Learning How to Learn (Classic)

What's up, everyone. This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew. Welcome back to Founder's Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you, the business builder, the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business, a team, or a new product.

So this past weekend, I went for a long drive. And on that drive, I was reflecting on my journey in media. And one thing that I thought about was how I went from being a total novice in the media space when I first started with Morning Brew in 2015 to being an expert within a few years. And it made me think about just learning anything new broadly, and what the process is that I’d gone through in the past to go down the rabbit hole and learn something new. And I think it’s really important to think about it. And I think it’s something we often don’t think about in the rush of life. It’s this idea that in a world of information abundance and limited time, it’s more important than ever to understand how to go about learning in an efficient and effective way. And so my goal for this episode is, I’m going to map out my process for going down a rabbit hole and  a process that you can use to learn anything new in your career or your personal life. So let’s hop into it.

How to learn anything new

I think about the process of learning like the process of test taking in college. I fundamentally believe there are two types of students: You have the memorizer, and you have the understander. The memorizer is the student who studies past exams and their answers. And the understander is the student who studies the textbook, reflects on the principles from reading that textbook, and so then no matter what test is put in front of them, whether it’s similar or dissimilar from past exams, their mind can adapt to the challenge because they understand things at a foundational level. That is the foundation that I am trying to create through this process of learning that I’ve gone through and that I want you to learn from. High-quality learning is about being an understander rather than a memorizer. Your goal is to go from knowing very little about a topic and not being able to apply that topic in your life, to knowing a whole lot about a topic and being able to apply it in many ways.

And what I’m going to do is share with you a repeatable process for going from knowing little and applying little, to knowing a lot and applying a lot, with any topic you learn about personally or professionally. So for me, that’s anything from the health care system, to blockchain technology, to the future of education. And that will obviously look very different for each and every one of you. The four steps to mastering any new topic and the process for learning is: One, curation. Two, consumption. Three, reflection. And four, creation. We’re going to go through each step, and by the end, you’re going to understand this process for learning incredibly well.

How to Learn, Step 1: Curation

So step one is curation. And the whole idea of curation is how you get the highest-signal content fastest. I actually did a past Founder’s Journal on this and we’ll link to it in the show notes because I think it would be a really good primer for you as you reflect on this episode. But the whole idea of curation is that we live, again, in this world of information abundance. More content is being created then ever before. And so curation starts the narrowing process for you. If you think about your content consumption as a funnell, and you can only allow in so much information, because if you have too much, you simply will never get through it and it will cause your brain to spin, curation is the first step in narrowing the funnel, where you go from having all of the information possible on the internet, to somewhat focusing where you want to start consuming content. And so how do you go about curating? There are a lot of ways but I’m going to highlight a few. One way is, if you’re active on social media, it’s super easy to just post on Twitter, post on LinkedIn, you know, drop an Instagram story, asking people who you trust what have they read, watched, or listened to about a topic. So for example, I wanted to learn a lot about Ethereum and I wanted to learn a lot about Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, just two very specific corners of the world of blockchain technology. All I did was post it on Twitter, or I tweeted, “What are the best long reads that you’ve read about Ethereum?” Or, “What are the best YouTube channels that break down all of the applications of Ethereum?” And within 24 hours, I had 25 different resources that were shared by people on Twitter who I trust and I follow. So that is one super easy, low time commitment, high-signal opportunity, is literally just create the opportunity for the people that you follow, that you’re connected with on social media, to add value to you. And I think, you know, in general if you think about it, people are going to want to do that for two reasons. One is they want to help people that they're connected with. Two, it's an amazing form of social signaling. When people can share content they've consumed, it shows an elevated level of knowledge that they have. Let's assume for a second, that you can't do that either. You don't create content on social or you don't really have a network on social. That's totally fine. Another shortcut I would think about is, think about, how do you find who the thought leaders are in the space you want to learn more about? So let's just say you wanted to learn more about the future of education. Well, what I would do is I would look up, “who are the fastest growing companies in education technology” or “the future of education.” And I would find interviews that the founders of those fastest-growing companies have done and see what resources the founders reference.

So for example, in education, you know, I learned a lot from Gagan Biyani, who founded a large education technology company. I learned a lot from Wes Kao, who was the creator of the altMBA. I learn a lot from Scott Galloway who created Section4, which is a new education startup. And by consuming their content, oftentimes they will reference what are some of the foundational pieces of content that they've used to form their view on education. I'll just go back and consume the exact content that they consumed. The final way to do this is rather than using social media, rather than looking up fast-growing companies in a space you want to learn more about, the other way is just referencing past experience.

And so what I mean by that is if there are podcasts that you really love, if there are websites that you trust, whether it be the New York times or Washington Post or the Atlantic, whatever it may be, or if there are YouTube channels with creators who you trust a lot, that's a great place to start as well. Go to those places, go to those podcasts, go to those websites and look up what content have they created around, whatever it is, whatever space it is, whatever industry, whatever interest area that you want to go deep, see what content they've created around it. And if it's really good, you can always see, what is the primary information that they referenced. So that's the first step. Curation is all about, how do you find high-signal content fast? How do you start narrowing all of the abundance in the internet in a way that is manageable and approachable for you? And the three recommendations I gave are ways to start curating all of that content into something that is manageable. 

How to learn, Step 2: Consumption

Step two after curation is consumption. And consumption, obviously it sounds simple, but I think there's a ton of nuance to how you end up being a good consumer. And I think the key to being a good consumer is being both an active and iterative consumer. And what I mean by that is, you can consume on autopilot or you can consume in a way that are on offense,  in a way that is solidifying the content and the principles as you're reading them. And when I say you can be an iterative consumer, that means not just reading all of the content you said you would read, but optimizing what content you're consuming as you go about consuming and seeing what you really like versus what you don't like. So here are the rules for being an active and iterative consumer. 

Consumption Strategy #1: Don’t consume content to finale

The first is don't consume content to finale, or from beginning to end, just for the sake of it. When I started being like an active reader, I used to feel like every single book I read, I had to read it beginning to end with every word accounted for, or there was this feeling of disappointment, like I didn't finish the book as time has gone on. I've realized that concept is total bullshit. And what changed my way of thinking around this was a podcast that Tim Ferriss did, Tim Ferriss interviewed George Raveling. I believe that's how you pronounce his name. He's a fascinating guy. He is a voracious reader. He's read tens of thousands of books. He actually was a security guard for MLK's “I Have a Dream” speech and he has the original version of the speech, but he talked about his process for reading on Tim Ferriss’s show. And what he basically said was, he's read tens of thousands of books. He never finishes a book because his view is that the highest value in a book usually takes place in a few chapters. So once he feels like he's gotten the value, why would he read the whole book? It's not high-leverage of his time. Another thing that he does is he actually goes to the index of a book, the end of the book where like, you know, the certain topics are referenced and what page they're on. He goes there first. He finds an interesting topic from the book and that's where he starts reading. So he starts a book in the middle of the book based on something in the index that caught his eye. That's where he goes first. So that's rule number one of being an active and iterative consumer, is don't consume to finale for the sake of consuming to finale.

Consumption Strategy #2: Take good notes

The second is taking notes for recall and writing things down for attention. What I mean by that is note taking is probably the best forced function to make you an active reader, but also to document ideas that you'll use to form your own views later on. I think what people don't realize that they read something and then a month or two later, they're like, I remember really liking that book, but I can only remember one thing from that. And that's to be expected, our brains are not meant to retain all of the content we consume on the internet or consume in books. But that doesn't mean we need to live in a world where we can't reference some of the most interesting things we've consumed later on in life. And so this idea of note taking, I think about it like swimming. If you read without taking notes, it's like learning to swim by watching someone swim for a while, but then never trying to swim yourself and seeing how freestyle versus breaststroke versus backstroke work for you. And if you want to dive into note taking that's an entirely different episode, I’ll probably do a future episode on, but two great thinkers on the act note taking, and basically building up this database of ideas and things you've read in the past to be able to use in the future: Tiago Forte and David Perell have amazing thoughts on the topic. So I would check their stuff out. The third rule for being an active and iterative consumer of content is by focusing on two to three authors of content and going deep. So this is the iterative part of consumption. Let's say you curated your initial list. That was step one. And you curated a list of 12 sources to consume about a topic. Let's just use the example of modern financial markets. Like you want understand how finance and financial services works. Let's say you've curated your list of 12 sources based on the podcasts you like, based on doing what I said and going and finding some of the fastest growing companies in financial services and finding their founders and, you know, curating interviews with them. The idea is that if you're an iterative consumer, you actually probably shouldn't read all of the things or consume all of the things that you initially curated. So if you originally curated 12 sources around a topic, you probably should not consume all 12. What should happen is you should let your curiosity guide you as the content that resonates with you most, that's what you start focusing on. So let's say you find an author who you think does an incredible job laying out the foundation of this topic that you're going down the rabbit hole of, you should screw the 11 other sources. Set aside that time you were going to spend on the 11 other sources and begin reading, listening to, watching all of the content that this author has ever written. So to give you an example, I mean, I experience this all the time. I love going down the rabbit hole of individuals who are great thinkers. And so there was a period of time where I was pushing myself to learn more about the world of entertainment and gaming. And I had found that an online writer named Matt Ball was the smartest thinker about entertainment and gaming. Bob Iger, the former CEO of Disney, he would read Matt Ball's stuff to think in a smarter way about Disney. And so once I read Matt Ball's first piece out of, let's say a dozen forms of content that I curated to learn more about entertainment and gaming, I read Mat Ball’s second, third, fourth, and fifth piece before consuming any other piece of content around the space that I had curated prior. That is step number two, after curating you consume, and it's not just about consuming. It's about consuming actively and iteratively. 

How to Learn, Step 3: Reflection

Step number three is reflection. Reflection is the number one most important step in learning. It is the bridge between consuming content and applying content in your life. If you want to form new ideas, if you want to form new points of view, you have to give yourself the time and space to reflect. And I think this is the step that people mess up most often. I just want to reiterate this: Reflection is the number one most important step in learning. And I think there's a few ways that you can reflect. The first way is solo reflection, so this is a process where, you know, using the Matt Ball example, I read his essay and then I write down thoughts that I have after reading his essay. Maybe I write down questions that I would want to pose to him. Maybe I share my own points of view that I don't necessarily buy or that I didn't think he explained well. So literally just this act of wrestling with what I just read by myself, either in my head or on a notebook or recording it, that's solo reflection.

Then you have peer reflection, which is where you literally just have a conversation with anyone willing to listen. Even if I read Matt Ball’s stuff, I'd be fine having a conversation with my sister who knows nothing about entertainment and gaming, if she's just a great listener. And basically I use that conversation as a way to explain to her my understanding of what Matt Ball wrote as a way to test, did I actually understand what I was reading. That said it is always a benefit if you can talk to someone that knows a lot about the subject, or even better is the author of one of the pieces of content that you've consumed, because then it can turn from being just a reflection on the content to reflecting and actively learning when you go directly to the source. So imagine I read something about the future of gaming by Matt Ball. Not only could I talk back to him, what I learned from the piece and how I think about gaming now, but if there were things I didn't understand or things that I was kind of skeptical of, it's an opportunity for me to actually drive my learning even deeper while reflecting to retain the information as well. One last thought on this step. So Shane Parrish, who also has amazing content around, you know, the act of learning, he describes this step of reflection in a really powerful way. What he says is, reflection is an example of an approach that is first order negative and second order positive. What that means is it has very visible short-term costs, right? It takes time and honest self-assessment about your shortcomings and about the things you don't know. And also it feels like in this world of where we have to be productive, like you're wasting time reflecting on things and thinking rather than doing, but it pays off massively in the future. And the reason that reflection is a paradox is because the future, the long-term is not visible to people today. And so this concept of slowing down today to reflect in order to go faster in the future, seems like a bad idea to many. And so this is why I keep reiterating this, is I want to encourage you to slow down in order to speed up in the future, because people never realize how important reflection is today because you don't see the benefit today. We're through the first three steps. We’re through curation, consumption, and reflection.

How to Learn, Step 4: Creation

The final step is creation. Once you've curated high-signal content, once you've actively and iteratively consumed, and once you've reflected on what you have consumed, you've created this solid foundation to be able to create your own ideas and points of view about the topic that you become fluent in. And as I thought about creation, I thought that it was really important to talk about the nuance in this step, because I think it takes a lot of forms. 

Creation Form #1: Remixing

The most beginner version is something that I call remixing, and remixing is where you connect existing ideas and combine them in a manner that makes something new. So to give you an example, when you hear people say something like I'm building the Uber for X, I'm building the Amazon for Y, I'm building the Peloton for Z. That's an example of remixing. You're taking an existing concept that's proven and combining it with this new knowledge that you've accumulated in this specific space that you've studied to create a new idea. Remixing isn't a bad thing, but it is what I would call the simplest form of creation. 

Creation Form #2: Original Concepts

Then at the other side of the spectrum for creation is like true original creation, which is more about creating totally new ideas, totally new markets that have never been made before. So an example that I think of here is Airbnb. If Airbnb’s founders said, we want to create Marriott for millennials, that would have been a remixed idea, like what I just described. And it probably would have had limited opportunity because it's, I would say, low-hanging fruit. It's a relatively easy idea. It's not an entirely new market, but instead what the founders of Airbnb said was, we want to create something where staying with strangers in their homes is not only accepted, but could be an entirely new category of housing and living. And so that's what Airbnb was. It was true, original creation, not just remixing. And that's the four-step process for learning anything new: step one, curation; step two, consumption; step three, reflection; and step four, creation. I would love for you to reflect on this process on your own time. And then let me know if you have any questions. It is so, so important that you understand this because it can literally act as the foundation to accelerate your ability to learn for the rest of your career. 

I want to hear from you

Separately, I want to hear from you all. This community over the last few months has been incredible, from engaging with me on social, to sending questions and thoughts, to sharing the podcast with co-workers, family, friends, etcetera. And as this thing gets bigger, my goal is to make sure that I'm talking about the aspects of building businesses that are most valuable to you. So what I would love for you to do is shoot me an email at alex@morningbrew.com, that's alex@morningbrew.com, with any ideas you have of future episodes that you want to hear me talk about, or just any other thoughts you have for the show as we continue to grow it, this thing is growing like a rocket ship. And I want to make sure it's always about the audience, no matter how big we get. With that, would love to hear from you and as always, thanks so much for listening, and I'll catch you next episode.