“Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.” — Leonardo da Vinci
If you’d like to know more about the pillars of confidence and how to get them then click here, pick a time that works for you and we’ll get to work on it together 🙂
The Power of The First Pillar of Confidence Pt.1
Imagine for a moment that your coworkers and boss have a huge problem. Something somewhere didn’t just get messed up, it got body slammed into a death trap! Nobody knows what to do about it. If this doesn’t get fixed, then it’s going to cost the company a big client and there are going to be layoffs after.
Everybody believes it’s the end of times and are freaking out.
Everybody, except you.
Because you’ve learned both your job and the business inside and out you know exactly what to do. While everyone else is losing their minds you’ve got a surge of confidence running through your body. Picture everybody stopping what they’re doing when you start talking because what you’re saying actually makes sense. People are hanging on your every word. You’re now the go-to person for this because nobody else knows what to do.
It’s grueling work, and won’t be easy. But your plan is the only one people have and it’s going to work.
This is the type of confidence that being competent can give you. Which is what you’re going to learn today: how to become good at just about anything 10x faster than anyone else. Just imagine for a moment what it’s going to be like when most people are stuck on the basics and you notice the mistakes they keep making. Not just noticing the mistakes, but being able to accurately, honestly and completely steer them in the right direction.
Because you’ll notice that it feels good to be able to teach other people what you know. Not in an obnoxious way like some people, but in a genuine way to help them succeed. And when they start succeeding it will be because you lent them a helping hand.
But before we can get that far, let’s take a look at what’s going on in our brains when we try to learn a new skill. That way we can get on the fast track to mastering different skills and looking pretty darn impressive:
The Shortcut to The Infamous 10,000 Hours to Master a Skill
We’ve all heard about the infamous 10,000 hours of practice you have to put into a skill in order to master it. And there’s a lot of truth to that, you have to put in some time and effort to master a skill.
But the good news is that with smart practice, you can shortcut and hack that 10,000 hours into something substantially lower. So instead of spending years trying to become average at something, you can spend a year or two mastering a skill to where even experts would be impressed.
Just think a moment about how much time you could save. Instead of feeling dumb when trying something new you can move past that awkward stage like you entered a cheat code in a video game.
Which is exactly what you’re about to learn; how to hack your own brain!
Hacking Your Brain’s Train Track:
Your brain is made of billions upon billions of things called ‘neurons’. They’re responsible for moving information throughout your brain. They do this through pathways called ‘synapses’.
But an easier way for me to think of it is like this: a train track.
Thinking about it this way, the synapses are the tracks and the neurons are the trains. Travelling through and moving information at lightning-fast speeds.
And when you’re learning a new skill, in some ways, you’re building a brand new train track instead of travelling on one that’s already there. Which is why it’s so hard to learn something new.
But, with the hacks I’m about to teach you, you can recruit help from the neighboring towns to build your train track. That way you don’t have to build it alone.
Learning at Lightning Fast Speeds
The first step is simple and you’re probably going to think ‘well duh’, but hear me out. Because not enough people understand why this first step is important.
The first step to trying to learn something is to figure out why you’re wanting to learn it.
For example, if you’re in school you’re probably ‘learning’ all kinds of things that you don’t actually care about. They’re not even going to be useful for you and therefore your brain isn’t actually engaged in learning what you’re studying.
Which is a shame, because too many people think they’re stupid when actually it’s our ‘education’ system that’s stupid. What’s actually happening is what you’re studying has zero relevance to your life and therefore you have to work three times as hard just to memorize something for a few days before ultimately forgetting all about it (seriously, there are people out there that think 2+2=5 and if that’s not a failure then I don’t know what is).
Therefore, the first step to learning something is to honestly figure out why you’re learning about it in the first place.
Examples of Good and Bad Personal Why’s:
Picture a pair of twins. They’re equally smart, have a lot going for them and both have decided that they want to learn a new language. For whatever reason, they’ve chosen to learn German.
Twin one downloads a bunch of programs and gets to work. She’s studying every day to learn German and getting excited about the progress she’s making. But after a month or two she starts to slack in her studies and finds herself daydreaming when she’s supposed to be studying.
Ultimately, after just a few short months she gives up on it. It just doesn’t motivate her like it used to. And this is something that I can relate to quite a bit which I’m sure you can too.
However, let’s look at what twin number two does:
Twin two doesn’t download any programs or anything like that. No, what twin number two does is move to Germany. Just out of the blue she decides to move to Germany.
You’ll notice that twin number one just wanted to learn German, before giving it up for other things. Twin number two, however, needs to learn German.
She’s surrounded by people who speak German and in order to have a great quality of life she has to learn German. She’s constantly being motivated by her personal why, her absolute need to learn this language.
One of My Personal Why’s:
Whenever I started learning about psychology it was because I was lonely. I wanted to make friends and I also wanted girlfriends. Honestly, there were many times that I just wanted to give up because the near-constant rejection was brutal and hurt like hell. I cried a lot, not even going to lie.
But every time that I wanted to just give up learning how to be more charismatic, how to be more confident I would feel this tug from deep within my soul. You see, much like twin number two I didn’t want to learn how to be better with people, I needed to become better with people.
Which is why this first step is so important.
If you can find something that motivates you from deep within your core, you will find boundless pools of motivation to pull from.
Your brain will be more engaged while learning and it will soak up every single piece of information like a sponge. Which is, in my opinion, a huge reason why children are such naturally quick learners; they have to be.
How to Use This Information In Your Own Life:
This is part 1 of competence, something we’re going to dive into more tomorrow. But here’s the next step that you can use today to supercharge your own life.
Figure out why you signed up for this course.
Why do you want to be more confident?
If you can’t figure out a reason that truly motivates you then you shouldn’t continue the course. It will be an absolute waste of money because you’re only going to give up later on down the road and I don’t want you to waste your time or your money.
But, if you do have a reason that you can feel deep in your gut, then you’re going to get LIFE-CHANGING information from this course. You’re going to gain a confidence that nobody else is going to understand. They’re going to ask “what’s your secret?”
And you’ll just smile and laugh as you make a joke or something. Because most people don’t want to invest in themselves like you already have.
So find your reason. It actually doesn’t matter what your reason is, as long as it’s important to you. My reason might sound shallow to some people but I don’t care, it gave me so much beyond what I even wanted in the first place.
Which is okay. It’s okay if your reason seems shallow to other people because it’s not their life. IT’S YOURS. Live it for yourself so that you can be happy.
Keep Moving Forward
-Alexander
P.S. If you feel like you’re getting something out of these articles, then don’t hesitate to schedule a time to talk with me to boost your confidence, after all, it’s free and here’s what Heri had to say:
