[AKN #61] The step-by-step method I use to get better at anything
also LAUGH: Sebastian Maniscalco act outs, LOVE: foil wrapped homes survive wildfires
Sup homies?
Coming to you live from Palm Desert.
I am writing this from a house in a lovely, hot, rocky mountain environment. It is a relaxing place especially the area I am staying which is miles away from most human beings.
Living in a city, I spend most of my time surrounded by other people. And people are great. But you know what is also great? Not seeing people.
While I am separated from people and surrounded by beautiful landscape, I find myself asking questions like “I live in a city most of the time and a desolate location some of the time. Should I be reversing those ratios?”
There is something romantic about living the plot of Walden.
But I am sure if I stayed too long, I would be itching for the excesses of the city.
Like there is no DoorDash here so you have to make ALL of your own meals…
Or ugh I have to clean up after myself?
The tyranny of doing all your own household chores.
Woe is me.
On to the newsletter!
LIVE: The step-by-step method I use to get better at anything
It recently took me an entire month to hang ten sets of blinds in my apartment’s windows.
At first, I found myself paralyzed because I did not know how to do it.
But then after powering through a few YouTube videos, I overcame that fear and tried hanging one of them…which was a TERRIBLE experience! I struggled mightily and it ended up taking MUCH more effort than I expected.
Armed with my new found terror of how obnoxious it was to hang blinds, I paused and said “I will get around to doing this another time” which — spoiler alert — was not something I was scheduling on my calendar.
These blinds would have remained in that state for a long time if it hadn’t been for my dad visiting me. My dad is much more handy than I am so while he was around he was able to show me how to get around the issues I encountered the first time through. In fact, it took my dad fifteen minutes to hang four of the blinds.
In true “teach a man to fish fashion”, he left me with the next five to hang on my own. Funny enough, armed with the new insight of how to hang them and all the little screw gun tricks, it took me twenty minutes to finish the next five.
In reflecting on this experience, I realized that inside of this little story lies the method I use to get better at anything ever.
Namely, I identified a skill I was deficient in (hanging a blind), I learned how to get better at it (thanks to watching my dad), I performed the skill armed with my newfound knowledge (I hung the blinds), and I received feedback about how it looks (my fiancé said they looked good).
To generalize the process and turn it into a framework for how I learn anything:
IDENTIFY: Find the skill I want to improve
MAP IT OUT: Figure out how to improve
ACTUALLY FOLLOW THE MAP: Execute your improvement plan
GET EXPERT FEEDBACK: Ask someone who has better taste than you if you improved
Let me go a bit deeper into each step.
1. IDENTIFY: Find the skill I want to improve
To quote the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. You cannot “improve” if you have not identified something that requires “improvement.”
This step can be the hardest because we are meat sacks loaded with weird evolutionary survival software that make it difficult to see the objective truth.
Specifically, we run two programs which make identifying a skill to improve at difficult.
Program 1: Cognitive biases
Our brains take in the complex world around us and apply little algorithms to reduce the millions of data points down to a digestible size. This process simplifies the world but also reduces our vision leading to blindspots in our thinking.
For example, a bias might take the form of defaulting into what everyone around you is already doing.
If everyone eats candy every day, you might not identify that this is a problem for your health. You are blind to it. You are simply trying to fit in to the group. And candy is fucking tasty god dammit.
Program 2: Ego
Our problems can stem from our own attitude, selfishness and self-absorption. This often prevents us from being rational, objective and clear headed which makes it hard to accept that we are bad at anything.
Often times if we find ourselves so self absorbed we have no chance of identifying that we need help on something.
There are generally two ways to overcome these little mental programs and identify things you are bad at:
A. FEEDBACK - Leveraging other people’s opinions of your situation
The best way to find out where you stand is to ask other people.
Ask people in your life for feedback about how something went over and then listen to what they say.
For example, at one point in my career, I asked a senior leader in the company what he thought of my presentation. He said while my presentation presence was great, the slide was unclear and didn’t really get to the point.
From that experience, I identified that I needed to work on making clear executive-level slides. A skill that I would have never even really understood was a problem unless someone told me.
B. INTROSPECTION - Reflecting on your own problems
The second best way to find a skill to improve is by figuring it out on your own.
This one comes with the caveat that its VERY difficult to see your own blindspots, but not impossible.
Journaling tends to be the way in which I am most able to elucidate issues by myself.
But keep in mind these are called “blindspots” for a reason…cause you can’t see them. Do I have to spell this out for you any more clearly?
Just go seek out feedback from someone else. Its way easier.
2. MAP IT OUT: Figure out how to improve
Once you know you are bad at something, you must identify the clearest path to getting better at it.
The fastest path to getting results is getting advice from experts in that skill who can point you in the correct direction.
While you can do personal experimentation, why work through something from scratch when you can stand on the shoulders of giants to save yourself time and get immediate results? Or like this coworker I used to work with — who I hate — said “yOu DoNt HaVe To ReInVeNt ThE wHeEl.”
Some easy ways to do this are:
Reading a book on the subject
Taking a class
Hiring a coach
Finding a mentor
To go back to my executive slide making skill example, I asked several coworkers who were very good at this skill for feedback on how to structure slides so that the slide gets to the heart of what needs to be communicated. They gave me useful frameworks to think through the construction of the slide and helped me get started on improving.
3. ACTUALLY FOLLOW THE MAP: Execute your improvement plan
You will not get better at something until you actually do it.
A classic problem I run into when trying to get better at something is insisting on gathering more information instead of just executing the vision I laid out.
This sounds so simple, but it is also VERY easy to delude yourself into thinking that consuming more information is required and it “counts” as doing the work. It doesn’t.
Again with my slide making example, I actually needed to go and create presentations. Reading about effective communication theory or endlessly asking for “tips and tricks” from colleagues will only get you so far.
Eventually seeking out these “life hacks” becomes a form of procrastination. At some point you just have to do the skill.
4. GET EXPERT FEEDBACK: Ask someone who has better taste than you if you improved
Once you have the product you created using your new skill, you need to review it with an expert who will let you know if you have progressed or if you need to work more on this.
It is key that you talk to someone who is good at this. Not all feedback is created equal.
Find someone who is good at the skill you are trying to improve and have them give you feedback about whether or not you improved.
Some typical ways to do this:
Hire a coach
Solicit feedback
Seek out a mentor
Ask people who are better than you
To finish off with my slide making example, I would solicit feedback from trusted allies about how the slides went over in the meeting. They would tell me what could have been better or what they really liked.
After enough iterations of this, I looked up and realized that I can now make a super solid slide. Which like. Won’t get me that far in a zombie apocalypse, but in this Truman Show world we live in, it seems to be an effective skill for “making impact.” Whatever the fuck that means.
Anyway.
Whenever I want to get better at something, I think about how I can most effectively enter into this process and whenever I struggle making progress on something it is almost always because I skipped a step.
Hope you found this useful and definitely reply letting me know if there is anything you would add to this process!
LAUGH: Sebastian Maniscalco act outs
Sebastian Maniscalco is a funny dude, but the interesting part that I found is how much funnier his stuff becomes when you watch the video of him acting out the joke vs. just listening to the audio. His act outs are an added dimension that makes the joke pop.
Here are two quick bits of his which I enjoyed:
There were no naps growing up in my house
The cable guy and the neigbor wearing a mask
I really enjoyed his mask joke and how it didn’t age well. Now no one would find it weird if your neighbor answered a door wearing a mask!
LOVE: Foil wrapped house survives fire
I thought the way this house survived a wildfire was super cool.
The house was wrapped in a special fire suppressing foil blanket which looks straight up like you wrapped the house in aluminum foil.
But don’t let the duct-tape-esque looking approach fool you, this stuff is scientifically legit and isn’t your mom’s Reynolds Wrap:
Fumiaki Takahashi, an engineering professor at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, has conducted experiments in laboratories and also in a prescribed burn area and concluded that two-layer blankets with an aluminum surface can block up to 92% of the convective heat and 96% of the radiation.
“It is effective for protecting structures for a short period while the wildfire front passes — five to 10 minutes — but longer protection would be needed to prevent structure-to-structure ignition,” he told The Chronicle.
The foil goes after three specific failure mechanisms which cause houses in the presence of wildfires to burn. Namely, it:
Prevents firebrands, or large burning embers, from entering buildings through gutters, eaves, vents, broken windows and roofs, or lodging in corners or other angular spots.
Keeps homes from making direct contact with flames.
Reflects thermal radiation from a large fire burning nearby over a sustained period, possibly protecting the house from bursting into flames from the intense heat.
This focus on attacking burning failure mechanisms could be something really interesting for us to investigate for mitigating the effects of fire in the future.
I like solutions like this because in the short term, there is not a ton we can do to control the occurrence of wildfires (except controlled burns) so this helps us consider ways of living with them for now.
Additionally — knowing what we know about how fires work — if you get a structure to survive a fire, that structure will be set for the next decade as you have essentially depleted all the fuel around the structure. The house now basically lives in a controlled burn site.
Closing time
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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are strictly my own. Who else’s would they be?
Mahalo,
Kevin
“Eventually seeking out these “life hacks” becomes a form of procrastination. At some point you just have to do the skill.”
Such an important point.