The Best Learning Lesson I Learned From a Basketball Coach on Steroids
…and how I improved it
Many years ago I sat in an audience. I was a middle manager and my plant had invited a local university coach to present at lunchtime.
The audience were middle managers like myself and the educator was Homer Drew. Homer Drew was the coach of the Valparaiso University basketball team. His son won the national championship this year with Baylor.
I wonder why?
During his presentation he talked about many things BUT one clearly stood out to me. Maybe it spoke to me because I was also a professor at a local university.
Homer told us that the world is changing quickly and that if we wished to be an expert at anything we needed to dedicate 1 hour towards reading on that topic for two years. He predicted that after two years we would know more about that topic than majority of the people on the planet. Homer did not say it but the way I heard it was to be in the top 5% on the planet.
After the speech I went back to my office and took out my calculator. I estimated that I could read 10 pages an hour and that after two years I would have read 7200 pages. If I use 900 pages(most engineering books are 900 or less) as a basis what that meant to me was that I would have to read 8 books in order to be in the top 5%.
Note: it is important to reset the clock back to 1 if you miss a day. It is that critical not to miss.
I scratched my head and over the next 20–30 years have told this story many times. Most of the times people shake their heads in disbelief. Some even challenge that a person could reach that level of mastery after 8 books.
The way I see it is that if you start with 0% and with each book you get 20% by the time you get 100% of the knowledge in that subject area. The next three books you are no longer reading for the basics BUT diving in the extreme details.
This concept of developing mastery has often been labeled 10000 hour rule. Or even the 20 hour good enough rue I have written about before.
So what is new?
Lately I have been thinking about this idea and want to take a different twist on the idea. I want to explore speeding this process up.
Imagine reading one book in a week. For simplicity lets say that the book has 7 chapters and that you read for an hour or so each day for seven days. The goal is that by the end of the week you have finished the first book. Next week we get a second book. It also has 7 chapters.
While we are reading for an hour the second book, we now spend an hour just working through the first book. While you were reading it you underlined it and how you are working out problems and posing questions to yourself.
Third week you are now spending an hour working out problems and working with the material for the first book. AND you are doing the same with the second book. These two hours are followed with an hour reading the third book.
Fourth week, you are up to four hours per day. Three hours working with the first, second and third book. One hour on reading the fourth book.
Fifth week you drop the first book and add the fifth book. Similarly the sixth week you drop the second book and add the seventh book. Eight week you drop the third book and start reading the eight book.
SO what does this look like?
What will it take to do this 3 month experiment? Discipline? Focus? BIG enough WHY? All of those and belief that you can and must do it.
What will you get in return?
Notice that the program gets through the 8 books in both reading and studying. You have to do both. Just reading will only get you 20% of the benefit. The work is where you will see the other 80%.
You can split the work 2hours in the morning and two hours in the evening. Or even four 1 hour sessions.
What level do I believe you would achieve in Three months? Will it be mastery?
This 3 months process is intense. It is intended to immerse you in the subject area and accelerate your learning. If it does not take you into the top 5% it will at least bump you into the to 20% of most knowledgeable people in that field. If you continued it for another three months I have no doubt that you would be in the top 5%.
It is important to note that some subjects are tougher to self teach. Not impossible BUT tougher. You have to work with them and work with them until it clicks. It will happen if you let it simmer long enough. What I present is idealistic and nicely packaged. IT is intended a guideline NOT a rigid prescription. BUT I do believe in the process and can guarantee that if you undertake it you will get the benefit. So there is only one question:
Are you willing to sacrifice to get to this level?
Do you know what you are committed to be in the 1% over the next two years?
