Sometimes I wonder, "How would my life as an entrepreneur be different if I had learned sales at 16 years old instead of at 26?"
Before learning how to do a proper sales call, I earned in the low $10,000s per year for 10 years. After learning it, my business grew to one million dollars in revenue within two years.
This huge shift made me fascinated by how some people repeatedly learn skills in days that take others years: effectively learning at a 100x speed.
What do they do differently?
What I've observed in my own career and those of hundreds of entrepreneurs on the Empact Showcase is that the difference is learning speed. Startup guru, Eric Ries, puts it even more starkly, "The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else."
So, I interviewed 7 learning experts on how to master the art of learning quickly: many of whom learned how to build breakthrough, multimillion dollar business in their 20s; something most entrepreneurs don't do in their entire lifetime.
Here are quick wins you can immediately use to boost your learning speed...
1. Do A/B/C/D/E/F/G Testing
Blake Goodwine, CEO of Lionize Media Group
I'm 22 years old, and my business that I started two years ago has tens of millions of unique visitors per month making it one of the largest online publishing networks.
This isn't because I'm smarter. It's because I learn faster through testing. Most people don't have a testing mentality. Of those who do, most settle for A/B tests. Our company does A/B/C/D/E/F/G testing.
Every time we start a project, I encourage everyone on our team to go out and systemically try every possible approach. If someone has an idea and we haven't learned that it does not work yet, we do it. We go in with the belief that "we know nothing," and we encourage failure even if we might lose tens of thousands of dollars. Finally, we spend hours every day logically evaluating the results of our experiments as a team.
For the next big decision you face, come up with 100 possible solutions and see if you can find ways to test the most promising ones.
2. Practice Right Before You Go To Sleep
Josh Kaufman, bestselling author of The Personal MBA and The First 20 Hours
Research suggests that practicing within a few hours of going to sleep helps your brain consolidate the movements you practice into long-term memory and gain insight. That makes practicing just before going to sleep a very effective strategy.
This was particularly apparent when I was training myself to touch-type on a new keyboard: words and phrases that were difficult the night before were always much easier in the morning. Practicing for 45 minutes just before bed was also very helpful in picking up skills like programming, yoga and playing the ukulele.
3. Zoom Out To Get The Big Picture
Ryan Simonetti, co-founder of Convene
Similar to Steve Job's "Zoom Out / Zoom In" approach, I focus on understanding (1) the major macro level trends impacting our world (globalization, demographics, and technological change) and (2) patterns in how different industries are reacting to those same trends.
The deeper you understand the wider world, the easier it becomes to connect the dots, learn new topics quickly, and position your company to take advantage of opportunities that your peers just can't see.
In fact, it was this approach that led to Convene, which now has 150 employees. My partner and I paired a macro trend (companies decreasing their real estate costs) with a micro trend (growing demand for outsourced meeting and event space solutions).
In order to get the macro view, I network in different industries and read widely. For example, I'm a member of Vistage, an executive coaching company that facilitates peer advisory groups of top executives. In my group alone, we have 14 different CEO's representing 14 different industries. I read publications that offer a broader view of the world like The Economist. I also read business theory and philosophy books (ie - The Second Bounce).
4. Share Your Reading Notes From Books With Others
Similar to Bill Gates' Reading List, I share reflections and notes on books I particularly enjoy with a curated email list of people who I think would enjoy them. This may sound altruistic - saving others time by sharing the key takeaways of what I read - and it is.
But more importantly, it helps me get a deeper understanding of the topic.
For example, I recently read Oprah's book, What I Know For Sure, and I sent out an email reflecting on what I know for sure in my own life. Sending these notes forced me to reflect on what I read, started conversations with close friends that deepen the learning, and keeps me top of mind with the people in my network.
5. Tighten Your Feedback Loop
Jason Duff, founder and CEO of COMSTOR Outdoor
Research on expert performance shows that one of the most critical steps to mastery is getting feedback on the results of your actions. The biggest way I learn quickly is by getting direct, immediate feedback from my employees, community, and customers so I can make changes on the fly.
Most people wait for feedback to come to them. However, by the time feedback gets back to them, the underlying issue has already snowballed. By the time an employee quits or a customer leaves your service, it's too late. But there were probably signals you could have caught sooner that would've stopped them from leaving.
As an example, I purchase property that is vacant in my community (I own and have redeveloped 40 commercial buildings). To get a pulse on what people think I poll the community through Facebook and read posts on our community's online forum, where people can post thoughts anonymously. I like reading these posts in order to understand what people are really thinking, but afraid to share publicly.
Finally, in order to get better at understanding your stakeholders, I recommend TinyPulse.
6. Leverage The Feynman Technique
Rohit Anabheri, founder of Circa Ventures
Similar to the learning hack of Nobel laureate, Richard Feynman, whenever I go to conferences or events, I create a self-reflection report and then share my lessons learned with my team, in order to aid them with important information that I had acquired during the conference.
I do this by sending out an email with my lessons learned to everyone, and having one-on-one conversations with relevant team members. In these one-on-one conversations, I customize my lessons for people's learning style and their role in the company.
- It increases my learning as a result of reflection.
- It helps my team understand why I was away and how me being away helped the company.
- It builds mutual understanding, trust and comfort with team members.
- It creates a learning culture where all team members share their lessons learned and grow together.
- It challenges you to strive for improvement.
7. Solve Complex Problems With First Principles
Meredith Perry, founder of uBeam
One of the keys to rapidly learning that led to uBeam, which wirelessly transmits electricity to charge electronic devices, was using First Principles thinking, similar to how Elon Musk does.
Here's how I do it:
STEP #1: BREAK DOWN
Break down a complex scientific or business problem into smaller problems to understand the core issues.
I began with the question, "How could I wirelessly beam energy to my computer to charge it without a wire?" I then began to research every type of energy that could be converted into usable energy. I quickly realized that certain parts of the electromagnetic spectrum (ie - x-rays) were too dangerous and other parts were too tightly regulated or too inefficient.
STEP #2: SOLVE
Solve each of the basic problems by digging deep into the core issues of each one.
I then talked to experts and read papers on harnessing ambient energy and stumbled across a device that could convert physical vibration into usable energy. Through more research, I then realized that acoustic energy, and ultimately ultrasound could potentially be used to induce vibration through the air.
STEP #3: SYNTHESIZE
Synthesize solutions to the core issues that make up the complex problem into a cohesive system.
Ultimately, to get to a working prototype, we followed this same process for the fields of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, materials science, medicine, mathematics, and theoretical physics. Then, we synthesized our learnings into the final product.
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Special thanks to Jeremy Weisz, founder of Inspired Insider, for interviewing Josh Kaufman and to Ian Chew and Sheena Lindahl who volunteered their time to edit this article and do research.
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