12:44like he was going very slowly, his skill
281. 12:48growth was being maintained at an
282. 12:50optimal rate because he was never
283. 12:53letting himself get overloaded. And by
284. 12:55the way, if you're interested in the
285. 12:57program yourself, there's a link in the
286. 12:58description that you can check out. Now,
287. 13:00while theory overload has an almost 100%
288. 13:03failure rate, the reverse is also true.
289. 13:07Almost 100% of the time, I see someone
290. 13:10balancing their theory intake rate with
291. 13:14their practice and habit forming rate.
292. 13:18They are able to learn their desired
293. 13:20skill very smoothly and very quickly.
294. 13:24which is why I said that I think this is
295. 13:26one of the most important things to
296. 13:28understand if you want to learn any
297. 13:30skill. I hope that helps. And if you've
298. 13:32got the capacity for just one more bit
299. 13:35of theory, then check out this video
300. 13:37that YouTube thinks you'll like. Thanks
301. 13:40for watching and I'll see you next time.