Here's a map for you
It's been years in the making
Hello friend.
This time I’m giving you a map that leads to the treasure(s).
Along with other goodies.
Let’s get it!
Main quest 🛡
This week I’m letting the “cat out of the bag”, so to speak.
I’m giving you the roadmap of the different skills that form the foundation of supercharged learning.
If you’ve read the previous issues, you have already picked up a couple of those. But this time, it’s all of them in one spot.
And I’m not just going to unload a list of techniques and tactics on you.
Instead, I’ll start with the mental game that makes all the other techniques work.
Because it’s like they say, if you don’t have solid foundations everything else will be on shaky ground.
With that out of the way, let’s start with…
Growth mindset:
This is the start of everything because without this, everything else becomes unnecessarily difficult to the point of impossible.
This is the belief that our intelligence and abilities can be developed through regular practice, dedication, and “putting in the reps”. Once you develop it, all the improvement and development can happen.
If you want to know more about it, Carol Dweck’s book “Mindset” it’s the best place to start.
Curiosity:
It’s been considered a personal trait for the longest time. What some people have and others don’t come with. But piggybacking on the previous skill, everyone can develop this kind of intellectual curiosity.
You can develop it by taking out time to explore new things, ask questions, and engage in conversations in ways you haven’t before (i.e. trying to learn instead of just relaying info).
Awareness:
A very underrated and almost forgotten skill nowadays. Developing awareness allows you to recognize your current place in the world. Where you’ve come from and where are you heading.
It helps you understand your own thoughts and actions. Why you do what you do. And it helps create the space to change and improve for future situations.
Drive:
This builds up from the previous skills. Drive is that very thing that keeps you going. For the majority of people there are several drivers, not just one.
This is the most concrete form of motivation that helps you move towards your dreams and ambitions. It’s not just knowing what to do, it’s knowing why you’re doing it. This helps you wake up every morning and take action towards your goals.
To know more about the different human drivers, Daniel Pink wrote an excellent book called “Drive”.
Grit:
Even when you know what motivates you and what are your goals, it’s very difficult to go all the way through until you develop some good ol’ grit.
Grit is more than one skill. It’s a group of interrelated ones that forms what’s known when others describe a “gritty” person. This allows you to keep taking actions and putting the effort despite facing setbacks and not seeing the results you want.
The best resource to learn about this is Angela Duckworth’s book. (You know, “Grit”)
Emotional Intelligence:
With this skill you’re not only able to do proper emotional regulation (something very useful to deal with frustration, discomfort, fear, and so on).
You are also able to recognize and understand the emotions in others around you. Family, friends, colleagues, etc.
This is arguably the most relevant type of intelligence for success in the modern world. Because as you know, no one works in a vacuum or succeeds by themselves.
Daniel Goleman wrote the #1 book about this skill.
Focus:
That skill which is on the verge of extinction in our modern world. All due to excessive technology and constant “online connectedness”.
Focus allows you to direct your attention to one specific task until you complete it. And it helps to maintain that attention on the goal despite the distractions around.
Without focus, you simply cannot perform at your best and no supercharged learning can take place.
This is a difficult skill to develop nowadays. But I made it easier for you to get started.
Meta-learning:
One of my favorites, the skill of learning how to learn.
It involves awareness to understand our own learning approaches, find ways to improve, and refine our learning depending on what the situation requires.
All concepts and areas of knowledge need different approaches to learn and master them. Meta-learning is what allows us to change and fine-tune our strategies to fit the requirements of each area and perform well in all of them.
Creativity:
This skill is important when you don’t just want to follow what others have done but you want to innovate. Take something that’s out there and put a different spin on it.
Creativity is not so much about creating something completely new. It’s also about taking things that already exist to mix and match them in different and novel ways.
You have heard about terms like “lateral thinking” or thinking “outside the box”. That’s all within this skill.
Flow:
The last one but arguably the most important in this roadmap.
That state of effortless concentration where you’re engaged in the activity, using your skills to accomplish objectives, and not noticing the passing of time.
Flow is what turbo boosts all the previous skills. Is what allows you to do 8 hours worth of work in only 2. It’s what improves and develops your skills faster and better than anything else.
It’s becoming more mainstream nowadays although there are some myths around it.
And that, my friend…
Is the end of the road. Kudos to you for making it all the way here.
You now have every part of the map in the proper order.
What follows is how you will use this map.
Will you use it to go out and develop the remaining skills you need?
Or use it as a way to increase your intellectual knowledge and maybe have some extra topics to talk about in your next gathering…
The choice is yours. I only hope you choose wisely.
Experiments 🧪
Like I told you last week, I’ve been experimenting with adding back habits that I had before and rebuilding routines.
Surprisingly, it’s been harder than I anticipated.
I’ve started putting all of them at once but I’m not doing all of them all of the time.
So I think I’ll introduce them one by one. Only introducing another until I’ve done a good job with the first one.
Power-ups ✨
I found a very interesting one this week. It’s called Coglayer.
A short way to describe it would be… a more specialized, less hallucinating, and better ChatGPT for writing either fiction or nonfiction.
It’s still in beta so don’t expect anything too fancy, but the results are very promising.
I used it to give me more context for 2 articles I have to write and send for review. 👌
From the vault 🏛️
This week comes the followup of the resource I shared with you last week. (It was last week I suppose…)
It’s the part 2 of making your own transcriber app
Sequels normally aren’t as good as the originals but hey… 🤷♂️
That’s all for this week.
It’s the end of the month.
Time sure flies. Will have to gear up for the end of the year too.
Have a great Sunday and see you next week.
Cheers,
Juan.