Learn Any Hard Skill by Cal Newport

Premise:

We live in a world that is changing much faster than we can keep pace with. The rapid evolution of Artificial Intelligence is a testament to this. As I talk in my book Thrive, we will be called upon to learn something new all the time, just to stay relevant. If we are to thrive, we need to be able to turbo charge our ability to learn.

It is in this context that I really liked a video posted by Cal Newport, that he released at the start of the year on his YouTube channel and would like to share it with all of you. You can watch the full video here.

The first part of the video is where he breaks down his thinking about how to Learn any Hard Skill in 2024 (till around the 26 mins mark) and then he answers questions that his listeners asked him. So, if you have the time, please do watch the first 26 minutes of the video.

My takeaways from the video:

The key insights that he shares in the video are that the ability to master any new skill is not a function of the intelligence of an individual but is dependent on the time that the individual is willing to spend to master the skill.

Another insight is that mastery happens incrementally (step by step, little by little) over long period of time with lots of guidance from existing masters through deliberate practice. The deliberateness is where the guides come into play as they are able to identify each increment in the process. The practice is our ability to put in the time and the effort over time to get better.

I have always written about and at every opportunity talked about the importance of learning how to learn and how it is a meta skill that can have a significant impact on the trajectory of our lives. So, if someone like Cal Newport shares his insights on how to learn, I would pay attention to it.

In Conclusion:

In conclusion, I would say that all of us need to start a learning practice, so that our ability to learn improves all the time. What we learn can depend sometimes on our interests and sometimes on our necessities. Whatever be the case, at any point in time, we need to be learning something new.

In 2024, I am learning to create and edit videos. What are you learning?

PS: You can also listen to my conversation with Cal on my podcast – Pushing Beyond the Obvious here.