1 00:00:00,280 --> 00:00:02,279 Speaker 1: So I've kind of shifted a lot of my thinking 2 00:00:02,320 --> 00:00:04,040 Speaker 1: on focus over the years. I think the way that 3 00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:07,080 Speaker 1: I used to think about focus was again kind of 4 00:00:07,080 --> 00:00:11,559 Speaker 1: falling into this maybe somewhat incorrect view of the mind 5 00:00:11,600 --> 00:00:14,240 Speaker 1: of viewing focus like a muscle that has to be trained. 6 00:00:14,400 --> 00:00:16,360 Speaker 1: I don't want to say that there's no benefit of training, 7 00:00:16,680 --> 00:00:19,560 Speaker 1: but I now see focus as more about dealing with 8 00:00:19,600 --> 00:00:24,480 Speaker 1: your emotions and creating habits. 9 00:00:25,800 --> 00:00:28,240 Speaker 2: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics 10 00:00:28,320 --> 00:00:30,680 Speaker 2: used by leading innovators to get so much out of 11 00:00:30,720 --> 00:00:33,760 Speaker 2: their day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an 12 00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:37,760 Speaker 2: organizational psychologist, the founder of innovation consultancy Inventium, and I'm 13 00:00:37,800 --> 00:00:41,720 Speaker 2: obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work day. My 14 00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:46,080 Speaker 2: guest on today's show is Scott Young. Scott is a 15 00:00:46,120 --> 00:00:51,240 Speaker 2: writer who undertakes interesting self education projects, such as attempting 16 00:00:51,280 --> 00:00:56,000 Speaker 2: to learn MIT's four year computer science curriculum in just 17 00:00:56,080 --> 00:01:00,560 Speaker 2: twelve months and learning four languages in one year, both 18 00:01:00,680 --> 00:01:04,240 Speaker 2: of which he did successfully. I think that's amazing. 19 00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:06,640 Speaker 3: Anyway, I was actually. 20 00:01:06,200 --> 00:01:08,800 Speaker 2: Introduced to Scott by a previous guest that I had 21 00:01:08,840 --> 00:01:09,360 Speaker 2: on the show. 22 00:01:09,520 --> 00:01:11,600 Speaker 3: Near El, who might remember. 23 00:01:11,480 --> 00:01:14,280 Speaker 2: Is the author of books such as Hooked and Indestructible, 24 00:01:14,800 --> 00:01:17,600 Speaker 2: so near thought that Scott would make an interesting guest, 25 00:01:17,800 --> 00:01:20,880 Speaker 2: And finally enough, when I got that introduction, I was 26 00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:23,800 Speaker 2: actually in the middle of devouring his book Ultra Learning 27 00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:26,959 Speaker 2: at the time, so literally the timing was perfect, and 28 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:27,680 Speaker 2: I've been. 29 00:01:27,760 --> 00:01:29,240 Speaker 3: Very excited to talk to Scott. 30 00:01:29,959 --> 00:01:33,919 Speaker 2: So Scott is a fascinating person who basically has dedicated 31 00:01:33,959 --> 00:01:37,400 Speaker 2: his adult life to hacking learning and challenging a lot 32 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:40,520 Speaker 2: of the assumptions and beliefs that are held about how 33 00:01:40,560 --> 00:01:41,440 Speaker 2: best to learn something. 34 00:01:42,240 --> 00:01:43,399 Speaker 3: So like me, Scott is. 35 00:01:43,720 --> 00:01:46,160 Speaker 2: A complete science nerd, and one of the many things 36 00:01:46,160 --> 00:01:48,280 Speaker 2: that I loved about his book Ultra Learning is that 37 00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:51,560 Speaker 2: it pairs a lot of scientific research with some fascinating 38 00:01:51,720 --> 00:01:55,800 Speaker 2: real world case studies of ultra learners. So if you've 39 00:01:55,920 --> 00:01:59,680 Speaker 2: ever wanted to get better at something in your life, 40 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:02,040 Speaker 2: maybe you're thinking of taking up a new hobby or 41 00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:05,000 Speaker 2: trying to learn a new skill or a new project, 42 00:02:05,160 --> 00:02:07,960 Speaker 2: I think that you will really love my chat with 43 00:02:08,080 --> 00:02:11,000 Speaker 2: Scott and find it very very helpful. So in this 44 00:02:11,120 --> 00:02:14,240 Speaker 2: interview we unpat quite a few different learning strategies that 45 00:02:14,280 --> 00:02:18,040 Speaker 2: Scott has applied in his own life and which I 46 00:02:18,080 --> 00:02:21,919 Speaker 2: have now applied in my own life too, as I'm 47 00:02:21,960 --> 00:02:26,239 Speaker 2: working on learning a few new things at the moment. 48 00:02:26,840 --> 00:02:29,400 Speaker 2: So I hope you enjoy my chat with Scott. I 49 00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:31,760 Speaker 2: personally think you'll love it. I love talking to him, 50 00:02:31,840 --> 00:02:35,160 Speaker 2: and so let's go over to Scott to hear about 51 00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:36,560 Speaker 2: how he works. 52 00:02:37,160 --> 00:02:38,680 Speaker 3: Scott, Welcome to the show. 53 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:40,120 Speaker 1: Oh, it's great to be here. 54 00:02:40,880 --> 00:02:43,320 Speaker 3: Well, I got to say I loved Ultra Learning. 55 00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:45,959 Speaker 2: It's always nice when you have a guest on and yeah, 56 00:02:45,960 --> 00:02:48,760 Speaker 2: you're talking about their book and it's I can honestly 57 00:02:48,800 --> 00:02:50,880 Speaker 2: say it's I think it's one of the best books 58 00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:51,520 Speaker 2: I've read this year. 59 00:02:51,880 --> 00:02:54,799 Speaker 1: Oh wow, Well, I really appreciate that. Thank you. 60 00:02:55,320 --> 00:02:58,480 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because I trained as a psychologist, so 61 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:01,360 Speaker 2: I read a lot about this topic when I was training. 62 00:03:01,400 --> 00:03:03,720 Speaker 2: But I wish i'd read your book instead. It just 63 00:03:04,080 --> 00:03:07,120 Speaker 2: makes it so much more practical and easy. I love it, 64 00:03:07,200 --> 00:03:09,680 Speaker 2: so I want to drill down into it. And I 65 00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:11,440 Speaker 2: think one of the things I was thinking about when 66 00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:14,240 Speaker 2: I was reading the book is, oh, my goodness, what 67 00:03:14,360 --> 00:03:17,200 Speaker 2: learning project out of all the learning projects out there, 68 00:03:17,200 --> 00:03:19,960 Speaker 2: could I be applying this too? And I want to 69 00:03:20,040 --> 00:03:21,960 Speaker 2: know for you in your life, like there are some 70 00:03:22,080 --> 00:03:25,080 Speaker 2: very there are some things that you're famous for in 71 00:03:25,200 --> 00:03:28,360 Speaker 2: terms of learning, like you know, you learn full languages 72 00:03:28,480 --> 00:03:31,400 Speaker 2: in a year, and just like some crazy stuff like 73 00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:33,519 Speaker 2: with the MIT degree doing that in a year. 74 00:03:33,720 --> 00:03:34,160 Speaker 3: Crazy. 75 00:03:34,240 --> 00:03:36,680 Speaker 2: So I want to know, like, right now in your life, 76 00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:39,960 Speaker 2: how do you decide what you want to learn next? 77 00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:42,320 Speaker 1: So I think I'm like most people that I have 78 00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:45,280 Speaker 1: way way more things that I would like to learn. 79 00:03:45,360 --> 00:03:46,680 Speaker 1: Like if I made a list, I could make a 80 00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:48,280 Speaker 1: listen like, well, i'd like to get addicts do this, 81 00:03:48,360 --> 00:03:49,520 Speaker 1: and I'd like to learn this, and I like to 82 00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:50,760 Speaker 1: get a bit better at this, and I like to 83 00:03:50,800 --> 00:03:52,840 Speaker 1: do this. So I have a huge, huge list, And 84 00:03:52,880 --> 00:03:54,760 Speaker 1: I think what I talk about in the book is 85 00:03:54,800 --> 00:03:58,760 Speaker 1: sort of the surfacing of these projects where you're like, Okay, 86 00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:00,760 Speaker 1: if you actually really want to get good at something, 87 00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:02,640 Speaker 1: you have to focus on it. And so for me, 88 00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:05,640 Speaker 1: I do like to do lots of things. I do 89 00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:07,640 Speaker 1: like to learn lots of things, but I think it's 90 00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:10,600 Speaker 1: often valuable to, you know, sometimes narrow that down and 91 00:04:10,640 --> 00:04:12,800 Speaker 1: actually be like, okay, we're doing this, We're doing this 92 00:04:12,840 --> 00:04:15,800 Speaker 1: one thing right now. So I haven't picked any other 93 00:04:15,880 --> 00:04:18,080 Speaker 1: big public project yet. I don't know. I find that 94 00:04:18,160 --> 00:04:21,599 Speaker 1: these projects that I do, where I document my website, 95 00:04:21,640 --> 00:04:24,839 Speaker 1: even just documenting them in publicizing, that's like its own project, 96 00:04:24,880 --> 00:04:27,280 Speaker 1: it's its own set of works. So I haven't picked 97 00:04:27,360 --> 00:04:30,240 Speaker 1: up one yet. But the one that I've been coming 98 00:04:30,279 --> 00:04:33,000 Speaker 1: back to a lot recently has just been writing, because 99 00:04:33,440 --> 00:04:35,440 Speaker 1: even though I've written this book and I've written a 100 00:04:35,480 --> 00:04:38,479 Speaker 1: lot of articles, I find the idea of improving a 101 00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:41,000 Speaker 1: skill that you already do a lot is kind of 102 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:43,599 Speaker 1: an interesting challenge that I haven't explored as much because 103 00:04:43,600 --> 00:04:45,480 Speaker 1: a lot of the projects I've done have been about, 104 00:04:45,760 --> 00:04:47,640 Speaker 1: you know, I've never done this before, and then how 105 00:04:47,640 --> 00:04:50,359 Speaker 1: do I get to, you know, an okay level in 106 00:04:50,400 --> 00:04:52,440 Speaker 1: a short period of time, as opposed to I've done 107 00:04:52,480 --> 00:04:54,320 Speaker 1: this for a long time, and I've already tried to 108 00:04:54,360 --> 00:04:56,080 Speaker 1: do it really well. I've been trying my best. How 109 00:04:56,080 --> 00:04:57,960 Speaker 1: do you get better at it? And so I've been 110 00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:00,960 Speaker 1: interested in exploring that lately. But really the list of 111 00:05:00,960 --> 00:05:03,080 Speaker 1: things that I want to learn is quite a bit 112 00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:04,200 Speaker 1: longer than I have time for. 113 00:05:05,279 --> 00:05:07,400 Speaker 2: I like that you're working on writing at the moment, 114 00:05:07,440 --> 00:05:11,080 Speaker 2: particularly after writing a book which most people would think, oh, well, 115 00:05:11,080 --> 00:05:13,599 Speaker 2: haven't you conquered writing? So what can you take me 116 00:05:13,640 --> 00:05:16,279 Speaker 2: through some of some of the strategies that you're doing 117 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:18,880 Speaker 2: and maybe some of the drills and what that looks 118 00:05:18,920 --> 00:05:20,320 Speaker 2: like for you improving your writing. 119 00:05:20,400 --> 00:05:22,920 Speaker 1: Yeah. So that's the big thing that I think is 120 00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:24,960 Speaker 1: a huge misconception, and it's a hard thing even when 121 00:05:24,960 --> 00:05:27,440 Speaker 1: I'm talking about some of the projects I did, is 122 00:05:27,480 --> 00:05:30,800 Speaker 1: that there's a sense of being done that I think 123 00:05:30,839 --> 00:05:33,640 Speaker 1: people have. And I think this is often where you 124 00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:36,080 Speaker 1: get like backlash from people. You know, if you say 125 00:05:36,120 --> 00:05:38,479 Speaker 1: you learn the language and then someone's like, well, you know, 126 00:05:38,760 --> 00:05:40,800 Speaker 1: like I can speak this language better, so he didn't 127 00:05:40,800 --> 00:05:42,480 Speaker 1: really learn it at all, or this person don't really 128 00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:44,640 Speaker 1: learn it at all. And I think the problem is 129 00:05:44,640 --> 00:05:47,200 Speaker 1: that from a perspective of a beginner, if you see 130 00:05:47,200 --> 00:05:50,159 Speaker 1: someone who's better than you, it's kind of easy to assume, 131 00:05:50,279 --> 00:05:52,320 Speaker 1: oh that this person's at the top, there's no more 132 00:05:52,480 --> 00:05:55,080 Speaker 1: place to go with learning that. And then on the 133 00:05:55,080 --> 00:05:57,760 Speaker 1: other hand, when you are in the middle of it, 134 00:05:57,839 --> 00:05:59,800 Speaker 1: you realize how much more there is to go. So 135 00:06:00,320 --> 00:06:02,479 Speaker 1: I kind of find the opposite that when I finish 136 00:06:02,600 --> 00:06:04,640 Speaker 1: these projects, or when I work on a project for 137 00:06:04,640 --> 00:06:06,279 Speaker 1: a long time, or even a skill like writing that 138 00:06:06,320 --> 00:06:10,880 Speaker 1: I've been doing for over a decade, professionally that as 139 00:06:10,880 --> 00:06:13,040 Speaker 1: you spend more time in it, you just realize how 140 00:06:13,200 --> 00:06:15,680 Speaker 1: much more there is that you could get better at. 141 00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:19,680 Speaker 1: You realize all these little nuances and details that you know, 142 00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:22,160 Speaker 1: a normal person or a person who doesn't spend their 143 00:06:22,200 --> 00:06:25,359 Speaker 1: whole time obssessing about it would not even realize that, 144 00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:28,200 Speaker 1: oh wait, there's this whole you know, sub aspect of 145 00:06:28,200 --> 00:06:30,400 Speaker 1: that that I haven't really looked into and I haven't 146 00:06:30,400 --> 00:06:32,919 Speaker 1: really mastered yet. And so for me, I think that 147 00:06:33,400 --> 00:06:35,720 Speaker 1: the challenge of getting good at a skill you've already 148 00:06:35,839 --> 00:06:39,040 Speaker 1: done a lot of is that you have already done 149 00:06:39,040 --> 00:06:40,440 Speaker 1: a lot of it, and so all the kind of 150 00:06:40,480 --> 00:06:43,599 Speaker 1: low hanging fruit of well, if you would just get 151 00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:45,640 Speaker 1: better at this naturally if you did it a lot, like, 152 00:06:45,680 --> 00:06:47,839 Speaker 1: you've kind of already done all of those things. So 153 00:06:47,880 --> 00:06:49,440 Speaker 1: you have to be a bit more creative, I think, 154 00:06:49,520 --> 00:06:51,760 Speaker 1: and really pushing your abilities to the next level. 155 00:06:52,120 --> 00:06:54,040 Speaker 2: And so what are some of the things that you're doing, 156 00:06:54,080 --> 00:06:56,760 Speaker 2: maybe on a daily or weekly basis to improve your 157 00:06:56,760 --> 00:06:57,600 Speaker 2: writing right now? 158 00:06:58,080 --> 00:06:59,960 Speaker 1: Yeah, So one of the things that I've been working 159 00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:03,880 Speaker 1: on and I haven't like landed on the perfect system yet. 160 00:07:03,880 --> 00:07:05,800 Speaker 1: So this is something that I'm I can say it's 161 00:07:05,800 --> 00:07:07,920 Speaker 1: a work in progress as opposed to I figured out. 162 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:11,680 Speaker 1: The new system has been about trying to improve researching. 163 00:07:11,880 --> 00:07:15,040 Speaker 1: And so research is something that I really admire in 164 00:07:15,080 --> 00:07:17,120 Speaker 1: great writers. Like when I read a writer, I want 165 00:07:17,160 --> 00:07:19,800 Speaker 1: them to, you know, you have a question, Oh this 166 00:07:19,880 --> 00:07:21,560 Speaker 1: wal it turns out I looked it up and this 167 00:07:21,600 --> 00:07:23,920 Speaker 1: is what the answer is. And I prefer that style 168 00:07:23,960 --> 00:07:26,920 Speaker 1: of writing to just, you know, someone pontificating and they're like, 169 00:07:26,960 --> 00:07:29,240 Speaker 1: my opinion is this? My opinion is that I always 170 00:07:29,280 --> 00:07:31,760 Speaker 1: like reading someone when they're like, you know what, there's 171 00:07:31,760 --> 00:07:33,960 Speaker 1: actually about fifteen different studies that have been done. They 172 00:07:33,960 --> 00:07:36,440 Speaker 1: found out this answer, or you know, I dug into 173 00:07:36,440 --> 00:07:38,560 Speaker 1: the research and I found out why this is the 174 00:07:38,600 --> 00:07:42,280 Speaker 1: way this is, and so doing research obviously, there's a 175 00:07:42,360 --> 00:07:44,760 Speaker 1: kind of way that we do research in school, which 176 00:07:44,840 --> 00:07:48,000 Speaker 1: is a kind of essay writing style research where you know, okay, 177 00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:50,360 Speaker 1: I'm going to learn about how you make concrete, and 178 00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:52,240 Speaker 1: then you go and you get some books on concrete 179 00:07:52,240 --> 00:07:53,880 Speaker 1: and you highlight some stuff and you put it together. 180 00:07:53,920 --> 00:07:56,720 Speaker 1: And I think that kind of research comes fairly straightforwardly. 181 00:07:57,280 --> 00:07:59,800 Speaker 1: But there's also a kind of research that I really 182 00:08:00,120 --> 00:08:03,080 Speaker 1: meyer of writers, of people who are able to connect 183 00:08:03,120 --> 00:08:06,040 Speaker 1: topics that don't seem related, but then when you read them, 184 00:08:06,040 --> 00:08:09,000 Speaker 1: you realize, oh, wow, this was this you know, really 185 00:08:09,040 --> 00:08:11,480 Speaker 1: interesting journey that I went on. And that was the 186 00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:13,560 Speaker 1: kind of research that I found was really important in 187 00:08:13,560 --> 00:08:16,800 Speaker 1: writing this book, because I wanted to not only talk about, 188 00:08:16,920 --> 00:08:20,440 Speaker 1: you know, ideas from psychology and cognitive science, but I 189 00:08:20,480 --> 00:08:23,640 Speaker 1: also wanted to tie them to, you know, interesting stories 190 00:08:23,680 --> 00:08:25,920 Speaker 1: that you could only relate to, but also see in 191 00:08:25,960 --> 00:08:28,600 Speaker 1: a fresh light once you've kind of understood those principles. 192 00:08:28,960 --> 00:08:30,760 Speaker 1: And that's not an easy task to do because if 193 00:08:30,760 --> 00:08:33,720 Speaker 1: you're going to kind of go through biographies or you know, 194 00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:35,920 Speaker 1: stories of people who've come up in the news for 195 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:39,560 Speaker 1: doing something impressive related to learning, it's often difficult to 196 00:08:39,840 --> 00:08:41,920 Speaker 1: you know, dig down and find the details of how 197 00:08:41,920 --> 00:08:43,800 Speaker 1: they did it and make sure it connects to some 198 00:08:43,840 --> 00:08:46,400 Speaker 1: of the principles you're talking about. And so one of 199 00:08:46,400 --> 00:08:48,280 Speaker 1: the things I've been working on a lot more recently 200 00:08:48,400 --> 00:08:51,240 Speaker 1: is how I can organize kind of the things that 201 00:08:51,320 --> 00:08:53,560 Speaker 1: I come across in some ways so that if I 202 00:08:53,600 --> 00:08:55,800 Speaker 1: do want to write an article or I do want 203 00:08:55,840 --> 00:08:57,960 Speaker 1: to write a book about it, I have some of 204 00:08:57,960 --> 00:09:00,600 Speaker 1: those pieces and thoughts already woven together. So that I'm 205 00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:02,880 Speaker 1: not Okay, let's go find some stories and you just 206 00:09:02,880 --> 00:09:06,120 Speaker 1: have to read like fifty biographies and four hundred papers 207 00:09:06,120 --> 00:09:07,240 Speaker 1: from scratch. Yeah. 208 00:09:07,280 --> 00:09:09,440 Speaker 2: I remember in I think it was the chapter in 209 00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:12,960 Speaker 2: retrieval you talked about how you're using free recall to 210 00:09:13,360 --> 00:09:16,480 Speaker 2: remember the information that you read in journal papers, which 211 00:09:16,480 --> 00:09:17,960 Speaker 2: is kind of sounds like it's kind of along the 212 00:09:17,960 --> 00:09:20,960 Speaker 2: lines of what you're talking about there, which which kind 213 00:09:20,960 --> 00:09:22,839 Speaker 2: of blew my mind. To be honest, I read a 214 00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:25,959 Speaker 2: lot of journal papers myself, like both for writing and 215 00:09:26,040 --> 00:09:31,680 Speaker 2: both for IP creation with the innovation consultancy that I run, 216 00:09:32,040 --> 00:09:35,960 Speaker 2: and I've never thought to do that. And I read 217 00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:37,960 Speaker 2: that and I thought, oh my goodness, like im mined 218 00:09:38,040 --> 00:09:40,040 Speaker 2: just full of highlighters and scribbles. But can you talk 219 00:09:40,080 --> 00:09:44,640 Speaker 2: about your process for reading a journal paper and then 220 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:47,840 Speaker 2: how you're basically remembering that information. 221 00:09:48,480 --> 00:09:50,840 Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's step up a bit first, because I 222 00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:54,079 Speaker 1: think for a lot of people, the idea of retrieval 223 00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:57,520 Speaker 1: and why it's important for learning and memory is maybe 224 00:09:57,559 --> 00:10:00,240 Speaker 1: not always obvious. It certainly wasn't obvious to me, I 225 00:10:00,320 --> 00:10:03,240 Speaker 1: think before I started looking into some of the science here. 226 00:10:03,520 --> 00:10:05,839 Speaker 1: So there's no class that I was told in school that, oh, 227 00:10:05,880 --> 00:10:07,320 Speaker 1: you ought to do this if you want to learn 228 00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:10,240 Speaker 1: things better. And so one of my favorite studies of this, 229 00:10:10,280 --> 00:10:12,360 Speaker 1: there's tons of studies, but one of my favorite studies 230 00:10:13,040 --> 00:10:16,000 Speaker 1: was done by Jeffrey Karpikian Janelle Blunt, I believe, out 231 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:18,840 Speaker 1: of the University of Purdue, and they divided subjects into 232 00:10:18,840 --> 00:10:22,360 Speaker 1: different groups, and they got them to use different methods 233 00:10:22,440 --> 00:10:24,920 Speaker 1: to study a text, so they were going to be 234 00:10:24,920 --> 00:10:27,400 Speaker 1: asked questions on it later. And one of the groups 235 00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:29,559 Speaker 1: they told, you're going to do repeated reviews, so that 236 00:10:29,600 --> 00:10:32,080 Speaker 1: means you read it once and then you just read 237 00:10:32,120 --> 00:10:35,440 Speaker 1: it over and over again, I guess, until you've learned 238 00:10:35,480 --> 00:10:39,000 Speaker 1: the material. And another group they told to do free recall, 239 00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:41,120 Speaker 1: which means you read it once and then you close 240 00:10:41,200 --> 00:10:43,880 Speaker 1: the book or the text or whatever they were looking at. 241 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:46,400 Speaker 1: You close it and then you try to remember from 242 00:10:46,440 --> 00:10:49,960 Speaker 1: memory all the stuff that was covered in that text. 243 00:10:50,520 --> 00:10:52,360 Speaker 1: And the funny thing about it is this had a 244 00:10:52,400 --> 00:10:53,840 Speaker 1: little bit of a twist, so they didn't just do 245 00:10:53,920 --> 00:10:56,240 Speaker 1: the test. Before they did the test, they asked the 246 00:10:56,280 --> 00:10:59,719 Speaker 1: students how well did you learn the information? So from 247 00:10:59,760 --> 00:11:03,000 Speaker 1: your own intuition, your own feeling of how well you 248 00:11:03,080 --> 00:11:04,960 Speaker 1: learned the material, how well did you learn it? And 249 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:07,720 Speaker 1: the people who did repeated review gave themselves high marks, 250 00:11:07,960 --> 00:11:10,880 Speaker 1: and those who did free recall gave themselves bad marks. 251 00:11:10,920 --> 00:11:13,600 Speaker 1: You can almost imagine that people doing free recall being like, wow, 252 00:11:13,720 --> 00:11:16,160 Speaker 1: free recall is super hard. I did not learn this 253 00:11:16,280 --> 00:11:20,559 Speaker 1: material clearly. However, when you test them, it's the opposite. 254 00:11:20,600 --> 00:11:23,600 Speaker 1: So those who practiced free recall did much better on 255 00:11:23,640 --> 00:11:27,760 Speaker 1: a subsequent test than those who did retrieval those who 256 00:11:27,800 --> 00:11:31,320 Speaker 1: did repeated review. And so this idea of retrieval is 257 00:11:31,320 --> 00:11:33,040 Speaker 1: that if you want to be able to remember things, 258 00:11:33,280 --> 00:11:35,760 Speaker 1: you actually have to practice remembering them and not just 259 00:11:35,920 --> 00:11:39,079 Speaker 1: looking at them. And I think this really overturns how 260 00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:41,840 Speaker 1: a lot of us approach reading. In most of the 261 00:11:41,880 --> 00:11:43,679 Speaker 1: reading that we do, or most of the stuff we 262 00:11:43,720 --> 00:11:46,760 Speaker 1: passively watch, we almost never do that right. And so 263 00:11:46,920 --> 00:11:49,400 Speaker 1: it was funny for me, like I'm reading these papers 264 00:11:49,440 --> 00:11:51,800 Speaker 1: on this and I'm like, oh wow, I'm reading a 265 00:11:51,800 --> 00:11:54,880 Speaker 1: lot of papers about very specific kind of scientific findings 266 00:11:54,880 --> 00:11:57,400 Speaker 1: I'm hoping to work into the book, and I'm just 267 00:11:57,480 --> 00:11:59,640 Speaker 1: reading them or I'm just highlighting them and making like, 268 00:11:59,760 --> 00:12:02,000 Speaker 1: you know, okay, look up this paper, let next and 269 00:12:02,040 --> 00:12:04,720 Speaker 1: do this kind of thing. And so what I recognize 270 00:12:04,760 --> 00:12:06,640 Speaker 1: is that if you know, I want to be able 271 00:12:06,679 --> 00:12:08,679 Speaker 1: to practice what I preach here, then I ought to 272 00:12:08,720 --> 00:12:11,280 Speaker 1: be doing some retrieval practice. And so I started the 273 00:12:11,280 --> 00:12:13,480 Speaker 1: habit of just putting a few pages of loose leaf 274 00:12:13,960 --> 00:12:15,880 Speaker 1: in the binder that I was storing these journal papers. 275 00:12:15,880 --> 00:12:17,480 Speaker 1: I just put a few pages of loose leaf after 276 00:12:17,520 --> 00:12:19,480 Speaker 1: each one, and then when I was done the paper, 277 00:12:19,520 --> 00:12:21,640 Speaker 1: I tried to just sort of summarize it. I just 278 00:12:21,679 --> 00:12:23,720 Speaker 1: tried to recap what was in the paper, what were 279 00:12:23,760 --> 00:12:25,880 Speaker 1: the findings, what were the things that I might use 280 00:12:26,200 --> 00:12:28,160 Speaker 1: in the book. And I mean, that's just a little thing. 281 00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:30,640 Speaker 1: I don't want to say that's the ultimately optimal way 282 00:12:30,720 --> 00:12:34,520 Speaker 1: to memorize that information, but it's a small additional step 283 00:12:34,520 --> 00:12:36,720 Speaker 1: in addition to reading that can help with your attention. 284 00:12:36,920 --> 00:12:39,760 Speaker 1: And I think the implications of retrieval and free recall 285 00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:42,439 Speaker 1: go well beyond this, particularly if you're going to be 286 00:12:42,559 --> 00:12:44,560 Speaker 1: learning something like a language that has a lot of 287 00:12:44,600 --> 00:12:45,319 Speaker 1: memory involved. 288 00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:48,600 Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, I want to know following on from that, 289 00:12:49,200 --> 00:12:51,600 Speaker 2: I was curious to know how do you read a 290 00:12:51,720 --> 00:12:54,360 Speaker 2: nonfiction book? Because I was reflecting on this when I 291 00:12:54,360 --> 00:12:56,840 Speaker 2: was reading your book, and it's something I've been thinking 292 00:12:56,840 --> 00:12:59,040 Speaker 2: about for a few months. Like, I spend a lot 293 00:12:59,080 --> 00:13:01,920 Speaker 2: of my time reading books, like i'd probably read I 294 00:13:01,920 --> 00:13:04,040 Speaker 2: don't know, fifty or sixty books a year, and then 295 00:13:04,440 --> 00:13:07,280 Speaker 2: I'm thinking, well, what's the point of reading those books if, say, 296 00:13:07,720 --> 00:13:10,320 Speaker 2: you know, I don't apply anything from the book, assuming 297 00:13:10,320 --> 00:13:12,800 Speaker 2: that it's a nonfiction book where my purpose is to 298 00:13:12,880 --> 00:13:15,120 Speaker 2: learn something new and improve my life in some way. 299 00:13:15,320 --> 00:13:17,360 Speaker 2: And I've been reflecting on that a lot, and I 300 00:13:17,360 --> 00:13:20,800 Speaker 2: want to know, for you, when you're reading a book 301 00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:24,600 Speaker 2: that's presumably to learn something and improve your life in 302 00:13:24,640 --> 00:13:27,720 Speaker 2: some way, what's your process for reading that book and 303 00:13:27,760 --> 00:13:29,680 Speaker 2: then applying what's in that book. 304 00:13:30,040 --> 00:13:32,480 Speaker 1: So I actually have different processes, and I think that's 305 00:13:32,520 --> 00:13:34,760 Speaker 1: one of the things that I'm trying to convey. I 306 00:13:34,760 --> 00:13:37,800 Speaker 1: think in ultra learning as well, is that the purposes 307 00:13:37,800 --> 00:13:41,000 Speaker 1: that you have often decide how you ought to go 308 00:13:41,040 --> 00:13:43,760 Speaker 1: about learning something. So I don't have just a blanket 309 00:13:43,760 --> 00:13:45,880 Speaker 1: policy for reading books, although I do have some habits 310 00:13:45,920 --> 00:13:48,400 Speaker 1: today use I tend to if I'm reading something on Kindle, 311 00:13:48,400 --> 00:13:51,120 Speaker 1: I'll tend to use highlighters, just because then it allows 312 00:13:51,160 --> 00:13:53,680 Speaker 1: me to use the highlight search feature to find things 313 00:13:53,720 --> 00:13:56,360 Speaker 1: a little bit later. I often tend to take little 314 00:13:56,400 --> 00:13:58,200 Speaker 1: notes next to things as well, just so that I 315 00:13:58,240 --> 00:14:00,760 Speaker 1: can remember mind myself of you know why I highlighted 316 00:14:00,760 --> 00:14:02,920 Speaker 1: this passage if I have to find it again. So 317 00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:04,920 Speaker 1: those things I do on most books that I read. 318 00:14:05,280 --> 00:14:07,200 Speaker 1: But I think there's a couple different ways you're going 319 00:14:07,240 --> 00:14:09,800 Speaker 1: to approach reading a book. One way I think is 320 00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:11,600 Speaker 1: if your goal, and this is I would say the 321 00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:14,480 Speaker 1: majority of books I read these days, is that my 322 00:14:14,559 --> 00:14:16,880 Speaker 1: goal is to kind of get a deep understanding of 323 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:20,360 Speaker 1: what was being argued and what were the main ideas 324 00:14:20,400 --> 00:14:23,000 Speaker 1: and also what was sort of the supporting arguments for 325 00:14:23,080 --> 00:14:26,040 Speaker 1: those ideas. And so I think the right way to 326 00:14:26,080 --> 00:14:29,160 Speaker 1: approach this is to actually apply that in you know, 327 00:14:29,280 --> 00:14:32,200 Speaker 1: having conversations or writing or doing things like that. So 328 00:14:32,600 --> 00:14:33,960 Speaker 1: one of the simple things I do is when I'm 329 00:14:34,000 --> 00:14:36,160 Speaker 1: reading a book, if I get ideas from the book, 330 00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:38,880 Speaker 1: I often write them on Twitter, so those who are 331 00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:40,960 Speaker 1: following me on Twitter can go back. Depends on when 332 00:14:40,960 --> 00:14:43,160 Speaker 1: this episode releases, they can go back a little bit. 333 00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:45,520 Speaker 1: And I was reading a book called Anxious by the 334 00:14:46,160 --> 00:14:50,560 Speaker 1: NYU neuroscientist Joseph Ludu, and he basically talks about the 335 00:14:50,680 --> 00:14:54,640 Speaker 1: neurobiology behind anxiety, and I found this really fascinating, and 336 00:14:54,680 --> 00:14:56,480 Speaker 1: so I have all these tweets where I'm like kind 337 00:14:56,480 --> 00:14:59,280 Speaker 1: of jotting down sort of my understanding of his ideas. 338 00:14:59,400 --> 00:15:02,000 Speaker 1: And this is not only some retrieval practice because I'm 339 00:15:02,080 --> 00:15:04,200 Speaker 1: not looking at the book when I'm writing this, but 340 00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:07,040 Speaker 1: it's also my way of trying to synthesize and condense 341 00:15:07,160 --> 00:15:09,560 Speaker 1: some of the kind of difficult ideas that I was 342 00:15:09,560 --> 00:15:11,360 Speaker 1: covering there. So that's one way you can do it, 343 00:15:11,400 --> 00:15:14,920 Speaker 1: is by writing, or by having conversations with people about it, 344 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:19,160 Speaker 1: or by otherwise introducing it into your dialogues in regular life. 345 00:15:19,520 --> 00:15:21,280 Speaker 1: But I think also if you're trying to go for 346 00:15:21,320 --> 00:15:24,800 Speaker 1: some practical outcome, so if you're trying to change some habits, 347 00:15:24,840 --> 00:15:26,680 Speaker 1: or you're trying to start a business, or you're trying 348 00:15:26,720 --> 00:15:29,680 Speaker 1: to maybe start an ultra learning project, then you need 349 00:15:29,720 --> 00:15:31,320 Speaker 1: to be more specific and you need to sort of 350 00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:33,160 Speaker 1: say to yourself, Okay, this is what I want as 351 00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:35,160 Speaker 1: my outcome from reading this book is I want to 352 00:15:35,160 --> 00:15:37,480 Speaker 1: be able to change X, Y or Z. And then 353 00:15:37,480 --> 00:15:39,880 Speaker 1: you need to have like a plan alongside it to 354 00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:42,280 Speaker 1: use the book to change X, Y or Z. And 355 00:15:42,320 --> 00:15:45,360 Speaker 1: so I think what characterizes a lot of ultra learning 356 00:15:45,360 --> 00:15:46,960 Speaker 1: projects and a lot of people who've done this that 357 00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:50,200 Speaker 1: I've met is that their project is usually first and 358 00:15:50,280 --> 00:15:54,400 Speaker 1: foremost to do something or to work on some sort 359 00:15:54,400 --> 00:15:57,920 Speaker 1: of practical kind of project, and then books and videos 360 00:15:57,960 --> 00:16:01,360 Speaker 1: and other resources form the kind of supplementary material that 361 00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:03,640 Speaker 1: allows them to reach that. And so it's a little 362 00:16:03,680 --> 00:16:06,120 Speaker 1: bit of an inversion of how we normally think about reading, 363 00:16:06,160 --> 00:16:08,720 Speaker 1: where the activity is reading the book and then maybe 364 00:16:08,760 --> 00:16:11,960 Speaker 1: you'll do something with it later. If the activity is, Okay, 365 00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:14,600 Speaker 1: I actually want to start a business or improve my marketing, 366 00:16:14,880 --> 00:16:16,840 Speaker 1: and then I bought this book to do that thing, 367 00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:20,080 Speaker 1: then you can start already seeing, okay, well, how is 368 00:16:20,080 --> 00:16:22,080 Speaker 1: this going to influence my practice? And how is this 369 00:16:22,120 --> 00:16:23,520 Speaker 1: going to influence the things that I do on a 370 00:16:23,600 --> 00:16:25,520 Speaker 1: day to day basis. And so that's a little bit 371 00:16:25,560 --> 00:16:28,880 Speaker 1: of an opposite tack where the project chooses the books 372 00:16:28,960 --> 00:16:31,080 Speaker 1: rather than the books choosing a practice activity. 373 00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:33,600 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's really interesting. 374 00:16:33,680 --> 00:16:36,640 Speaker 2: Like in the chapter about directness, and I might get 375 00:16:36,680 --> 00:16:39,080 Speaker 2: you to talk about the concept of directness because I 376 00:16:39,080 --> 00:16:41,720 Speaker 2: think for me it was it's like when you read it, 377 00:16:41,760 --> 00:16:44,400 Speaker 2: you go, well, of course that is obvious, but when 378 00:16:44,440 --> 00:16:47,440 Speaker 2: you look at the education system you go that is 379 00:16:47,520 --> 00:16:51,000 Speaker 2: completely messed up. So perhaps can you talk about directness? 380 00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:53,480 Speaker 2: Because I think the thing that I think about there 381 00:16:53,480 --> 00:16:55,480 Speaker 2: when I think about books, like most people would pick 382 00:16:55,520 --> 00:16:58,880 Speaker 2: books because they're a new release and they're getting a 383 00:16:58,920 --> 00:17:02,120 Speaker 2: lot of publicity, and you know, with that in mind, 384 00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:05,359 Speaker 2: there's generally no you know, obvious way to relate the 385 00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:08,439 Speaker 2: directness principle so that you can apply the book immediately 386 00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:11,880 Speaker 2: almost Perhaps can you talk about directness and maybe how 387 00:17:11,920 --> 00:17:14,119 Speaker 2: you think about that, like with your own learning projects. 388 00:17:14,440 --> 00:17:17,439 Speaker 1: So directness, I think is something that if you stated 389 00:17:17,480 --> 00:17:21,320 Speaker 1: in kind of a simple version, it sounds fairly intuitive. However, 390 00:17:21,400 --> 00:17:24,320 Speaker 1: if you really deeply understand it and you really understand 391 00:17:24,320 --> 00:17:27,280 Speaker 1: the kind of psychology of how it works, I think 392 00:17:27,320 --> 00:17:30,239 Speaker 1: you would be surprised how often you flagrantly violate it 393 00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:32,760 Speaker 1: in your day to day thinking about how you learn things, 394 00:17:32,800 --> 00:17:34,080 Speaker 1: or how you get good at things, or how you 395 00:17:34,119 --> 00:17:36,920 Speaker 1: remember things. And so let me give the simple version. 396 00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:39,320 Speaker 1: The simple version is basically that if you want to 397 00:17:39,359 --> 00:17:41,680 Speaker 1: get good at something, you have to do that thing, 398 00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:43,960 Speaker 1: and that what a lot of people do is they'll 399 00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:47,520 Speaker 1: use a substitute activity. So sometimes that substitute activity is 400 00:17:47,600 --> 00:17:50,560 Speaker 1: just purely passive learning. So you're just watching a video, 401 00:17:50,920 --> 00:17:54,040 Speaker 1: or you're just you know, reading a tweet, or you're 402 00:17:54,160 --> 00:17:56,400 Speaker 1: just you know, maybe even reading a book, but you're 403 00:17:56,400 --> 00:17:59,080 Speaker 1: not actually doing something, and because you're not doing something, 404 00:17:59,119 --> 00:18:03,480 Speaker 1: it doesn't trans late into actual skill. And so this 405 00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:05,720 Speaker 1: is the sort of simple idea, and I think this 406 00:18:05,800 --> 00:18:07,240 Speaker 1: is the part that I think a lot of people 407 00:18:07,240 --> 00:18:09,680 Speaker 1: can resonate with and kind of recognize of, yes, that's 408 00:18:09,720 --> 00:18:13,680 Speaker 1: being important. But the actual, I think deeper principle behind 409 00:18:14,040 --> 00:18:17,240 Speaker 1: directness is the idea that when we learn things with 410 00:18:17,320 --> 00:18:20,000 Speaker 1: our mind, that it tends to be quite specific. And 411 00:18:20,040 --> 00:18:23,360 Speaker 1: so this actually goes against our intuition that for rearly 412 00:18:23,480 --> 00:18:26,000 Speaker 1: hundreds of years we've had this idea of education as 413 00:18:26,080 --> 00:18:30,520 Speaker 1: teaching people quite general skills. So if you go back to, 414 00:18:30,720 --> 00:18:32,680 Speaker 1: you know, the early days of education, when we would 415 00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:36,439 Speaker 1: teach students Latin and geometry, this was based, you know, 416 00:18:36,520 --> 00:18:39,240 Speaker 1: not on the idea that Latin and geometry were necessarily 417 00:18:39,280 --> 00:18:42,280 Speaker 1: super important, but on the idea that Latin was as 418 00:18:42,280 --> 00:18:44,879 Speaker 1: good as anything else, that the goal of education was 419 00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:47,760 Speaker 1: to teach you something to sort of train your mental muscles, 420 00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:50,080 Speaker 1: and then you would be smarter when you went off 421 00:18:50,080 --> 00:18:52,800 Speaker 1: to learn another language, or when you went to learn 422 00:18:52,880 --> 00:18:56,480 Speaker 1: something else that involved, you know, critical thinking. And although 423 00:18:56,520 --> 00:18:59,639 Speaker 1: we don't teach Latin and geometry today, you see these 424 00:18:59,720 --> 00:19:02,879 Speaker 1: kinds of arguments put forth for you know, when we 425 00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:05,760 Speaker 1: should all teach all students programming, regardless of whether they're 426 00:19:05,760 --> 00:19:07,719 Speaker 1: going to become programmers, because we need to teach them 427 00:19:07,760 --> 00:19:10,719 Speaker 1: algorithmic thinking, or we should teach critical thinking in our 428 00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:13,480 Speaker 1: schools because they need to have that very important faculty 429 00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:16,560 Speaker 1: to understand the news. And what we know from really 430 00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:18,359 Speaker 1: over one hundred years of research is that when you 431 00:19:18,440 --> 00:19:20,679 Speaker 1: train someone on a task, they tend to learn it 432 00:19:20,720 --> 00:19:24,600 Speaker 1: in quite a specific way. So this is sometimes because 433 00:19:24,640 --> 00:19:27,520 Speaker 1: what you're getting the person to do is quite specific. 434 00:19:27,640 --> 00:19:30,960 Speaker 1: So in my example in the book, I'm critical of 435 00:19:31,080 --> 00:19:34,080 Speaker 1: dual Lingo, and I'm critical of dual Lingo as an app, 436 00:19:34,119 --> 00:19:36,320 Speaker 1: not because it's not fun and not because it doesn't 437 00:19:36,359 --> 00:19:39,560 Speaker 1: have great content in it, but because what you're doing 438 00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:42,000 Speaker 1: with the app, quite frequently, when you're trying to learn 439 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:44,840 Speaker 1: a language, is very different from the goal most people have, 440 00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:48,480 Speaker 1: which is having conversations and face to face communication with 441 00:19:48,560 --> 00:19:52,120 Speaker 1: people in that language. And because it's very different, there's 442 00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:54,080 Speaker 1: a lot of difficulty with transferring it. So a lot 443 00:19:54,119 --> 00:19:57,159 Speaker 1: of people who spend months and months on dual lingo, nonetheless, 444 00:19:57,160 --> 00:19:58,639 Speaker 1: when they go on their trip and they go to 445 00:19:58,720 --> 00:20:01,199 Speaker 1: the other country, they can't speak very well, which is 446 00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:05,080 Speaker 1: very disappointing. And the problem is that actually speaking language 447 00:20:05,080 --> 00:20:08,040 Speaker 1: involves all sorts of little details and skills and bits 448 00:20:08,040 --> 00:20:10,560 Speaker 1: of knowledge that your brain needs. You just never practice 449 00:20:10,560 --> 00:20:12,760 Speaker 1: when you did dual lingo. So that's the first kind 450 00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:14,960 Speaker 1: of area that you can have transfer problems, and the 451 00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:18,280 Speaker 1: secondary you can have transfer problems is that we often 452 00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:21,879 Speaker 1: learn that certain types of knowledge are associated with certain 453 00:20:21,880 --> 00:20:25,000 Speaker 1: contexts and situations, and so we only activate them in 454 00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:27,919 Speaker 1: those situations. So one of my favorite examples of this 455 00:20:28,119 --> 00:20:30,360 Speaker 1: is that I was running my business and we were 456 00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:33,480 Speaker 1: having a bit of trouble charging sales tax. So here 457 00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:35,480 Speaker 1: in Canada, the way sales tax works is that you 458 00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:37,000 Speaker 1: add it on top of the price. So if it 459 00:20:37,080 --> 00:20:39,840 Speaker 1: was one dollar, it's like you charge the customer a 460 00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:44,000 Speaker 1: dollar and ten cents, let's say. And we our software 461 00:20:44,040 --> 00:20:47,160 Speaker 1: couldn't do this, so we had to after you know, 462 00:20:47,240 --> 00:20:48,720 Speaker 1: all the sales were done for you, we had to 463 00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:51,040 Speaker 1: figure out how much sales tax we owed. And my 464 00:20:51,119 --> 00:20:53,080 Speaker 1: friend said, well, you know, if the sales tax is 465 00:20:53,119 --> 00:20:55,560 Speaker 1: ten percent, then we just take ten percent of how 466 00:20:55,600 --> 00:20:57,480 Speaker 1: much money we made and that's how much sales tax 467 00:20:57,480 --> 00:21:00,679 Speaker 1: we had. And I was like, no, actually, because then 468 00:21:01,040 --> 00:21:04,080 Speaker 1: you know, you know, one tenth is not ten percent 469 00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:06,480 Speaker 1: of you know, nine tenths in this kind of thing. 470 00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:07,800 Speaker 1: And so I said, well, what you really need to 471 00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:10,280 Speaker 1: do is you need to make that algebra formula where 472 00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:13,040 Speaker 1: you say, like, what you know, the number times one 473 00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:15,400 Speaker 1: point ten is equal to and then you get the 474 00:21:15,600 --> 00:21:17,119 Speaker 1: x and you solve for x and you get the 475 00:21:17,160 --> 00:21:19,439 Speaker 1: actual sales tex we have. Now, as soon as I 476 00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:21,639 Speaker 1: spelled this out to him, he immediately knew how to 477 00:21:21,640 --> 00:21:25,000 Speaker 1: solve the problem. And really, this is kind of algebra 478 00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:27,080 Speaker 1: that you would have done in maybe grade eight. But 479 00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:30,919 Speaker 1: the problem is that he's never used algebra in his 480 00:21:31,040 --> 00:21:33,680 Speaker 1: daily working life, so he never thought to activate all 481 00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:36,119 Speaker 1: that knowledge about how to solve those kinds of problems. 482 00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:38,560 Speaker 1: And so this is a classic problem with transfer that 483 00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:41,400 Speaker 1: we can learn something that actually does have direct relevance 484 00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:43,480 Speaker 1: to the thing we're working on, and we just don't 485 00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:45,919 Speaker 1: think of it. And so there's many studies illustrating to 486 00:21:45,960 --> 00:21:49,200 Speaker 1: somewhat comedic effect of how we often don't activate knowledge 487 00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:52,480 Speaker 1: that we really ought to to solve problems in our lives. 488 00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:54,800 Speaker 2: Something I was I was wondering, like, because imagine a 489 00:21:54,800 --> 00:21:57,920 Speaker 2: lot of listeners of the show would have a learning 490 00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:00,880 Speaker 2: and development budget where they can, you know, they've got 491 00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:05,760 Speaker 2: a thousand or two thousand dollars to do some professional development. 492 00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:07,560 Speaker 3: And I want to know if that. 493 00:22:07,560 --> 00:22:09,720 Speaker 2: Were you, Like, if you were working, say in a 494 00:22:09,800 --> 00:22:12,480 Speaker 2: big bank, and you had this L and D budget 495 00:22:12,680 --> 00:22:16,440 Speaker 2: to spend every year, how would you go about evaluating 496 00:22:16,680 --> 00:22:20,000 Speaker 2: training programs or courses that might get thrown your way. 497 00:22:20,920 --> 00:22:23,639 Speaker 1: So I think every course and every book is different. 498 00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:25,960 Speaker 1: So it's really hard to make blanket statements that like, 499 00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:27,960 Speaker 1: well you ought to use this kind of material that 500 00:22:28,040 --> 00:22:30,000 Speaker 1: kind of material, because for every single thing you want 501 00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:31,800 Speaker 1: to learn, they're going to be different. I've had some 502 00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:35,880 Speaker 1: books that have been absolutely fantastic and I've learned basically 503 00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:38,720 Speaker 1: I've mastered it just from reading that book and applying it, 504 00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:41,040 Speaker 1: and then about other times where the book was terrible. 505 00:22:41,119 --> 00:22:43,159 Speaker 1: And I've had courses that were amazing and you know, 506 00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:45,120 Speaker 1: they walked you through exactly how to do the skill 507 00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:47,600 Speaker 1: you want to learn, and they really made a big difference. 508 00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:49,800 Speaker 1: And I've also had courses which I felt were just 509 00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:52,080 Speaker 1: filler and they never really taught me anything. So it's 510 00:22:52,119 --> 00:22:55,040 Speaker 1: really hard to make blanket statements about types of programs 511 00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:57,399 Speaker 1: and courses to spend money on. But I think the 512 00:22:57,560 --> 00:22:59,560 Speaker 1: right way to think about it is to start with 513 00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:02,120 Speaker 1: this skill and knowledge that you want to have and 514 00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:05,600 Speaker 1: then only then think about where you might get that 515 00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:08,840 Speaker 1: from courses and books and other resources. And so I 516 00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:10,840 Speaker 1: think this is not the way most people approach it. 517 00:23:10,840 --> 00:23:14,119 Speaker 1: Most people instead are pitched a book or course, or 518 00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:17,880 Speaker 1: they're given some opportunity to learn something, and then they 519 00:23:17,920 --> 00:23:20,280 Speaker 1: only at that point start thinking about, well, what their 520 00:23:20,320 --> 00:23:22,840 Speaker 1: goals might be or what they might be able to 521 00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:25,600 Speaker 1: get good at. Whereas the learners who were quite successful 522 00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:28,479 Speaker 1: worked on the opposite direction. They said, Okay, I'm going 523 00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:31,119 Speaker 1: to work on my writing ability for the next three months, 524 00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:32,960 Speaker 1: and I'm going to break that down into let's say 525 00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,880 Speaker 1: these five aspects. And then once you decide, okay, well, 526 00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:38,840 Speaker 1: I'm going to spend three weeks on improving my storytelling ability. 527 00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:40,720 Speaker 1: How might I be able to do this? And then 528 00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:42,639 Speaker 1: you google around and then you find a few books 529 00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:46,280 Speaker 1: on storytelling and how that structure works, and maybe you 530 00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:48,640 Speaker 1: find some Harry Potter novels because you want to study 531 00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:51,600 Speaker 1: how JK. Rowling does it. That process is sort of 532 00:23:51,640 --> 00:23:53,840 Speaker 1: an inversion of how we typically do it, which is 533 00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:56,639 Speaker 1: someone recommends a book and you're like, oh, I've never 534 00:23:56,680 --> 00:23:58,840 Speaker 1: thought about that, and maybe I'll learn it. And so 535 00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:00,800 Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that you can't pick up those books. 536 00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:03,040 Speaker 1: But if you want to really make an impact, I 537 00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:05,280 Speaker 1: think it often works best to start with the end 538 00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:08,159 Speaker 1: in mind and really start with thinking about what is 539 00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:09,960 Speaker 1: that you like to get good at, and then work 540 00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:12,320 Speaker 1: backwards at what resources might help you achieve that. 541 00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:15,560 Speaker 2: Yeah, is it kind of like what you talk about 542 00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:18,400 Speaker 2: in terms of I guess drawing a map the metal 543 00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:19,240 Speaker 2: learning concept? 544 00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:19,600 Speaker 3: Yeah? 545 00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:22,720 Speaker 2: Yeah, So can you talk through like how you would 546 00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:25,040 Speaker 2: be thinking about that? Maybe, like, because you've got this 547 00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:28,240 Speaker 2: great example in the book about how you learned to 548 00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:32,600 Speaker 2: draw a portrait in thirty days, which was impressive and 549 00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:34,520 Speaker 2: I imagine you must get asked about. 550 00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:38,520 Speaker 3: That a lot. Can you talk about how you. 551 00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:40,800 Speaker 2: Learn because I think it was it was an online 552 00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:42,760 Speaker 2: course that you used. In fact, I've got it opened 553 00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:43,359 Speaker 2: on my browser. 554 00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:44,560 Speaker 1: It's going to be in studio. 555 00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:47,399 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, except I was going to enroll in 556 00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:50,400 Speaker 2: that myself. I was quite inspired. How did you even 557 00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:53,400 Speaker 2: come across that course? Like, how once you decided I'm 558 00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:56,439 Speaker 2: going to become better at portrait drawing, how did you 559 00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:59,000 Speaker 2: work out how to become better? 560 00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:00,000 Speaker 3: Like what your map was? 561 00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:03,760 Speaker 1: Essentially, So this is a good example because this is 562 00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:06,840 Speaker 1: a month long project and it actually involved me making 563 00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:09,760 Speaker 1: course corrections midway. And so I think this is maybe 564 00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:12,680 Speaker 1: a good example because it's not like this idealized I 565 00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:15,000 Speaker 1: knew exactly what to do from the beginning, and then 566 00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,720 Speaker 1: I just did it. So I started with this idea 567 00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:20,440 Speaker 1: of wanting to get better at drawing faces, and like 568 00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:23,280 Speaker 1: a lot of learning projects, it was born out of frustration. 569 00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:26,080 Speaker 1: So a few months before I did this project, I 570 00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:29,159 Speaker 1: was doing this little drawing course called Drawing on the 571 00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:31,840 Speaker 1: Right Side of the Brain. Great little book I recommend 572 00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:34,359 Speaker 1: for anyone who's interested in getting the basics of drawing. 573 00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:37,040 Speaker 1: And I was doing it, and I felt like I 574 00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:38,840 Speaker 1: was making a lot of progress with a lot of 575 00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:41,840 Speaker 1: the drawing exercises in the book, except when it came 576 00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:43,800 Speaker 1: to faces. There was you were supposed to do this 577 00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:47,160 Speaker 1: kind of self portrait activity, and I was like, well, 578 00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:48,960 Speaker 1: I don't feel like I got much better at that, 579 00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:51,680 Speaker 1: it still doesn't look like a very good self portrait, 580 00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,080 Speaker 1: and so I was a bit disappointed about that progress 581 00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:57,160 Speaker 1: that I was making, and it just kind of got 582 00:25:57,160 --> 00:25:59,640 Speaker 1: the gears going of like, well, how would you get 583 00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:01,920 Speaker 1: really good at drawing faces? I mean, it is a 584 00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,960 Speaker 1: pretty specific ability. But at the same time, it might 585 00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:07,040 Speaker 1: make sense to do this as a project. And I'm 586 00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:09,880 Speaker 1: always interested in something that doesn't come to me immediately 587 00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:12,000 Speaker 1: as like what would be the nuts and bolts for 588 00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:14,399 Speaker 1: breaking that down of getting good at it? And so 589 00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:17,159 Speaker 1: my first sort of idea, and I think this was 590 00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:19,919 Speaker 1: also part of my motivation to start the project, is 591 00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:22,520 Speaker 1: sometimes I get an idea of like, oh, maybe this 592 00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:25,159 Speaker 1: would work and if you really applied it. And my 593 00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:28,240 Speaker 1: idea at the start was that one of the problems 594 00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:31,680 Speaker 1: of drawing faces is that you need to be extremely accurate. 595 00:26:31,800 --> 00:26:34,800 Speaker 1: So a lot of people when they draw faces, for instance, 596 00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:37,640 Speaker 1: a common problem is that people will put the eyes 597 00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,000 Speaker 1: kind of about two thirds of the way up the 598 00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:43,280 Speaker 1: head because that's where they think they are on someone's head. Now, 599 00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:45,560 Speaker 1: it turns out that your eyes are in most people's 600 00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:48,080 Speaker 1: heads around in the middle point. It does vary a 601 00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:50,720 Speaker 1: little bit, but your actually your eyes are in about 602 00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:53,440 Speaker 1: the middle. The problem is that the facial features, the eyes, 603 00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:55,760 Speaker 1: the mouth, and nose, those are the most important and 604 00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:58,160 Speaker 1: salient details of what someone looks like, so we tend 605 00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:00,920 Speaker 1: to expand those in our minds. Or the classic smiley 606 00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:02,960 Speaker 1: face where the eyes are at the top, in a 607 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,359 Speaker 1: real person's head, the eyes are actually closer to the middle. 608 00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:07,840 Speaker 1: And so that's just one example, but there's many of these, 609 00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:11,000 Speaker 1: like how wide the face is, and how the angle 610 00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:13,919 Speaker 1: of the nose compares to various other things. And so 611 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:16,480 Speaker 1: this idea that I got was, well, one way you 612 00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:18,160 Speaker 1: might be able to get better at this is by 613 00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:20,720 Speaker 1: just getting much better feedback so that when you draw 614 00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:22,720 Speaker 1: something and it doesn't look like the person, you know 615 00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:25,359 Speaker 1: exactly why it doesn't look like the person. And so 616 00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:28,200 Speaker 1: one way I thought of doing this was just after 617 00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:30,600 Speaker 1: I would draw sketch or draw a little photo, I 618 00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:32,760 Speaker 1: would take a photo of it, and then I would 619 00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:34,920 Speaker 1: put it on my computer and then I would take 620 00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,359 Speaker 1: the image or the photo that I was trying to draw. 621 00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:40,200 Speaker 1: I was doing it from photos as opposed to live models, 622 00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:43,760 Speaker 1: and I would just lower the transparency to about fifty 623 00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:46,160 Speaker 1: percent and then just kind of like scale and line 624 00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:49,600 Speaker 1: it up with the image that I drew so that 625 00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:52,600 Speaker 1: they mostly overlapped. And then I could see, oh, that's 626 00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:54,520 Speaker 1: the problem. I put the eye over here and it 627 00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:56,959 Speaker 1: was really supposed to be over here or something like that. 628 00:27:57,480 --> 00:27:59,040 Speaker 1: And so I did this for a while and it 629 00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:01,159 Speaker 1: did help. I did get better at drawing faces, and 630 00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:03,800 Speaker 1: I think I did make progress, but then there was 631 00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:06,720 Speaker 1: a point where it was just kind of I wasn't 632 00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:09,320 Speaker 1: getting much better. And one of the things that I 633 00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:12,840 Speaker 1: noticed is that I wasn't consistently making any particular type 634 00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:16,120 Speaker 1: of mistake anymore. So sometimes the eyes would be too large, 635 00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:17,920 Speaker 1: sometimes it'd be too small, Sometimes the head would be 636 00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:20,399 Speaker 1: too wide, sometimes it would be too tall. So the 637 00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:24,840 Speaker 1: problem here was not of making a systematically biased drawing, 638 00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:27,119 Speaker 1: like the eyes are always too high, but just I 639 00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:30,359 Speaker 1: wasn't accurate enough, like I couldn't get the accuracy to 640 00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:33,840 Speaker 1: make a really nice portrait. And so out of that frustration, 641 00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:36,359 Speaker 1: I decided, let's do some more research, and so I 642 00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,280 Speaker 1: did more googling around, found more courses, and I looked 643 00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:41,200 Speaker 1: at a lot of videos of people drawing online, and 644 00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,920 Speaker 1: then I found and stumbled on Davy Jamison's portrait drawing course, 645 00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:47,560 Speaker 1: and I was lucky there because his course is actually 646 00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:51,240 Speaker 1: fantastic for teaching, in this case, a very particular method 647 00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:54,280 Speaker 1: for getting much more accurate drawings. And so I think 648 00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:57,400 Speaker 1: that I probably wouldn't have appreciated his method, which is 649 00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:00,040 Speaker 1: very painstaking, quite as much if I hadn't had that 650 00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,960 Speaker 1: first experience of like first getting the basics down. But 651 00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:06,840 Speaker 1: at the same time, I think that having that kind 652 00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,040 Speaker 1: of sense of, well, I'm not really making as much 653 00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:11,760 Speaker 1: progress as I was before, what can I do to 654 00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,040 Speaker 1: keep going? I think that was really important in that 655 00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:16,320 Speaker 1: sort of experimental mindset. 656 00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:19,640 Speaker 2: And I know, like in one of the chapters you 657 00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:24,400 Speaker 2: talk about the importance of proceduralizing skills in terms of 658 00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:27,560 Speaker 2: really cementing them in memory. How did you, like, I guess, 659 00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:30,080 Speaker 2: can you talk about what that concept means in terms 660 00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:31,320 Speaker 2: of to proceduralize. 661 00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:33,000 Speaker 3: I don't know if that's auctually a real word. 662 00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:34,640 Speaker 2: If I've just made that up a skill and how 663 00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:37,200 Speaker 2: you did that with portrait drawing, right. 664 00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:41,800 Speaker 1: So, proceduralization is basically the idea that the memories that 665 00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,720 Speaker 1: we have in our head are of different types. So 666 00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,880 Speaker 1: one type of memory is what's called explicit memory, and 667 00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:51,760 Speaker 1: this is the kinds of things that we normally think 668 00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:54,280 Speaker 1: of as actual memories. So you know what you did 669 00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:57,040 Speaker 1: last Sunday, what you ate for breakfast this morning, but 670 00:29:57,120 --> 00:29:59,880 Speaker 1: even things like that the capital of France's Paris, which 671 00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:02,760 Speaker 1: is not an episodic memory. It's not a memory that 672 00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:05,479 Speaker 1: you can remember experiencing, but it's something that you know 673 00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,520 Speaker 1: and that you can recall as factual knowledge. And so 674 00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:11,120 Speaker 1: a lot of our knowledge is this kind of explicit memory. 675 00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:14,720 Speaker 1: But we also have what a psychologists call procedural or 676 00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:17,200 Speaker 1: implicit memory, and so this is like how to ride 677 00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:20,480 Speaker 1: a bicycle. And there is some evidence at least that 678 00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:23,280 Speaker 1: these two types of memories are actually different, that they're 679 00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:25,560 Speaker 1: not stored the same way in the brain, and that 680 00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:28,800 Speaker 1: it may be the case that the procedural memories, or 681 00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:31,719 Speaker 1: the memories of knowing how to do something, rather than 682 00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:35,120 Speaker 1: knowing that something. They often say knowing how versus knowing 683 00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,800 Speaker 1: that as a distinction between explicit and implicit memory. That 684 00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:41,360 Speaker 1: the procedural memories are stored differently, and it may be 685 00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:43,800 Speaker 1: the case that they're more durable. It may be the 686 00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:46,600 Speaker 1: case that you know the things that you remember how 687 00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:49,200 Speaker 1: to do that are kind of in that sort of 688 00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:53,080 Speaker 1: what is colloquially called muscle memory are more durable than 689 00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:57,000 Speaker 1: the explicitly recalled memory. And so this is sort of, 690 00:30:57,200 --> 00:30:58,800 Speaker 1: you know, I joke in the book, I say, this 691 00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:00,960 Speaker 1: is why we call it like riding a bicycle and 692 00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:04,800 Speaker 1: not like remembering trigonometry, because riding a bicycle is procedural 693 00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:09,280 Speaker 1: and trigonometry is for the most part, explicit and declarative memory. 694 00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:12,240 Speaker 1: And so one of the things that you can notice though, 695 00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:14,680 Speaker 1: is that for many skills they have a kind of 696 00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:18,080 Speaker 1: transition period. So not all skills, but some skills have 697 00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:21,400 Speaker 1: a transition period where they start out explicit and declarative 698 00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:23,640 Speaker 1: and then as you do the more and more they 699 00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:27,520 Speaker 1: turn into procedural skills. So a really good example of 700 00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,440 Speaker 1: that is touch typing. So when you're typing on a keyboard, 701 00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:34,600 Speaker 1: at the beginning, you have to think consciously about where 702 00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:36,280 Speaker 1: the locations of the keys are. So you're like, okay, 703 00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:40,520 Speaker 1: w okay, I I move my ring finger up and 704 00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:42,400 Speaker 1: then slightly to the left, and then okay, the e 705 00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:44,800 Speaker 1: that's okay, that's the middle finger, and I move that up. 706 00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,720 Speaker 1: And you're doing this very deliberately. It's very slow but 707 00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:50,640 Speaker 1: then as you get better, you stop actually thinking about 708 00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:52,400 Speaker 1: where the keys are. You just think, I want to 709 00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:55,240 Speaker 1: type this word, and it automatically turns into some motor 710 00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:57,880 Speaker 1: program in your brain where you will automatically type out 711 00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:01,080 Speaker 1: those letters. And the interesting thing is that because there's 712 00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:03,400 Speaker 1: these two forms in memory, it can be the case 713 00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:07,280 Speaker 1: that the explicit memories can be forgotten, but you'll still 714 00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:09,680 Speaker 1: retain the muscle memory of how to do it. So 715 00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:13,120 Speaker 1: you can maybe forget exactly where the keys are, but 716 00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:14,800 Speaker 1: if I asked you to type it, you could do it. 717 00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:17,440 Speaker 1: So sometimes this happens with pin codes, if you know, 718 00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:21,320 Speaker 1: like your ATM code. Sometimes people will memorize their password 719 00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:23,600 Speaker 1: by how they type it on the screen, But then 720 00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:25,760 Speaker 1: if you ask them to write it out, so not 721 00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,280 Speaker 1: using the same muscle memory, but having to think about 722 00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:31,320 Speaker 1: it explicitly, sometimes they stall or they forget it, or 723 00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:33,320 Speaker 1: maybe that happens to you with some of your web 724 00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:36,040 Speaker 1: passwords that you have to type in. And so this 725 00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:38,520 Speaker 1: approach doesn't work for all skills, but it can work 726 00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:41,800 Speaker 1: for some skills. Language learning, I think is one where 727 00:32:41,800 --> 00:32:45,200 Speaker 1: it may apply, where the phrases and words that you 728 00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:48,760 Speaker 1: say most frequently maybe start out in this kind of 729 00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:52,280 Speaker 1: explicit I have to recall, Okay, this word means this, 730 00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:54,000 Speaker 1: this word means this, this word means this, and then 731 00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:57,080 Speaker 1: you sort of string them together into a sentence. Whereas, 732 00:32:57,200 --> 00:32:59,400 Speaker 1: if you get better and better at communicating and it 733 00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:02,000 Speaker 1: becomes more more natural, they may just be sort of 734 00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:04,680 Speaker 1: one whole kind of impulse that you just say that 735 00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:07,640 Speaker 1: whole sentence all at once. It may also be the 736 00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:10,360 Speaker 1: case for things like like we mentioned with portrait drawing, 737 00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:12,840 Speaker 1: that in the beginning you have a very you know, 738 00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:16,520 Speaker 1: procedure that you're using to draw a face. You have 739 00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:18,920 Speaker 1: to be very explicit about it. Okay, well first I 740 00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:20,800 Speaker 1: have to draw this, and then first then I have 741 00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:22,400 Speaker 1: to draw this, and then I have to match this 742 00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:24,600 Speaker 1: with this. Whereas as you do it more and more, 743 00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:26,920 Speaker 1: that might get ingrained to the point where that just 744 00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:29,200 Speaker 1: feels natural to you and you don't have to consciously 745 00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:31,480 Speaker 1: recollect it each time you do it. And so this 746 00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:33,280 Speaker 1: can be one way to make some of your skills 747 00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:36,320 Speaker 1: more durable, is to proceduralize some of the parts of 748 00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:39,120 Speaker 1: the skill that are used as cues or triggers to 749 00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:40,240 Speaker 1: activate other parts. 750 00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:43,320 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that that's some Yeah, it's so interesting to. 751 00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:46,680 Speaker 2: Think about with skills or you know, things that you 752 00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:50,200 Speaker 2: learn that are not obviously procedural, how to make them forcedural. 753 00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:52,440 Speaker 2: It got me kind of reflecting on that when I 754 00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:55,120 Speaker 2: was thinking about things that I've learned, and look, something 755 00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:56,040 Speaker 2: else I was interested in. 756 00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:57,880 Speaker 3: There's a whole chapter dedicated. 757 00:33:57,400 --> 00:34:01,280 Speaker 2: To focus, because if you want to be a great learner, 758 00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:04,960 Speaker 2: you need to know how to stay quite intensely focused 759 00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:07,080 Speaker 2: for periods of time. And I want to know for you, 760 00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:11,760 Speaker 2: how did you improve or train your ability to stay 761 00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:13,200 Speaker 2: focused and stay on task. 762 00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:16,120 Speaker 1: So I've kind of shifted a lot of my thinking 763 00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:17,880 Speaker 1: on focus over the years. I think the way that 764 00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:20,920 Speaker 1: I used to think about focus was again kind of 765 00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:25,400 Speaker 1: falling into this maybe somewhat incorrect view of the mind 766 00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:28,120 Speaker 1: of viewing focus like a muscle that has to be trained. 767 00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:30,240 Speaker 1: I don't want to say that there's no benefit of training, 768 00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:33,400 Speaker 1: but I now see focus as more about dealing with 769 00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:37,200 Speaker 1: your emotions and creating habits. And so I'll put it 770 00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,200 Speaker 1: this way that I think that all of us have 771 00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:43,440 Speaker 1: different capacities for focus. Some of us are going to 772 00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:45,560 Speaker 1: be able to focus more easily than others, and so 773 00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:48,560 Speaker 1: recognizing your own capacity, I think is important. If you're 774 00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,840 Speaker 1: the kind of person that's very distracted, it's useful to 775 00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:54,680 Speaker 1: create environments that will support you. So someone might be 776 00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:57,560 Speaker 1: fine studying in a coffee shop, but you might require 777 00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:00,000 Speaker 1: it to be completely silent, and you shouldn't feel bad 778 00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,160 Speaker 1: about that. You should just recognize that that's how you are, 779 00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:05,360 Speaker 1: and that you should accommodate your environment for that fact. 780 00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:07,880 Speaker 1: The other thing that I think is important with focus 781 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:09,719 Speaker 1: is that often when we're talking about focus, we're not 782 00:35:09,800 --> 00:35:13,239 Speaker 1: talking just about the ability to concentrate really hard. We're 783 00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:17,000 Speaker 1: also talking about the ability to actually do work. And 784 00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:19,719 Speaker 1: so one of the things that I think blocks a 785 00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:22,360 Speaker 1: lot of people from making progress on learning projects is 786 00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:25,480 Speaker 1: that learning projects are difficult, that they are often frustrating, 787 00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:29,040 Speaker 1: that they often involve getting feedback and maybe feeling bad 788 00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:32,960 Speaker 1: about your abilities. And these difficulties can create a kind 789 00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:37,080 Speaker 1: of instinctual aversion to actually getting started and working on 790 00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:39,759 Speaker 1: and so many of the things that you want to learn, 791 00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:43,759 Speaker 1: you might procrastinate on them for years or maybe even indefinitely, 792 00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:47,279 Speaker 1: just because these feelings are hard to override and they're 793 00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:49,960 Speaker 1: hard to actually get started. And so I think a 794 00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:52,680 Speaker 1: lot of what ideots in managing focus is managing your 795 00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:56,600 Speaker 1: emotions and managing your expectations about the task. So some 796 00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:58,600 Speaker 1: of that can be just as simple as using techniques 797 00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:02,200 Speaker 1: like the Palmondoro technique and just saying things to yourself like, Okay, well, 798 00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:04,560 Speaker 1: if getting started on this is really really hard, then 799 00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:06,600 Speaker 1: I'm going to make it super easy to get started. 800 00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:08,680 Speaker 1: So I'm only going to commit to doing this for 801 00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:10,560 Speaker 1: five minutes. I'm not going to try to do it 802 00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:13,439 Speaker 1: for three hours. I'm not going to you know, tie 803 00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:15,160 Speaker 1: myself to the room. I'm just going to say, Okay, 804 00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:16,560 Speaker 1: I'm just going to do it for five minutes, and 805 00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:18,360 Speaker 1: then once you get the ball rolling, it'll be a 806 00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:21,839 Speaker 1: little easier. So procrastination is one thing. The other thing 807 00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:23,880 Speaker 1: is about, you know, making little rules for yourself so 808 00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:25,600 Speaker 1: you can avoid some of the times when you might 809 00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:28,200 Speaker 1: normally give up. So we all know to turn off 810 00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:31,279 Speaker 1: your phone and not have the internet going, and tell 811 00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:33,640 Speaker 1: people around you don't disturb me when I'm doing this. 812 00:36:34,080 --> 00:36:36,840 Speaker 1: These are kind of intuitive and obvious suggestions, although not 813 00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:39,360 Speaker 1: all of us do them. But there's a lot of 814 00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:43,919 Speaker 1: little things about avoiding your mental triggers to go for distractions. 815 00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:47,879 Speaker 1: So one thing I think is really interesting is when 816 00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:50,120 Speaker 1: I was learning Chinese. I was doing a lot of 817 00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:53,920 Speaker 1: flash cards to increase my vocabulary, and I would find 818 00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:56,560 Speaker 1: that when I would get a flash card wrong. So 819 00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:58,360 Speaker 1: when I would do it and it would be the 820 00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:01,359 Speaker 1: wrong answer, I would immediately feel this pang of like, 821 00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:04,560 Speaker 1: oh God, okay, it's time to take a break. And 822 00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:06,799 Speaker 1: the problem is that if I take a break every 823 00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:08,279 Speaker 1: time I get one wrong, I'm not going to make 824 00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:10,840 Speaker 1: very much progress. And so what I did is I 825 00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:13,240 Speaker 1: made a rule for myself that I could take a break, 826 00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:15,760 Speaker 1: but I could only take a break if i'd gotten 827 00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:18,319 Speaker 1: the most recent card that i'd just done, if I'd 828 00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:21,759 Speaker 1: gotten it correct. And because these cards usually only take 829 00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:24,520 Speaker 1: about like ten to twenty seconds each, this doesn't usually 830 00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:26,200 Speaker 1: take that long. Even if you get a bunch wrong 831 00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:27,680 Speaker 1: in a row, it's usually not going to be more 832 00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:29,719 Speaker 1: than two or three minutes until you get one right. 833 00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:31,600 Speaker 1: And the funny thing is is as soon as you 834 00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:34,960 Speaker 1: get one right, you get you know, boosted back with confidence. 835 00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:37,440 Speaker 1: You're like, oh, this isn't so bad. I actually know something, 836 00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:40,880 Speaker 1: and you want to keep going. And so this slight tweak, 837 00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:44,239 Speaker 1: this little rule that I had actually not just made 838 00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:46,560 Speaker 1: it so that I persisted another two or three minutes, 839 00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,920 Speaker 1: but often much much longer than I would otherwise. And 840 00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:53,280 Speaker 1: so I think if you examine yourself while you're studying, 841 00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:55,319 Speaker 1: while you're learning, and you look at what those key 842 00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:58,880 Speaker 1: moments of frustration are, what those key moments where you 843 00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:01,160 Speaker 1: want to give up, or what those key feelings are 844 00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:04,480 Speaker 1: that prevent you from getting started, you can adjust your 845 00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:06,759 Speaker 1: environment to make them a little bit easier, to make 846 00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:08,400 Speaker 1: that transition route a bit smoother. 847 00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:11,480 Speaker 2: I like that, and that reminds me of what you 848 00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:13,040 Speaker 2: write about. I think it's in one of the later 849 00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:16,759 Speaker 2: chapters of the book about the struggle Timer. Can you 850 00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:19,080 Speaker 2: talk about like how you've used the struggle timer and 851 00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:20,120 Speaker 2: what that means exactly. 852 00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:22,759 Speaker 1: So I think this is an interesting question when it 853 00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:25,239 Speaker 1: comes to feedback of if you're working on a problem, 854 00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:27,560 Speaker 1: how quickly should you look at the answer when you 855 00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:30,960 Speaker 1: can't get the right one? And my previous idea, and 856 00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:32,640 Speaker 1: this was sort of the approach that I took during 857 00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:35,040 Speaker 1: the MIT challenge, is that you should get the right 858 00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:36,960 Speaker 1: answer immediately, So as soon as you get stuck, you 859 00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:39,520 Speaker 1: look at the right answer, because immediate feedback is important. 860 00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:42,560 Speaker 1: I've shifted that view somewhat now and I think that 861 00:38:42,640 --> 00:38:45,000 Speaker 1: it often makes sense to struggle a little bit on 862 00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:49,240 Speaker 1: harder problems for a couple reasons. One, sometimes you actually 863 00:38:49,239 --> 00:38:51,880 Speaker 1: can solve the problem, So struggling for a little bit 864 00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:54,160 Speaker 1: longer is quite beneficial because you will get to the 865 00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:57,000 Speaker 1: right answer. And I think that getting to the right 866 00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:00,600 Speaker 1: answer yourself is a lot more valuable than not getting 867 00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:02,239 Speaker 1: the right answer and then just looking it up. So 868 00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:04,839 Speaker 1: sometimes struggling for a little bit longer will help in 869 00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:07,279 Speaker 1: that case. And then also I think there's probably some 870 00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:09,920 Speaker 1: benefit in struggling a little bit longer just because it 871 00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:12,799 Speaker 1: will allow you to appreciate the right answer better, so 872 00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:15,879 Speaker 1: that in some ways that kind of negative emotional state, 873 00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:19,240 Speaker 1: that feeling of frustration, when you do encounter the answer, 874 00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:21,560 Speaker 1: it will be much more memorable because it will have 875 00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:23,680 Speaker 1: solved a problem that you are like, oh okay, that's 876 00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:26,040 Speaker 1: how you solve it, as opposed to here. I guess 877 00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:29,319 Speaker 1: that makes sense. So I think the way that you 878 00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:31,279 Speaker 1: can approach this is that when you're trying to work 879 00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:34,600 Speaker 1: on difficult problems, maybe it's programming, maybe it's physics, maybe 880 00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:37,920 Speaker 1: it's you know something for your homework, you can set 881 00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:39,440 Speaker 1: a little timer for yourself. It doesn't have to be 882 00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:41,840 Speaker 1: super long. It gonna be five minutes, maybe ten minutes, 883 00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:44,240 Speaker 1: depending on how long you have to work on the problems. 884 00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:47,800 Speaker 1: And just when you get stuck, when you feel like, okay, 885 00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:51,080 Speaker 1: I can't proceed in this problem, just give yourself like 886 00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:53,839 Speaker 1: five minutes, or just give yourself like ten minutes, and 887 00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:56,760 Speaker 1: it can make you go a little bit further before 888 00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:58,920 Speaker 1: you check what the answer is or before you get 889 00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:01,120 Speaker 1: that feedback to release that sense of frustration. 890 00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:03,399 Speaker 2: I think that's interesting. And look, I really I loved 891 00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:06,400 Speaker 2: the chapter on feedback. I found that fascinating. It was funny. 892 00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:08,839 Speaker 2: A couple of weeks ago, I had to sit through 893 00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:12,120 Speaker 2: this two day training course which was like a tickbox 894 00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:17,120 Speaker 2: activity for psychologists that supervise up and coming psychologists, and 895 00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:20,520 Speaker 2: there was this whole section on feedback that was completely outdated, 896 00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:23,200 Speaker 2: like that were talking about the shit sandwich where you 897 00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:26,840 Speaker 2: go positive negative positive, which has been completely disproven in 898 00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:29,560 Speaker 2: the research. And I really loved what you had to 899 00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:32,920 Speaker 2: say about about feedback. And I'm wondering for you, like, 900 00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:36,520 Speaker 2: after knowing what you know now and what you uncovered 901 00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:40,640 Speaker 2: in the research, firstly, how do you give feedback really well? 902 00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:42,200 Speaker 2: And then I also want to know, for you, how 903 00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:44,479 Speaker 2: do you respond to feedback? So maybe let's talk about 904 00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:46,520 Speaker 2: how do you give good feedback? 905 00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:48,960 Speaker 1: So this is an interesting question. It's not one that 906 00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:51,479 Speaker 1: I directly addressed in the book, because for the most 907 00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:53,560 Speaker 1: part in the book, I took the perspective of the learner. 908 00:40:53,600 --> 00:40:55,200 Speaker 1: I took the perspective of the person who wants to 909 00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:57,920 Speaker 1: be seeking the feedback, but for giving feedback. I think 910 00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:02,320 Speaker 1: it's a really interesting question because I think that most 911 00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:05,160 Speaker 1: people don't actually want feedback. And I know that we 912 00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:07,399 Speaker 1: kind of intuitively think, well, but they you know, it's 913 00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:09,239 Speaker 1: what's good for them, they need feedback. But I think 914 00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:12,200 Speaker 1: the social dynamics are very important here. And so I 915 00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:16,799 Speaker 1: was actually talking with Angelo DeNisi, who co authored one 916 00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:19,240 Speaker 1: of the meta analyses that I used for the research 917 00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:23,000 Speaker 1: and discussing feedback, and he has some research on feedback 918 00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:26,560 Speaker 1: interventions in the workplace, and what he found was that 919 00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:28,680 Speaker 1: so I didn't mention this research in the book, but 920 00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:32,960 Speaker 1: what he found was that often feedback seeking behavior is 921 00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,680 Speaker 1: not actually seeking feedback, but more like seeking reassurance. That 922 00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,640 Speaker 1: the person says I want feedback, but they're really saying, 923 00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:42,120 Speaker 1: is I want you to say you did a great job, 924 00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:45,960 Speaker 1: they're not really seeking to improve themselves, and that what 925 00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:48,319 Speaker 1: they found is that if you give people feedback when 926 00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:51,360 Speaker 1: they don't actually want it, when they're not really seeking feedback, 927 00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:54,000 Speaker 1: that it tends to backfire, that it tends not to 928 00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:57,040 Speaker 1: actually improve their performance. So the idea that well, it's 929 00:41:57,040 --> 00:41:58,400 Speaker 1: what's good for them, I've got to give them this 930 00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:03,280 Speaker 1: feedback is not necessarily helpful if that person themselves doesn't 931 00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:06,600 Speaker 1: want to actually use the information to improve. So I 932 00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:09,440 Speaker 1: think that's a very useful thing when you're talking to people, 933 00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:12,440 Speaker 1: because people will solicit feedback for all sorts of reasons. 934 00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:14,719 Speaker 1: One thing that I've noticed for myself is that people 935 00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:17,040 Speaker 1: will maybe reach out to me and ask them like, 936 00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:20,520 Speaker 1: what's my feedback on an article they've written, And sometimes 937 00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:22,799 Speaker 1: they genuinely want me to give them writing advice, But 938 00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:25,440 Speaker 1: I find that suspiciously that I think some of the 939 00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:27,160 Speaker 1: time what they want is they want me to read 940 00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:29,920 Speaker 1: the article and maybe I'll link to it or recommend 941 00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:31,880 Speaker 1: them because I'll say it was a great article and 942 00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:34,759 Speaker 1: this kind of thing. And so it's important to kind 943 00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:37,279 Speaker 1: of note those situations because if the person was not 944 00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:39,920 Speaker 1: really looking for feedback, and then you say Wow, you 945 00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:42,560 Speaker 1: kind of did this not very well. That person might 946 00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:45,480 Speaker 1: interpret this quite negatively and they might not use it 947 00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:50,239 Speaker 1: to further their improvement. And so I think that the 948 00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,919 Speaker 1: social dynamics of individuals giving feedback to other individuals can't 949 00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:57,560 Speaker 1: be understated. So a lot of times where feedback could 950 00:42:57,560 --> 00:43:00,319 Speaker 1: be useful, it could be used as useful information to 951 00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:04,080 Speaker 1: increase progress, it actually isn't used. And so a lot 952 00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:07,320 Speaker 1: of the studies reinforce this point that feedback isn't always 953 00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:11,000 Speaker 1: beneficial again because sometimes people don't use that feedback. So 954 00:43:11,400 --> 00:43:14,719 Speaker 1: in these cases they weren't actually wanting the feedback. But sometimes, 955 00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:17,040 Speaker 1: you know, you get your marks back from a class, 956 00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:19,920 Speaker 1: and you don't use that to improve your progress. You 957 00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:22,720 Speaker 1: just use that as a way of, well, this class 958 00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:24,800 Speaker 1: is BS, I'm not actually going to try very hard, 959 00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:27,319 Speaker 1: or you know, oh I don't get anything, what's going on. 960 00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:29,279 Speaker 1: I'm not actually going to use this information. And so 961 00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:32,719 Speaker 1: I think that from the perspective of learners, we have 962 00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:36,160 Speaker 1: to be very aware of our own psychology, of our 963 00:43:36,239 --> 00:43:39,040 Speaker 1: own motivations for seeking things that a lot of people, 964 00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:41,120 Speaker 1: you know, will take that tactic you want to seek 965 00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:43,400 Speaker 1: out feedback, and then someone says something mean about you, 966 00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:45,759 Speaker 1: and you feel so bad and you're like, ah, well, 967 00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:47,520 Speaker 1: they didn't know what they were talking about. And you 968 00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:49,960 Speaker 1: realize that you're doing exactly what I'm talking about here, 969 00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:52,759 Speaker 1: that you're seeking feedback but you're not actually intending to 970 00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:53,160 Speaker 1: use it. 971 00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:55,719 Speaker 3: That's so interesting. That's such a good point. 972 00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:59,239 Speaker 2: So if if say, like someone that you know, let's 973 00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:02,239 Speaker 2: say that they're not a random stranger, asks you for feedback, 974 00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:06,000 Speaker 2: is your first question do you actually want the feedback? 975 00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:07,120 Speaker 3: Like, how do you respond to that? 976 00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:10,839 Speaker 1: Well? I think that there are ways that you can 977 00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:13,879 Speaker 1: be helpful and give feedback that is in a more 978 00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:17,200 Speaker 1: positive and encouraging way. But at the same time, I 979 00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:20,759 Speaker 1: think that again, this is sort of I prefer it 980 00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:23,759 Speaker 1: when someone would ask me a very specific question. So 981 00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:25,799 Speaker 1: if they were sort of to say, I'll put it 982 00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:27,040 Speaker 1: this way. If someone were to come up to me 983 00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:29,360 Speaker 1: and say, Okay, so I'm working on this headline, and 984 00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:30,759 Speaker 1: what are some ways that you think I can make 985 00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:33,399 Speaker 1: this headline better? That's going to be a place where 986 00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:36,200 Speaker 1: I think I can more concretely give feedback. Then what 987 00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:38,440 Speaker 1: do you think about this article I wrote? Or what 988 00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:41,160 Speaker 1: do you think about my writing? That's a harder thing 989 00:44:41,239 --> 00:44:43,759 Speaker 1: because those are going to be more general critiques and 990 00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:46,160 Speaker 1: they're maybe going to hit at that person's ego a 991 00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:48,839 Speaker 1: little bit harder than they would if the person said, 992 00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:51,160 Speaker 1: you know, I'm looking for suggestions, and then you can 993 00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:53,160 Speaker 1: suggest some suggestions and then they can take it or 994 00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:56,919 Speaker 1: leave it right. And so I think for me, when 995 00:44:56,920 --> 00:44:59,440 Speaker 1: people ask me for feedback, usually my first question is 996 00:44:59,520 --> 00:45:01,759 Speaker 1: kind of like, what kind of feedback are you looking for? 997 00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:04,520 Speaker 1: And I think I'm hoping at least that when I 998 00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:07,080 Speaker 1: ask that question to people, it will prompt them to 999 00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,319 Speaker 1: reflect on more specific questions they can ask me rather 1000 00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:13,440 Speaker 1: than just feedback. They can say things like, you know, 1001 00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:16,480 Speaker 1: well i'm struggling with this, can you offer some advice 1002 00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:18,640 Speaker 1: or And then that way I don't have to be 1003 00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:20,600 Speaker 1: in a critical mindset. I can be in a helping 1004 00:45:20,640 --> 00:45:24,160 Speaker 1: mindset because they've kind of identified something that they think 1005 00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:26,040 Speaker 1: might be need some work and they want me to 1006 00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:28,759 Speaker 1: point out. Whereas if they thought that their headline was 1007 00:45:28,800 --> 00:45:30,799 Speaker 1: great and I said, wow, your headline isn't very good, 1008 00:45:31,120 --> 00:45:33,239 Speaker 1: you know that maybe isn't what they were looking for 1009 00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:35,120 Speaker 1: and it maybe will have a negative response. 1010 00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:38,040 Speaker 2: I love that. I think that's so good. I'm going 1011 00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:40,160 Speaker 2: to take that on myself. A lot of my team 1012 00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:43,640 Speaker 2: will send me articles that they're working on to give feedback, 1013 00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:46,200 Speaker 2: and I sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed and feel like 1014 00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:48,400 Speaker 2: I have to do like a big, thorough kind of 1015 00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,080 Speaker 2: copy edit of the whole thing. But now I'm going 1016 00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:53,400 Speaker 2: to ask what specifically would you like feedback on? I 1017 00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:56,480 Speaker 2: think that's what type of feedback would you like? That's 1018 00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,640 Speaker 2: such a great question, And look, I guess the other 1019 00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:02,560 Speaker 2: side of feedback is how how do you personally respond 1020 00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:04,840 Speaker 2: to feedback? Because in the book you talk about not 1021 00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:07,560 Speaker 2: all feedback is actually useful feedback, So for you, how 1022 00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:10,120 Speaker 2: do you decide what feedback to take on and what 1023 00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:10,839 Speaker 2: to do with it. 1024 00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:14,319 Speaker 1: The advice that I kind of feel, if I could 1025 00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:17,080 Speaker 1: summarize what I took from the research, is that you 1026 00:46:17,120 --> 00:46:20,200 Speaker 1: should be getting more feedback, but a sort of paradoxically 1027 00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:22,560 Speaker 1: also ignoring more of it, meaning that you need to 1028 00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:25,239 Speaker 1: filter more of the feedback you're getting. And so I 1029 00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:27,880 Speaker 1: give some sort of broad categories of different kinds of 1030 00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:30,000 Speaker 1: feedback that you might get in the book. And one 1031 00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:33,120 Speaker 1: of the important lessons, I think from the perspective of 1032 00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:36,000 Speaker 1: the learner when it comes to a processing feedback is 1033 00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:39,160 Speaker 1: to realize what kind of information you can get from 1034 00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:42,320 Speaker 1: this source and what kind of information you can't get, 1035 00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:45,359 Speaker 1: Because a lot of people what they really want is 1036 00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:48,359 Speaker 1: corrective feedback. They want someone to tell them what to do. 1037 00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:51,680 Speaker 1: And that's great, and you know, the research does bear 1038 00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:54,480 Speaker 1: that out that when that is possible, that works really well. 1039 00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:56,879 Speaker 1: But the problem is is that often you can't get 1040 00:46:56,880 --> 00:46:59,360 Speaker 1: that kind of feedback, and often the person you're asking 1041 00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:02,200 Speaker 1: it from or the source you're getting feedback can't give 1042 00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:05,879 Speaker 1: you that information. And so sometimes people, in a kind 1043 00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:09,439 Speaker 1: of misguided attempt, really try to get corrective feedback when 1044 00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:12,480 Speaker 1: the people they're talking to really can't correct their performance. 1045 00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:15,480 Speaker 1: So a good example of this is if you were giving, 1046 00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:18,160 Speaker 1: let's say a speech, and you know you're a public 1047 00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:20,920 Speaker 1: speaker and you have an audience, it's very normal to 1048 00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:23,000 Speaker 1: say to the audience, maybe if you're trying to improve 1049 00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:25,400 Speaker 1: your public speaking, how did my speech go? What did 1050 00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:27,080 Speaker 1: you like about it? What didn't you like about it? 1051 00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:29,640 Speaker 1: And what you can get from the audience is you 1052 00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:32,360 Speaker 1: can get some sort of visceral reaction from them. You 1053 00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:34,839 Speaker 1: can get you know, how much they applauded, how many 1054 00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:37,399 Speaker 1: people were looking at you when you were talking versus 1055 00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:39,120 Speaker 1: how many of them were looking at their phones. You 1056 00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:42,160 Speaker 1: can get kind of how many times how much laughter 1057 00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:44,840 Speaker 1: your joke's got, or what was the sort of emotional 1058 00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:47,440 Speaker 1: reaction after the speech, and you can get this kind 1059 00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:50,680 Speaker 1: of general barometer of how your performance went. But one 1060 00:47:50,719 --> 00:47:52,640 Speaker 1: of the things that is going to be really difficult 1061 00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:54,719 Speaker 1: is if you went to just a normal person in 1062 00:47:54,719 --> 00:47:57,800 Speaker 1: the audience who's not an expert speaker, and said, well, 1063 00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:00,200 Speaker 1: what could I do better in my speech? Now you're 1064 00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:03,000 Speaker 1: asking for corrective feedback. You're asking for information that they 1065 00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:05,239 Speaker 1: may not actually be able to give you. And the 1066 00:48:05,320 --> 00:48:07,880 Speaker 1: problem is that when you ask people this, they usually 1067 00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:10,680 Speaker 1: volunteer an answer. They'll usually tell you something. And so 1068 00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:12,960 Speaker 1: this is where you have to be really careful because 1069 00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:15,640 Speaker 1: if they're telling you something that might not actually improve 1070 00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:19,640 Speaker 1: your speech. And so when I was documenting Tristan to Montebello, 1071 00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:22,880 Speaker 1: who did a public speaking project for Ultra Learning, he 1072 00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:25,840 Speaker 1: noted to me that one of the things that he 1073 00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:29,919 Speaker 1: paid attention to wasn't the actual advice, but the consistency 1074 00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:32,320 Speaker 1: of the vice that he noticed that that was actually 1075 00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:35,640 Speaker 1: a pretty reliable signal of quality that would people were 1076 00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:38,360 Speaker 1: giving him advice all over the place. He knew the 1077 00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:40,520 Speaker 1: speech wasn't ready and it required a lot of work. 1078 00:48:40,680 --> 00:48:43,400 Speaker 1: When the advice was very specific that they commented on 1079 00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:45,759 Speaker 1: the same things and they had the same reaction, the 1080 00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:47,799 Speaker 1: speech was a lot better. And so that's a sort 1081 00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:50,280 Speaker 1: of observation that I think takes a lot of practice 1082 00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:52,520 Speaker 1: to deduce from your field. But I think it's the 1083 00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:55,160 Speaker 1: kind of direction that you should be going of, not 1084 00:48:55,320 --> 00:48:57,640 Speaker 1: just taking it for granted that everyone's going to give 1085 00:48:57,640 --> 00:48:59,560 Speaker 1: you the right answer, but just sort of saying, Okay, 1086 00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:01,800 Speaker 1: let's get more information and then let's try to spot 1087 00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:05,239 Speaker 1: patterns that are associated with success or a little indicators 1088 00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:07,440 Speaker 1: that you can use to determine whether or not something 1089 00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:09,000 Speaker 1: is going the direction you want. 1090 00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:12,080 Speaker 2: I think that's just so useful when thinking about feedback, 1091 00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:14,440 Speaker 2: because my goodness, there is a lot of a lot 1092 00:49:14,440 --> 00:49:19,359 Speaker 2: of unsolicited feedback. I think that happens in the workplace. Yes, yes, 1093 00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:22,040 Speaker 2: but Scott, I think we're just about added times. 1094 00:49:22,080 --> 00:49:23,960 Speaker 3: So I want to say, it's just been an absolute 1095 00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:25,359 Speaker 3: pleasure talking to you. 1096 00:49:25,440 --> 00:49:28,840 Speaker 2: I loved Ultra Learning so much, and listeners should just 1097 00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:31,800 Speaker 2: go out and buy a copy now because it's seriously, 1098 00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:34,719 Speaker 2: it is really changed how I think about learning and 1099 00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:38,160 Speaker 2: has made me genuinely excited to take on a few 1100 00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:40,279 Speaker 2: more learning projects in my own life. So thank you 1101 00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:43,560 Speaker 2: for condensing everything that you've learned and that you've applied 1102 00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:46,520 Speaker 2: in you know, in your life into this great book. 1103 00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:48,479 Speaker 2: And yeah, it's just been wonderful having you on the show. 1104 00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:50,560 Speaker 1: Oh, thank you so much for having me. 1105 00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:54,440 Speaker 3: That is it for today's show. 1106 00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:57,360 Speaker 2: If you liked my chat with Scott i Reckon, you 1107 00:49:57,400 --> 00:50:00,600 Speaker 2: will love his book Ultra Learning, So go pick it up. 1108 00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:03,480 Speaker 2: It's one of the best books that I've read in 1109 00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:06,480 Speaker 2: the last year or so, absolutely loved it. And if 1110 00:50:06,520 --> 00:50:09,640 Speaker 2: you're enjoying how I work, why not tell other people 1111 00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:14,920 Speaker 2: about it. The more the show grows, the better the 1112 00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:20,040 Speaker 2: guests I can secure, and the bigger the impact that 1113 00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:23,160 Speaker 2: I have through this little podcast that I do. So 1114 00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:26,120 Speaker 2: thank you in advance if you have told other people 1115 00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:28,799 Speaker 2: about how I work. So that's it for today and 1116 00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:30,200 Speaker 2: I will see you next time.