Courses, Clubs, and The Power Of Plugging-In To Achieve Mastery-Part Two-
In the movie Groundhog Day, Phil Connors spends just over twelve thousand days trapped in Punxsutawney. During this time looping curse, Phil saves lives - indulges in most forms of human hedonism, gets killed, kills himself, and masters an impressive set of skills like ice sculpturing and playing the piano. The unrealism isn't that a mortal man could master anything he wanted. The unrealism is that Phil could master something like the piano without a social network helping them or a network whose brains don't reset every 24 hours.
The one giving Phil his piano lesson acts shocked when she sees him playing like a pro because she doesn't remember the hundreds of lessons that he already took with her. By the end of the film, that's basically every scene - people acting shocked as Phil demonstrates a mastery of skills he's never revealed before. But maybe we as the audience should be shocked because mastering anything without qualified feedback is about as unbelievable as a magic time looping curse.
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Joe: Today, we're ditching our myths a little bit because our whole last episode was basically the myths for this. If you haven't listened to part one, which covers Coursera, SkillShare Master Class, and Sofia, it covers all the online courses that we are being sold as ways to level up our professionalism and our resumes. When in fact, most of them don't look that good on a resume, and most of them don't actually offer college courses. So, Todd, when I approached you with that episode, you started telling me about the value of going and showing up and doing and joining clubs. And after you started preaching that, I looked up what colleges and what jobs truly appreciate what they actually value. And you're right; it’s not just getting a certificate but showing that you can get those soft skills. So, I'm going to take these myths one at a time: can people learn independently, or can they just sit back in class and absorb mastery?
Todd: What's your take on that?
Joe: This is one of those situations where I have taken more online courses and learned more on my own than I have attended class, and I have regrets about that. I've talked on this podcast about going to writers’ groups and not fully getting the benefit out of those. In fact, until I went to a Toastmasters Club with you, I didn't think I was getting the full benefit out of any of the clubs or classes I joined, which was a lot.
Todd: This is going to explain how I feel about it - I could take yoga at home. I could go online, go on YouTube, or enroll in an online program with probably one of the greatest, most well-known yoga teachers in the world. But I do better in a class setting with that peer support. I found that to be true with Toastmasters. I've read lots of books about how to public speak. I've read books about storytelling. However, when I was in Toastmasters, giving speeches live in front of live people with some support and constructive criticism, that helped the most.
Joe: When you came to our club, you immediately plugged into the network around you. Was that intentional? Did you think that out? Did you change your plug shape to plug into our social network?
Todd: I did, but it's because I've been a part of a lot of after-work and after-school activities, and really, the joy in it is the people you meet, the friendships, the fellowships. I think there is strength in it.
Joe: You said you've been in Debate Club before?
Todd: I did I was in debate.
Joe: I talked to a college acceptance advisor who reviews applicants, and they said that strong debate clubs from good schools was one of the highest things that they would look at. They thought that it was worth so much. Now, do you have any regrets about not plugging into certain networks?
Todd: Absolutely. My biggest one was about seven years ago. To become a better public speaker, I took some acting classes at The University of Washington, and the second I got there, I thought shit. I should have been involved in drama/acting my whole life - performance arts as opposed to sports. It was just a good value match for me. It's fun and exciting to me. It's interesting, and I think it's more competitive than sports. I think if I would have gotten into that as a child or even as a young man, my life would have been enriched by it.
Joe: If you had plugged into drama early instead of sports, how would your life look different? And why do you think that would be more valuable than taking an online class about drama?
Todd: Because I'd have that network of people. I still know people in the arts community who are high achievers, and they have some really exciting lives they live as opposed to just ham and egg pay the bill lives.
Joe: Okay. You hit the soul of what I want to talk about a little bit today. The reason why this is such a free-form conversation is that it is so hard to put a number on the value of plugging into a social group, learning at the same pace they do and networking with them afterward. But the two things that I seem to keep running into is if you have been in a social group, you see who the high achievers are over time instead of just the big talkers and overconfident people. The loud person will sometimes seem like the one who’s going to achieve, but later, you want to be able to call up the guy who actually did for support if need be. All in all, it gives you the social network to call somebody who has acquired resources, not necessarily money, but they might have books or mentors or connections that they can hand to you gladly hand to you because you were in their class.
Todd: And this is the biggest pitfall and mistake I see a lot of people do when they get into anything self-improvement or in an after-work activity. It's not something you just show up to, and it's not just something you try. It becomes who you are. You only are going to get out of it what you put into it. I know that's cliche, but you don't learn anything by just showing up; you must get plugged in, even if it feels uncomfortable at first. So, Joe…tell our audience why you joined Toastmasters.
Joe: I joined a group called Willamette Writers first. They were the biggest Writers Guild in our city, and I failed to plug into that network…even after winning a national award through them. If I had been plugged into that network and actually did the things they taught me, I would have been published time and time over. I should have approached other people in that group to work with them. I, at one point, was going to share some of a story I had written, which ended up being a contest-winning entry. And when I shared it with them, I did such a poor job of describing what I was sharing; the group told me that I didn’t sound like I was ready. We're going to hang off on this, and we'll work on somebody else's story this week. You can have a chance next time. It crushed me, and that is the same story or piece of it that got a winning entry later. The story was good, but I was not. So, I went to Toastmasters and started honing my public speaking to pitch better. There's the old phrase; it's not what you know, it's who you know. I think that needs to be re-written to be accurate. It should be: It's not what you know, it's how highly motivated you are to work with others.
Todd: I like that. The reason I had Joe bring this story up is that this is not comfortable for Joe. He was never someone who would like to go out socially with people he didn't know. But now he's become one. And from doing things like the William Riders and Toastmasters, he's had such a huge social network, is very popular, and he can be the center of attention at a party sometimes.
Joe: There's something you said earlier, which is the thing you do becomes a part of you. If I take an online Master Class, I think I will add an arrow to my quiver. But if you go out and take that class and you interact with those people, you change your plug shape to plug into that social network. You don't add an arrow to your quiver, you become an Archer. You become the thing or at least in part do.
Todd: I think there are a couple of pitfalls, like procrastination. The big one is not having time. The second one, which I think is even worse, is if you spend money on something but don’t do anything with it. Believe it or not, people see that as they've already gotten the reward but have not even gotten started yet. It's a false reward, and it doesn't change who you are.
Joe: In Grit by Angela Duckworth, they kind of touch on this, about goal setting and the idea of imagining yourself at the finish line. Imagine yourself crossing the breaking the ribbon at the finish line and imagine achieving that goal. If you imagine that you've already accomplished something, your brain will trick itself into thinking you've gotten that accomplishment; you don’t need to go to class. When in reality, if you go to class, you will learn how much you need to change your shape in person.
Todd: And getting the attention from people will give you that dopamine like you've already achieved it. Often, when we tackle a goal, and this podcast is a prime example, we can do all the research online, but you really don't know the steps you need to do until you're already in the pool drowning.
Joe: It kind of reminds me of somebody who wants to take up crafting, like they want to become a woodworker, or they want to become a scrapbooker, and they buy all of the tools, and they buy the classes yet don't actually make a scrapbook. They have the tools, but their brain tricks them into thinking they've accomplished it. Almost all of these “classes and extracurriculars," whether it's drama, public speaking, the gym, whatever will help you improve - that goes right out the window if you have filled your tool belt but haven't put a hammer into anything. They don't try to plug in; they don't try to participate.
Todd: That's what I struggle with, and I've been one of those people for many years in different classes. Part of its insecurity can sometimes be a little bit of arrogance. Like, I don't need this, or I'm above this.
Joe: I'm laughing because I posed as that last one night. I posed as I'm better than this, and I try to be arrogant. But what it really is it's my introverted insecurity. I'm sitting in the back but what really is happening is I don't want to be called on; I don't want to come present, and I didn't prepare enough. I didn't sink in the extra time to absorb what I needed to.
Todd: When you go to things after work, as adults, were tired. We don't have a lot of time, and that time we have is valuable. But if you can go there with an open head and heart eager to learn with a childlike interest, people are going to be attracted to you. Whatever your activity is, show that you want help and start slow. If you start low, people are going to help you. They're going to put an arm around you, and you're going to find mentors. You will improve fast with the right mentors, but they only come and help if they know that you're there to learn and have a similar passion as you.
Joe: Yeah, especially what you're talking about - showing up ready to learn. Even if they are not necessarily going to mentor you, they will start giving you skills just by having you help with whatever you can. So, showing up with that attitude is really important. You called it a spark that allows you to plug in. Once you fit that plug and you plug into the social network of whatever class you joined, there is a spark there, sort of a realization that you've changed, or you've started changing to fit in.
Todd: And it feels great. When you learn a new skill, and you add to your old tool belt, don't you feel more powerful?
Joe: I do, absolutely. I may be fooling myself with this, but I think that's what jobs and academic advisors are actually looking for. I think the reason why Master Class and Skill Shares don't get as much credit is because if I show up and I've become a different person to learn a skill, I think I'm going to blow away the people who have sat through an hour course on the internet. Those people will have learned some things, but they will not have plugged in. They will not have integrated those skills and become a different person because of it. Now, I want to talk about the value of preparing yourself. Before you came to Toastmasters, did you prepare at all? Did you pick up any books or learn anything first?
Todd: I did. I've got some TED Talks books on storytelling. I read the very corny Speak And Grow Rich.
Joe: I read Toastmasters going before doing public speaking. I read about Dale Carnegie, like that's when I got into that.
I think what we're trying to say, hopefully, in this podcast is there is a place for the hour-long internet lectures, and there is a place for actual clubs and attendance and plugging yourself in. But we reverse that order by accident – by being introverts or instinct. I think what we assume is the classes we take online will give us mastery. The extracurriculars are just that they're extra. But what we should think of it as the classes and books will prime us. They will give us the knowledge. Then we need to show up and apply it. You'll become a plug that will fit, get that spark going, and then participate. I know the last two episodes have seemed like I have just been like a giant downer about online classes. But honestly, I listen to podcasts, and I listen to lectures. And when a subject holds my interest and won't let me go, I know that I need to go try it. I read Dale Carnegie and realized how far behind I was, and I took those skills to Toastmasters to hone them. I read everything in the library about how to write a story because I was so bad at it, and then I started going to a club because I'm like, well, here's all this knowledge. But really, I need to see how people are applying it.
Todd: Interesting.
Joe: I found a Harvard Business Review article that talks about how to master a new skill because that's ultimately what we're trying to do. We don't want to come to a job and be like I've read about the software you guys use, I've never used it or mastered it, but I'm sure you guys are cool with me just taking a class, right? So, I looked up this HBR article and they say that you should select a skill that organizers and managers value. That's step one. I mean, broaden your horizons with the internet and with lectures, but when you actually get down to what you're going to hone, pick things that managers and schools will find valuable.
Todd: And I think there's a meet-up group for absolutely everything. Those are great because they're low cost and you can get a big variety of who have been in it different amounts of time, from professor to new student.
Joe: I really don't want people to come away from this thinking that we are saying you should specialize in all things. Be diverse, read a lot, watch a lot, and get into lectures, but when it comes to honing a skill, we're just saying to pick something that has value. Once you've identified that skill HBR says to divide it up into smaller, manageable tasks.
Todd: To master anything new, keep it small and keep it simple in the beginning. What I found is when you overdo it, you just overload yourself so much that it becomes exhausting and can't continue. Small manageable bites are better than trying to devour the whole meal.
Joe: We have espoused process thinking and process learning - chunk it up, just analyze the next 30 minutes or hour, and give yourself a task, the first building block or first step of whatever you're doing. And then go from there. Reflect on what you've learned and what you still want to accomplish. I think you can do that at almost any time. You take a break, you eat lunch, and you think about what you just sat through. You have a lot of reflection on who said what and what did I miss? How did I embarrass myself with stuff I didn't know? I reflect more on the negative stuff, unfortunately.
Todd: I was a stepparent for many years to two younger kids who are involved in all kinds of different activities. Make sure to write down how you spend every minute of every day, and you might find out that you have more time than you realize you do. I can quickly jump into the trap of talking myself out of a class that’s good for my career or wellbeing. It is so easy to say I don't have time, or I don't have money for it. You're not going to have more time and more money unless you start doing more things after work.
Joe: The writer Jason Pardon gave an exercise which is to get two pieces of paper. On one piece of paper, write down the things you want to be and what you want to accomplish. On the other sheet of paper, write what you did today. Just minute by minute, what did you actually do? If those two sheets don't match, then one of those is a list of dream goals that are hypothetical and not actual goals. Now the funny part is Harvard Business Review has a don't do it list when it comes to doing new skills and activities. The first thing on it says don't try to learn in a vacuum; ask other people for guidance and feedback. So that flies right in the face of our last episode, which was all about learning in a vacuum. Don’t do that, or if you do try it, confirm what you've learned on your own with people in clubs that you are actually doing things with.
Todd: That’s good for advising because people who are not doers are going to tell you it's a waste of time. The big one they're going to say to you, and it's going to hurt your feelings, is that is a waste of money and time. Now, when you're asking for their opinion and you already know it's going to be negative, that's not the kind of people that you should fly with. That's not the kind of people that you should value what they say. Even if these people are your family members.
Joe: I run into many people who are extroverts who tell me that they're already good at communicating when they've never tried it before. Just because they like talking at a party. However, that doesn’t mean you are good at it or that you have a structure to it. Now, I did not foresee this one coming. They say don't rely solely on your boss for advice. That's funny to me. Because like, if you're trying to double-check that a skill you're about to learn is going to apply to your job, of course, your boss is going to be like, yeah, learn that new program.
Todd: I think bosses are just so ultra-critical a lot of time in the business and corporate world. They already think you can't do your job to begin with.
Joe: Yeah, I believe that. They're not going to be incentivized to tell you what skills will break you out of the mold to go into the better-paying job. They're going to be like, what cement can I pour into your shoes to keep you here?
Todd: Exactly. And let's face it, the way things are going with careers, we're going to have a new job every couple of years.
Joe: The final piece of advice – HBR has a whole section that is just dynamite advice. They say, assume it's not going to happen overnight. Don't go into it thinking, you'll master it. It takes at least six months to develop a new skill.
Todd: Of course, this sounds like “no duh,” but we've all done that. I know I have gone into things thinking it's going to be like a magic potion that I'm going to be a better person.
Joe: So, I want to leave us with why in-person clubs, getting that spark, and getting that connection works better than an online course or lecture vacuum learning. Have you heard of the term interleaving in education? It's new to me, so I won't have the best information on this. The gist of interleaving is that it's more efficient than blocking. Blocking is what we do to learn in school, especially in traditional schools. Blocking is…here's a chunk of text, and here's a bunch of facts about it; it's taking all these chunks, these blocks, and building an education out of them.
What interleaving is, it espouses the idea of planning to learn over time because that's how you learn best. Your memory is like an Etch-a-Sketch. You have to retrace things that you repeatedly learn to cement them, and everything behind that line that you keep retracing, especially when you sleep, fades backward. Interleaving takes the most fundamental parts of what you're trying to learn, repeats, and randomizes them over the course of months. So, if I am trying to learn Spanish, instead of learning here are all the conjugations, all these words for this particular thing, etc., what interleaving suggest is that you should learn the thousand most commonly used words, repeat them and randomize them. What we're talking about with extracurriculars, take them out. Language is a great example [of what we've been talking about today where you need to submerge yourself in the culture once you have a handle on the basics. So, space out the basics over several months, repeat them, randomize them, and then put yourself in the culture where you will be using them.
Todd: Let me comment on this. It's going to take a while. Many times, people think I don't want it because it will take too long; I want it now. What people don't tell you is that you get the pleasure right away from learning, even at the beginning of something that you're not very skilled in. That is when the growth is the greatest; you're going to get the most pleasure right away. That's the reason to sign up. And one of the problems I have with Toastmasters, and I preach to anyone who's been in the meetings that I've run or speeches that I've given, a lot of these people come into Toastmasters painfully shy to becoming very polished public speakers. They become world-class listeners. The problem is, they leave all that skill at Toastmasters. They don't take it to their family, their friends, or to their workplace. So, when you learn these things and practice them in a safe space, don’t forget to take it out of there. Take it and use it in your life. That's why we do this, to make us better people overall.
Joe: Whatever you do, it changes the structure of your brain. There are writers who in the first couple of years of learning, when that initial 80% of growth comes easy, and your gains are evident, that's when you are most likely to quit because you think you’ve got it. But it's the last 20% that rewires your brain to not just be good at it, but to be good at it in process and on-the-fly. People who took a couple of writing classes and got the gist of it can write you a paper, and they'll do it well. The writers who have pushed past the last 20%, they can stand up at the front of a table and tell a story on the fly and it will be structured with a beginning, middle, and end. It will be structured like a heroic journey. It will have all the compelling parts a story should have because they trained their brain to do it. People who mastered debate and took that skill out into the world, it's not just that they feel like they're arguing with you; They will sit there and make a compelling point with an exclamation mark at the end and with amazing stats. Their brain is trained to do it. Even if they don't feel like they are coming down on you like an avalanche, even if they're just being very friendly, their friendliness will make you feel like they have made a great point that you want to remember.
Todd: Wouldn’t it be great to have that superpower?
Joe: That's really what we're talking about. If you want to learn something academically, take a Master Class. If you want to have a superpower that you can bring out into the world, go take a club and plug yourself in.