Boost your intelligence with these steps

Date: 11/4/2023

1 Accelerate Your Learning Curve With These 5 Practical Tips How to learn skills faster. By Darius Foroux Have you seen those articles with headlines that promise the impossible? “1000X your personal growth!” “Change your life in 10 seconds!” “Learn EVERYTHING in 1 hour!” You and I both know that these types of claims are BS—it’s nothing more than cheap clickbait. But why are we still baited by these headlines? We’re optimists! And there’s nothing wrong with that. Look, we all know that there’s no such thing as 1,000% growth in a short period of time. We also know that we can’t finish a 300-page book in 30 minutes. Mastery doesn’t work that way. There are no shortcuts. However, getting good at something is also not totally unattainable. Because like these above extreme claims, there is a counterculture that says it takes 10,000 hours (or more) to master a skill. As you might expect, I’m more on the side of that it takes longer to get good at something. But I firmly believe there’s a difference in the way we learn. You can spend 10,000 hours doing something and learn nothing. That’s why I’m sharing 5 things that have worked for me in the past to accelerate my learning curve and learn skills faster. 1. Use Best Practices “Don’t reinvent the wheel.” It’s a platitude you often hear. And yet, we all think we’re majestic wheel-inventors. When you start learning a skill, it must come from a place of humility and admiration for the practice. Whether it’s writing, value investing, or playing the pan flute; start with the basics. I get that people want to be different and try to do new things. But no one ever started as an “original.” We start by doing what everybody else did. Once you master the basics, you can go out and do your own thing. When I started writing, I copied my favorite authors. And I followed advice from books like On Writing by Stephen King and Ernest Hemingway. It’s the same with investing. I didn’t try to create my own strategy from the beginning. I learned about investing from my mentors and from books. I didn’t make decisions on my own. That only came later. By listening to best practices, you can avoid making mistakes in the beginning. And that’s exactly why most people never get good at something. They quit too early. Don’t be like most people. Instead, learn from the greats. And have respect for the skill you’re learning. 2. Measure And Evaluate Your Progress Weekly Your goal is to get better at a skill, right? How do you know that you’re getting better without measuring it? Measuring your progress is the only way you can evaluate it. You don’t need hardcore data to evaluate. I use my journal as an evaluation tool. Every day, I write about what I’ve learned. What mistakes I made. What I need to avoid. What I want to focus on. And every week, I review my journal and look at how it went. Did I spend enough time practicing? Did I make enough notes? What should I do differently? Looking for tips to get started with journaling? Read this. 3. Get Feedback It’s important to get input from mentors, coaches, or experts who’ve done what we’re trying to do. I can’t stress this enough. Show your progress to an experienced person. Play the guitar in front of a teacher Send your articles to an established writer Discuss your business model with a successful entrepreneur If you don’t have access to an expert, consider paying someone. Getting feedback from a more experienced person is scary. I’ve been there many times. We don’t like to be told that we’re doing things wrong. We also don’t like to look stupid. That’s normal. But what’s more important. Your feelings or your career? Also, good mentors and coaches never make you feel bad. Remember: If make you feel bad, you’ve asked the wrong person for advice. Seek out people who are already established and have nothing to prove. They will help you better. 4. Don’t Quit This is so obvious that it often gets left out. You can’t master a skill if you quit early. There’s no point in talking about that. However, understanding WHY we quit can help us to prevent quitting early. So when you’re learning a skill, your progress does not grow linearly over time. But we all expect that learning is linear. “The more time I invest in something, the better I should get, right?” Unfortunately, learning skills don’t work that way. Our progress looks more like this: We hit learning plateaus—and all of a sudden, we don’t get better. But the problem is that time does not stop, only our progress does—and that’s very frustrating. And what does frustration cause? That’s right: An urge to quit. So when you stop growing, know why you want to quit. The trick is to acknowledge the urge but not giving into it. Remember: When you accelerate your learning curve, you will still hit plateaus (see drawing). The difference is that you expect them. That alone will help you to push through plateaus. 5. Work Harder “Yeah, but I work smart, dude!” There are always Einsteins who try to tell us that they work “smart.” Good for them. But that’s not what I’m talking about (listen to my podcast episode about working hard if you want to hear more on this). Even if you work 2 hours a day. I’m saying: Work hard during those two hours. Every day, work hard. Don’t hold anything back. I always thought I worked hard. But I wasn’t working nearly as hard as I am today. And I can still improve a lot. As you and I both know, hard work is not about appearing busy or doing useless tasks. It has everything to do with focus. I know this sounds cheesy. When you’re working; work. Don’t go for coffee 10 times a day, stop looking at your social media apps, and don’t lounge in your chair. Don’t wander around, thinking, “what should I do now?” If you want to learn faster, achieve more, and make a contribution, you must take your personal development seriously. You can’t slack off. This is not high school. I’m not always a fan of black/white thinking. But when it comes to getting good at what you do, it is indeed a binary choice: Are you learning or NOT? There’s no middle ground. You either move forward, or you go backward. It’s up to you. 2 Emotional Intelligence Is the Real Secret to Getting Promoted Faster Your technical skills probably won’t secure you that management role, but these seven habits might. By Fast Company Harvey by Deutschendorf There was a time not too long ago when the person with the most technical knowledge got promoted fastest. But that’s often no longer the case. Once someone gets promoted, technical skills become less necessary, and interpersonal ones become more critical in their place. You’ve probably already heard that emotional intelligence is a top factor in companies’ hiring decisions, but it plays a major role in how employers choose to promote their team members, too. This isn’t exactly news; in a 2011 Career Builder survey of more than 2,600 hiring managers and HR professionals, 71 percent said they valued emotional intelligence over IQ in general, and 75 percent said they’re typically more likely to promote an employee with high emotional intelligence and a comparatively lower IQ than one where that ratio is flipped. So when you’re gunning for your next promotion, your main objective might be to dial up those so-called “soft skills” in order to show your boss you’ve got the emotional intelligence it takes to excel. Here are a few skills you’ll want to make sure your boss can give you high marks for. 1. You Can Manage Your Emotions Under Pressure As your responsibilities increase, so will the pressure and demands on you. That means you’ll need to stay calm, keep your feelings in check, and avoid reacting impulsively to every crisis (or perceived crisis) that pops up. Your boss needs to expect that you’ll handle tough situations smoothly and calmly. Anyone who’s reporting to you will need reassurance and support when the stress starts to increase, so if you want to show that you’re management material, it’s smart to model that poise and composure early on. 2. You Listen in a Way That Makes Others Feel Heard Lots of workplace crises can be avoided simply by making people feel heard and understood. That one reason why hiring managers cite listening as a critical job skill. Even if somebody’s idea or advice isn’t acted upon, they need to feel like their contribution is valued, and you don’t need to bend over backwards or condescend to your colleagues to do that—you just have to listen actively to them. As a manager, your team’s productivity depends on how motivated they feel to do their best, and that begins with making them feel heard. It never hurts to brush up on those listening behaviors. 3. You’re Quick to Show Empathy Everyone has a life outside of work that can affect their performance on the job. Family members and friends fall ill, relationships end, and lots of other life events can crop up. The best bosses aren’t those who just shepherd projects along with ruthless efficiency—they’re ones who treat their team members as actual people. Fortunately, it takes no technical training whatsoever to show your coworkers a little empathy. Being sensitive to the things that affect them in the office can make all the difference between helping somebody through a really hard week and leaving them angry, resentful, and looking for a new job. 4. You Take Responsibility for Your Mistakes Emotionally intelligent people are good at taking their missteps in stride. That helps them learn and improve faster after a slip-up. Why? Because they’re less likely to see the mistake as a personal failure—a potentially powerful mind-set that employers look for in up-and-coming leaders. Instead of fearing criticism and rebuke, you’ll want to show your boss that your bigger fear is not taking the initiative to try something new. So try not to wallow in failure the next time you make an error—own up to it as quickly as you can, and take the reins in finding a solution. That’s exactly what emotionally intelligent managers are expected to do. 5. You’re Always Open to Feedback Keeping your ego in check can also help you stay open to constructive criticism—especially the kind that less emotionally intelligent people might find hard to take. Make sure you show your manager that you’re always looking to improve, even in small ways. Companies are more willing to promote employees who see feedback as a chance to grow, not a risk to their credibility or as some kind of personal slight. Demonstrating this is actually pretty easy; it all starts by assuming that your boss has good intentions whenever they critique your work. 6. You Can Work Through Conflicts Getting promoted means you’ll have to deal with the inevitable conflicts among the people reporting to you. Even the most serene workplaces occasionally have mini power struggles and squabbles—that’s only natural. But the most effective managers aren’t fazed by these disputes. They can approach them without become emotionally involved themselves, look for common ground, and listen to all sides with an eye toward the bigger picture. That isn’t always easy, but if you can show you’re an effective mediator, you’ll likely show that you’ll also be an effective manager. 7. You Earn the Respect of Others (For the Right Reasons) This last factor is the sum of the previous six skills. People who are able to keep their emotions under control, listen to others, and treat them fairly and authentically earn the respect of those they work with. They don’t intimidate, condescend, or hog the spotlight in order to attract their colleagues’ attention. Being approachable is actually a hugely undervalued leadership skill, but it’s one emotionally intelligent people find natural. It’s just about seeing your own role as helping others succeed. If your boss notices that’s the approach you’re taking to your work, they’ll be more likely to consider you for a promotion—and they’ll have few reasons to regret it afterward. Harvey Deutschendorf is an emotional intelligence expert, author and speaker. To take the EI Quiz go to theotherkindofsmart.com. 3 Why Talented People Don’t Use Their Strengths We often undervalue what we inherently do well. Harvard Business ReviewWhitney Johnson If you've watched the Super Bowl in recent years, you've probably seen the coaches talking to each other over headsets during the game. What you didn’t know is that during the 2016 season, the NFL made major league-wide improvements to its radio frequency technology, both to prevent interference from media using the same frequency and to prevent tampering. This was a development led by John Cave, VP of football technology at the National Football League. It’s been incredibly helpful to the coaches. But it might never have been built, or at least Cave wouldn’t have built it, had it not been for his boss, Michelle McKenna-Doyle, CIO of the NFL. When McKenna-Doyle was hired, she observed that a number of her people were struggling, but not because they weren’t talented — because they weren’t in roles suited to their strengths. After doing a deep analysis, she started having people switch jobs. For many, this reshuffling was initially unwelcome and downright uncomfortable. Such was the case with Cave. Cave had the talent to create products and build things. But he didn’t have time to do it, because he had the big job of system development, including enterprise systems. “Why was he weighed down with the payroll system when he could figure out how to evolve the game through technology?” McKenna-Doyle asked. As she later explained to me, she envisioned a better role for his distinctive strengths. The coaches wanted to talk to each other. The technology didn’t exist. She tasked Cave with creating it. “At first, he was concerned, because his overall span was shrinking. ‘Just trust me,’ I said. ‘You’re going to be a great innovator,’ and he is.” Experts have long encouraged people to “play to their strengths.” And why wouldn’t we want to flex our strongest muscle? But based on my observations, this is easier said than done. Not because it’s hard to identify what we’re good at. But because we often undervalue what we inherently do well. Often our “superpowers” are things we do effortlessly, almost reflexively, like breathing. When a boss identifies these talents and asks you to do something that uses your superpower, you may think, “But that’s so easy. It’s too easy.” It may feel that your boss doesn’t trust you to take on a more challenging assignment or otherwise doesn’t value you — because you don’t value your innate talents as much as you do the skills that have been hard-won. As a leader, the challenge is not only to spot talent but also to convince your people that you value their talents and that they should, too. This is how you start to build a team of employees who bring their superpowers to work. Begin by identifying the strengths of each member of your team. Some of my go-to questions are: What exasperates you? This can be a sign of a skill that comes easily to you, so much so that you get frustrated when it doesn’t to others. I’m weirdly good at remembering names, for example, and often get annoyed with others who don’t. I have a terrible sense of direction, however, and probably irritate other people who intrinsically sense which way is north. What compliments do you dismiss? When we’re inherently good at something, we tend to downplay it. “Oh, it was nothing,” we say — and maybe it was nothing to us. But it meant something to another person, which is why they’re thanking you. Notice these moments: They can point to strengths that you underrate in yourself but are valuable to others. What do you think about when you have nothing to think about? Mulling over something is a sign that it matters to you. Your brain can’t help but come back to it. If it matters to you that much, maybe you’re good at it. In group settings, I’ll also ask people why they hired so-and-so — what that person’s genius is. Rarely is this a skill listed on their résumé. When people bring up new ideas, you can ask them, Will this leverage what you do well? Are you doing work that draws on your strengths? Are we taking on projects that make the most of your strengths? Once each person has identified their strengths, make sure everyone remembers them. Brett Gerstenblatt, VP and creative director at CVS, has his team take a personality assessment, then post their top five strengths on their desk. Brett wants people to wear their strengths like a badge. Not to tell others why they’re great, but to remind them to use them. Diana Newton Anderson, an entrepreneur turned social good activist, shares a story of her college basketball coach, who had her team take shots from different places on the court: the key, the elbow, the paint. He would record their percentages, and then had every person on the team memorize those percentages. This would allow the team to literally play to each other’s strengths. You can do something similar with your team. As with McKenna-Doyle, building a team that can play to their strengths begins with analysis. Observe people, especially when they are at their best. Because some will undervalue what they do well, it may be up to you to place a value on what they do best. Understanding and acknowledging each person’s strengths can be a team-building exercise. Then you can measure new ideas, new products, and new projects against these collective superpowers, asking: Are we playing to our strengths? When people feel strong, they are willing to venture into new territory, to play where others are not, and to consider ideas for which there isn’t yet a market. 4 These 10 Scientific Ways to Learn Anything Faster Could Change Everything You Know About Dramatically Improving Your Memory Learn faster. Retain more. Maybe even become the smartest person in the room. Science says so. Inc.Jeff Haden While it's nice to think you can hack your way to success, whenever you try to accomplish a huge goal — like starting and growing a business — skills matter. Who you know is certainly important. But what you know, and what you can do, matters a whole lot more. Which means the faster you learn, the more successful you can be. So let's jump right in. Here are ten ways, backed by science, to speed up the learning process. 1. Say out loud what you want to remember. Research shows that compared to reading or thinking silently (as if there's another way to think), the act of speech is a "quite powerful mechanism for improving memory for selected information." According to scientists, "Learning and memory benefit from active involvement. When we add an active measure or a production element to a word, that word becomes more distinct in long-term memory, and hence more memorable." In short, while mentally rehearsing is good, rehearsing out loud is even better. 2. Take notes by hand, not on a computer. Most of us can type faster than we can write. (And a lot more neatly.) But research shows handwriting your notes means you'll learn more. Oddly enough, taking notes by hand enhances both comprehension and retention, possibly because instead of just serving as a quasi-stenographer, you're forced to put things in your own words in order to keep up. Which means you'll remember what you heard a lot longer. Maybe that's why Richard Branson has maintained a lifelong habit of keeping a handwritten journal? 3. Chunk your study sessions. You're busy. So you wait until the last minute to learn what you need to know: A presentation, a sales demo, an investor pitch... Bad idea. Research shows "distributed practice" is a much more effective way to learn. Imagine you want to nail your investor pitch. Once you've drafted your pitch, run through it once. Then take a few minutes to make corrections and revisions. Then step away for a few hours, or even for a day, before you repeat the process. Why does distributed practice work? The "study-phase retrieval theory" says that each time you attempt to retrieve something from memory and the retrieval is more successful, that memory becomes harder to forget. (If you go over your pitch repeatedly, much of your presentation is still top of mind ... which means you don't have to retrieve it from memory.) Another theory regards "contextual variability." When information gets encoded into memory, some of the context is also encoded. (Which is why listening to an old song can cause you to remember where you were, what you were feeling, etc., when you first heard that song.) That context creates useful cues for retrieving information. Regardless of how it works, distributed practice definitely works. So give yourself enough time to space out your learning sessions. You'll learn more efficiently and more effectively. 4. Test yourself. A lot. A number of studies show that self-testing is an extremely effective way to speed up the learning process. Partly that's due to the additional context created; if you test yourself and answer incorrectly, not only are you more likely to remember the right answer after you look it up ... you'll also remember that you didn't remember. (Getting something wrong is a great way to remember it the next time, especially if you tend to be hard on yourself.) So don't just rehearse your presentation. Test yourself on what comes after your intro. Test yourself by listing the five main points you want to make. Try to recite key statistics, or sales estimates, or cash flow projections.... Not only will you gain confidence in how much you do know, you'll more quickly learn the things you don't know. Yet. 5. Change the way you practice. Repeating anything over and over again in the hopes you will master that task will not only keep you from improving as quickly as you could, in some cases it may actually decrease your skill. According to recent research from Johns Hopkins, if you practice a slightly modified version of a task you want to master, "you actually learn more and faster than if you just keep practicing the exact same thing multiple times in a row." The most likely cause is reconsolidation, a process where existing memories are recalled and modified with new knowledge. Say you want to master a new presentation. Do this: 1. Rehearse the basic skill. Run through your presentation a couple of times under the same conditions you'll eventually face when you do it live. Naturally, the second time through will be better than the first; that's how practice works. But then, instead of going through it a third time ... 2. Wait. Give yourself at least six hours so your memory can consolidate. (Which probably means waiting until tomorrow before you practice again, which is just fine.) 3. Practice again, but this time... Go a little faster. Speak a little — just a little — faster than you normally do. Run through your slides slightly faster. Increasing your speed means you'll make more mistakes, but that's OK — in the process, you'll modify old knowledge with new knowledge — and lay the groundwork for improvement. Or ... Go a little slower. The same thing will happen. (Plus, you can experiment with new techniques — including the use of silence for effect — that aren't apparent when you present at your normal speed.) Or ... Change the conditions. Use a different projector. Or a different remote. Or a lavaliere instead of a headset mic. Switch up the conditions slightly; not only will that help you modify an existing memory, it will also make you better prepared for the unexpected. Break your presentation into smaller chunks. Almost every task includes a series of discrete steps. That's definitely true for presentations. Pick one section of your presentation. Deconstruct it. Master it. Then put the whole presentation back together. Or ... 4. And keep modifying the conditions. You can extend the process to almost anything. While it's clearly effective for learning motor skills, the process can also be applied to learning almost anything. 6. Exercise regularly. This study shows that regular exercise can improve memory recall. Another study from McMaster University found that periods of high-intensity exercise are good for fitness and memory: Exercise resulted in significant improvements in high-interference memory. (Interference occurs when information that is similar gets in the way of the information you're trying to recall.) A commonly used example for high-interference memory is remembering faces, a skill that is especially useful for people hoping to make connections. Exercise also resulted in an increase in a chemical called BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), a protein that supports the function, growth, and survival of brain cells. So: Not only will you feel better if you exercise, you'll also improve your memory. Win-win. 7. Get more sleep. Sleep is when most of the memory consolidation process occurs. That's why even a short nap can improve your memory recall. In one study participants memorized illustrated cards to test their memory strength. After memorizing a set of cards they took a 40-minute break and one group napped while the other group stayed awake. After the break both groups were tested on their memory of the cards. The sleep group performed significantly better, retaining on average 85 percent of the patterns compared to 60 percent for those who had remained awake. Researchers have also found that sleep deprivation can affect your ability to commit new information to memory and consolidate any short-term memories you have made. Bottom line? Sleep more, learn more. 8. Learn several subjects in succession. Instead of blocking (focusing on one subject, one task, or one skill during a learning session) learn or practice several subjects or skills in succession. The process is called interleaving: Studying related concepts or skills in parallel. And it turns out interleaving is a much more effective way to train your brain (and your motor skills.) Why? One theory is that interleaving improves your brain's ability to differentiate between concepts or skills. When you block practice one skill, you can drill down until muscle memory takes over and the skill becomes more or less automatic. When you interleave several skills, any one skill can't become mindless — and that's a good thing. Instead you're constantly forced to adapt and adjust. You're constantly forced to see, feel, and discriminate between different movements or different concepts. And that helps you really learn what you're trying to learn, because you it helps you gain understanding at a deeper level. 9. Teach someone else. It may be occasionally true that those who can't, teach... but research shows it's definitely true that those who teach speed up their learning and retain more. Even just thinking that you'll need to teach someone can make you learn more effectively. According to the researchers, "When teachers prepare to teach, they tend to seek out key points and organize information into a coherent structure. Our results suggest that students also turn to these types of effective learning strategies when they expect to teach." The act of teaching also helps improve knowledge. Ask anyone who has trained someone else whether they also benefited from the experience. They definitely did. 10. Build on things you do know. Relating something new to something you're familiar with is called associative learning. Not the Pavlov's dog form of associative learning, but the kind where you learn the relationship between seemingly unrelated things. In simple terms, whenever you say, "Oh, I get it... this is basically like that," you're using associative learning. Need to learn something new? Try to associate it, at least in part, with something you already know. Then you only have to learn the differences or nuances. And you'll be able to apply greater context — which will help with memory storage and retrieval — to the new information you learn. All of which means you'll need to learn a lot less. Which science says will result in you being able to learn a lot more quickly. 5 Six Brain Hacks To Learn Anything Faster Research proves there are ways to learn new skills and concepts with speed and ease. Fast CompanyStephanie Vozza Whether it’s a new technology, a foreign language, or an advanced skill, staying competitive often means learning new things. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. workers have taken a course or sought additional training to advance their careers, according to a March 2016 study by Pew Research Center. They report that results have included an expanded professional network, new job or different career path. Being a quick learner can give you an even greater edge. Science proves there are six ways you can learn and retain something faster. 1. Teach Someone Else (Or Just Pretend To) If you imagine that you’ll need to teach someone else the material or task you are trying to grasp, you can speed up your learning and remember more, according to a study done at Washington University in St. Louis. The expectation changes your mind-set so that you engage in more effective approaches to learning than those who simply learn to pass a test, according to John Nestojko, a postdoctoral researcher in psychology and coauthor of the study. “When teachers prepare to teach, they tend to seek out key points and organize information into a coherent structure,” Nestojko writes. “Our results suggest that students also turn to these types of effective learning strategies when they expect to teach.” 2. Learn in Short Bursts of Time Experts at the Louisiana State University’s Center for Academic Success suggest dedicating 30-50 minutes to learning new material. “Anything less than 30 is just not enough, but anything more than 50 is too much information for your brain to take in at one time,” writes learning strategies graduate assistant Ellen Dunn. Once you’re done, take a five to 10 minute break before you start another session. Brief, frequent learning sessions are much better than longer, infrequent ones, agrees Neil Starr, a course mentor at Western Governors University, an online nonprofit university where the average student earns a bachelor’s degree in two and a half years. He recommends preparing for micro learning sessions. “Make note cards by hand for the more difficult concepts you are trying to master,” he says. “You never know when you’ll have some in-between time to take advantage of.” 3. Take Notes by Hand While it’s faster to take notes on a laptop, using a pen and paper will help you learn and comprehend better. Researchers at Princeton University and UCLA found that when students took notes by hand, they listened more actively and were able to identify important concepts. Taking notes on a laptop, however, leads to mindless transcription, as well as an opportunity for distraction, such as email. “In three studies, we found that students who took notes on laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than students who took notes longhand,” writes coauthor and Princeton University psychology professor Pam Mueller. “We show that whereas taking more notes can be beneficial, laptop note takers’ tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning.” 4. Use the Power of Mental Spacing While it sounds counterintuitive, you can learn faster when you practice distributed learning, or “spacing.” In an interview with The New York Times, Benedict Carey, author of How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens, says learning is like watering a lawn. “You can water a lawn once a week for 90 minutes or three times a week for 30 minutes,” he said. “Spacing out the watering during the week will keep the lawn greener over time.” To retain material, Carey said it’s best to review the information one to two days after first studying it. “One theory is that the brain actually pays less attention during short learning intervals,” he said in the interview. “So repeating the information over a longer interval–say a few days or a week later, rather than in rapid succession–sends a stronger signal to the brain that it needs to retain the information.” 5. Take a Study Nap Downtime is important when it comes to retaining what you learn, and getting sleep in between study sessions can boost your recall up to six months later, according to new research published in Psychological Science. In an experiment held in France, participants were taught the Swahili translation for 16 French words in two sessions. Participants in the “wake” group completed the first learning session in the morning and the second session in the evening of the same day, while participants in the “sleep” group completed the first session in the evening, slept, and then completed the second session the following morning. Participants who had slept between sessions recalled about 10 of the 16 words, on average, while those who hadn’t slept recalled only about 7.5 words. “Our results suggest that interweaving sleep between practice sessions leads to a twofold advantage, reducing the time spent relearning and ensuring a much better long-term retention than practice alone,” writes psychological scientist Stephanie Mazza of the University of Lyon. “Previous research suggested that sleeping after learning is definitely a good strategy, but now we show that sleeping between two learning sessions greatly improves such a strategy.” 6. Change It Up When learning a new motor skill, changing the way you practice it can help you master it faster, according to a new study at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In an experiment, participants were asked to learn a computer-based task. Those who used a modified learning technique during their second session performed better than those who repeated the same method. The findings suggest that reconsolidation–a process in which existing memories are recalled and modified with new knowledge–plays a key role in strengthening motor skills, writes Pablo A. Celnik, senior study author and professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation. “What we found is if you practice a slightly modified version of a task you want to master,” he writes, “you actually learn more and faster than if you just keep practicing the exact same thing multiple times in a row.” 6 A Johns Hopkins Study Reveals the Scientific Secret to Double How Fast You Learn Making one small change to the way you practice can make a huge difference in how quickly you gain new skills. Inc.JeffHaden When you're trying to learn something new — like, say, making that new sales demo really sing — you need to practice. When you're trying to gain expertise, how much you practice is definitely important. But even more important is the way you practice. Most people simply repeat the same moves. Like playing scales on the piano, over and over again. Or going through the same list of vocabulary words, over and over again. Or, well, repeating anything over and over again in the hopes you will master that task. Not only will your skills not improve as quickly as they could, in some cases, they may actually get worse. According to research from Johns Hopkins, "What we found is if you practice a slightly modified version of a task you want to master, you actually learn more and faster than if you just keep practicing the exact same thing multiple times in a row." Why? The most likely cause is reconsolidation, a process where existing memories are recalled and modified with new knowledge. Here's a simple example: trying to get better at shooting free throws in basketball. The conditions are fixed. The rim is always 10 feet above the floor. The free throw line is always 15 feet from the basket. In theory, shooting from the same spot, over and over again, will help you ingrain the right motions into your muscle memory so your accuracy and consistency will improve. And, of course, that does happen — but a better, faster way to improve is to slightly adjust the conditions in subsequent practice sessions. Maybe one time you'll stand a few inches closer. Another time you might stand a few inches to one side. Another time you might use a slightly heavier, or lighter, ball. In short, each time you practice, you make the conditions a little different. That primes the reconsolidation pump — and helps you learn much more quickly. But Not Too Different — or Too Soon But you can't adjust the conditions more than slightly. Do something too different and you'll simply create new memories — not reconsolidated ones. "If you make the altered task too different, people do not get the gain we observed during reconsolidation," the researchers say. "The modification between sessions needs to be subtle." And you'll also need to space out your practice sessions appropriately. The researchers gave the participants a six-hour gap between training sessions, because neurological research indicates it takes that long for new memories to reconsolidate. Practice differently too soon and you haven't given yourself enough time to "internalize" what you've learned. You won't be able to modify old memories — and therefore improve your skills — because those memories haven't had the chance to become old memories. So if you want to dramatically improve how quickly you learn a new skill, try this. How to Learn a New Skill The key to improvement is making small, smart changes, evaluating the results, discarding what doesn't work, and further refining what does work. When you constantly modify and refine something you already do well, you can do it even better. Say you want to improve a skill; to make things simple, we'll pretend you want to master a new presentation. 1. Rehearse the basic skill. Run through your presentation a couple of times under the same conditions you'll eventually face when you do it live. Naturally, the second time through will be better than the first; that's how practice works. But then, instead of going through it a third time ... 2. Wait. Give yourself at least six hours so your memory can consolidate. (Which probably means waiting until tomorrow before you practice again, which is just fine.) 3. Practice again, but this time ... Go a little faster. Speak a little — just a little — faster than you normally do. Run through your slides slightly faster. Increasing your speed means you'll make more mistakes, but that's OK — in the process, you'll modify old knowledge with new knowledge — and lay the groundwork for improvement. Or ... Go a little slower. The same thing will happen. (Plus, you can experiment with new techniques — including the use of silence for effect — that aren't apparent when you present at your normal speed.) Or ... Break your presentation into smaller parts. Almost every task includes a series of discrete steps. That's definitely true for presentations. Pick one section of your presentation. Deconstruct it. Master it. Then put the whole presentation back together. Or ... Use a different projector. Or a different remote. Or a lavaliere instead of a headset mic. Switch up the conditions slightly; not only will that help you modify an existing memory, it will also make you better prepared for the unexpected. 4. And then, next time, slightly modify another condition. Keep in mind you can extend this process to almost anything. While it's clearly effective for improving motor skills, the process can also be applied to nearly any skill. Don't do the same thing over and over again in hopes you'll improve. You will, but not nearly as quickly as when you slightly modify the conditions in subsequent practice sessions — and then give yourself the time to consolidate the new memories you've made. Keep modifying and refining a skill you already do well and you can do it even better. And a lot more quickly. That's the fastest path to expertise. 7 How to Get Smarter Every Day, According to NeuroscienceEducation matters. But so does fluid intelligence. Here's how to improve yours. BY JEFF HADEN A friend of mine spends 20 to 30 minutes a day solving Sudoku puzzles. He says it improves his speed of mental processing and makes him, well, smarter. Hold that thought. Ask people which factor contributes the most to success and most will choose intelligence, even though science says you also have to be lucky: Right place, right time. Right person, right time. Right idea, right market, right audience at the right time. Yet even though there are ways to "create" your own luck, you can't control luck. But you can control, to some degree, how smart you are. Let's Define "Smart." While there are a number of different forms of intelligence, let's focus on two. Crystallized intelligence is accumulated knowledge: facts, figures. Think "educated." Of course we all know people who are "book smart" but not necessarily smart smart. That's where fluid intelligence comes into play: The ability to learn and retain new information and then use it to solve a problem, to learn a new skill, to recall existing memories and modify them with new knowledge. Think "applied intelligence." Becoming more educated is, while not easy, certainly simple. Improving fluid intelligence is harder, which is one reason why brain games--crossword puzzles, Sudoku, brain training apps, etc.--are fairly popular. But do they make you smarter? Do they improve fluid intelligence? Basically, No. A 2007 study published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences assessed the impact of brain training games on fluid intelligence. After participants played Tetris--yes, Tetris--for several weeks, cortical thickness and cortical activity increased. Both are signs of an increase in neural connections and learned expertise. In simple terms, their brains bulked up and got smarter. But after those first few weeks, cortical thickness and activity started to decrease, eventually returning to pre-Tetris mastery pursuit levels--even though their skill levels remained high. Participants didn't lose brain power. Instead, their brains became so efficient at playing Tetris those increased neural connections were no longer necessary. Using more mental energy was no longer necessary. As with most things, once they kinda figured it out, it got easy. Unfortunately, no matter how much work it took to learn new information or gain new skills, "easy" doesn't help improve fluid intelligence. Once knowledge or skill is in your pocket, you certainly benefit from the increase in crystallized intelligence. But your fluid intelligence soon returns to a more baseline level. That's the problem with brain training games. Solving Sudoku puzzles, and only solving Sudoku puzzles, won't improve my friend's fluid intelligence in any other areas. It only makes him better at solving Sudoku puzzles. Learning how to use a new inventory management system will improve your fluid intelligence, until you've mastered it. Setting up Quickbooks for a new business will improve your fluid intelligence, until you've mastered the accounting process basics. Once you achieve a level of comfort, your brain no longer has to work as hard, and all that new mental muscle gained starts to atrophy. So what can you do? Stay Uncomfortable. Easy: Once you've mastered a new game, a new process, a new skill, a new anything--move on to something new. At work. At home. Anywhere. Just keep challenging yourself. Not only will you pocket a constant flow of new information and skill, your brain will stay "bulked up" and forging new neural connections, making it easier to keep learning and growing. And then there's this: The more you know, the more you can leverage the power of associative learning--the process of relating something new to something you already know. Not in a Pavlov's dog kind of way, but by learning the relationship between seemingly unrelated things. In simple terms, whenever you say, "Oh, that makes sense: This is basically like that," you're using associative learning. The more you learn, the more likely you will be able to associate "old" knowledge to new things. Which means you only have to learn differences or nuances. And you'll be able to apply greater context, which also helps with memory storage and retrieval, to the new information you learn. All of which makes learning even easier, which research shows will result in your being able to learn even more quickly--and retain a lot more. So if you like brain training games, master one and then move on to another. And another. Better yet, keep pushing yourself to learn new things about your business, your customers, your industry, etc. Not only will that help you become more successful, you'll also get to improve your crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence--which will surely help you become even more successful. Where win-wins are concerned, that's a tough one to beat. 8 A Little-Known Hack to Learn a New Skill in a Fraction of the Time It’s called ‘deliberate practice’ and it’s a proven way for your staff to master a new skill in a fraction of the time. Here are the five core elements that make it work. Inc.David Finkel In this article, I'm going to share one of the most effective tactics for coaching your key team members. I call it "deliberate practice." It's one of the most powerful strategies that you can use to help your employees become owner-independent. Deliberate practice refers to the intensely focused practice of a skill, habit, or ability. To practice deliberately, you have to break down skills into blocks of discrete micro-skills, map out the order in which you need to learn those micro-skills, and closely monitor your progress. With deliberate practice, your learning can become magnitudes more efficient. You can master new skills in a fraction of the time that it would otherwise take. After all, not everyone can afford to spend 10,000 hours learning a new skill. For some skills, it can be easy to find proven curricula to guide your deliberate practice. But for other, softer skills, you sometimes need to chart your own course. For example, there are many proven training programs that you can use to coach your staff in sales. But now imagine that you had an employee--let's call him John--who shied away from direct conversations. Imagine that he preferred finessing situations rather than confronting them directly. You might find that while John is a nice guy, his management style causes trouble: His communication gets fuzzy and his team might not take him seriously. To help John grow, you would have to help him develop his own program of deliberate practice. But don't worry, it's not as hard as it sounds. Deliberate practice can really be broken down into just five key ingredients. 1. Intensity You don't want to perform long, mindless bouts of repetition. You want to concentrate on one particular skill for a much shorter, tighter period of time. 2. Purpose That practice that you're being intense about has to be for the specific purpose of learning a concrete skill set. You need a goal to work toward if you're going to improve. 3. Learning Blocks You have to break your deliberate practice down into small, constituent parts. I like to call these "learning blocks." Learning blocks are groupings of micro-skills that collectively build toward larger, more important skills. 4. Strategy You want to tackle each of those learning blocks the same way you would tackle any other plan for business growth--in a logical, strategic order. Before you begin your deliberate practice, give some thought to what needs to happen first, second, third, and so on. Take field hockey for example. Before I began business coaching 20 years ago, I was a professional athlete. When I played field hockey for the U.S. national team, I discovered that my grip on my hockey stick was a quarter turn off. Now, that might not sound like a big deal, but it had a cascading effect that dramatically impacted the quality of my play. You see, because my grip was slightly off, I had to slightly change my playing stance. That stance change required that my head tilt down toward the ball in such a way that I effectively cut off five feet of peripheral vision. When I eventually corrected my grip, my gameplay improved massively. With five feet more of peripheral vision, I was able to clock more of the movements of my teammates and opponents and, ultimately, make better game-time decisions. Later, when I began coaching other athletes, I had to lay out a sequence of micro-skills for field hockey players to learn in order to get those extra five feet of vision. First, I would teach them the proper grip, then teach them the optimal stance, then introduce them to the other skills of play. So if you're coaching John to help him become more direct, you might break that skill down into a carefully sequenced series of micro-skills. Here's what that sequence could look like: You might ask him to begin by developing real-time awareness of when he's dealing with situations head on and when he's finessing them. Then you might coach him to become more direct in earlier conversations with his staff so that he isn't waiting until the second or third conversation to set the record straight. Next, you might coach him to start observing which direct conversations he's comfortable having. Where is the border between what's comfortable and what isn't? And then you would eventually have him speak more directly in conversations where he'd prefer not to--the conversations that push his comfort level. 5. Feedback You need to shorten the gap between cause and effect--between action and observation. Over the course of nearly two decades in business coaching, I've developed a simple way to do this without wasting any time. This strategy shouldn't take you any more than 10 minutes a day. You can do this journaling work in any medium, whether you prefer to use a digital journal like Evernote or a traditional paper journal. Personally, I like to journal with a pen and paper and then store a photo of that journal entry in Evernote. Given that your practice opportunity is already a part of your day, this work will take you no more than 10 extra minutes. But if you practice it every day for three or four days a week, you'll find that you can acquire new skills with incredible rapidity. These are the five elements that transform "practice" into "deliberate practice." Good luck using them to speed up your development of your staff. David Finkel is the co-author of "Scale: Seven Proven Principles to Grow Your Business and Get Your Life Back."