Post: #1

I have done this myself, but I have not seen the process summarized so succinctly before.

Quote:Earl Nightingale researched and taught about success for decades, and he took his job seriously. His work is often forgotten now, but if you can find it, it is definitely worth your time. It was very helpful to me.

One of Earl’s more interesting lessons was this:

If you spend 30 minutes – every day – learning about one specific subject, you’ll become a legitimate expert in six months.

This is true. And I know it’s true because I took Earl’s advice and became an expert.

Perhaps it will take longer than six months for a difficult subject, but 30 minutes per day – if you actually use the time for serious study every day – is a LOT of focused time.
How to Do It

This is far easier than you might think, as long as you can make hard decisions and run your own life… and refuse to live by the expectations of others.

That means that you have to be able to say “no.” That means that you can accept the fact that others will be disappointed in you. You must be able to do what you think is right, regardless of their repeated objections.

When I first did this, it involved NOT having lunch with the people I worked with. I went off on my own and read while eating. Some of my colleagues thought I was being rude or weird, but I did it anyway.

Then, when my co-workers went out after work, I went home. I smiled, explained that I didn’t like drinking and that I had too much to do at home. And then I went home and read. They shook their heads but soon stopped asking.

So, when the other guys go out to lunch, sit by yourself and read. When they go out after work, go home and study. If friends or family don’t like it, do it anyway. Be different. Assure them that there is no insult intended, but take whatever heat is required and do what’s best for you.

You probably won’t lose many friends over this, but if you do, so be it. Any friend who requires that you not change and grow is not a friend you need to keep.
How to Read

Here are a few tips:

Go for quality, not quantity. Forget about reading a certain number of pages per day. That’s a mistake. Make sure that you understand what you read – that’s the only thing that matters.

Don’t just go through the motions. Stop and back up whenever you must. If you don’t understand something, circle it and look it up at your first opportunity. Don’t leave anything out; if you do, you’re subverting your future learning. Fill in the gaps as you go, not later.

You must understand WHY things work as they do. It is not enough to understand HOW they work. You must know why… you must know what interacts with the things you study and makes them act as they do. Once you understand that, you’ll start becoming a real expert.

Always keep paper and a pen next to your book. Write down things you need to check. Write down other ideas that come up while reading. Write down ideas for using the things you are reading about.

Once you finish a book (or magazine or whatever), review your notes and put everything of value into a file. (I suggest you use your computer for this.)
And If You Do…

… you’ll become a legitimate expert at whatever you study. Special talents are not required for any of this. Genius is not required. You must first make your decision, then act and stay with it under pressure.

Or, in the words of Calvin Coolidge:

Press on.

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Make good choices, hold to them regardless of pressure, and press on.

http://www.freemansperspective.com/earl-...d%20online

Post: #2

(01-25-2014 12:30 AM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  I have done this myself

what'd you decide to develop expertise in?

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #3

Relevant....

/thread-32381.html

In particular download the link torontokid posted.


We are what we do consistently.

Post: #4

(01-25-2014 12:56 AM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  

(01-25-2014 12:30 AM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  I have done this myself

what'd you decide to develop expertise in?

Offshore living (which is how I found this forum), economics, and business.

/thread-30505-...#pid589677

Post: #5

Doesn't this really depend on the subject matter? I couldn't become a professional violinist in six months by practicing for 30 minutes per day. Something like that requires devoting hours a day for many years.

Post: #6

(01-25-2014 01:54 AM)Glock Wrote:  Doesn't this really depend on the subject matter? I couldn't become a professional violinist in six months by practicing for 30 minutes per day. Something like that requires devoting hours a day for many years.

He is discussing informational knowledge. You just need a brain, not talent.

I do think that six months is somewhat optimistic, unless you do exactly as he says (taking notes, immediately researching terms, etc.).

In my case, I was not nearly that disciplined. But you can certainly become quite knowledgeable spending just ten to twenty minutes per day on three different topics over the course of several years, even if you simply absorb information over time.

In my case, I also chose topics that complemented each other, which had a synergistic effect. For example, learning about offshore issues, economics, and business certainly helps greatly in a fourth area as well -- investing.

Post: #7

Expertise is not the same as ability. For instance a 4 ft tall guy in a wheelchair could develop expertise in basketball, but he'll never be a baller, he could be an amazing coach or manager though.

It's an interesting idea, kind of files in the face of the 10,000 hours idea though. You'll get roughly 90 hours of applied study over the course of 6 months, which would be enough to get an A1 at a uni class, but I'm not sure that proves expertise.

Post: #8

My problem is when I start learning about something, I find it difficult to limit it to only 30 mins a day! I go overboard and end up with 10 tabs open at 4 in the morning.

Happened when I first found Roosh and the forum.

One time on a wiki session, somehow I landed on a page about some river or other and I spent the following few hours reading about rivers. I'm fairly knowledgeable on tributaries and the like now. Haha.

Post: #9

What happened to the formerly recommended 10,000 hours to become an expert?

Post: #10

(01-25-2014 12:42 PM)RougeNoir Wrote:  What happened to the formerly recommended 10,000 hours to become an expert?

That question has already been answered -- twice. We are discussing assimilation of informational knowledge here, which means simply using your brain.

I was unfamiliar with this 10,000 hour rule, but I just Googled it. It pertains to sports, playing a musical instrument, and other activities that involve both the brain and physical practice to develop skills at the expert competition level.

Quote: In Malcolm Gladwell's 2008 bestseller Outliers, the amply-haired "thought leader" popularized the "10,000-hours rule," which posits that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at any competition, from violin to basketball to Halo. It was a powerful idea, based on several studies, and put some evidence behind the "practice makes perfect" argument for any skill.

But the rule has faced a number of critics and doubters, none more so than in Sports Illustrated's David Epstein's new book The Sports Gene, which thoroughly disproves the theory. Practice is important, of course, but there's a reason that Jamaicans dominate sprinting, Kenyans excel at long distance track, and tall people are much more likely to make it to the NBA, according to the book. Epstein also notes that the world's best in high jump, darts, and track don't need nearly 10,000 hours of practice. It's in the genes, he argues.

http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/201...ule/68624/

Post: #11

This reminds me of an idea I found on a blog somewhere (no chance of me remembering where). The motivation behind the article was that professional programmers and to a lesser extent computer scientists might someday need to learn about certain mathematical topics. The suggestion was to start each day on a relevant Wikipedia page and keep following links to related material until you understand something about the topic at hand. I think that the examples given probably had to do with linear algebra, but another example from my own experience is the wikipedia on chaos theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory. To learn about this I would first read the page, making note of anything I did not understand, and then try to fill in the gaps in my understanding by following linked articles and/or external links. Right off the bat this is going to expose you to the field of topology (an interesting study in its own right) which you can then begin to learn about.

Not necessarily the most focused learning plan, but effective if the reading is active, and accessible to those who have small chunks of time to devote to it every day.

Post: #12

(01-25-2014 12:42 PM)RougeNoir Wrote:  What happened to the formerly recommended 10,000 hours to become an expert?

This might be true for world-class athletes or chess players. This 10,000 hours is really just one point of view - it's certainly not set in stone, and is debated by experts who study skill and mastery. It's also very doubtful whether it applies beyond the realm of elite practitioners in highly competitive disciplines.

I do think some things take longer than 30mins* 6 months to become an expert - programming, or learning a new human language for example. Although you could certainly get a solid foothold in either with that time investment.

It's definitely enough time to get *good* at other really useful softer skills, and to get to a place you could leverage them for income - digital marketing, sales, negotiation, pitching, dealmaking, writing, public speaking, etc.

Imagine if you got competency in two powerful new skills like that every year. You'd be an absolute powerhouse in even just a few years.

Post: #13

I think people here are confusing mastery and being an expert.
To master a skill its said it takes 10.000 hours.

But to become an expert (= you know more about a subject than 95% of people on this planet) you can simply devote an hour a day for maybe 6-12 months.

An expert doesnt have to be a master of his field. You could be a football expert but never play the sport yourself. It doesnt have anything to do with skill, it just means youre very knowledgeable about your topic of expertise.

Post: #14

(01-25-2014 01:44 PM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  

(01-25-2014 12:42 PM)RougeNoir Wrote:  What happened to the formerly recommended 10,000 hours to become an expert?

Quote:But the rule has faced a number of critics and doubters, none more so than in Sports Illustrated's David Epstein's new book The Sports Gene, which thoroughly disproves the theory. Practice is important, of course, but there's a reason that Jamaicans dominate sprinting, Kenyans excel at long distance track, and tall people are much more likely to make it to the NBA, according to the book. Epstein also notes that the world's best in high jump, darts, and track don't need nearly 10,000 hours of practice. It's in the genes, he argues.

http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/201...ule/68624/

Gladwell is fun to read, but he also recently admitted that he plays fast & loose with the facts and basically makes shit up. He's a journalist who has a journalist's grasp of statistics, which is to say, none. The 10K hour thing is a case of fitting the evidence to a story. What about the Rolling Stones or The Who or Led Zeppelin? They didn't put in 10K hours in Hamburg yet they managed to have a pretty serious influence on music. In fact, if you look at most musicians, their best work is often their earliest. If you actually got better with more experience, The Stones would be putting out their best work now, not in the '60s.

Post: #15

I guess rapid learning has always been a profitable topic.

Tim Ferriss and Josh Kaufman and Malcolm Gladwell all agree

Gladwell - 10,000 hours of deliberate practice under a master to be world class (not the best in the world though)

Kaufman - 20 hours to get good enough to enjoy it

Ferriss - By focusing on commonalities and systems, you can learn most anything relatively quickly. Again, not the best in the world, but better than 95% of the population (which when you think of it, is not that hard, as 95% of the population isn't attempting to do what you're doing.)

Post: #16

I'm using this technique to learn bring up my skills on guitar I first learned 20 years ago and improve. I'm doing just 30 minutes a day on one song, just chords & timing right now now, then increasingly into more difficult finger picking styles from youtube. So far it's going quite well, the artist whose style I'm copying has about 30 songs with similar cord patterns, so getting this one song down will make it very easy to be a Pro in the rest pretty quickly.

Post: #17

Only 30 minutes per day? It takes forever if 10.000 hours of deliberate practice is true

Post: #18

I thought of this thread when I watched this video. A woman turned her $100,000 into over $41 million in profit by trading binary options. When asked how she did it, she explained that every day after arriving home from work she spent "at least one hour of just concentrated study" learning her craft.

That was exactly the point that I made when I created this thread, before people highjacked the thread with all the "10,000 hours" nonsense. It took this woman about five years to master her craft at one hour per day, which equates to about 1,800 to 2,000 hours. Skip to the twenty-minute mark of the video for the pertinent remarks. She is being interviewed by Tom Sosnoff, the creator of ThinkOrSwim which he later sold to Ameritrade for $600 million.

Post: #19

How about some ideas for topics of serious study?

I think some worthy ones would be:

digital marketing
specific area of digital marketing (PPC, copywriting, email marketing, etc)
a specific area of investing
web design
a foreign language
the culture of a specific geographical region
poker (obviously need to put in playing time too, but 30 minutes of study per day would give you a real edge)

It seems like your first focus should be something with the potential to make you wealthy or at least earn dough, unless you're already well off.

Also a relevant thread: /thread-28221.html

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #20

(05-11-2014 03:51 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  How about some ideas for topics of serious study?

The other issue is using this method to build a knowledge base. What do I mean by that? I have already used this method to learn business, economics, and offshore living (which is how I found this site). I now use that knowledge base to trade forex. How? Because to become successful at forex, you must treat it as a business and you must know the basics of economics. Once I succeed, it will produce a location independent source of income for offshore living, which I have already studied (including boots-on-the-ground learning).

I put in 30 minutes to an hour every day. I traded a demo account for eight months and reached the point where I averaged a monthly gain of five percent per month. I then went live at the beginning of the year. I have been treading water since then (which is to be expected, as demo trading and live trading are not the same). That does not sound too great, unless you also know that 95% of all forex traders lose all, or most, of their money. So, if I can learn and improve each day without losing money I am way ahead of the pack and I can eventually generate a sustainable income. (BTW: I will not answer any questions about forex. I do not want to be responsible for anyone losing all their money -- and 95% of you will.)

If you can generate an income of just two or three percent a month, then you can live off a six-figure account (e.g., $100,000 * 3% = $3,000 per month). Like she said in the video, this is not easy -- but it can be done at the time investment of just an hour per day.

It is sad that so many people who read this thread would rather argue about how it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert (which someone apparently made up out of thin air) rather than just using such a simple tried-and-true method to make their dreams come true.

Post: #21

^ What do you mean when you say you "learned" business?

Was there a specific area of business you focused on?

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #22

I would tend to agree with Tim Ferriss' notion that it doesn't take much to get to the level of being more proficient than 95% of people, and that 10,000 hours is massive overkill.

Currently, I'm writing an entire English language curriculum from the ground up. I'm working on the first eighteen months currently. Obviously, there's a lot more to learning a language than vocabulary, but one thing I have looked into is word frequency, and you'll see why below.

The list I have consists of the 5,000 most frequently occurring words as analysed from all manner of written and spoken sources. The total number of words in all of the sources comes to 329,794,508 words.

The first 100 words account for 56% of written or spoken words in the English language (the most common word, the, accounts for 6.68% alone).

101-200 are 7.85% of words.
201-300 are 4.71% of words.
301-400 are 3.48% of words.

You can see that there is a huge diminishing return there. If we look at some random words, we get this:

Fish (noun) is 950th by frequency, and occurs 41,488 times. Fish (verb) is 4,877th by frequency, and occurs 5,183 times.

Skirt (noun) is 3,670th by frequency, and occurs 8,167 times. As a verb it doesn't even make the top 5,000 words.

Through is 112th by frequency, and occurs 340,921 times.

Combining the two different uses of fish, through is more than seven times more commonly occurring. Through occurs almost 42 times more often than skirt.

I think it's highly likely that the average person studying English has encountered in a textbook, and perhaps even had to memorise (including spelling), the words fish and skirt, yet not necessarily through. Typically, people end up learning a lot of nouns that are not actually that useful (there are only seven nouns in the 100 most frequently occurring words in English, for instance).

I find this myself with Chinese. I know all sorts of nouns (e.g. Peru or ostrich), yet am sorely lacking when it comes to prepositions, conjunctions, and all of those other little words that occur very frequently. When I go on my next Chinese learning kick, one thing I will do will be to hit the high frequency word list.

Obviously, you need content and context, but I think that when it comes to learning vocabulary for a language, you could do a lot worse than by (temporarily) ditching the lists of clothing, foods or professions and instead learn the 100 most frequently occurring words in that language, or even the 200 or 300 most frequently occurring words. After that, you're going to get diminishing returns, so it doesn't matter so much what you learn.

The broader point with regard to learning is that if you can somehow find the really important or commonly occurring information, then you can cut through a lot of the noise and make yourself an expert much more quickly than you would otherwise. Most people do not take a systematic, scientific approach to these things, but then, most people do not take a systematic, scientific approach to their lives generally.

Post: #23

(05-11-2014 05:20 PM)Beyond Borders Wrote:  ^ What do you mean when you say you "learned" business?

Was there a specific area of business you focused on?

Yes, I was rather vague was I not? I did not means general principles of business, because I already run a business (which unfortunately does not transition well to a mobile income). Nor did I really mean finance, at least not within its generally accepted meaning.

I meant the more complex financial aspects of running a business or investing, e.g., more sophisticated aspects of risk management, maximizing cash flow, probabilities, and other investment concepts and strategies, just to name a few. In other words, business concepts that 99% of business owners do not think about, much less use (although many of them might intuitively use those principles without thinking about it).

It is probably best to provide an example. Here is a video that might blow your mind. Don't feel bad if you do not understand much of it. I had to watch it twice myself to fully absorb the lesson. It involves trading binary options, which I do not do.

Just try to absorb the general concepts, i.e., that most investors feel entirely comfortable borrowing money when there is only a 50/50 chance of successfully trading any given stock, but those very same investors will absolutely refuse to borrow money to trade options even when there is a 95% risk of success when trading certain strategies because they believe that those strategies are too complex.

In other words, most people would rather be a monkey at a keyboard with a fifty percent chance of success rather than devote an hour a day to learning something new (which goes back to the point of this thread). In fact, what is described in the video is exactly how that woman made her $41 million (from post #18). Damn, I love thinking outside the box!

The reason that this video resonates with me is because my forex trading style consists of high probability trades with a low-risk profile. Even then, it is tough slogging. It took her five years, studying options strategies an hour per day, just to get into "the zone" before beginning her march towards that $41 million.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_Gm0e-ntsk

Post: #24

I think expert is something you are relative to other people, or at least in my view. So doing something productive for 1/2 hour a day everday for a year or so would definitely make most an expert in that regard. Outside of their jobs, how many people do anything productive for 1/2 hour a day, ever day? Probably not many.

Post: #25

I'll give this strategy a shot with nutritional biochemistry. I'll come back in 6 months and tell you if it worked.