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Got it. Discover

1:03

the ultimate cloud gaming machine, a

1:05

new kind of Chromebook.

1:08

In this episode, I share my

1:10

secret to learning new skills.

1:13

Get excited, because this is

1:16

Tiny

1:17

Leaps. Big Changes.

1:31

Welcome to another episode

1:34

of Tiny Leaps. Big

1:36

Changes, where I share simple strategies you

1:38

can use to get more out of your life. My

1:40

name is Greg Clunis. So

1:44

about two years ago, I decided to learn to code,

1:46

and it was really, really intimidating.

1:51

This is something that I had tried

1:53

and failed at for many, many years. I actually have

1:55

a minor in computer science from when I was

1:57

a kid,

1:58

and I had to take a class in computer science from when I was in college. because

2:01

I at some point decided to major in

2:03

computer science and I just couldn't

2:06

do it. I had passed

2:08

enough of my classes that I finished

2:10

with the minor but I just could not

2:13

think in the way that these other

2:15

students could and for a long

2:17

time that was the story that I told myself that

2:20

coding was something I was interested

2:22

in it was something that I enjoyed

2:25

the idea of but that my brain

2:27

just didn't work that way it

2:30

just couldn't I was not able to understand

2:32

things the way that you

2:35

needed to in

2:37

order to be a software engineer

2:40

and I accepted that

2:42

fast-forward probably

2:44

a decade or so and I finally

2:47

decided I'm going to commit to

2:49

the idea of learning to code and I did this

2:51

for a number of reasons the biggest one

2:54

the biggest motivation for me at the time was

2:56

that I had a specific project

2:58

that was the app for this community that

3:00

I wanted to work on I wanted to build that

3:03

was it I just wanted to get

3:06

this thing out into the world and I

3:08

didn't have enough money to hire

3:10

an engineer so the natural response was

3:12

I'm just gonna learn how to build it this is an important

3:15

thing that I want to call out in this episode

3:17

because I think finding that real

3:20

motivation whatever it might be

3:24

is gonna be important for a lot of you it's

3:26

not important for everyone it's certainly not

3:28

a catch-all suggestion but in

3:30

my experience when I'm

3:32

starting to learn something new having

3:35

a real purpose attached to

3:37

it a real reason to be learning it does

3:40

an enormous amount for my ability to

3:42

go through the next part because

3:45

my experience learning to code was quite

3:48

frankly awful it absolutely sucked

3:51

every single day I felt like

3:53

I was bashing my head against a brick

3:55

wall just struggling to

3:58

make sense of anything

5:21

And

6:00

I ended it not

6:03

only getting it, being able to build

6:05

things, being able to come up with ideas and form

6:08

those ideas into a real project,

6:11

but being told by

6:13

professional software engineers that I

6:15

was thinking about things in a way that

6:18

other candidates weren't. It

6:20

felt really good. And

6:23

the reason I'm telling you this story is I heard a quote the other

6:25

day that reminded me of this experience.

6:28

And I apologize because I did not write

6:30

down who I heard the quote from. I

6:33

don't know the original source. I did try to look it up,

6:35

but nothing really popped up. But

6:37

the quote was, we get better at what we

6:39

repeatedly do. We

6:42

get better at what we repeatedly

6:44

do. I

6:46

really, really like this idea,

6:49

this way of thinking about learning

6:52

and skill acquisition and changing

6:55

our lives and improving

6:57

ourselves. We get better at what

6:59

we repeatedly do. And I like

7:01

this for a number of reasons, but the big

7:03

one is that it's in our control. There's

7:06

no magic. There's no secret strategy.

7:09

There's no formula for how we

7:11

improve. There is simply

7:14

action and consistency.

7:18

We do the thing repeatedly

7:20

and we never stop. And inevitably,

7:23

whether we want to or not, we

7:26

are going to get better at it. That's

7:29

a really comforting way of thinking

7:31

about how the world works. I

7:35

remember reading a book a few years back

7:38

that first kind of introduced me to this

7:40

idea. It wasn't in that format, but after

7:42

I heard that quote, I started thinking about the book.

7:46

The book is called The Talent Code. It's by an author named Daniel

7:49

Coyle. In the book,

7:51

he talks about this thing called myelin.

7:54

Myelin is, and forgive me because

7:56

I'm not a neuroscientist here, but

7:58

myelin is... basically

8:01

like a type of coding around our

8:03

neurons. So what

8:06

it does is it wraps our neurons

8:09

and every time we engage in a behavior

8:11

that causes those neurons to fire,

8:13

it reinforces

8:15

itself. So it adds like another layer around

8:18

the neuron and the more reinforced

8:20

that neuron gets, the faster

8:22

it's able to fire. And so the idea

8:24

here, and again I'm not a neuroscientist,

8:27

I can't actually speak to the accuracy of this, I'm

8:29

just sort of pulling what I

8:31

learned from this book. But the idea

8:33

here is as we engage

8:36

with certain behaviors, those

8:38

neurons are able to fire faster

8:41

and faster and the behavior

8:43

becomes both more automatic and more

8:45

comfortable. And that's

8:47

this same idea that we

8:49

get better at what we repeatedly do.

8:52

When we engage in a behavior or with

8:55

a piece of information, at first we're

8:57

really clumsy. You know,

8:59

I picture myself in the

9:01

the basement of my old apartment in

9:04

front of my computer, the lights are off, the screen

9:07

is lighting my face up, and I'm

9:09

just frustrated. Like the

9:12

biggest mean mug on my face is I stare

9:14

at these lines of code that are

9:17

basically mocking me, telling me that

9:19

I'm not good enough. I

9:22

remember that so vividly. And

9:25

that's how it felt. I was clumsy.

9:28

I was dealing with something new, something I didn't

9:30

understand, something that my brain had no

9:32

real way of processing

9:34

yet. And I was clumsy. I

9:37

didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know how to think about

9:39

it. I didn't know how to work with it or get it to

9:41

do what I wanted. But

9:43

as we engage in that behavior, as we

9:45

engage with that piece of information, little

9:49

bits of it become more and more comfortable.

9:52

The neurons responsible for it, they fire

9:54

and they get reinforced. And

9:57

over time, and for certain

9:59

behaviors, It's going to be longer than others depending

10:02

on your situation and your context and yada, yada,

10:04

yada. It's going to be longer or it might be shorter.

10:06

Who knows? If you have a specific talent for

10:08

something, it might be longer or shorter. But

10:11

over some period of time, you

10:14

get comfortable with the behavior

10:17

or the piece of information as a whole. It

10:20

starts to feel second nature. It starts to

10:22

feel like something you have

10:24

mastery over. And yes, having

10:26

professional guidance and support, that

10:28

is an accelerant that can help us to

10:30

learn faster, that can help us to move

10:33

faster and avoid pitfalls and

10:36

figure things out earlier than others.

10:38

But the thing is, if that's not available

10:41

to you, then the most guaranteed

10:43

way to ensure that you are

10:45

going to learn something is

10:47

to simply start doing it and

10:51

keep doing it. How powerful

10:53

is that? To know without a

10:55

shadow of a doubt that

10:57

you have the ability to learn anything

11:00

you want in this world, anything. Whether

11:03

that be how to manage your personal

11:05

finances better, whether that be how

11:07

to eat healthier, whether

11:09

that be how to start a

11:11

business or how to run Facebook

11:14

ads or how to speak a new language

11:16

or how to socialize

11:18

more comfortably and easily, how to

11:21

meet and find a partner,

11:24

whatever it is, if you are engaging

11:26

with it for the first time, it's supposed

11:28

to feel clumsy. When I was sitting in the

11:31

basement of my old apartment, working

11:34

on learning how to code, the

11:36

idea of building my app, I

11:39

couldn't see, I could not see

11:41

the connection between them. I could

11:43

not see where I was then somehow

11:46

leading to being able to build this thing

11:49

I wanted. But the more I did it,

11:52

the more it made sense and the more I

11:54

could see how those two things were connected.

11:56

And that's going to be the case no matter what it is you're

11:58

trying to learn.

11:59

better at what we repeatedly do.

12:02

I really really love that

12:04

framework of looking at things and

12:06

I'm gonna apply that in my own life

12:09

going forward because I'm learning a lot

12:11

of new things right now. I'm currently in

12:13

vocal lessons learning how to sing

12:15

and how to use my voice better. I'm learning

12:18

how to draw. I'm learning how to speak Japanese.

12:20

I'm learning a number of

12:22

things that I may never do anything

12:24

with and yeah they feel hard

12:27

and in clumsy and complex

12:29

and I'm struggling to see what

12:32

the point even is but if I

12:34

just remember that we get better at what we repeatedly

12:36

do and I continue to choose to

12:39

show up who knows where I'll be two years

12:41

from now. So take it or leave it that

12:43

is what I'm learning and trying to apply

12:46

this week. Thank you so much for being here.

12:48

I do want to tell you very quickly

12:50

about the app that I built. It's nothing

12:53

special at the moment. It is a community

12:55

space that allows you to listen to the podcast

12:58

inside the app. So think of it like a Facebook

13:01

group in the form of an app with podcast

13:04

episodes. If you're interested it's available now

13:06

on iPhone. Just go to the App Store

13:08

and type in tiny leaps or click the

13:11

link in the description of this episode.

13:13

I'd love to have you as a part of

13:15

the community. I'm gonna be in there engaging

13:17

every day and commenting and I'm

13:19

sure there's gonna be bugs and issues but

13:22

I'd love to have you help me test this out and

13:24

figure out what we do with it because it

13:26

is our community. Thank

13:28

you so much. My name is Greg Clunis and remember

13:30

that all big changes come from the

13:32

tiny leaps you think.