Diving instead of dipping
Or how to make the fastest progress
Hello there, friend! 👋
Normally I make some sort of intro here, tell you a bit of what the post is about, and then say something like "let's dive in".
This time, I'm not doing that ‘cause I'll be talking about “diving” in a new field (like you can tell by the title).
Ok, ready? let's div... ahh right, that's not it.
Hmmm...
Let's... get started, then.
Main quest 🛡
How do you think someone can make progress in the fastest way?
Taking it little by little, trying things out or going all in with it? (and some help
from a trainer/coach)
I’m not talking anything gym or sports related here but in general.
If you think about, the answer is pretty obvious. You’d choose option #2.
Most people I know would say the same. And yet, the vast majority of people end up choosing the 1st option.
There’s a reason why language coaches and polyglots talk about immersion as one of the main keys of fluency in a new language in a short amount of time.
But if the default mode of learning is trying things out and dipping your toes in the water, it’s a radical change when someone tells you about immersion or diving in head first. Most people get scared, intimidated, and just avoid it.
(And pretty much everyone shouldn’t do it on their own the first times, to not risk “drowning”)
But if you’ve done learning challenges before or have pushed yourself out of your comfort zone a few times, you have a better grasp of what you can and can’t do (yet).
What are your actual limitations and not just perceived ones.
It is important to know how much you can take in without reaching a detrimental point (you know, doing too much too soon can get you burned out).
It also allows you to balance the challenge vs skills ratio when you’re learning and performing an activity.
Here, there are 2 flavors of skills we can learn:
Mostly physical ones.
Mostly cognitive ones.
Learning a new sport (basketball, tennis), a new exercise modality (CrossFit, calisthenics), or a new training style (bodybuilding, powerlifting) fall into the 1st one.
While learning a new language (programming or otherwise), using a new program, or new field of study belong to the 2nd.
For most of us that are online professionals, knowledge workers, and the like, the skills we want (or need) to learn are from that 2nd category.
We don’t need that much physical effort or exertion, it’s mostly cognitive effort.
And that’s where the importance of knowing ourselves, our current skills, and our current limits is.
To know how much we can go forward before having to dial back. To be in that sweet spot where we are not in apathy or boredom but also not in anxiety and overwhelm.
(And if you are reading between the lines you know I’m talking about some of the requirements to achieve flow.)
It’s easier to know that with physical activities, with mental ones not so much.
But it’s that awareness the one we need to cultivate (along with other traits that will help us sustain consistent effort for extended periods of time before we get results).
Having that awareness and “inner game” going enables us to use Supercharged Learning to achieve any lofty goals we have in mind. Also stalking the impossible if we want and putting our biggest dreams in our list of “recent accomplishments”.
With it we can go from “zero to hero” in any field.
Like:
Being a published author.
Launching a profitable app.
Building a successful business.
Becoming a fully-booked speaker.
Getting many gigs in a new field (like development of trading indicators).
The possibilities are endless, for real.
There are many examples of it out there.
And I can share with you one of mine (particularly about that last bullet point I mentioned above).
If you’re curious about that, stay tuned for next week’s post. 😉
Experiments 🧪
This whole month I've been pretty much experimenting with my limits both physical and cognitive ones.
It's a month when many activities and events converged. I wanted to take a look at everything or at least give it a shot. But I found it was physically impossible to do so (even with AI helping me)
Why everyone thought June was a good month to run their events, challenges, etc... I have no idea (probably because July it's summer break or something)
I only became aware of the magnitude of the situation when I verbally explained to my mom everything I've been working on.
She said something like "and then you don't want to be with low defenses, all weak, and catching a cold 😒".
Yeah I guess she has a point. I’m not Superman and not trying to be either…
Power-ups ✨
This time the powerup comes from yours truly. It's an idea I started working last year on my own but couldn't get a working version out there.
This time, I took advantage of the "World's Largest Hackathon" run by the Stackblitz folks to gather a team and use the Bolt platform plus the resources from the sponsors to get a fully working MVP version (before submission closes in less than 12 hours).
Now you're in luck because you're part of the exclusive group that can try it out before the general public knows about it.
And please let me know your first impressions or anything that's not working but should.
That’s it for this week!
I hope you’ve had a more relaxed weekend than me. And can start this new week (and new month) with all the powers. 💪
Talk soon.
Cheers,
Juan.
P.S. You might not have watched this, which is my first “official” interview here on Substack. I invite you to do so (playing it in 1.5x works well).