Most of us don’t know how to learn.
I remember making that realisation when I started studying academics for business and finance.
To give some context, I came into university with the same mindset that every college kid has when they don’t take accountability for thier work.
You know, sitting in class with your hands behind your head. Talking out loud without any context of the topic. Taking notes that you’re never going to use.
The list goes on.
The problem was when I looked at everyone else, they seemed to be in the place I was. Sure, you had the one student who would ask millions of questions and make the class feel a bit less dystopian in the first few weeks. But by the fifth week you can be sure that everyone is off track and isolated from the course.
We start to lose sight about why we are learning in the first place. Work becomes scattered. Questions burn in our heads like a Roman flame.
Thankfully, the only thing that saved me from hitting rock bottom myself was that at the time I was reading one of my favorite books Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday.
For a long time I have know about the dangers of ego and pride – especially in the earliest years of our career. I’ve read stories of brilliant startups who couldn’t launch. Artists that lost the ability to participate with the world and live stuck in their own heads. Champions that kept fighting and ignored the signs of a potentially reckless and career-ending move.
If this starts to feel like the beginning of a history class, stick with me. I’ll spare you the class so we can move on to the point of this letter.
But one thing becomes clear:
What often leads to the catastrophic failures that you see with leaders, founders, and athletes is that they lose the ability to learn. If you’re not careful, you can expect the same thing happening to you.
The Path To Mastery
Justin Sung, a well-known productivity and learning coach on Youtube, makes a point that learning takes places in 4 different levels of mastery.
- Logical
- Conceptual
- Technical
He then said something about 60-70% of your time should be spent in the conceptual phase. Concepts are the main ideas and principles circulating around a particular field. They add context to what you are learning.
And that’s exactly the problem.
Many of the disciplines that we study are still on their infancy. Over the last millennia we’ve made very little progress in creating a learning model that allows us to solve problems. Generally there are many problems and questions that we can’t solve right now, so instead we can only add rules to it.
For instance, most of the progress in biology depends on rules of thumb in the sense of “A affects B and therefore C will do this”. It’s just words pointing to words that don’t really help us prove the theory behind it. As a result, progress in these fields becomes a slow and painful battle of trial and error.
This applies to anyone looking to contribute in the development of their respective fileds.
I can’t exactly tell you how to become successful in your field. I can only give you a model that will allow you build on your learning and acquire the skills you need for your work.
For the next 5-10 years you will need to become a perpetual student:
- Determine your core skill and outline all the pieces that go into learning it.
- Study the principles and concepts to go into the skill
- Turn your skill into a project to attract others and start making an income from it.
This is not going to be easy.
You will likely need to experience trials and errors in every level of your career.
That’s where I come in. By the end of this letter you will have an entire regiment with strategies and techniques that you can use for your learning.
In addition to that, joining a community is a great way to engage with different strategies all in one place and test your ideas.
If you’re looking for that then consider joining the Sponsorship Collective. But this is more than a community. It’s the exact blueprint that I’m using to build an audience on social media and attract people to my work. When you join, you can think of me as your sparring partner for building your own process that you can iterate and adapt as many times as you want until you can afford to succeed. You can learn more here and save your slot before enrolment closes on the 31st of March.
How To Learn Any Skill Faster
Now onto the letter itself.
We’re going to keep this beginner-friendly and accessible for anyone pursing a professional life.
Pull out a pen and a notebook. Keep it beside you while reading the rest of this letter. You’re going to be actively mapping out an action-plan that you can use for everything else you’re about to learn today.
This is to make sure that you don’t lose track when things change after 30 or 60 days. For anyone pursing a professional life, your time is here.
I) Create A Study Regiment
A study regiment, in my opinion, is composed of 3 main time blocks:
- 15-30 minutes of writing and planning
- 30-90 minutes of building and focus work
- 30-60 minutes of supplementary learning (books, courses, tutorials etc)
That’s it.
You can think of these as levers for your knowledge.
Essentially, a study program is a sort of workout for your knowledge. It’s the foundation for learning a particular skill and eliminate the excess little details from your work.
Keep in mind that no one is going to give you the time to turn this into a daily routine. You have to create the time for yourself. That’s the challange.
This could mean waking up an hour earlier before the world wakes up. It could mean staying up an hour later to check in with your progress.
At first I thought this was simple enough, but then I realised how quickly things can change in just 30 days. You want to use this time to make the changes you need to make and continue learning.
II) Use Notes For Conceptual Learning
As you begin settling down on your action-plan and start making some progress, this is a good time to start reflecting with your notes.
I would argue that this is the part you’re going to struggle most. Most of us have only been taught to take linear notes, which don’t provide much context of the information you’re learning.
Linear notes are generally effective for capturing information quickly. They are not, however, a substitute for actually learning and thinking with the ideas circulating around the skill.
Instead, you want to use non-linear based notes to reflect with your work.
Over the past few weeks I have research countless techniques to enhance your note-taking and in the end I’ve come across a system that works pretty well:
- Create a template. Divide your notes into boxes with questions to guide your thinking process.
- Summarise the key points. Prepare a box to summarise your learning into a diagram or flow chart.
- Turn your weak points into flashcards.
When summarising your points you want to visualise how your work applies to your field or profession.
That’s right.
Context context context.
I can’t stress this enough.
Visualising your notes allows you to retain more without having to waste time committing everything to memory.
This way, you’re more likely to apply the information directly towards your goals.
Finally, any specific areas that you need to work on can be put down as flashcards for review. In most cases, your flashcards are going to be very technical. You might even consider outsourcing or delagating the little details to avoid getting caught in your head.
Personally, I would make the investment and commit to someone to help me speed up my learning. Weather it’s a coach, a mentor, a partner – gain as much feedback as possible. Stick to the concepts and iterate as you go.
III) Turn Your Notes Into A Project
Let’s do a quick recap:
- You have an action plan that you commit at least 3-4 hours a day.
- You’ve started searching for courses, videos, and platforms to supplement your learning.
- You’ve summarised your progress and identify areas that you need to work on in the next few weeks.
There’s just one missing piece...
(Full version will be available on the 1st of April 2025)
