How To Learn Anything Fast

How To Learn Anything Fast

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Productivity Tips you’ll learn today on The Sales Podcast…

• The 10 Principles of Rapid Skill Acquisition

  • Choose a lovable project

  • Focus your energy on one skill at a time

  • Define your target performance level

  • Deconstruct the skill into sub-skills

  • Obtain critical tools

  • Eliminate barriers to practice

  • Make dedicated time for practice

  • Create fast feedback loops (coaches, partners, recording, blasts, CTAs,)

  • Practice by the clock in short bursts

  • Emphasize quantity and speed

• Learning curve charts (performance time vs. practice time and how good you are vs. practice time)

• The 10 principles of effective learning

  • Research the skill and related topics

  • Jump in over your head

  • Identify mental models and mental hooks

  • Imagine the opposite of what you want

  • Talk to practitioners to set expectations

  • Eliminate distractions in your environment

  • Use spaced repetition and reinforcement for memorization

  • Create scaffolds and checklists

  • Make and test predictions

  • Honor your biology

• The price of progress

• Examine the problem

• A potential solution

• So what do you really want to do or need to be done? Like, really. Like, in real detail. Like, specifically?

• Think like a…

  • Salesperson

  • Programmer

  • Marketer

  • Entrepreneur

  • Executive

• Use precise language

• Choose a framework

• Define the end result

• Refine, test, revise

• Enhance, improve

• Embrace chaos

• Expect more losses than wins in the beginning

• I have seen the enemy, and it is me! (The emotional baggage of change tends to be quite large.)

• Learning a new motor skill requires physically changing the structure of your brain, so you need sleep

• Interference, inhibition, consolidation, activation, patterns, memory

• So practice something new just before going to bed!

• Cognitive interference means you need to space your new skill training

• Remove the training wheels

• Ambient practice is not enough

• You must have focused, deliberate practice

• Conduct focused sprints of intense training

• Map out your strategies

• Map our your tactics

• Know the rules

• Make your “Ear Reddening Move”

• Pattern recognition from 360 degrees is key

• Master yourself

• Use your feelings…

  • The tactics of the soldier

  • The exactness of the mathematician

  • The imagination of the artist

  • The inspiration of the poet

  • The calm of the philosopher

  • The greatest intellect (Zhang Yunqi)

  • Outwit, outperform

  • Aptitude and control

  • Find and seize the biggest opportunities first

  • Exploit the weaknesses of your opponent

• Gear up

• Follow the script

• Focus

• Study small

• Keep your options open

• Suicide is not allowed

• Strong corners prevent being flanked

• “I know you are but what am I?” is for losers

• Estimating the territory you have won or lost is a skill, and takes practice

• Direct vs. indirect attacks

• Attack from a position of strength

• Connections, joints, approaches, influence

• Recognize, build, and defend two eyes, false eyes, and true eyes

• If you don’t know who the chump is, it’s you.

• If you’re not ready, willing, and able to walk away from the negotiation table, you shouldn’t be at it.

• Get your opponent to overextend themselves

• Structured study and practice is key

• “Diary of a Wimpy Salesman”

  • Don’t follow your opponents blindly

  • Pat attention to the entire board

  • Make profitable moves

  • Take the initiative, set the pace, set the agenda

  • Play to win, get them playing not to lose

  • Know where you are on the board

  • Know how much territory you have captured or given

  • Do not be envious

  • Avoid wishful thinking

  • Know what victory looks like, i.e., it’s okay to lose some battles as long as you win the war

• More “Go” proverbs

  • The enemy’s key point is your key point.

  • When in doubt, tenuki (play somewhere else).

  • Make a fist before striking.

  • A rich man should not pick quarrels.

  • If you ride a tiger, it’s difficult to get off. (Don’t start what you’re not willing to finish.)

  • Don’t follow proverbs blindly.

  • Only after the tenth punch will you see the fist.

  • Only after the twentieth punch will you be able to block it.

  • Live, kill, secure, invade.

• Go requires making decisions with incomplete information in a changing environment. (Sounds like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, sales, entrepreneurship, and life!)

• Repetition makes your skills become automatic.

• It’s not glamorous, but it’s important.

• Wind Surfing Tips

  • Watch the wind

  • Put the pieces together

  • The maiden voyage

  • At the mercy of Mother Nature

  • Self-rescue

  • Post-traumatic event analysis

  • Learning from the past

  • Now that you’re moving…how do you steer?

  • For everything, there is a season

Sales Growth Tools Mentioned In The Sales Podcast

• Order “The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything . . . Fast!“