How To Learn Anything Fast
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Productivity Tips you'll learn today on The Sales Podcast...
- The 10 Principles of Rapid Skill Acquisition
- Choose a lovable project
- Focus your energy on one skill at a time
- Define your target performance level
- Deconstruct the skill into sub-skills
- Obtain critical tools
- Eliminate barriers to practice
- Make dedicated time for practice
- Create fast feedback loops (coaches, partners, recording, blasts, CTAs,)
- Practice by the clock in short bursts
- Emphasize quantity and speed
Well begun is half done."
- Learning curve charts (performance time vs. practice time and how good you are vs. practice time)
A problem well-stated is a problem half solved." ~Charles Kettering
- The 10 principles of effective learning
- Research the skill and related topics
- Jump in over your head
- Identify mental models and mental hooks
- Imagine the opposite of what you want
- Talk to practitioners to set expectations
- Eliminate distractions in your environment
- Use spaced repetition and reinforcement for memorization
- Create scaffolds and checklists
- Make and test predictions
- Honor your biology
There ain't no rules around here. We're trying to accomplish something." ~Thomas Edison
- The price of progress
- Examine the problem
- A potential solution
- So what do you really want to do or need to be done? Like, really. Like, in real detail. Like, specifically?
- Think like a...
- Salesperson
- Programmer
- Marketer
- Entrepreneur
- Executive
- Use precise language
- Choose a framework
- Define the end result
- Refine, test, revise
- Enhance, improve
- Embrace chaos
- Expect more losses than wins in the beginning
Anything worth doing well, is worth doing poorly, at first." ~Ray Congdon
- I have seen the enemy, and it is me! (The emotional baggage of change tends to be quite large.)
- Learning a new motor skill requires physically changing the structure of your brain, so you need sleep
- Interference, inhibition, consolidation, activation, patterns, memory
- So practice something new just before going to bed!
- Cognitive interference means you need to space your new skill training
- Remove the training wheels
- Ambient practice is not enough
- You must have focused, deliberate practice
- Conduct focused sprints of intense training
Explore, then decide.
- Map out your strategies
- Map our your tactics
- Know the rules
- Make your "Ear Reddening Move"
- Pattern recognition from 360 degrees is key
- Master yourself
- Use your feelings...
- The tactics of the soldier
- The exactness of the mathematician
- The imagination of the artist
- The inspiration of the poet
- The calm of the philosopher
- The greatest intellect (Zhang Yunqi)
- Outwit, outperform
- Aptitude and control
- Find and seize the biggest opportunities first
- Exploit the weaknesses of your opponent
- Gear up
- Follow the script
- Focus
- Study small
- Keep your options open
- Suicide is not allowed
- Strong corners prevent being flanked
- "I know you are but what am I?" is for losers
- Estimating the territory you have won or lost is a skill, and takes practice
- Direct vs. indirect attacks
- Attack from a position of strength
- Connections, joints, approaches, influence
- Recognize, build, and defend two eyes, false eyes, and true eyes
- If you don't know who the chump is, it's you.
- If you're not ready, willing, and able to walk away from the negotiation table, you shouldn't be at it.
- Get your opponent to overextend themselves
- Structured study and practice is key
- "Diary of a Wimpy Salesman"
- Don't follow your opponents blindly
- Pat attention to the entire board
- Make profitable moves
- Take the initiative, set the pace, set the agenda
- Play to win, get them playing not to lose
- Know where you are on the board
- Know how much territory you have captured or given
- Do not be envious
- Avoid wishful thinking
- Know what victory looks like, i.e., it's okay to lose some battles as long as you win the war
- More "Go" proverbs
- The enemy's key point is your key point.
- When in doubt, tenuki (play somewhere else).
- Make a fist before striking.
- A rich man should not pick quarrels.
- If you ride a tiger, it's difficult to get off. (Don't start what you're not willing to finish.)
- Don't follow proverbs blindly.
- Only after the tenth punch will you see the fist.
- Only after the twentieth punch will you be able to block it.
- Live, kill, secure, invade.
- Go requires making decisions with incomplete information in a changing environment. (Sounds like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, sales, entrepreneurship, and life!)
- Repetition makes your skills become automatic.
- It's not glamorous, but it's important.
- Wind Surfing Tips
- Watch the wind
- Put the pieces together
- The maiden voyage
- At the mercy of Mother Nature
- Self-rescue
- Post-traumatic event analysis
- Learning from the past
- Now that you're moving...how do you steer?
- For everything, there is a season
Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit." ~Conrad Hilton