In this episode, we discuss how our traditional education system has given us the wrong perspectives on how learning actually works. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of looking for and waiting for the perfect step by step formula, but it’s actually the ability to flexibly experiment that empowers you to be successful in learning, and really anything. We share exactly how you can apply these lessons and much more with our guest Scott Young. Scott Young is a writer and programmer who has undertaken many incredibly challenging self-education projects in his career. These challenges include feats such as attempting to learn MIT's four-year computer science curriculum in twelve months as well as learning four languages in one year. He is the author of the best-selling book Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition and Accelerate Your Career and his work has been featured in The New York Times, Business Insider, TEDx, and more!Attempting to learn MIT's four-year computer science curriculum in twelve monthsOur expectations around learning are often wrong - and we frequently go about learning the wrong wayHow you can learn any language in less than 3 months How you can harness the power of immersive practice to rapidly accelerate your learningOur traditional education system has given us the wrong perspectives on how learning actually works Practice directly, get feedback, get your hands dirty Self-directed learning is super important - what you want to learn, how you want to learn, and what resources you want to use. It needs to be self-directed.Ultralearning also needs to be focused around efficiency - collecting and learning information as quickly as possible. The powerful concept of “meta-learning” - learning about learning. Before you start ANY learning activity, you want to do some research on what the BEST way to learn is Ultra learning is not a short cut to find a way so you don’t have to do the work but rather prevents you from going down dead ends. If you want to get good at something, you need to do the thing you want to get good at. If you want to know something, ask yourself WHERE and HOW will I use this knowledge?Human beings are really bad at “transfer” - transferring knowledge to new and different contextsThe important difference between “free recall” and “repeated review” when studying information Desirable difficulty in learning. Often the more difficult it is to learn, retrieve or remember somethingThe importance of experimentation. You often want a step by step formula, but those often do not exist. As soon as the formula becomes popular it gets copied to death. The ability to flexibly experiment is a huge skillset towards being successful in learning, and really anything.Start building a toolkit of software tools and mental models to improve your learning and thinking Cultivate a lifelong philosophy of learning new things and adding new thinking tools The greatest moments in your life aren’t because you get a reward, they’re because you experience something that expands your sense of what’s possible How you can use the Feynman Technique to improve your ability to think better and understand complex or confusing topics.How you can debug your own understanding and solve any problem using this powerful technique from a legendary scientist Homework: Think about something you’re learning right now (or trying to learn) think very clearly about the situations where you would use that knowledge or apply that skill. Ask, what kind of situations would this knowledge come up and be relevant? If you read a book, you have to actually IMPLEMENT the IDEAS that you learn from it.
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The Science of Success