Inc.
After interviewing more than 700 top performers, Ryan Hawk noticed one pattern. The best learners don’t just consume knowledge; they put it to work.
How to Learn Anything in 4 Simple Steps (From the Guy Who Interviewed 700 of the World’s Leading Experts)
Author: Justin Bariso
Ryan Hawk loves to learn new things.
After the Ohio native graduated and left a premiere division one college football program, he spent two years playing professional football, spent over a decade working in Corporate America, and pursued an MBA. Afterwards, Hawk was still hungry to learn more, but he was also hesitant to pursue another formal program.
So, instead, Hawk decided to create his own “leadership PhD.” That was the birth of The Learning Leader Show, a podcast where Hawk’s goal was to have deep, thoughtful conversations with some of the world’s most successful CEOs, entrepreneurs, researchers, and professional athletes.
“My podcast guests are my professors,” Hawk told me in an interview. “It’s my favorite thing in the world to do. To have deep long form conversations with a person far wiser than me and to be able to chase down my curiosity.
“I think it’s the coolest job ever.”
Fast forward 11 years later. The Learning Leader is one of the most popular podcasts in the world, and Hawk has interviewed over 700 world class experts. Now, Hawk is sharing some of his favorite stories and lessons learned in a new book, The Price of Becoming: The Compounding Habits of High Performance.
I recently had the privilege to host Hawk in the Lighthouse, my community for emotionally intelligent leaders. There, a member raised an excellent question:
Having learned so much from so many, how do you synthesize all those lessons and use them in your own life?
Hawk’s answer is a simple but brilliant four-step framework, and it looks like this:
- Fuel your engine
- Run the experiment
- Analyze and readjust
- Teach it to someone else
Hawk describes this as his personal flywheel, and he recommends it for learning to master any skill. Let’s dive into each of these steps and see how you can build your own learning practice. (Find value in this article? Consider signing up for my free weekly newsletter on emotional intelligence.)
Fuel the engine
The first part of the flywheel, explains Hawk, is to “fuel your intake engine.” This can be anything from books, podcasts, TED talks, speaking with your mentors. The goal is to take in knowledge and wisdom from someone who knows a topic better than you.
But there’s one important step Hawk emphasizes, something almost all of his guests do, too: You must take notes.
“We’re all looking for clarity,” says Hawk. “And the best way to get clear and to get a better understanding of what you think about something is to write.”
Run the experiment
Step two is about taking what you learn from theory to practice.
“You’ve got to run experiments,” says Hawk. “You’ve got advice, something you’ve learned, now you’ve got to put it into play, to actually do the thing.”
Hawk also emphasized the need to run multiple experiments, a practice he likens to putting in reps when working out. This is just one more reason why professional athletes and top business leaders appear to do hard things so effortlessly. The truth is they’ve done “the thing” over and over, learning as they go.
“We learn who we are in practice, not theory,” says Hawk.
Analyze and readjust
The third stage of the flywheel requires you to take a step back. Pause, reflect, and analyze.
Ask yourself:
- What went right
- What didn’t?
- What should I keep doing?
- What should I stop doing?
This postmortem-type process helps you learn from your mistakes and refine your process.
Teach it to someone else
This fourth step might be the most important. According to Hawk, this is where you really cement the learning.
Remember that there are many ways to teach a topic to another person, says Hawk. Yes, it could be in a classroom—but it could also be simply meeting with someone and trying to help them. Or, you could give a speech or presentation. Or, once again emphasizing the value of writing, it could take the form of a book, a blog post, or even a long email.
Interestingly, Hawk says each of his four books have actually began as “selfish” endeavors: He writes books about topics he personally wants to learn more about.
“If you want to get clear about something, if you want to know more about something, you don’t necessarily have to get a book deal, but try to write about it extensively,” Hawk says. “I guarantee you will get clear on what you think or how you feel.”
According to Hawk, the flywheel never stops. He’s sure he forgets some of what he’s learned, but the consistent learning, reflecting, experimenting, and teaching helps him not just to remember more, but to actually put what he learns into practice.
If you’re serious about mastering a skill, try the flywheel for yourself. You’ll be learning and doing, as you take steps to becoming a better version of yourself.
Credits: TCA, LLC.