Speaker 1: I get a team. I hope you're bloody terrific having
Speaker 1: fun enjoying those little installments. Today, I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about something which has been pertinent for me,
Speaker 1: relevant for me in my whole life, to be honest,
Speaker 1: but really in the last few years. And I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the way that we learn, And by
Speaker 1: that I mean how do we learn best? What does
Speaker 1: effective learning mean for you and I? So you know,
Speaker 1: the thing is like anything with an individual, that one
Speaker 1: model of anything or one one kind of method doesn't
Speaker 1: really work for all people equally. So for example, we
Speaker 1: can't put everyone on the same diet and expect everyone
Speaker 1: to feel the same, function the same. Everyone has different physiology,
Speaker 1: Everyone you know, has different requirements nutritionally in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, not only their personal physiology, but regarding their weight,
Speaker 1: regarding how much they move, regarding you know, genetic variability
Speaker 1: and all of those things. And so too when it
Speaker 1: comes to something specific like learning, how do I learn?
Speaker 1: How do I learn stuff a member stuff and then
Speaker 1: put that stuff that I've learned to practical use, or
Speaker 1: how do I learn best for an exam? Or how
Speaker 1: do I learn best? To go through this academic process
Speaker 1: like I am going through at the moment in my PhD,
Speaker 1: how do I do that? So? And then then there's
Speaker 1: the you know, there's the academic kind of stuff where
Speaker 1: you just want to understand things and retain things and
Speaker 1: then use them in that process. But then there are
Speaker 1: other things that life kind of teaches you experiential learning.
Speaker 1: So this is not how to. This is just an
Speaker 1: opening of the door. As I often say, this is
Speaker 1: an opening of the door to stimulate you to think
Speaker 1: about how do you learn best? And then how do
Speaker 1: you operationalize that learning? In other words, how do you
Speaker 1: put into action the stuff that you hear or learn
Speaker 1: that is relevant for you to improve your life or
Speaker 1: your situation or your outcomes or your health or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. So this was something that I didn't really
Speaker 1: think about for years that you know, think about when
Speaker 1: you're a kid. And this is no indictment upon education,
Speaker 1: the education system or classrooms or teachers or but you know,
Speaker 1: back when I went to school anyway, we all get
Speaker 1: plucked in a room and for the most part, we
Speaker 1: all get subjected to and it's different, it's more evolved now,
Speaker 1: I get that, but still happens to an extent and
Speaker 1: for a long time. That was where I grew up.
Speaker 1: We get subjected to the same information, the same teaching style,
Speaker 1: everything is the same. And despite the fact that we've
Speaker 1: got this one single model of teaching, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that we might have twenty five or thirty kids in
Speaker 1: the room who all learn differently, not everybody learns the same.
Speaker 1: And there are a bunch of different learning styles. Some
Speaker 1: people are kinesthetic learners or experiential learners. They learn by
Speaker 1: doing things. Some people are more auditory. They can hear,
Speaker 1: They hear stuff, they remember stuff. Some people are more visual.
Speaker 1: They see someone doing the thing, or they're a bit
Speaker 1: of both. They see a video which has got obviously
Speaker 1: both vision and audio, and they tend to retain it,
Speaker 1: they tend to understand it better. Some people learn really
Speaker 1: effectively when they read. I used to be a terrible
Speaker 1: learner when I did my first degree. I was horrible
Speaker 1: at reading and retaining. In fact, I almost couldn't retain anything.
Speaker 1: But part of what I had to do was read.
Speaker 1: I had to read. I couldn't do a decree in
Speaker 1: exercise science without reading. But then, because I'd never really
Speaker 1: studied effectively, let's just say that I was really good
Speaker 1: at reading stuff that I was fascinated with, and I
Speaker 1: would read that and remember that and stay focused and
Speaker 1: present because I was captivated. But as you know, there
Speaker 1: are often things that you've got to read because you've
Speaker 1: got to read it, and it might not be something
Speaker 1: that in that moment grabs you that you love, this
Speaker 1: is incredible. You've got to read it because it's part
Speaker 1: of a commitment of an academic process or something else.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, you want to read it and you or
Speaker 1: you need to read it, you need to remember it.
Speaker 1: So what I did just to give you an idea
Speaker 1: of how I made something that didn't work for me
Speaker 1: work for me. So what I would do is I
Speaker 1: would I would get the text, I would read the text,
Speaker 1: and then I would I would read let's say a chapter,
Speaker 1: let's say ten pages, and I would read it, and
Speaker 1: I would put myself in a quiet room with no distractions.
Speaker 1: And typically I would do most of this kind of
Speaker 1: learning and study and attention or focus. I would do
Speaker 1: most of this stuff early in the day when I
Speaker 1: realized my mind worked best. So that's an interesting thing
Speaker 1: for you to think about. When is your mind optimal
Speaker 1: for you? Like when are you the most present, When
Speaker 1: can you focus the best, when can you think the clearest?
Speaker 1: And so on? But anyway, so I would do this
Speaker 1: in the morning. I would read it. I'd stumble through it,
Speaker 1: I'd struggle to stay present. Then what I would do
Speaker 1: is I would go back and I would read it
Speaker 1: again with a highlight. In fact, as I said in
Speaker 1: my studio here, I look to my left and I
Speaker 1: have four highlighters. Highlighters are a constant in my life.
Speaker 1: They still are. I still highlight things. But I would
Speaker 1: read and I would I'd read a paragraph, then I
Speaker 1: would highlight in that paragraph. Let's say there's two hundred words,
Speaker 1: I might highlight fifteen words, and I know these words
Speaker 1: or this sentence or that sentence or that term or
Speaker 1: that phrase is really I need to know this. And
Speaker 1: then I would do that with the next paragraph and
Speaker 1: the next paragraph, and then I might by the end
Speaker 1: of it, I've just read a chapter of a book
Speaker 1: that it might be four thousand words, and I've highlighted
Speaker 1: four hundred words. I've highlighted three hundred words. I've highlighted
Speaker 1: less than ten percent of the text. But it's the
Speaker 1: stuff that will trigger my memory. And then I would
Speaker 1: go back and I would just read the highlighted stuff.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I've glimpsed through all of it, but I would
Speaker 1: know that I would just read a highlighted sentence and
Speaker 1: I know what the rest was because I've gone through it.
Speaker 1: And then what I did, then what I did was
Speaker 1: and this is back in the day. So I did
Speaker 1: my first degree in two thousand, two thousand, two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, two thousand and two, so three years full time.
Speaker 1: I used to record onto CD discs. Oh my god, anyway,
Speaker 1: that's what I did. So I had these discs that
Speaker 1: I could record on. Of course, we'd just use our
Speaker 1: phone now, and I would record these. I would record
Speaker 1: the highlighted bits I would ask and answer myself a
Speaker 1: few questions, and then that would become my study. So
Speaker 1: once I'd gone through the text, the book, the chapter,
Speaker 1: the chapters, i would read it, then i'd highlight it,
Speaker 1: then I would refine it, then I'd read the highlighted stuff.
Speaker 1: Then eventually i'd record the stuff that I knew that
Speaker 1: I needed to know, and then I would just play
Speaker 1: that ad nauseam. Now this is not a process I recommend,
Speaker 1: but it worked for me, and I didn't do my
Speaker 1: first degree until I was thirty six, And for somebody
Speaker 1: who went in completely terrified to start a degree at
Speaker 1: thirty six years of age, ironically started my PhD at
Speaker 1: fifty six. But I did great, and I'd never say
Speaker 1: that about myself, but I did great in that first degree,
Speaker 1: and I really started from the furthest back in the field.
Speaker 1: I remember on day one sitting in a computer lab.
Speaker 1: So the year two thousand, sitting in a computer lab,
Speaker 1: I didn't even know how to use a comput I
Speaker 1: didn't know what a mouse was, I didn't know what
Speaker 1: when they told me to log in using my student code,
Speaker 1: I didn't know what that meant. I had to lean
Speaker 1: over to the seventeen year old next to me and
Speaker 1: ask her what that meant. So I had no idea.
Speaker 1: But what I did was I figured out how I
Speaker 1: best learned, and I just exploited that we all learn differently,
Speaker 1: we all thrive with different models and different processes. That's
Speaker 1: why I'm not recommending what I did. I'm just telling
Speaker 1: you what I did. So one of the questions is
Speaker 1: what's your optimal learning model? It might be more you
Speaker 1: might be somebody who can read and absorb. That's not me.
Speaker 1: You might be somebody who can listen. If I'm much
Speaker 1: better at listening and taking notes and then read listening
Speaker 1: and taking notes watching somebody do something. I know, for example,
Speaker 1: as a teacher in the gym, and I would describe
Speaker 1: to somebody what they needed to do and explain to
Speaker 1: them what muscles are working, and I would give a
Speaker 1: quick demonstration and then they would jump on. They would
Speaker 1: kind of get it. But if I would actually train
Speaker 1: with them sometimes and I would do a whole set
Speaker 1: of whatever it was, one or two minutes of me
Speaker 1: doing a certain movement, and then they do a set.
Speaker 1: Then I'd do another set, then watch me again. Then
Speaker 1: they'd do a set, then I'd do People would learn
Speaker 1: exponentially faster in the gym by training with me, even
Speaker 1: for one session, most people anyway, because they would understand
Speaker 1: the reality of the theory because they would see me
Speaker 1: execute the advice or the instruction I'd just given them.
Speaker 1: So think about that. Think about also, you know clearly,
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this, you want to learn. If
Speaker 1: you're listening to this, there's something that you want to change.
Speaker 1: So something else for you to think about is what
Speaker 1: is your optimal learning and iron for me, nature me
Speaker 1: sitting out in my garden with something that I'm listening
Speaker 1: to and taking notes on. If I've got to read
Speaker 1: academic journals, which I have to quite a bit these days,
Speaker 1: academic journal papers, I will sit in my garden in
Speaker 1: bare feet, which sounds weird. It's quiet. I'm in the
Speaker 1: middle of trees. I love trees. Every now and then
Speaker 1: I would have some low level music, just instrumental music,
Speaker 1: which is really a one or a two out of ten.
Speaker 1: It's not distracting, it's more almost calming for my nervous system.
Speaker 1: It almost it puts my brain in a good space. Also,
Speaker 1: think about what is the optimal time of day for
Speaker 1: you to learn I told you. For me, it's morning,
Speaker 1: which generally means something like five am six am till
Speaker 1: mid daysh And also think about what is your optimal
Speaker 1: time span for focus and productivity. In other words, how
Speaker 1: long can you read something or pay attention to something,
Speaker 1: or focus on something, or listen to something or watch something.
Speaker 1: How long can you do that thing and be completely
Speaker 1: present and absorb what you need to absorb and hopefully
Speaker 1: retain it. So that might mean like when I first
Speaker 1: started reading academic literature, which I had never really, I
Speaker 1: mean done a deep dive in heavy duty research the
Speaker 1: way that I have in the last four years. I
Speaker 1: would have to read in five minute installments, Like six
Speaker 1: minutes killed me. So I'm five minutes, have a break,
Speaker 1: another five minutes, and then six minutes, and then seven minutes,
Speaker 1: and now I can sit and you know, I still
Speaker 1: don't love it, but I can read a half hour.
Speaker 1: I can sit there for thirty minutes and read something
Speaker 1: which is very dry and very not interesting, but I
Speaker 1: need to read it because I need to find some
Speaker 1: stuff in it. Some of it's interesting, most of it's
Speaker 1: pretty dry. And so what's your optimal focus period for
Speaker 1: you in terms of learning? So there's lots of variables
Speaker 1: around this, there's lots of stuff for you to think about.
Speaker 1: But if you want to be someone who doesn't just
Speaker 1: listen and doesn't just read and doesn't just see stuff,
Speaker 1: but somebody who can absorb and remember and recall and
Speaker 1: use and then as I said, turn that that theory
Speaker 1: into some kind of positive behavior that creates a positive outcome,
Speaker 1: then start to think about what is your optimal learning system?
Speaker 1: Take a break, we'll be back in a minute, all right,
Speaker 1: So we're back, and rather than ask you a question
Speaker 1: to wind up today, I want to give you a
Speaker 1: little bit of advice. So my bit of advice today
Speaker 1: would be try some different stuff. Do something in terms
Speaker 1: of this, do something that's unnew, like maybe I mean
Speaker 1: not not necessarily, but just this sprung to my mind.
Speaker 1: Just then, It's like every now and then, listen to
Speaker 1: listen to a podcast and if I say some things
Speaker 1: that are relevant, if you listen to it again with
Speaker 1: a pen and paper, take notes, and then off the
Speaker 1: notes that you take, then create an action plan off
Speaker 1: the back of those notes, and then make some decisions
Speaker 1: and then create a timeline around that's that's the way
Speaker 1: to operationalize data. That's the way to operationalize theory. And
Speaker 1: all I am is the guy that shares theory. Anyway,
Speaker 1: some thoughts and ideas for you. Hope you're great, Enjoy
Speaker 1: your day.