Notes on smash fear learn anything by Tim Ferriss via TED
Source: TED.
When I watched it: January 2020
Why I watched it: I discovered this talk as part of my ongoing research on reflection and self-learning. While it wasn’t what I was looking for, I found the mental models described in the video compelling. Here are my notes on three ways you can deconstruct and learn anything.
Go to the video page for details and to watch or scroll down for my notes.
Want to get my future notes when I publish them? Subscribe to my weekly newsletter below.
About Tim Ferriss
Tim Ferriss is a best-selling author and podcaster.
Fear is an indicator
More often than not, fear shows you what you should do. This is especially true with fears you developed as a child.
The best results in life are often held back by fear built on false constructs and untested assumptions.
How to eliminate fear
To eliminate your fear, start by asking yourself: what's the worst that can happen?
In this video, Tim identifies three ways to deconstruct and learn anything:
First principles. With a first principles learning approach, you break things down to their basic parts and learn each part.
Materials versus methods. With this approach, you prioritize learning the material versus learning the methods.
Implicit versus explicit. With this approach, you practice and master what is implied instead of what is expressed.
1. First principles
Tim thinks everyone should feel capable of learning anything by deconstructing things. This applies even when something scares you.
For example, Tim Ferris used first principles to teach himself to swim. Tim could never learn how to swim as a kid or young adult. With the help of a coach, he broke the freestyle stroke down to its fundamental body movements. He mastered each movement and then put them all together. Now he can swim kilometers.
2. Materials versus methods.
With the materials versus methods approach, you prioritize learning the material over learning the methods. Materials are the things you put together to accomplish something. Methods are a particular way of accomplishing something. Methods leverage materials. The idea here is to focus on learning what you do (the materials) versus how you do it (the methods). What you do—not how you do it—is often the determining factor for learning.
For example, Tim Ferris used to be terrible at learning foreign languages. On a visit to Japan he discovered the Jōyō kanji, which is a poster of the 2,136 common-use characters as determined by the Japanese Ministry of Education in 1981. Japanese publications often limit themselves to these characters to improve accessibility. As soon as he focused on this material, his learning took off. Six months later he was reading newspapers. Tim can now speak more than five languages.
3. Implicit versus explicit.
When you try to learn a new skill, experts will explicitly recommend training methods. If you can identify the implicit repetitive core concepts shared by multiple methods, you can then focus on learning those core concepts. The idea here is to watch for the unspoken commonalities across experts and train yourself on the ones you can best exploit.
For example, Tim Ferris became a champion tango dancer in a very short period of time. He did this by building and comparing two lists. The first list was the top training activities recommended by tango experts. The second list was the implicit commonalities shared by multiple activities. By focusing on mastering three commonalities—long steps, different types of pivots, and variation in tempo—he accelerated his training.