Is 'Getting Better At Anything' Too Good to Be True? Scott Young Responds

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

Enjoyed this discussion about "getting better at anything" with Scott Young? Check out my interview with Luke Ranieri next! We dive into language acquisition, immersion techniques, and how to memorize verbatim lines in a foreign language. It's the perfect companion to expand your learning toolkit. Watch it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fXWVeqKHpb2cbK8

[@curtiscannon2726]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts! Enjoyed the whole conversation. 1:54:02 "well there is certainly a lot in the world to be enthralled by" Your example of love and passion for learning is contagious and listening to you makes my life "better". I appreciate your humility and openness; This was a great start to my day!

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

Thanks for your kind words. More of my own contagion for learning coming a.s.a.p. Anything in particular you might like to see covered going forward on the channel?

[@uchihamadara7577]

Love from India ❤

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

Right back at you and happy viewing and reading!

[@vonauandromeda6176]

Thank you for this quality podcast!

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

Thanks for giving it a listen! Are you currently studying anything?

[@knw-seeker6836]

As for disorganised text 13:40 A couple of years ago you did an interview with a neuroscientist and I remember he said students get these preorganised texts and it would be actually for their learning and neural connections to build there own structure

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

Thanks for this. Are you thinking of this one with Dr. David Reser? kzbin.info/www/bejne/i5ynmIdslNiBgLM

[@knw-seeker6836]

@@AnthonyMetivierMMM exactly that’s the one It really got me thinking Later I came to Blooms Taxonomy And it literally made sense

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

Definitely. We probably want to add in Noel Burch's ladder of competence too for good measure.

[@knw-seeker6836]

@@AnthonyMetivierMMM wow I’ve never heard of that before

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

It's a good one to know.

[@JustinSCampbell]

It's great you're reviewing this. I'm reading this now.

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

Fantastic. Enjoy and thanks for stopping by to check this one out! Any particular areas of learning you're focused on at the moment?

[@TheBigSavvyBoss]

It's amazing how the synchronicity works sometimes. I just ordered it and received today!

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

That is great! Had you also read Ultralearning?

[@TheBigSavvyBoss]

​@@AnthonyMetivierMMM Partially I stopped mid way and started Mastery of Robert Green. Didn't apply interleaving properly here 😂

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

Never too late to start! :-)

[@TheBigSavvyBoss]

@@AnthonyMetivierMMM I was wondering, could the Thor's Hammer technique you introduced a few weeks ago, for reinforcing our focus while reading and fight those "wandering" temptations, could that be used similarly to maintain the interest in a book you just started? Could it also be used to set a kind of reminders/anchors/cues to build and maintain our reading routine? Maybe it's worth a Thor's Hammer 2.0 video? 👀🙂

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

I'll put some thought into that. For now, one thing to consider is what exactly you mean by "maintain" and "focus." Sometimes it seems to me that people are reading and expecting the reading itself to be focused. Myself, I often don't "read" and didn't "read" Get Better At Anything in any standard sense. In this case, I didn't need Thor's Hammer, but I was very aware that I was hunting, and on a mission to pull out ideas I thought would make for an interesting interview. In my earliest books I used to talk about this strategy a lot, because even if I'm not interviewing an author, I will still act AS IF I am and then read with the ferocity of a hunter in the sense of actually moving through the forest of words with stealth in search of a target. In other words, I'm not focused solely on the reading, but also on a kind of game set up by a metaphorical frame. In other words, such a video would probably not be Thor's Hammer 2.0, but Hunter 10.9 (or some number like that) because I've mentioned this strategy many times before. I still interleave though, and that's easy. Physical books only, and only the interleaved books on the table. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

[@SorryTheresACatOnMyLap]

Tjank you both, from Corona, California.

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

🙏 Thanks for checking this one out!

[@billholt8792]

Once again great refresher memory technique(s). I am in need of refinements regarding You Tube, especially. Great job as always .Thanks!

[@Davlavi]

Fascinating 🖖

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

Thanks for checking it out! Hoping to have some more interviews coming soon!

[@johnedelmann6711]

I think Feynman said the quoye about explaining something simply. 17:09

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

Do you happen to know where? Since Feynman also said he didn’t understand much of what he was teaching,, that would be interesting to read. 🙏

[@johnedelmann6711]

@@AnthonyMetivierMMM I think it was at one of his classes that in order to understand what one knows you should be able to teach it to others. And I think that is where the other quote comes in. I could be wrong.

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

A quick search finds me attributions to both of them. I think anyone who says it with any seriousness isn't really using their noggin because the nature of information is such that it's always changing. Feynman also clearly contradicted himself because he also said: "It is my task to convince you not to turn away [from physics] because you don’t understand it. You see, my students don’t understand it either. That’s because I don’t understand it. Nobody does." So if the point I'm criticizing is true and he said you don't understand things if you can't explain them... why would be telling students that he doesn't understand physics? If anything, he could have been even harder on this point, as I tried to be in this interview by calling into question what some of the studies say and reminding us of Popper's own conditions for what falsifiability should really be taken to mean.

[@BARGABEATS]

Another banger of a video

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

🙏

[@elmzlan]

Hi anthony im a member of your magnetic memory website bought everything. Ever heard of a thing where i try to picture something in my mind and all I see are just blank patches of gray or black or orange. For example if you say to me think of an apple i cant literraly picture that in my mind its bizaare.

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

Thanks for having the course. Mnemonically speaking, this isn't such a big issue because mnemonics do not require mental picturing in order to work. For a deep dive into how I solved this issue for myself with references to successful memory competitors who have no mind's eye, please see: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r2G9aWuKiLCYoNk As you proceed, focus as specifically as possible on the Magnetic Modes, specifically the C-mode. Over time, many, if not all the others should open up for you. For now, the fact that we can type and read to share this correspondence means you will do just fine, even if a bit of extra fiddling might be involved. It certainly was for me, and I'm so glad I persisted.

[@SnakeAndTurtleQigong]

💙🙏

[@dinninfreeman2014]

perhaps a slightly less weak analogy would be the mind is a body rather than the mind is a muscle, in that you can do push-ups and that strength doesn't translate into a better squat

[@mogger84783]

Hey Anthony, this is completely off tpoic but i really need your help. I just finished my a levels in germany and i am going to do an entrance exam in bratislava in medical school which is in around 11 days. The test contains 100 questions in biology and 100 questions in chemistry in multiplechoice format with each question having 4 options. Now the university provided us with booklets which contain 1500 questions in total and have 8 options per question. Thus i need to memorize more than 1500 questions with all the right answers in less than 11 days. I am so desperate. I really dont know what to do. That is just a huge amount that i cannot remember because a memory palace would require too many places. I started rote learning because i am stuck. flashcards do not help either and are wayyyy to slow.The questionns dont require understanding but just memorisation of things i have never heard of so i cannot just deduce the answers. I am so stuck. This was my dream and i thought i had enough time after my A levels but i am just realizing that i was overconfident ;(

[@mogger84783]

Your tips would be my last hope because i am really about to give up. I know you do not know me at all but i would be so grateful if you replied

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

The real lesson here is to prep better in the future so you’re never in a position like this again. For the time being, are you able to extend the date/book a different time? If not, here’s another lesson: The way you’ve described the Memory Palace technique does not reflect what it is or how I would recommend incorporating it into exam prep. You’ll need at least a weekend’s worth of tine to correct your knowledge. It’s been a long time since I dealt with exams and would recommend you book a call with William Wadsworth at Exam Study Expert. He’ll likely have ideas for you if you cannot select a different date or apply for an extension.

[@mogger84783]

@@AnthonyMetivierMMM Thank you. I am not able to change that date as there is only 1 date. I thought I would be able to d that cause i never did anything like that before and it seemed pretty simple however it turned out to be really hard. However I am studying 12 hours daily and hope it will stick somehow

[@Crohan-h5n]

Hi I'm new to your content and could really use your advice. I'm in tight spot where I need to learn Korean quickly - within seven months and I have about an hour and a half to study each day, this could increase in the near future. I bought a Korean language course but it seems like it will take too long, they say the average is 1.5 - 2 years. I've seen your course sales page and noticed an emphasis on foreign language vocabulary rather than just foreign languages. I'm wondering why you emphasize vocabulary and if it is possible to reach a conversational level fluency of Korean in just seven months if enrolled in your course. By the way, I have little to no knowledge of korean.

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

You can certainly make great progress in 7 months, taking care that you use the mnemonic strategies in a detailed way and use the levels of processing in tandem (reading, writing, speaking, listening) with memorization. The emphasis on vocabulary is simple: they are the building blocks of language and sentences. Although it is true that contextual learning is key (hence reading, writing, speaking and listening which I also cover in-depth), there is so much to language that is vocabulary based. Keep in mind that there are different stages in the language learning game. So sometimes it will be quite front-loaded with lots of finicky points that need to be picked up. Where mnemonics really shine are getting the alphabet memorized quickly, words where grammar isn't that big of a deal (which in many languages boils down to days of the week, sometimes numbers, colors, piles of nouns, etc.) You can also memorize the basics of grammar tables quickly, which I also detail. Then, there's the memorization of phrases. If you can't reliably memorize 1 word, memorizing 10 in a phrase isn't going to happen all that easily. So that's another reason why there is a heavy focus on vocabulary memorization skills. Finally, as you progress in a language, all that ultimately remains is expanding vocabulary. Polyglots sometimes call the remaining words the "Stubborn Quintile." That's where I'm currently at with my German, and even with my mother tongue. No matter how much I learn of languages, there's always a percentage that remains to be learned. And mnemonics are extraordinary helpful with these because of how fast they make absorption and long-term retention. This is also very important because often these obscure words that are good to have come up much less often. So if you have a reliable means of memorizing them for the long-term, it won't be that big of a deal to recall them the rare time they do come up. There are even words called hapax legomenon that many of us who study Latin and Biblical languages, etc. really need to be able to remember. I'm not sure if there are any in Korean, but I would be surprised if there were not. That particular feature might not apply to your goals, but it's still good to have memory skills that can handle such words all the same. Please let me know if you have any further questions and I'll get back to you a.s.a.p.

[@Crohan-h5n]

@@AnthonyMetivierMMM Thank your for the detailed response, I really appreciate it. I've watched some of your videos and they seem to be complex(for me anyway) and build upon knowledge mnemonists already have, would I be correct in the thinking videos in the course are lot more comprehensible for a beginner?

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

Thanks for your follow-up. The course starts any beginner exactly where they need to be. But do please note that much of the comprehension we need is acquired by taking action. If you get hung up on certain points, I encourage you to employ the following modified Feynman technique. Named after the brilliant physicist Richard Feynman, this method involves pausing to try and answer things you don't understand on your own. His version is a bit different than what I'm about to lay out, but it's inspired by him and I encourage you to look up his version in his own words (and other variations). Here is my variation, which I have found to be much more robust: When a question arises that feels like an obstacle preventing you from taking further action until you get an answer, do this instead of stopping: Say out loud what it is that you don't understand. Often we get locked in obscurity because we're trying to work things out through one channel only. By saying something out loud, it will often become clear. Take it a step further, and write out: what exactly don't I understand about this? By trying to describe what you have understood and what still remains unclear, often the solution will leap out at you. You can take things one step further still. One you have understood clearly, take a moment to explain what you previously did not understand in your own words, as if teaching them to someone else. By doing so, you'll identify any remaining gaps in your understanding and reinforce your learning. This is one of the most powerful tool for self-discovery and continuous improvement. It will also save you time waiting for an answer. Another helpful tool I've found that adds meat to the bones of my modified Feynman technique is to memorize a very simple mantra: Stop stopping. Yes, I acknowledge that there is a bit of "cute factor" to mental tools like this. But as anecdotal as it sounds, I've accomplished a lot in my day and that those two words have helped me keep going many times, especially on the days when I felt like giving up. I share all of this with you because most of the things worth learning in life will create challenges in comprehension. But there is no need for anyone to get blocked or holds themselves back by labelling themselves a "beginner." That's a strange choice because most pros work hard at holding onto beginner's mind, so it's a good thing if used the right way, not a bad thing at all. Does this way of looking at things make sense and help you out?

[@Crohan-h5n]

​@@AnthonyMetivierMMM That sounds like very useful tool, i will trying employing it on my math studies as well. From what you've said so far it has eased alot of my anxiety going into the course. I will be joining the course within a few days, thank you for the help.

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

Look forward to seeing you then and great that your anxiety is easing. There's some research showing that using memory techniques tends to have that effect. I discussed that research at some length here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rKSchnuwadWJq68 I also have my own anecdotal experiences and one really great episode with a student who enjoyed similar effects. He had full on PTSD and is much better now. He attributes the curative elements to the findings we see in the Dalgleish research.

[@NickDorogavtsev]

Number of examples? Correlation does not mean causation. Does not matter how many examples you gather.

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

That may be, but isn’t my exact question. It’s not clear to me that composition divides cleanly between writing music and writing ads - and although I admitted here that I was seizing upon a throwaway sentence in a large book, I don’t think it follows, especially given Scott’s larger focus on phonics throughout. And we should not repeat the old yarn about correlation and causation without noting a) the clear and obvious alliteration - especially with the full book in mind. And b) your own relationship to music. I’m personally not so quick to dismiss this question and would certainly like to discuss more and all the more so if you have a chance to read the book in full. 🙏

[@NickDorogavtsev]

I got the book, looking forward to reading it :-)😊

[@gorbalsboy]

Wrong ,read the book 📚 sonny

[@AnthonyMetivierMMM]

I think you'll dig it. As I type I hear the morning birdsong and am reminded that there once was a giant bird called Twitter that causes we animals who use words to think ourselves human to type-tweet all kinds of things. If I were Derrrida, I could spin that one sentence in this book into an entire volume... but I'd rather just jam on the topic in a cafe... and I do use the word jam in its musical and conversational meaning. ;-)