I read these two books back to back during the last couple of weeks and decided to write a short book review about them.
This is one the first books i am reading on accelerated learning. I found it written with a lot of practical and clear methods to try and focus on learning anything with the idea of not becoming an expert, but make that learning effectively useful to our individual lives. The best part of the book is the model in which Josh presents it. Instead of '101 Steps on how to learn anything fast', Josh Kaufman uses his own methods to learn these absolutely unrelated topics (learning to program a Web application, play the ukulele, practice yoga, re-learn to touch type, get the hang of windsurfing, and study the world's oldest and most complex board game). As you read the book, you begin to realize how frustrating it is (even for a learning junkie like him) to practise the first few sessions. He provides a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition. The process is to
1) be clear of the target goal
2) deconstruct the skill into sub-skills
3) research quickly and move into practise
4) remove any barriers for practising and
5) to practise for a minimum of 20 hours
Each of us wanna learn different stuff for different reasons. The end result/goal, defined specifically by each of us, will guide us to learn the skills with the techniques suggested by Josh. The key epiphany i choose to remember from this book is this statement:
"The barrier to learning is not intellectual, its emotional."
You can check out his video for more inspiration
Book 2: The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One by Margaret Lobenstine
This is a book which has a personal resonance with me. It justifies the simple idea that each and everyone of us have varied passions, uniquely packaged.
In spite of having these different passions, we are somehow made to believe that our's life's goal is to follow a linear path. We will be deemed successful only if we stick to that ONE path. If we choose to move away from our singular ambition, then we are condemned as someone who keeps changing our mind. There is no leeway to shift at all and that really sucks!!
I studied Commerce and Financial Management and worked as a Research Analyst in a Financial Research company. It was only when i was around 28 years that i decided to shift completely into the field of Education and Teaching. And that was blasphemy to everyone. 'You are going to have to start from the scratch', they scared me. Except that they didn't know, i enjoyed learning. especially topics like child psychology, behavior management, teaching techniques and disability (mentioned in this book as 'an umbrella of interests')
The book 'The Renaissance Soul' is for someone who has, lets say 15 interest points, and helps them narrow it down to 4 or 5. This does two things
1) brings clarity as to the things which you are most passionate about
2) And helps tackle the other 45 odds things at a later time in your life. (who says life's short,eh)
In this book too, there are actual examples of people pursuing diverse interests simultaneously. So you can make correlations to your life interests. It helps to gauge your varied interest with focus and not in an scattered manner as we are prone to do.
Both the books are quick to read and relate to managing varied interests without seeming like someone who is jumping from one thing to another and wasting their life pursuing worthless ideas. Both John Kaufmann & Margaret Lobenstine use their own experiences to show how they made this work and became successful.
After reading this two books, i am filled with an uplifting energy to bring together my different desires to work for me, I am all geared up to learn lots of new stuff because i have some incredible interests, but now i am also going to make them purposeful and beneficial to me.
These two books also reminds me of why i chose the profession of an educator
They told me i could be anything i wanted, so i became...
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