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Ass-Kicking Email – Rapid Self-Education

Hey,

In past surveys, “rapid self-education” was almost universally
agreed to be the most important benefit for readers here. So, along
with general studying and motivation advice, I’m going to try
to devote the next few ass-kicking emails to the idea of what it
means to really teach yourself.

In this email:

1. The obstacle to teaching yourself anything, and how to avoid it
2. The goal of becoming insanely intelligent

—

Scaling Mount Frustration

The biggest obstacle to learning anything new, in my opinion, is
getting past the frustration barrier. This is the inevitable period
when you can only say to yourself, “I suck at this.”

Yes, a lot of people will tell you that you need confidence during
this phase. That you need to ignore your grammatical mistakes when
starting with that new language. Or that you should expect calculus
to take awhile to “get” because it’s a difficult subject.

But, even though confidence is important, we’re all human. We all
get stuck in moments of thinking we aren’t cut out for the subject,
or even if when we don’t, we all occasionally succumb to being
overwhelmed by the subject.

When I started learning French, I was continuously overwhelmed by
the goal ahead of me. Thousands of words, new syntactical structures
and all the audio recordings sound like gibberish.

When I started computer programming, it might have been written in
an alien language. I would often have to copy and paste whole
sections of working code because I couldn’t understand why it was
written that way.

When I took a class in salsa dancing, I was painfully reminded many
times how completely uncoordinated I am.

In short, the number one reason you’ll fail to learn and master the
subjects you want to learn generally isn’t initial talent. It’s also
not usually motivation or even strategy.

Instead, it’s getting stuck in the “I suck” phase and never pushing
your way out.

—

Getting From “I Suck” to Kicking Ass

There are a number of tactics for getting through this phase and
moving towards really “getting” the subject you want to master. Some
are even large enough that I’ll be devoting entire implementation
guides to them in the future.

But right now I want to focus on two: immersion and stepping stones.

Immersion allows you to get through “I suck” because it doesn’t let
you escape. If, for example, you just study your subject when you
feel like it, the frustration barrier will often keep you from
becoming good.

However, if you center your entire life and free-time around the
pursuit, magical things start to happen. You may still think you’re
terrible at the subject, but you no longer can escape it.

If you live in a foreign country, you’re immersed in all your daily
activities in that language (unless you insist on speaking English).

If you surround yourself with an exciting computer programming
project, you’ll be forced to learn methods that never get touched
in assignments for class.

If you go out to the salsa clubs and be around people who have
danced for years, your feet will eventually forget their clumsiness.

Stepping stones tackles the frustration barrier from a different
angle. The idea here is to defeat frustration with routine.

As a stepping stone, you decompose your big, hairy goal into bite
sized pieces. “Learn to Speak Italian” is replaced with goals like
“Learn all the words in the kitchen” or “Have a conversation each
day”.

With this latter approach, your aim is to systematically introduce
and complete these stepping stones before moving on. Thirty-Day
Trials are good for this, because they allow you to focus on a
sub-goal without being overwhelmed by the entirety of your mission.

—

Becoming Insanely Intelligent

We all know the nerd stereotype. The know-it-all. The bookworm who
knows facts and figures but not people. The geek who can diagnose
computer problems, but is unable to diagnose his own life.

And, due to these stereotypes, many people resist the idea of
becoming insanely intelligent. They claim to want “street smarts” or
wisdom or something more practical.

But the truth is, there are few things more practical than smarts.
Rounded intelligence, knowing many abstract things and having them
bound to concrete life experiences is perhaps the most valuable
asset you can ever own.

Money, relationships, health, business and even life satisfaction
are all derived, in part, by your ability to think and act on life
in an intelligent manner.

I don’t claim to be insanely intelligent, or to have discovered
exactly the recipe for becoming so smart.

However, just as most people don’t exercise regularly or manage
their finances well, few people actively engage on becoming smarter.

Simply setting the goal of increasing your useful knowledge sets
you apart from the crowd who will never read another book or take
a class in a skill outside their comfort zone.

This program is dedicated to people like you, who train their minds
like athletes train their bodies.