The Art of Learning: Imitation and Insight

Life revolves around learning—in school, at our jobs, even in the things we do for fun. But we often don’t progress in any of these areas at the rate we’d like. Consequently, and unfortunately, we often give up our pursuits prematurely or resign ourselves to always being mediocre in our classes, career, and hobbies.

Scott Young has some tips on how you can avoid this fate, level up in whatever you do, and enjoy the satisfaction of skill improvement. Scott is a writer, programmer, and entrepreneur, and the author of Get Better at Anything: 12 Maxims for Mastery. Today on the show, Scott shares the three key factors in helping us learn. He explains how copying others is an underrated technique in becoming a genius, why, contrary to the sentiments of motivational memes, we learn more from success than mistakes, why experts often aren’t good teachers and tactics for drawing out their best advice, why you may need to get worse before you get better, and more.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• Scott’s previous appearance on the AoM podcast: Episode #557 — Grow, Adapt, and Reinvent Yourself Through Ultralearning
• The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter by Joseph Henrich
• AoM Podcast #896: The Art and Science of Getting Unstuck
• AoM Article: Want to Become a Better Writer? Copy the Work of Others!
• AoM Podcast #927: Beyond Lazy Learning — The Keys to Gaining and Retaining Knowledge
• AoM Article: The Secret of Great Men — Deliberate Practice
• Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation by Paul F. Berliner
• “Stroke of Genius” by Scott Eden

Connect With Scott Young

• Scott’s website