Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. —B. F. Skinner
Understand deeply: Don’t face complex issues head-on; first understand simple ideas deeply. Clear the clutter and expose what is really important. Be brutally honest about what you know and don’t know. Then see what’s missing, identify the gaps, and fill them in.
Make mistakes: Fail to succeed. Intentionally get it wrong to inevitably get it even more right. Mistakes are great teachers—they highlight unforeseen opportunities and holes in your understanding. They also show you which way to turn next, and they ignite your imagination.
Raise questions: Constantly create questions to clarify and extend your understanding. What’s the real question? Working on the wrong questions can waste a lifetime.
Follow the flow of ideas: Look back to see where ideas came from and then look ahead to discover where those ideas may lead. A new idea is a beginning, not an end. Ideas are rare—milk them.
We urge you to read this tiny book slowly and then reread it. In fact, we thought of literally repeating the entire text three times (making the book three times as long); however, our publisher refused to embrace our innovative idea.
If you learn a piece of music for the piano, then, instead of just memorizing finger movements, learn to hear each note and understand the structure of the piece. Ask yourself, “Can I play the notes of the right hand while just humming the notes of the left hand?”
What is deep understanding? How can you realize when you don’t know something deeply?
Master the basics Consider a skill you want to improve or a subject area that you wish to understand better. Spend five minutes writing down specific components of the skill or subject area that are basic to that theme. Your list will be a free-flowing stream of consciousness. Now pick one of the items on your list, and spend thirty minutes actively improving your mastery of it.
In any class, when preparing for your next exam, make sure you can earn a 100% on all the previous exams—if you can’t, then you’re not ready for the test looming in your future.
Instructors should also embrace this fundamental reality and help their students have a firmer grasp of the basics that preceded the material currently being explored.
How well do you know the candidates running for office—their records, their positions? Write a list of issues that are important to you. Then list what you believe to be the positions of the candidates on each issue—their stated opinions, their voting records, and their other actions associated with the issue. Most voters will have inaccurate or only meager knowledge, particularly for candidates they don’t support. Then look up the actual records and see the differences. Fleshing out your knowledge will lead to more informed decisions—on Election Day and beyond.
Caroline was contemplating issues in the field of education and decided to apply the “include the adjective” exercise. She quickly described the current educational system as “nonindividualized education.”
Viewing failure as an opportunity for learning requires a fresh mind-set. If you think, “I’m stuck and giving up. I know I can’t get it right,” then get it wrong. Once you make the mistake, you can ask, “Why is that wrong?” Now you’re back on track, tackling the original challenge.
The next time you face a daunting challenge, think to yourself, “In order for me to resolve this issue, I will have to fail nine times, but on the tenth attempt, I will be successful.”
If at first you do succeed, try, try again (until you finally fail).
Thomas Edison was supremely successful at inventing product after product, exploiting the maxim that every new idea has utility beyond its original intent, for he wrote, “I start where the last man left off.” More poignantly he noted that “many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
A weed is a plant whose virtue has not yet been discovered. —Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is a subtle perspective about improvement and about better performance that can alter how you approach the task of changing yourself. Namely, people who perform better can be viewed as actually doing a different task, rather than doing the same task better.
When plug-and-chug physics students apply formulas with no sense of what they mean or why they are true, those students are doing a difficult task—doing physics with their eyes closed. Students who understand the ideas behind the formulas are doing a different task. They are working with their eyes open. The better students are doing an easier task. Understanding the meaning and reasoning behind the formulas sometimes strikes students as an unnecessary and diversionary step. In reality understanding leads directly to easier future work and better results.
Individuals who are more successful at anything are performing their task with their eyes open; that is, the activity they are doing is different from the activity that less successful people are undertaking.
In a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks. —Warren Buffett
Expert change If you’re learning something, solving a problem, or developing a skill, imagine in detail what a more skilled practitioner does, or what added knowledge, understanding, and previous experience the expert would bring to the task. In other words, describe the different task that an expert would be doing compared to what you are currently doing in undertaking your task. Instead of thinking that you are going to be doing something that is harder—requiring more concentration and more effort—think in terms of what kind of knowledge or skill or strategy would make the task an easier one.
One of the speakers told a story about being a young assistant to Einstein. He said that during the job interview with Einstein, he admitted that he did not know much about relativity, to which Einstein replied, “That’s okay. I already know about relativity.”