Average to Great? Shortcut This Way.
Learn how to learn.
The 10.000-Hour Rule
Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers popularised “the 10,000-hour rule”. The rule says you need 10.000 hours of intense practice to master a skill. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a virtuoso violinist who hasn’t put the work in.
Yet some people have mastered multiple hard skills. Very fast.
Josh Waitzkin: eight-time US National Chess Champion, two-time World Champion in Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands, the first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Black Belt under nine-time World Champion Marcelo Garcia
Tim Ferriss: early-stage technology investor/advisor, author of five #1 New York Times bestsellers, National Chinese kickboxing champion, tango Guinness World Record holder, speaker of five languages
Building the case further, we all know of people who have done the same thing for decades, only to make zero progress. Is the 10.000 hours rule wrong?
Well, mastering a skill is the destination. And different paths can lead to the same destination. The “Art of Learning” sheds light on the shortest one.
We need to learn how to learn.
What This Post Is About
Always fascinated by the concept of meta-learning, I decided to do a deep dive on the topic. I wanted to learn from people who’ve done it. Repeatedly.
Thankfully, both of the above extraordinary learners have written books on the topic (the Art of Learning, the 4-hour Chef). I complemented these with any interview I could get my hands on to get a 360-degree view.
Recently, I read James Altucher’s Skip the Line which relates. People also pointed to Peak as THE guide to “deliberate practice” so I read that as well.
Working on this post and reflecting on my life, it is clear. Any super-linear skill improvement I made, had to do with aspects of meta-learning.
Let’s dive in.
Breaking Down a Skill
Why would someone even bother to break down a skill? There are standard courses and trainers all over the place. But the standard way is never the fastest. And truth be told, I have yet to meet a trainer who thinks anything like these meta-learners.
For skill deconstruction let’s lean on the master. Tim Ferriss. I will roughly go over the DiSSS framework ideas from the 4-Hour-Chef. The first thing to do when learning a new skill is to break it down into its basic components. What are the smallest blocks you can start with?
Once you have the learning curriculum set, you need to prioritize. Apply the 80/20 principle to find the 20% of the learning blocks that give 80% value. If you are learning English you should start with 100 English words that make up 50% of all written material.
Then you need to figure out the optimal sequence. What order should I start with? Which components would make learning the following components easier?
You’re probably thinking… “That’s all? Break learning into small pieces and prioritize?” Trust me, the way he deconstructs looks nothing like me or you would do it.
Deconstruction Masterclass from Tim Ferriss
He interviews domain experts and he knows exactly what he is looking for. To get the idea, here are some of the questions he asked about ultra-endurance, taken from the 4-Hour-Chef book (rephrased and generalized):
What is the foundational material on the topic? The few resources that make hundreds of others irrelevant. “Material beats method” as he calls it.
What are the training teachers and methods with repeatedly successful results?
Who are the impressive lesser-known teachers? Find the unorthodox teachers. They will have unorthodox methods to share.
What knowledge do experts hold that is implicit to them? Identify the implicit things experts do but do not recognize. This was a catalyst for his Guinness World record in tango. A short video on that here.
What are the most common mistakes/myths about training the skill?
What are the methods that enabled average Joe to deliver amazing results? He doesn’t care about the Phelps of the world. But he is super interested in the underdog-late-in-the-game winners, like Shinji Takeuchi. He learned to swim at 37 and is known for his most graceful freestyle swimming.
What are the most controversial trainers/methods people have seen success with?
How would you suggest I train if I only had four weeks/eight weeks?
As I am writing these questions one example pops into my mind. The KneesOverToesGuy with his radical physical training approaches. “Never extend your knees over your toes”, is what every other trainer tells you. He put the opposite advice in his name. He deconstructed the greatest athletes from various sports, focusing on extraordinary cases. He scrutinized and rejected standard methods. His training routines apply across levels and ages. He is a black-belt deconstructor.
Keep these questions in mind and we will revisit finding efficient training methods. After you finish skill deconstruction you should have a plan. But even the best plan will fail if you cannot stick with it.
Motivation - Setting the Rails for Success
Motivation is what keeps you around when the going gets hard.
Tim Ferriss in his book advocates adding stakes. What will happen if you fail? You can set yourself up for public “humiliation” or anti-charity donation. On the other end, you can celebrate milestones with a treat. The good old carrot and stick method.
He also suggests starting with the minimum effective dose (MED) and leaning on methods with a high margin of safety.
MED: What is the minimum prescription you can follow that will deliver results? Margin of safety: What method will provide results even if you apply it poorly?
Easy-to-follow plans and quick wins drive momentum. It is a common belief that motivation kicks in only upon visible progress. According to Peak, taking pride in the skill and belief in success are key motivational factors. Try to get these in fast. Or you might not last long.
I won’t touch on the subject of intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. Motivation is a rabbit hole of its own.
Practice is Not Enough
Adding pinches of motivation should make your plan more resilient. Now you need to put practice in. But practice alone is not enough.
“Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect” - Vince Lombardi
“Deliberate” practice is what you need.
Discomfort and Focus Required
Your practice sessions should happen just outside your comfort zone. In the fitness world, they call it progressive overload. Handling more load than yesterday equals progress.
Note that this is a fragile balance. Go too light and you will stagnate. Go too heavy and you might get injured.
A common point of failure? Not focusing on the thing. You can’t train effectively while you daydream or watch YouTube. You must be focused to keep intensity and technique on point.
Adding some structure to your training day can help.
Training Day Structure
In this interview, Josh Waitzkin and Tim Ferriss discuss about training day structure. Josh stresses that optimal training should be designed around the individual. That being said, he describes the core principles for structuring your training day. I see these as principles for structuring any meaningful work.
Core training day principles (rephrased):
1. Carving out time for deep work and creative thinking in your schedule. He wants to be proactive with deep work. He does not jam it between other stuff. This is a pattern that plays over and over amongst great thinkers. Paul Graham talks about it in the famous maker’s vs manager’s schedule post. Cal Newport has written a whole book on the topic.
2. Identifying your peak energy. Notice your high-energy time blocks and schedule intense work around them.
3. Practising letting go. Train on something intensely and then let go. Leave your work half-done. Create an open loop for your mind. Let your subconscious think about that and come up with a solution.
”It’s really breathtaking what happens. You just get into the rhythm of waking up with the solution and you get used to it. After you do this, you might have three or four times a day, the kind of crystallization, miraculous realizations in your creative process that you might have had once every two, three months, otherwise.” - Josh Waitzkin
4. Practicing the “Most Important Question” muscle. Training constantly the ability to focus on what matters most. Prioritization is a skill. As with any skill, it can be improved.
”I think that MIQ training is one of the most important things that a decision-maker can do because the best way to train an analyst in a discipline is to train them in knowing where to look, what matters the most.” - Josh Waitzkin
With the training frame and structure set, it is time to put in the reps. After you get comfortable with the basics, some special reps can propel your progress.
So listen closely.
10X Reps - Hidden Reps
The first kind is hidden reps. These are the reps most people cannot even see. And they are key to asymmetric results. In this interview, Josh Waitzkin talks about this concept.
At the time he was learning foiling, a surfing variation.
He found that he could replicate a move, difficult to master on the waves, by using an electric board and spinning fast in tight cycles. He went on to do thousands of these reps in a few months. When asked how long it takes the “normal" surfer to practice this movement, he answered this. “Years”. And this is how you cram two months of training into one day.
Let’s switch to a mere mortal example to show that this idea is not out of reach.
Assuming you are in a mid-level position, you can ask for the work senior people do. Ask and if you shall not receive, get it yourself. Re-do the work seniors do. Go back to previous years’ work and re-do this as well. And this is how you cram years of senior work into a couple of months.
Hunt for these reps. Reps that others need years to put in. Think of ways to replicate them and do it in high frequency. Fast forward your training.
10X Reps - Creative Reps
The second kind of 10x reps is creative reps. These are the reps no one does because they are off the beaten path. Creativity and experimentation are all James Altucher talks about in Skip the Line.
Let’s say you want to get good at public speaking. Most people would try to do ten public talks.
Here’s what you could do to spice things up:
Try doing standup comedy.
Try being the host of a meetup.
Try doing a live debate.
This way you attack public speaking from so many angles. You have earned yourself an unfair advantage.
And if you play basketball, you could practice shooting by first laying flat on the floor. Like Ray Allen.
Who knows, you might go on and make the greatest shot in the NBA finals history.
10X Reps - Copy Like an Artist
The last kind of 10x reps is copying others. It is how Benjamin Franklin became a great writer all by himself. It is the technique Sam Parr uses to teach how to write irresistible copy. (the link mentions the Benjamin Franklin story)
The technique is simple. You find work you admire and start copying it for practice. Careful, though. To learn you need to copy like an artist.
”The reason to copy your heroes and their style is so that you
might somehow get a glimpse into their minds. That's what you really want--to internalize their way of looking at the world.” - Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist
Note that this idea mostly refers to copying experts’ output. A common mistake is copying experts’ latest training programs. They will have refined it so much that it will be out of reach.
No matter the standard or crazy techniques you train by, you should ensure they are effective. How? By getting feedback.
Feedback Loops
Fortunately, most skills have measurable outputs. You can monitor these and set feedback loops. Feedback loops are necessary to calibrate your training program.
If you are not seeing progress ask yourself.
Is my training intense? Am I focused? If not, then dial these in.
If you have put in effort and time has passed your training program is wrong. Or you might have hit a plateau. In any case, you need to change your training program.
The concept of feedback loops is a core part of Systems Thinking. Building systems while learning is the way to attain and refine a skill.
Building Systems
When I started writing online, I deconstructed how people I admire write. They had a system, so I picked pieces and scrambled my own. Starting from a blank page every time was exhausting. Now the process is almost effortless.
I see the building systems idea related to what Josh Waitzkin calls “making smaller circles”:
”I use this term: making smaller circles, that initially when we do something, we do it in this big way, and then we can refine it and make the circles tighter and tighter and tighter in […] and you learn to condense it.” - Josh Waitzkin, interview
The notorious Bruce Lee one-inch punch demonstrates exactly that. How a big movement can be reduced to its smallest effective counterpart.
One idea worth mentioning here, mostly for refining mental skills, is using techniques to encode what you learn. Short-term memory is limited. To recall easily new information you should move it to long-term memory. This can be done by spaced repetition and encoding techniques like acronyms or the Memory Palace.
The nice thing with all these techniques? You don’t have to practice them alone. You will go faster by getting social.
Accelerated Learning Is Social
James Altucher in Skip the Line talks about the “Plus-Minus-Equals” rule:
Plus: A mentor to learn from. The sparring partner that you cannot yet beat.
Minus: People with fewer skills that you can teach. You don’t understand something if you can’t explain it in simple words.
Equals: Peers on the same level as you. Speaking the same language. Struggling with the same problems.
It is a standard technique of successful people to create mastermind groups where they share their tricks and learn new ones. Think of it like adding another feedback loop into the learning system.
Mozart Genes Not Required
Closing this post with the story the Peak book starts with. A story about Mozart (rephrased):
One of Mozart’s admirable skills was what people call the “perfect pitch”. He could recognize any note played, from any instrument, even from another room. For years people thought this skill was genetic since it only appeared in one of ten thousand people.
In 2014 a Japanese psychologist conducted a study where he helped all twenty-four children develop the perfect pitch. And it only took months. It was not about genes. It was about deliberate practice.
Later on in the book, in the (drumroll, please) “But What About Natural Talent?” chapter the author says:
”As it happens, I have made it a hobby to investigate the stories of such prodigies, and I can report with confidence that I have never found a convincing case for anyone developing extraordinary abilities without intense, extended practice.”
We are capable of doing much more than we can imagine. Talent is not required.