How to Learn Any Hard Skill  🔗 **Source:** [How to Learn Any Hard Skill](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrLKXRXVrKM#transcript) Do you want to declare freedom from all of your distracting devices? Well, we know what the best strategy is here. You need to replace that mindless scrolling and passive consumption with more meaningful and rewarding activities. This will literally rewire your brain to find your phone less interesting than these other more ambitious pursuits. The problem with this well-known advice, however, is that more meaningful activities are hard. And to make them a part of your life, you have to therefore become comfortable mastering hard things. And in a world of easy dopamine, well, that's a task that we have gotten pretty bad at. Well, today I want to help you. So, back in 2024, actually on New Year's Day of 2024, I released an episode in which I talked through a detailed approach for how to learn hard things. I started with giving you a new mental model for thinking about learning and then went on to give stepbystep advice for how to actually accomplish the goal of mastering whether it's a really complicated craft or mathematics or music appreciation, whatever that hard thing is. Here's exactly how you do it. Today, I want to replay that discussion in its entirety because I think it has only become more important in the two years that have passed since I originally released it. So, that's what we're going to do. I'm going to play this classic episode from January 1st, 2024. Uh, enjoy this discussion. So, it's the new year, which means today I want to talk about one of the most critical skills for improving your life in 2024, and that is learning hard things. So, in work, this could be mastering that difficult but valuable new system or methodology that's going to help you really gain control and write your own ticket. in your personal life. It might be developing some sort of connoisseurship that gives you a a lasting deeper satisfaction that you're getting right now just being distracted by the screens in your life. I want to teach you how to do this. I want to talk about how do you master not easy things but really complicated things. And the way I'm going to do this is I'm going to start with what we get wrong. I think we have a commonly held but mistaken mental model for how people learn complex things. So, we're going to start by deconstructing that mental model and then I'm going to replace it with one that works and from here we're going to get some concrete advice about how you actually become better at hard things. So, we'll get into all of this. So, let's start with what we get wrong. I'm going to load up a picture here. So, for those who are watching instead of just listening, you'll see on the screen I'm going to draw the mental model that most people have. You'll see on the screen here that I've have a sort of hierarchy of things you might learn over on the right side. I I kind of just threw this together, but from perceive something that's perceived to be more complex towards things be conceived to be less complex. So I put at the very top of this hierarchy, we have what is math, you know, math symbols like okay, so learning complicated math equations and then I have below it a ped book. So, I don't know, like mastering literature, some sort of complex literature. Right in the middle, maybe we have like a deep appreciation for a particular type of music. You know, I'm a whatever, a big Tom Waits fan. I can really get into that. I don't know. Below that, maybe like I following a sport like baseball, like you have a pretty good understanding of what's happening with different teams. I put, you know, not to be self-incriminating here, Jesse, but I put at the bottom like YouTube. like yeah there's like I'm really know a lot about YouTube and what's going on on YouTube and so we we have a a hierarchy of complexity here. Now the way most people think about learning these type of master getting master these type of different topics is that everyone has a fundamental limit determined by their brain. So the common mental model says for this one individual here maybe when they are thinking about you know hey I want to really master some element of music they can do that put some earphones on them in my picture here like this is great I'm capable of doing it but maybe this same person when they say okay what I really want to master is mathematics so I can do like mathematics proofs in our common mental model we might say oh that's just beyond this person's brain so they can't do that. Right? So we we have this notion of the complexity of what you have mastered is just a direct reflection of how smart you are. Oh, this academic has a really PhD in literature has a really subtle understanding of these books that I don't even know how to approach. They're smarter than me. I understand music. That makes me smarter than this 22-year-old whose like main interest is YouTubers. Right? That's the way we think about it. Um, this model is wrong. So, this idea that your brain is determining the level of complexity of stuff that you're able to comfortably master completely misunderstands how learning happens. So, what I want to do here is present to you the reality. And I'm going to present to you the reality here in two parts that we can think of as the good news and the bad news. So the good news and the bad news about how people actually learn complicated things. Now the good news is most people are cognitively capable of learning things that are pretty high up on that imagined hierarchy of complexity that you can learn complicated literature. You can learn mathematical things. You can learn an appreciation of a complicated sport or music. Most people can learn most things. Now, is there a a brain power difference that comes into play here? Well, there's stuff that shows up. I mean, I think certainly by adulthood, you get a sense people have different RPMs going on with their brains. Um, I tend to believe that a lot of this is less genetic than it is just what you did as a child. If you're, you know, a heavy reader as a child, for example, your brain has just been trained to be stronger. Much in the same way if you're Arnold Schwarzenegger and your dad made you do push-ups and squats before you would eat be given a meal, you're going to be stronger by the age of 19 than someone else, right? Uh so I tend to think the RPMs you have going is as much nurture as it is nature. But yeah, there are some differences, but that difference is where is this going to affect learning complicated things? The upper end, which is not going to be relevant to most people. It's like almost anyone can learn calculus. Yeah, maybe not everyone, however, is going to be a Fields award winner, but most people don't care. They're not trying to become fields award winners. You might also see it in some speed differences and how fast you make progress towards learning things. There's some some some epsilons there depending on how used to that your brain is. But again, for most people, no one knows exactly at what rate you mastered something. So, it doesn't really matter. So, I think for the most part, I'm going to argue most people can learn most things. So, you can learn almost anything. Part two of the reality and this is the bad news. You can learn almost anything but you can't learn everything. So I think what is obscured when you encounter people who have a mastery of something really complicated. What is obscured is that it took them a really long time to get to that place. We jump ahead and just imagine them a month ago just picked up the math textbook and was like, "Oo, this just makes sense to me." and then everyone kind of applause and they're really good at math and they're obviously smarter than you. No, there's a long process that we're going to unfold here in a second of how they build up to that expert knowledge. The reason why this means you can't learn everything is that takes time. Time is finite. So there's only going to be so many complicated things you can learn because you only have so much time to put into it and it takes a lot of time to actually get there. So this is the big mental model shift I want to start us making right now is thinking about learning the complexity of what you learned. Shifting this away from brain power and towards time investment. More time means more complexity can be learned. Less time means less complexity can be learned. Brain power is sort of orthogonal to all of this. So let's fill in this mental model. I'm going to draw another picture here that I think captures well what the process really looks like when you're trying to learn something hard. So for those who are listening instead of watching what you'll see I'm drawing here is a bunch of stair steps and we can put some goal at the top. So you know I don't know put a music note at the top. You're trying to master have a good understanding of jazz music or something like this. The way you actually progress towards hard understanding is up stairs level by level. Now, here's what's important. When you're at a given level of understanding, so like let's say you're right here, your brain is only capable when you're moving up your level of understanding of making a relatively small step at a time. That's why these steps are small. So we have multiple steps to get from down here where you know in this example nothing about jazz music many steps until you get up here to being able to talk really intelligently about it. So it's from your current level you move up to the next level. Now how these steps are actually made. So how does this actually happen here and here and here? deliberate practice, carefully designed exercises that push your understanding to the next level in a way that takes you out of what you're already comfortable with. There has to be some strain into that. So, in order for this step to be successfully had at each of these levels, you have to stretch past where you're comfortable, right? It's kind the practice aspect of deliberate practice. It It's not fun. I'm not I'm not comfortable. I don't really understand this thing and I'm stretching myself to try to understand it and the activity you're doing is carefully designed. This is the right next level to actually move up to. That's the deliberate act the deliberate piece of deliberate practice. So when you see someone like wow this person has a lot of expert knowledge of complicated things in their past they have done these stair steps. Now there's various cultural or professional structures that help drive you through these stair steps. Right? So if you're an academic, I mean I'm an academic. One of the things I do is theoretical computer science. I write mathematical proofs related to algorithms and computability and complexity. If you encounter a paper I wrote, you might say, I don't understand any of this. I can't imagine just like sitting down and learning all of this. But what you have to realize for me is that that process started when I was about 16 years old. And the education process as you move up the ranks u high school to advanced high school to undergrad to grad school into young professor is it's designed to push you step by step by step with literal tests you know okay you're now taking AP computer science right I took that when I was young that you're taking literal test in order to master that test you had to gain new knowledge it pushes you to the next level and then after AP computer science because I was good at this stuff I started taking some college courses in computer science that had okay that's pushing me a little bit farther. Now I'm go to college and I can take the more advanced courses. It's pushing you farther. I get to MIT and now these courses are much harder. Uh but I've gone up 17 steps before I got to taking you know theory of computation with Mike Sipser step by step by step. And by the time you encounter me at the age of like 35 like ah you you know all this stuff like yeah it was a really long climb up the steps really long climb up the the staircase. Same thing when someone has this how does this guy know so much about music? Well, probably he was exposed to it early on and his dad or mom really got him into it and step by step they got knowledge. So if you want to cultivate expert knowledge now in your life, you have to replicate all of these steps. Your goal is on what is the next step of understanding I can take, not how far am I from the top. It's a consistent stair step upwards. This requires patience because the ladder up is long and it requires expert help because choosing the right activities that move you to a new level and are tractable but not trivial. This is the key dichotomy for deliberate practice to be effective. Tractable but not trivial. You can accomplish this next step but it can't be super easy because then you're not actually stretching. that could require expert help and that can be found by actually working with real experts. That can be found in courses that can be learned found in books. Um it can be found in choosing careful goals for what you want to do next and then seeking out help anywhere you can online in-person courses to get to that next step and accomplish that goal. So just the careful choices of goals can get you there. But it's patience and this careful expert guided design of how you move. That's how people get smarter and smarter or seemingly smarter and smarter. It just takes time and it takes care. So is this worth it? Well, I think the answer is yes. The brain is what distinguishes humans. Our brains distinguish us from other animals. We have this ability that you know Aristotle talks about in the Nicomachean Ethics. We have this ability that no one else has to contemplate deeply to aim our brain at abstract ends. Dogs don't do this. Cats don't do this. parakeets don't do this. Humans can't. So Aristotle would say this is perhaps the ultimate teleology of the human experience. The thing that we are wired to do ultimately is to use our brain in these exalted ways because that's what defines us as humans. So we want to push our humanness. It is a key element of life you're missing if there are not things in your life that you're you know that are hard that are complicated and you can do very well. To have that in your life in some sense in in an Aristotelian sense is to be more human. So, what I recommend, especially for younger people, is here's what you want almost to be aiming towards right away. Something in your professional life that's complicated that you do well, better than anyone else, you know, at your company or organization, right off the bat. What is a complicated skill here? Uh, really good at programming these type of data systems. We're an SAP company, like being able to build advanced models using statistical analysis,, a type of art, you know, you're you're a graphic designer for a video game company and pushing whatever the latest is and doing some sort of 3D modeling, something that is really complicated and valuable that you know well, just set that standard right right away. In your personal life, you should have the same. Everyone should have one thing that they're working towards just being really good with. I really understand movies. I really understand why. Not like a casual, oh, I kind of read about this, but I got a sommelier certificate. Not just like I go to the theaters, but you know, I could write and I do sometimes contribute reviews to comm online publications about movies. There is something deeply satisfying in feeling the mastery of complicated things. It's uniquely human. I think a lot of people avoid it. A lot of people do not have this in their life. And and it it leads to this distinction. Well, there's people who do that stuff and and I don't know how to do that stuff. And either that leads you to feel down on yourself unjustifiably. Or it makes you feel reactionary and angry. Ah, these elites think they're so smart. Neither is great. Neither is healthy from a mental health perspective. We all should be trying to master at least some complicated things. Now, this could take years. You're going to see progress along the way, but you want to get really good at something hard. It could take years. Start right now. You will get benefits along the way. You'll get better and better. But don't don't pull yourself up short. Oh, I know a little bit more about this than just the average person. That's great. Keep pushing. You want to push some knowledges to this connoisseur level. It really is, I think, a key part of the deep life because it unlocks in you an understanding of what your brain is capable of. The final question is where are you going to get the time? Where are you going to find the time to have one or two of these projects you're working on? And honestly, and look, this is a show about technology and how it impacts our lives. This might be non-surprising, but this is where you're going to find the time. Stop spending time on the phone. If you have nothing in your life that you feel like you're a real expert on, I'm going to guess without knowing for sure that your screen time statistics aren't great, that you're getting that that that dopamine push towards the screen where there's going to be something funny or outrageous or distracting or whatever on there, and this is eating up time after time after time. Put that phone into the foyer. Phone foyer method. New year is a great time to do this. The phone is plugged in in my kitchen or the foyer. If I need it, I can go there to look something up, but it's not with me as a default. It's not with me at the couch. It's not with me at the dinner table. It's not with me, god forbid, in the bathroom. Now, your brain gets some freedom. It wants something to do. Let's give it something to do. We're moving up the next stair level on this work skill. We're moving up the next stair level on this personal life skill. This really will, it's why I wish it for everyone in the new year, new year is really going to change the way you feel about yourself, your efficacy, your ability to actually do important useful things with your brain. So, you can't you can learn anything, you just can't learn everything. So, choose a few things that are worth learning and trick a lot of people into thinking that you're smarter than you actually are because the more complicated the stuff goes, the more they're going to just think that you're a big brain. And I think it's worth it. I want to take a quick break to hear from some of the sponsors that makes this show possible. Look, some of my proudest memories from earlier in my life are hitting key financial milestones. I still remember the day I finally paid off all of my student loans. Now, you know what I wish I had back then? Monarch, the personal finance app that goes beyond just telling you what you've spent, but also helps you set goals, map out big purchases, and see if you're actually on track before it's too late to adjust. For example, Monarch can send you a weekly AI recap of your spending, which makes it easier to discover if there have been major changes or other spikes in your habits that might be causing problems. Do you have a question that might help you make a financial decision, such as, "How much did I spend on travel last summer?" You can use Monarch's AI assistant and it will get you the information you need. Look, it's like having a financial advisor in your pocket. 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This page is updated every day with hundreds of new people talking about the benefits they've received from therapy delivered through BetterHelp. So, visit betterhelp.com/reviews to see for yourself and decide if you should become one of the more than 6 million people who have used BetterHelp globally. So, see the reviews, see what stands out, and see if BetterHelp is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com/deepquests. That's betterhp.com/deepquests. All right, let's get back to the show. All right, speaking of questions, Jesse, let's do our questions. All right, first question is from Mark. What is note-taking for? I found note-taking most useful in the short term, grounding me in my current task or noting a few to-dos, How to Learn Any Hard Skill, Cal Newport, 01kz45dj49r6k46t30cf9y4pdh.