How To Master Any Skill Fast (Give Yourself 2 Weeks)

You can learn anything in two weeks. And

I know that sounds insane to most

people, but I'm not talking about

mastering a skill in its entirety.

Obviously, that takes like 10 years. I'm

not talking about mastering any specific

topic. I'm talking about making

substantial progress toward a goal in

your life in 2 weeks. You can learn

enough in that time frame to achieve

incredible results. And if that doesn't

make you extremely excited about how

much you can accelerate the progress

toward the big milestones that you're

trying to achieve in life, like making

more money or learning an instrument or

learning a language or learning a

software like After Effects or Photoshop

or learning AI, then I don't think you

understand where I'm coming from just

yet. Now, the problem is that most

people have become wired to think that

success stems from sticking your nose in

textbooks for 12 plus hours at a time to

study for an exam where 95% of the

knowledge you learn goes out the window.

And then when it comes time to getting a

job or even just getting real world

results by applying that knowledge to

your daily life, I would argue that less

than 1% of it applies. You hear stories

all the time of, oh, I went to college,

got a degree, then either got a job in a

completely unrelated field simply

because I had a degree or got a job in

the field I was trying to go into, but

none of it applied because I had to

learn on the job. You actually have to

learn how to do things by doing them.

Shocker. And the other thing there is

that you're learning all of this stuff

that doesn't even apply to your daily

life. You're putting off your life and

your progress for four to eight years,

depending on how long you go to school.

Because the knowledge, you're not

applying it to your life right now.

You're delaying your development and the

progress you can make until you achieve

this point of status that you're given

by society to get a job that you're

stuck in for the rest of your life. So,

in other words, and to round this all

out, you're probably completely wasting

every second you spend learning. And

that is not an exaggeration. Schools

train you to learn extremely slow. And

if learning allows you to be useful and

get what you want out of life, imagine

what you could do if you actually spent

time learning how to learn. If you knew

how to actually learn, how to learn

fast, then you could achieve 10 goals in

the same amount of time that it would

take the average person to achieve one.

And they probably wouldn't even achieve

that one until they graduated school or

learned enough. So that's what this

video is for, is to learn exactly how to

learn anything fast. And this isn't

going to cover all of the science and

the psychology and all of the learning

tips. This is going to just be

completely focused on what you need to

do. And it's pretty freaking simple. But

sometimes the simplest things are the

most complex things in the world for the

a person to wrap their head around and

actually get themselves to do it. So

we're going to go over three insights

and if you can actually internalize

these things, you will be able to learn

anything fast. The first insight is that

skill acquisition equals technique

stacking because everything you can do

is a skill. That should blow your mind.

That sentence alone should cause

something to click and just make you

realize, holy crap, I can do so much in

my life. Everything you can do is a

skill. That means if you want to get

into a better relationship or you want

to make new friends or you want to start

a business or you want to improve your

career or you want to improve your

articulation, your persuasion, you want

to be able to talk to people better, you

want to improve your body, anything that

you have control of, right? The stoic

philosophy of control what you can

control. That puts life into perspective

for you. Because if you can't control

something, you can control your reaction

to it. So you can control how you

perceive life and how you act in life

and you can achieve the things you want

to achieve. So if you can't control

something, you can control your reaction

to it. You can control your mind and

ease most of the pain in your life or at

least learn how to transmute that pain

into calm. You can neutralize it. You're

not going to experience some kind of

euphoria all the time, but you can be

okay with where you are even if negative

thoughts pop into your mind. That's a

skill in and of itself. Now, if you can

learn something, that means that you can

practice it to the point of it becoming

second nature to you. So, you can kind

of slice through life with elegance and

grace once you stack enough of these

skills. You think of a guitar player who

can nail a solo without even thinking

about it. You think of a professional

basketball player who can shoot

three-pointers on demand with a 99%

success rate. You aren't at that point

yet in whatever it is you want to do.

It's going to take some effort and some

persistence to get to that point. But

once you do in multiple areas of your

life in health, wealth, relationships,

mindset, mental health, whatever else

there is, imagine that you just master

those four domains. Mind, body, spirit,

business, and your life is pretty good,

if not in the top 1%. Now, with that

said, most people try to learn skills as

a whole. They say, "I'm going to start a

business." and they start to learn about

business. You don't learn about

business. You don't get a business

degree to start a business. There is no

skill that you can learn that's called

business. I think Naval Ravakant said

that you don't learn business. So, let's

make something more practical. Okay, I

want to acquire the skill of playing a

guitar. That's still that's the whole

skill. That's a massively disordered

task that you're allowing into your mind

and it's not ordered. Your focus is

going everywhere. Your attention is

already split. in so many different

directions, overwhelming you to the

point of thinking you can't do it. I

mean, when you say you want to learn the

guitar, you're talking about 5 to 10

years of study and practice. There are

tens of thousands of books, YouTube

videos, articles on the internet, and

just people who want to tell you what

the best way to learn the guitar is. And

so, you just get split. You get split in

half. You have to understand that these

things can't teach you how to play the

guitar. They can only show you things

that you can experiment with. Because

when you're playing the guitar, think

about it. When you are actually playing

the guitar, are you like, "Oh, I'm

hitting an E chord. Oh, I need to mute

right now. I'm doing this." Once you're

good at something, you just do it

because it's a part of you, right?

You've changed the neural pathways in

your brain so that you are a guitar

player. You can do that thing. It's like

driving or like walking at that point.

It's just second nature. So, how do we

shortcut learning new skills? How do we

cut through all of that noise and ensure

that we're only learning what's

necessary to make progress toward

playing the guitar, making money,

whatever it may be? It's by realizing

that skills are composed of techniques.

So, if I want to learn how to play the

guitar, I don't start learning, I start

playing. Because the entire purpose of

playing the guitar is to play a song.

So, you start there. That's step one.

You start with the purpose. You don't

start learning. You start with the

purpose. What are you trying to achieve?

But now you're in a dilemma, right? You

go to play the guitar and you don't know

how to play it, right? You have a song

in mind. You have the purpose. You know

what you're trying to do, but you can't

do it. So, what do you do? That's when

you start learning in the traditional

sense, but now your learning is focused.

You're not reading an entire textbook.

You're finding that little technique

that you need to know in order to reach

the next step of achieving the goal.

you're trying to achieve. So, if I'm

trying to play the first note and I

don't even know how to read it, then I'm

going to look up how do I read I'm going

to look up sheet music, right? A cheat

sheet for sheet music so I can start to

understand, okay, that's a that's a a

note. And then I look further. Okay, how

do I play that on the guitar? Okay, it's

this certain finger placement. Good. Got

it. Okay, sounds decent. And then from

there, if you repeat that process of

trial, experimenting with things, and

error, correcting yourself or learning

the specific knowledge you need to know

in order to achieve the unique goal that

you set out to achieve, you'll probably

end up playing the song on the guitar.

Even if it sounds kind of terrible,

you'll probably do it. And then the more

you practice, the more you'll be able to

do it. And I don't even think it would

take two weeks, but within two weeks,

you can learn how to play that song on

the guitar. And then you can continue

stacking and then when you move on to

the next song, you already have this

group of techniques that you've learned

before that will make it easier to learn

the next song. So let's say you learn

the next song in a week and then the

next one in 3 days and then you can

learn one song a day. By that point, you

have most of what it takes. You have 80

to 90% of the fundamentals of playing

the guitar under your belt. And then

it's just a matter of showing up every

day, playing the same thing and slowly

increasing the level of challenge you're

taking on over time. And when you do

that over the course of 1 year, 2 years,

3 years, that's one thing that we

actually need to talk about is why are

you learning? What's the purpose of you

learning? What's the entire goal? If

you're just learning things to because

you're bored and it doesn't serve any

any utility to your life or increase

your value or be become a part of who

you are, then why are you learning them,

right? If you aren't going to do it

every day for the rest of your life,

then you either need to identify that

you've been doing something that you

don't plan to do for the rest of your

life and start to work on eliminating or

replacing it. Or you need to not learn

that thing at all because then why are

you learning it? For entertainment,

sure, that's fine. For a short-term

hobby, sure, that's fine. But if you

aren't where you want to be in life,

those things, those short-term hobbies

aren't going to help you. Now, we just

talked about learning how to play the

guitar, but I want to talk about

something more practical for creatives.

Most of you in my audience are

creatives. So, think about learning

Photoshop or After Effects or Adobe

Premiere, right? These things that if

you learn them, they substantially

increase your ability to create

something better. They increase your

ability to take your mind and put it

into the into reality. Now, while most

people when they want to learn this,

they go and they watch an hour-ong

tutorial that teaches you every single

[ __ ] tool that lives in the Photoshop

sidebar. Again, you're learning 95% of

95% of the thing you're learning in that

video. You're not going to apply. You're

wasting your time. When most people are

doing that, you start with what you're

trying to do. You're trying to create an

image. And the thing with that is you

have no business learning Photoshop, if

you aren't actively working toward a

goal that requires it. Because when you

have a goal and you need to learn the

skills or the software or the things in

order to achieve that goal, you learn it

that much faster. If you're just

learning Photoshop because you're bored,

again, go and read a fiction book

instead. You don't learn skills for

entertainment. You learn them for

utility. So, you have this image that

you want to create. Let's say you want

to put a tree on a different background,

but you don't know how to do that,

right? So now you narrow what you learn

to how to remove the background from a

tree. And when you watch a few videos on

that, you realize that there are many

ways to do that. So you try them out.

You experiment and you realize, okay,

this specific technique for selecting

and masking an object is better to do

with a tree than with just a plain

object because a tree is much more

complex. you have a lot more things that

you have to remove. And if you do it

another way, it may not come out that

well. And so once you accomplish that,

once you remove the background from the

tree, then you solidify that little

piece in your mind of, okay, I can use

this technique. I know this technique

exists. I can do it that much faster the

next time. And with that, and for those

that understand Photoshop, you

understand that selecting and masking

objects gets you like 50% of the way

through Photoshop. like you know mo you

know how to do many many things if you

know how to select and mask an object as

those techniques stack you've not only

saved yourself countless hours of

learning nonsense but you can

effectively create most things that you

set your mind to onto insight number two

we need to understand progressive

overload of the mind because skills are

groups of neural pathways that form with

repetition and practice. So if skills

are a group of these neural pathways, we

can think of a technique as a single

neural pathway. They are a single piece

of the skill puzzle. And when you

collect enough pieces to the point of

seeing 80% of the image that the

puzzle's trying to create, you can infer

most of what you need to know in order

to see results. So if you think of a

puzzle, right, the puzzle that isn't put

together yet is the skill that you're

trying to learn. And once it's once you

can actually see the full image by

putting the puzzle pieces together,

that's when you've mastered the skill.

But by learning these techniques, you're

you're putting together little pieces on

the puzzle until you reach 50 60 70 80%

of seeing the image. From there, you can

infer what it's going to look like,

right? Even the empty spot, you can

think, okay, I can kind of form an image

of what's trying to happen here. The

same thing happens with skill

acquisition. The more you learn, the

more effective you get very quickly. As

an example, if you're trying to speak

Spanish and you understand a few

techniques to use to speak Spanish, you

can say something like, "What can I buy

water?" And most people will understand

what you're trying to say, right? You

don't have to exactly say, "Where is the

best place to buy water bottles?"

Because they can infer what you're

trying to say. Are you a master at the

skill? No. Are you continuing to

practice? Yes. But you can still do

something. You can still make progress

toward the goal. You're not blocked.

You're not just sitting around doing

nothing because you don't have any form

of the skill to actually do the thing

you want to do. Now, we need to take a

look at a more difficult example because

something like playing the guitar or

learning Photoshop or learning Spanish,

those don't have any risk, right?

They're not tied to your self-worth or

your ego or your survival per se. So if

we look at the example of making money,

you say making money is a skill or un

being unable to make money is a skill

issue and people start to go insane

because they're like no it's not a

skill. It's determined by this this this

and this and I'm oppressed and I can't I

can't learn anything that would allow me

to make more money. And the same thing

happens here with like making new

friends or getting into relationships is

that when your self-image and your

emotions and your survival and your

sense of who you are, I think I already

said that when those come into play, all

of these distractions stop start popping

into your mind and you can't even take

the first step toward doing the thing.

As we talked about previously, control

what you can control and you can

practice that to the point of becoming

very good at it. But the thing about

money is that most people for most

people it's difficult for them to see

money as something within their direct

control because they carry the burden of

conditioning. Their mind being

programmed by their teachers, their

parents, and other life experiences that

influence their perception of money. And

while you can't control that, you can

control your reaction to those impulses

that pop up when someone says making

money is a skill or going up and talking

to new people is a skill and you

instantly react in some negative way and

prevent yourself from doing it. But

remember, you can control how you react

and that alone is a skill that will

allow you to learn many other skills

faster. If you were to peel back all of

these irrational thoughts that are just

clouding your head around money and

other things that you want to achieve in

your life, the things that are

preventing you from execution and

actually starting doing the thing, you

would realize that the ability to make

money can be learned extremely fast. I'm

not talking about a get-richqu scheme

type of fast because that's like here's

a business model, take this, don't learn

anything, copy exactly what I was doing,

and then continue doing that until you

get rich quick. Those don't work. What

I'm saying is that making money, the

skills that compose what making money or

business is can be learned extremely

fast if you don't let your mind distract

you away from that thing. It's just like

hitting a three-pointer, right? a

beginner that has just picked up a

basketball and can barely dribble, it's

it's going to be all luck for him to hit

a three-pointer. But a pro can hit it

99% of the time. Now, a professional at

business or whatever it is, the people

who are making a hundred million plus or

have billion-dollar valuations, you

don't even have to be there to make

life-changing money, right? You have to

be 20% or 30% or 40% of the way there.

And that can be done within six months.

Six months is all you need to change

your life. If you can simply focus for

that amount of time on learning the

techniques you need and practicing them

to make money, you get to 20 to 30 to

40% of the skill learned and you can

make 100,000 a year, 200, 300. It's

probably a solid range that that's what

most people are trying to make. And they

assume they have to reach that 100%

level. They have to be the professional

NBA player when you don't even care

about getting that far in business. So

you're not chasing a unicorn valuation

of a startup. I've had a few people tell

me that I'm very good at breaking things

down and making them seem like they

aren't that daunting. And it's the same

thing with money because I've realized

that myself. So if you want to make

money, you start with the purpose to

make money. In order to make money, what

do you need? Something to sell and

someone to buy it. If you don't have an

idea on what to sell, then you go and

search for specific knowledge that

teaches you about coming up with a

profitable product idea. If you want

something like that, I've written many

of them before. I'll link one in the

description below, which is like a mega

guide to creating a product. Now, if you

continue to keep your mind at bay during

this process, you end up building the

product. I've worked with many creators,

many businesses, many brands, and when

they're just starting out, they have

this product idea, and then a year

later, I ask them, "Hey, where's this

product?" And they're like, "Oh, I

didn't even start building it."

You don't have the chance to make any

money if you do not have a product or

service to sell. It's quite obvious, but

your mind is just getting in the way.

You haven't mastered that skill, but now

you have a product or you went the other

way. You did something else first.

That's fine. Let's say you have a

product. Now you don't have people to

buy it. So what do you start

researching? How to generate traffic.

You find out that you can start a

personal brand. You can post social

media content. You can do SEO. You can

do cold outreach. You can do Facebook

ads. You have all of these different

techniques that you can use. All of them

work. Some are better than others only

in the context of your specific

situation. For someone who doesn't have

any money, then Facebook ads may not be

the wisest idea to go for. If you're

just a beginner, then it's probably

social media. I've talked about this

many times before. Social media,

personal brand, something of that nature

where you don't have to spend anything

and your success is completely dependent

on your skill. That's the thing I love

about social media in general is that

it's just a battleground for people who

have the highest skill. If you aren't

doing well on social media, you can

blame the algorithm. You can blame other

things, but I guarantee you 95% of the

problem is that you just aren't good

enough. And again, the reason you're

thinking about the algorithm and all of

these other things and considering

quitting is because you haven't mastered

your mind. And that alone, all of these

emotions that are circulating, all of

these negative thoughts are impacting

your ability to do good work. So your

skill, let's actually, there's something

here, right? I keep saying that you have

to master your mind. It can distract you

from all these things and you learn this

skill. There's some concept here where

the skills that you do have can be at a

specific level. You can be at level 50

in Photoshop, but if you are trying to

perform, if you're trying to use that

skill from a negative and narrow state

in your head caused by stress, anxiety,

all of these negative thoughts and

emotions, that skill level decreases by

a lot. You're operating at a 10, a level

10 on Photoshop when you're actually a

level 50 when you operate from a place

of calm. So, it's like a double whammy,

right? You've learned all of this stuff

about business, but since your mind is

just super narrow and stressed out,

you're you still feel like a beginner.

Now, how is this progressive overload of

the mind? Because if you want to bench

press 315 lbs, let's say benching 315

lbs is the same as making a million

dollars. You don't start by putting 315

lbs on the bar and just crushing

yourself and probably dying, especially

when you've never lifted a single weight

in your life. No, you don't do that. You

start with the bar and then once that

becomes easy, then you add 10 lb plates

on. Then you add another 10 lbs, then

45. And then over the course of 3 years,

potentially more depending on how

focused you are, right? Many people can

speedun hitting 315 lbs on a bench if

they don't get distracted and start

doing all of these other exercises and

switching training programs and other

things. If you were solely focused on

benching 315 lbs, you would hit it much

faster than the guy who is very fit,

goes to the gym every day, does all of

the right things, but simply because

you're focused on the goals and moving

the le levers and needles to reach that

specific goal, then you're going to

achieve it so much faster. I've been in

the gym for 10 years. I don't give a

[ __ ] about benching 315 lbs. I'm strong.

I can probably bench like 285. I could

actually probably bench 315. I just

haven't tested it in so long. But it

could have taken me 3 years. I remember

the first or second year that I started

lifting in high school in after school

weights. My friend Jerry and I were just

going back and forth. We were in the gym

every day. All we cared about was bench.

I got to 275 lb max. Like by year two,

it was extremely fast because that's all

I cared about. My nutrition followed

that. My life followed that. All I was

watching on YouTube was how to lift

more. The same thing applies with skill

acquisition and achieving the goal you

want to achieve in your life. Now,

insight number three is a missing

ingredient to learning absurdly fast.

And that's that rapid learning requires

pure focus. Pure focus. I don't think

many people in today's world have

actually experienced that pure focus.

Just you and the task and the skill

you're trying to learn. No thought, no

emotion, no distraction. And a

distraction is any person, place, or

thing that pulls any thread of attention

away from your goal. You literally cease

to exist and you become one with

reality. Input and output merge. Every

slice of information that goes into your

brain is instantly transformed into raw

material that is put into reality like a

lock and key. You enter a period of

intensity where your mind collapses on a

clear goal. Pattern recognition kicks

into overdrive. Books, content, music,

and conversations gain an entirely new

dimension. Reality becomes the source of

inspiration as it always has been and

will be. But you don't have distractions

pulling you away from that connection

with what is. For most of the time, for

most people, this doesn't happen, right?

Learning is a slow grind that you hate

doing. In that case, you may benefit

from a prompt I've created before, which

is a deep work coach that helps you

structure your deep work sessions and

get into the flow state. Again, that's

in the description as well. But if this

is you, if this if learning is just a

slow grind, there is one trick that I

like to deploy that kind of kicks myself

into overdrive and really narrows in my

focus. I deploy this tool when my mind

is filled with dissonance, right? When

I'm I'm tired of the life that I've been

living, I have an idea, a somewhat clear

idea of where I want to be, but I'm just

like stuck in the middle. I have

something that kicks me out of that and

gets me to start learning towards who I

want to become. And that tool is

something I've talked about before,

which is called tactical stress. And

this is a form of environment

engineering. For myself, I was able to

learn After Effects, a very complex

software within two weeks because I

filled my YouTube video with a

storyboard and animations that I didn't

know how to create, but I wanted to,

right? And the thing about this is that

I have to put out YouTube videos every

week. It's a part of who I am. It's tied

to my survival. It's ti tied to my

income. It's tied to my sense of

identity at this point. So, if I don't

put a video out, then entropy releases,

right? things start to get more chaotic,

right? If I go two weeks without posting

a video, my mind is racing because I

don't know what to do. In that case, I

have to put a video out because that's

the life that I've built myself into.

Tactical stress is when you put yourself

in a high pressure situation that

creates a strong deadline to achieve the

goal you've been meaning to achieve.

This could be quitting your job to make

your business work or moving into an

apartment you can't afford to push for

that new career. This could be saying hi

to the person you're attracted to. So,

you have to at least start some kind of

jumbled conversation. And then you

either make it work or you hesitate and

get crushed. Tactical stress is so

effective because most people tend to

fall into the idle state. They numb

themselves before they hit rock bottom,

never allowing the pain of where they

are to outweigh the pain of where they

want to be. That's when you deploy

tactical stress. Right? When you notice

the pain of your current situation

holding you back to avoid repeating the

same six months for the rest of your

life, what you're doing here, this

tactical stress is testing your one rep

max. Right? If you go to the gym and you

test your bench press one rep max, it's

not supposed to be easy. you you're

making this calculated decision of yes,

I think I can achieve this big milestone

and I'm going to literally put myself

under the bar and if I don't use all of

my strength, if I don't use everything

that I've trained for up until this

moment, I'm going to get crushed and I'm

going to feel bad about that. I can try

again later, but this is like this is

it, right? I'm hyping myself up. I'm

getting myself ready to do this and then

I release and I go all in on what I've

been trying to do. So, you have to mimic

this in your environment. You have to

put yourself in an environment that is

like you're holding your one rep max on

bench press, but you know you can lift

it. It's it's not a one to two second

thing or 10 second thing like bench

pressing is. This is a 3 to six month

thing, right? you're under this pressure

mentally, emotionally for 3 to 6 months

while you're pushing, you're grinding

through that one rep max. And it feels

good to do so, right? If you've ever

done this, you love going to test your

one rep max. It's bad to do it too often

because you might get injured, but you

love doing it because that's where

everything you've trained for comes into

play. It's not this repetitive thing.

It's the the one thing that you can do

once or twice a year to kick yourself to

see how far you've come. So that, my

friends, is the final piece to learning.

If you're just stuck in this slow,

boring grind, then you need to test your

one rep max and push yourself toward the

goal that you've been meaning to

achieve. Thank you for watching. Like,

subscribe, links in the description for

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newsletters. Those are on human

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again for watching.