#2 Stories On How To Learn Faster And Get Better
How to really learn anything and social reality distortion fields.
Hey friend,
It’s nice to write to you again. 👋
This time I have two stories with two lessons.
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Story #1: How to Really learn anything
This year I’ve had to learn a lot of different things quickly. And the more I learn about learning, the clearer it becomes to me that the structured school-type approach to education isn’t really effective.
There’s too much emphasis placed on knowing what others expect the right answer to be and less on finding the right answer…which is how life is.
This became obvious to me when I started making music and couldn’t get my vocals to sound clear.
No matter how many YouTube videos I watched or blog posts I read I couldn’t get it to sound right. I was on this for problem for weeks, and finally got an answer by chance.
I was chatting with a music producer and sent him my early songs and they were made so poorly he laughed:
He pointed me to some resources and software that helped me fix it.
In five minutes of just chatting with him, I had solved what had been impossible for weeks.
The point is that the answer I was looking for never came when I was actively looking for it through all the structured channels.
The solution to your problem might just come in the form of an off hand comment on a 10 pm Youtube video you’re watching.
And the only way to be receptive to this type of information—to truly learn—is to be fully invested in knowing the answer.
You’re so fully into what you’re doing that solutions come to you without trying.
This is why being interested in what you’re learning is a super power.
Story #2: Social Distortion Fields
Remember the old saying,
“You're the average of who you spend the most time with.“
Well it’s really accurate. Because we usually become what people expect us to become.
Almost everything we do is in relation to other people in our lives. Other people set the context for what we do and who we are.
I write, make music and film for other people to see.
A programmer makes apps for for people to use.
A person with no job, is only classified as jobless because the people around him have jobs.
Even a hobo is only a hobo because he isolates himself from other people.
Your identity is affirmed or destroyed by the people around you.
This is why when you're trying to become better than you were in the past.
Especially when it’s so different from what people know you as…there’s an extra difficulty because you have to escape the social gravity well you’re in.
Here’s a story to explain this better.
I had this friend who I read fiction novels with. We had this informal book club, were we would share ebooks and just talk about it.
When I started writing books myself I needed genuine feedback.
This friend seems like the best person to ask right?
Not really, because he was alway negatively opiniontated about things I made.
But the reverse would not have been good either.
I needed an unbiased opinion
So rather than ask him directly, I came up with a brilliant plan to get honest feedback.
I had just finished a short comedy story about a small village standing up to a barbarian invasion.
It contained heavy swearing, strong sexual language, mild violence…and I thought it was funny as shit!
Before I could show it to my friend, I had to do one more thing.
I changed the author's name and made the book format as professional as I could.
When I felt it could pass as someone else’s work.
I casually sent it to him as I had done so many times before.
For weeks, I kept asking if he had read it, and he always said no.
I'm not a very patient person so not telling him it was mine was really difficult, but I knew it would ruin everything if I did.
So I waited...
And then one day he told me he'd read it and that it was really funny.
We talked about scenes from the book and both laughed at the absurd characters and situations.
The best part—his reaction was 100% genuine!
The stage was set and I was exploding with joy.
It felt like the years I’d spent writing was finally validated by this one honest opinion.
"I wrote it!" I practically shouted.
I watched as the smile on his face turned into shocked suprise.
"It's a lie," he said, too strongly.
"It's my book..." I held back from saying "motherfucker!".
He shook his head.
Then I explained everything—about writing the story, using a fake name, changing the book format--and by the end of it he sort of just walked away slowly.
Even writing about this now brings me immense satisfaction.
This dude was a very prolific reader. He’d finished literally 100s of books and he couldn't find something to complain about.
Perhaps I could’ve told him I wrote it from the start.
But his perception of me would've have tainted his experience and feedback.
When I saw the shock on his face I knew I'd done the right thing.
He simply didn't see me as someone who could write good books.
And I broke his reality field.
This taught me an important lesson.
We’re all living in a reality field, constructed by our perception and the perception of those around us.
You need to look and feel around you.
What do the people around you expect from you?
Are their expectations greater or less than what you expect from yourself?
If it's less, find yourself a new group or at least isolate yourself from their advice and opinions.
Finally…
What I'm doing now
The past few months I've been ultra-focused on improving the quality and quantity of my content output.
Some more films on YouTube but mostly music on Spotify.
With my films, I aim to really drill into the emotions I want people to feel. And keep making better shorts till I can get the budget to make a full movie.
With music, I primarily rap, but I also mix in a bit of Acoustic, Rock, and Electronic occasionally.
Trust me there's something in there for you no matter what you listen to, In My Way, is a great start to my music if you like rap.
If you want to support me outside of writing do so on Patreon.
Thank you for reading.
I hope this changes something in your life for the better.
Until next time, friend ✌
P.S
I have a playlist of the films I’ve made so far, enjoy: Lenny Johnson Films 🎬