Steve, what does your learning process look like?

[momo313]

Steve,

I'd like to know how you go about doing the work you do. How have you produced such high quality work? How do you work through ideas to arrive at the breakthroughs? Do you simply put your thoughts onto paper (so to speak) and use mental tools (e.g. logic, reasoning) to analyse your thoughts? Do you reach out to other intelligent people to debate with you? Do you sit at your desk pondering ideas all day? Do you receive input in the form of books?

How does your learning process look to an observer?

I want the "behind the scenes" look into the way you operate.

I ask because I want to understand, practically, your path of Mastery in this field so that I can model it -- or at least have an idea of how I can develop my critical thinking without going through the inefficient college route.

[Brutha]

Steve trained his leadership ability by serving as president of the Association of Shareware Professionals in 2000. In that role he started to write articles for other programmers.

A while ago he wrote that he read >500 books in his field.
Steve also went to many personal development seminars.

Steve spends years at a toastmasters club with other professional speakers.

There are probably also a bunch of things that I don't know about. In total Steve spends years of hard work to develop his skills.

[Savage]

My book explains the primary principles I use to learn/grow more quickly. It's not something I can adequately explain in a forum post.

The most important thing is to put in the time. If you want to get really good at something, invest 10,000 hours in it. It will take many years of course, but the time is going to pass anyway. Might as well put it to good use.

When you make life decisions today, think about what the consequences will be in 2020 or so. Learning new skills often has very positive consequences, so it's a wise investment. Watching TV has poor consequences, so it's an unwise investment.

[Bradman]

From what I can tell, he reads a lot of books too - I think that's fairly common for people that do this kind of work.

Steve, I like the comment about watching TV, I do too much of that. Once when the kids were still in school the teachers requested that nobody watch TV for a week, what a difference that made!

[Orionjoel]

While I can see that reading books oes allow you to see and understand more methods and approaches. I would be more inclined to see the primary learning meathod, as the 30 day trials. Or to put it another way taking a risk and trying something.

Now maybe I am wrong, but I would guess that taking the action and trialing something for 30 days, would be a lot more powerful then reading 10 or 20 books on the subject. While yes you may have to read something to get the mindset to be able to take action and try it, putting your own time into trying something will help you learn a lot quicker then reading about it. (for most people anyway).

[Savage]

My primary learning method is probably figuring stuff out as I go along.

I learn best when I'm pursuing a goal that I don't know how to achieve. I set goals that I believe are possible, but I have to learn how to make them a reality. A good goal can motivate lots of learning.

When I decided in my 20s to earn a good living without having a job, that inspired all sorts of learning -- learning how to be an entrepreneur, run a business, get projects completed, make a web site, etc. That was a few hundred books right there. I also had to improve my social skills as they related to business, like networking and negotiating. Otherwise the business would fail, and I wouldn't achieve my goal.

A good goal also encourages taking reasonable risks and facing fears. To achieve the goal, you have to push through fears that would otherwise prevent you from achieving it. For example, you won't get very far as a professional speaker if you always avoid speaking opportunities due to fear.

I learned to write well because it was part of a larger goal (creating a successful personal development blog). If I didn't have that goal, there wouldn't have been much motivation to improve my writing skills.

Every good goal inspires lots of learning. If you want to learn more, set more goals that inspire you, and work your ass off to achieve them. You'll learn a lot that way, and the knowledge and skills you gain will be very practical. What you learn from pursuing one goal will help you achieve other goals too.

[cacheborn]

Interesting OP and discussion. I have often wondered about this. Not only in case of Steve, but other inspiring personalities as well. What would be really amazing is if you could be that person, even for a few minutes. It would be like a complete transformation. So, for instance, if you are in the same room with Steve, both of you should, in principle, see, hear, smell the same things. But what goes on in your minds would be worlds apart.

Not sure if there is anything practical in this. Just some free flowing thoughts.

ps : This has helped me in some situations. For instance, if I want to see the humor in an otherwise hopeless situation, I ask, "How would Jerry Seinfeld react to this?" That thought invariably makes me smile. Similarly, if I want inspiration, I imagine Steve or Sean Stephenson in my situation. That itself acts as a positive nudge because I cannot imagine these guys simply complaining about stuff, making excuses and not take any action to change the situation.

[Alice Hive]

Originally Posted by cacheborn

ps : This has helped me in some situations. For instance, if I want to see the humor in an otherwise hopeless situation, I ask, "How would Jerry Seinfeld react to this?" That thought invariably makes me smile. Similarly, if I want inspiration, I imagine Steve or Sean Stephenson in my situation. That itself acts as a positive nudge because I cannot imagine these guys simply complaining about stuff, making excuses and not take any action to change the situation.

This is an interesting idea! I'm gonna try that!