CHAPTER 2
2. The Only Skill That Matters
“The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
—Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock
In modern life, there are a lot of skills that are important.
As a twenty-first century human, you need to know how to navigate social relationships, get along with technology, stay informed about politics, obey laws, balance your finances, make smart career decisions, choose a healthy diet, and about a million other little skills that help you thrive in today’s world.
Of course, none of these skills actually matter if you aren’t able to learn them effectively.
You may be familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
Proposed in 1943, Maslow’s hierarchy teaches us that unless we meet our more basic needs, we are unable to even think about what comes next. If, for example, you aren’t getting enough oxygen, you really don’t care much about food and water. Until you have a safe place to sleep at night, well, you’re probably not too worried if you are living up to your full potential at work.
If you think about it, learning is the same way. It’s the gateway skill to unlocking every other skill you need in life. Until you develop the basic capacity to learn as a child, you aren’t too worried about multiplication tables—much less philosophical questions. You’re much more concerned with cracking the elusive skills of lifting your head up, crawling, and then, one glorious day, walking.
Finally, once you’ve developed that basic ability to learn, the next most important skill, of course, is language. After all, how are you supposed to learn things higher up the hierarchy if you can’t understand the way they’re communicated? This is why we each spend a year or more of our early lives learning to speak and communicate. The subsequent skills of literacy, general knowledge, analytical and critical thinking, and eventually original thinking are skills that we develop over the first twenty to twenty-five years of our lives, from kindergarten all the way up to our graduate degrees. In this light, effective learning stands out as the only skill that really matters—because once you have it, you can learn literally any other skill.
Here’s the thing:
At any point in your life, did anyone, educator or otherwise, actually teach you how to learn?
Or, for that matter, how to best use the ten-pound mass of neurons and synapses you call your brain?
Think back for a moment. You had years of physical education classes teaching you the importance of exercise. There were a few health and biology classes teaching you how your individual cells and organs work. I bet there were even some very uncomfortable sex ed classes that taught you how to safely use your other parts…but what about your brain?
How is that fair?
When you buy something as simple as a refrigerator—something that was designed by a team of engineers to be as easy to use as possible—it still comes with a fifty-page user’s manual! That manual gives you helpful information about every single feature plus exact instructions to follow in case you experience difficulties. And yet, when it comes to the single most complex object in the known universe (your brain), you’re lucky if you get even a hint as to how to actually use it.
This is why many of us struggle through school and learning in general. We suffer excruciating boredom learning new material, waste endless time reviewing that material, and in the end, we forget it after the exam anyways. I mean, be honest: How much do you actually remember from high school trigonometry?
For me, this journey was a particularly painful one. As early as preschool, I stood out as the typical “class clown,” unable to sit still or keep quiet. For my first few years of life, it was cute and endearing. Early report cards sent home by my first-grade teacher tell of my difficulty keeping up with other students. Teachers acknowledged me as a happy and friendly child and, for the most part, were willing to forgive my outbursts and distracting behavior.
By the age of eight, the novelty had worn off. One of my earliest memories of school is staying after class for a series of strange tests with my second-grade teacher, who had previously been in charge of special needs education. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my parents were quietly having me tested for ADHD—and the results weren’t promising. Though I was never officially diagnosed, it was pretty clear that I would struggle with this learning disability for the rest of my life. My parents considered medication but, after seeing how other children reacted to it, decided against turning their creative, happy child into a drugged zombie. I can’t say I blame them.
For the rest of my elementary school years, I would be a problem in the classroom. Luckily for me, I was blessed with some very compassionate—and very patient—teachers. Though my report cards still mentioned distractibility and difficulty keeping up, and I still struggled to understand what was being taught in class, I received an incredible amount of support, which kept me from ever being held back a grade. Anyways, I was much more passionate about after-school activities and didn’t much care how I was doing in school.
All this changed in sixth grade. I found myself in a new school—three times the size of my old one—and suddenly, school was a serious place. My classes were hard. Really hard. Even English, my strongest subject, was somehow over my head. Mathematics and science, on the other hand, were outright impossible.
But I wasn’t just falling behind in the classroom. Whereas other kids seemed to be learning the valuable social (and romantic) skills necessary to survive middle school, I found myself in a scary, new world with new rules and norms that I didn’t understand. Developmentally, I was completely unable to keep up. As my peers were developing and growing into young adults, I looked in the mirror and saw an immature and incapable kid with nothing to be proud of. In class, I was ashamed of being one of the “dumbest” kids. Outside of class, I unknowingly dressed, behaved, and expressed myself in ways that made me stand out—and not in a good way.
It wasn’t long before the other kids took notice. I soon became one of a handful of students at the brunt of every joke. I was picked on, bullied, and humiliated in just about the cruelest ways you can imagine. In time, even the small group of fellow misfits I called friends turned on me, joining in on the cruel pranks and humor at my expense. Here, again, I simply couldn’t understand; why was this happening to me?
By eighth grade, I was in the deepest depression imaginable. Every day, I spent my time in class scribbling helpful reminders on my arms, ranging from “Shut The F*** Up” to “I hate…me.” At the age of thirteen I was already considering suicide, and had I not been an only child, I might just have gone through with it. Luckily, someone actually took note, and though she made sure to keep our friendship private for reputation purposes, she went to the school counselor.
What ensued remains one of the most painful experiences of my entire life. Watching my parents—who have always loved their only child more than life itself—struggle with the pain of having almost lost me gave me a shock to my core. With their support, I resolved to stick around for a while and lean in.
By freshman year, school became even more difficult, and so I was very fortunate when a friend introduced me to the medication his parents had given him years ago: Ritalin.
Suddenly, everything changed for me. I marched home to my parents after my first time on the drug and was eventually given a prescription of my own. Almost overnight, I went from being a C student to having nearly all As. My confidence soared. I was sharper in conversation and more able to control my rambling outbursts. Of course, Ritalin didn’t make me any smarter, and I still didn’t understand a lot of what was going on in class. But, with my prescription bottle in hand, I developed a new trick. Every day, I would come home at three o’clock, take my second dose of the day, and lock myself in my bedroom till it was time for bed. If I couldn’t learn as easily as others seemed to in class, I would just have to work harder—and take more medication—to catch up. Subconsciously, I developed a healing mechanism that would guide the rest of my life: I vowed to never again be the kid who didn’t understand.
The results of this tactic were incredible. I got fantastic grades and SAT scores. I built a multimillion-dollar internet business. I was admitted to UC Berkeley and graduated with honors. Then, I sold my business—all by my twenty-fourth birthday. Needless to say, my newfound confidence (or ego), built on the back of my accomplishments, also helped my self-esteem. Truthfully, though, even with my “trick,” I’d struggled a great deal to keep up at Berkeley. In fact, I changed majors to something easier three times just to survive, eventually landing on the easiest subject I could find: sociology. And of course, like most students, I forgot what I’d learned the moment I left the exam room—but who cares, right?
It seemed that most of my problems were behind me.
Fast forward to 2011. I’m admitted to INSEAD, one of the world’s top business schools, for a condensed, ten-month MBA in both Singapore and France. It was bad enough that I’d have to cram in two years’ worth of material in my weakest subjects. But on top of that, I’d have to pass certification tests in two foreign languages, move countries twice, maintain a side business, and somehow still have time for all of the travel and networking that MBA programs are really about.
My old trick? Well, that just wasn’t going to work. Months before the program even began, I received a 1,200-page reading list, most of which I didn’t understand at all. The best part? My instructors assured me that this reading would give me a head start—for the first week of school.
What the heck had I signed up for? And to think, I had already gone off of Ritalin.
Fortunately for me, at that time I was interning at a small venture capital office in Israel. There, I met a very smart (and very unusual) man named Lev Goldentouch. In addition to speaking three languages fluently, Lev had earned his PhD in machine learning and information theory at the tender age of twenty-seven. He also was married to Anna, an educator who had spent years teaching memory and speed-reading techniques both at local universities and to children with learning disabilities. Because of all this, Lev was, without question, the fastest reader I’d ever met. Upon arriving to work at 9:00 a.m., he would read five to ten articles over his morning coffee, flooding my inbox with articles about our common interests by 9:15. What blew my mind more than anything, though, was that Lev not only comprehended information at this speed: he remembered it. A conversation with Lev was like consulting Wikipedia, only with more humor.
I had to learn how to do this.
Over the next six weeks I trained with both Lev and Anna in what I would later term “SuperLearning.” When I went off to INSEAD in the fall, I was a new man. Sure, I still needed Ritalin to sit still in the classroom for eight hours. But I was now not only able to keep up with my peers; in some subjects, I was able to surpass them. On more than one occasion, other students pulled me aside to ask how I found time to read all the case studies before class, or why I had “given up” on the exam and left an hour early. They didn’t understand: I had finished it.
Socially, I never found my place at INSEAD. I was one of the youngest, and least mature, members of my class. But academically, I felt truly superhuman.
After graduating, I let my new SuperLearning skills run free. First, I tackled some of the issues I’d had as a young man. I devoured books on social psychology, body language, attraction, and charisma. I built upon the knowledge that Lev and Anna had taught me, diving deep into neuroscience, memory, and learning theory. I diagnosed and fixed my own health problems by reading books on kinesiology and sports therapy. I developed myself spiritually and emotionally with a wide range of books on life’s journey. I even read business books and took programming courses, attempting to launch a new software startup.
And then, I had an idea.
What if, instead of referring people to an overbooked Anna, we built an online course, where anyone could learn these skills?
I didn’t know the first thing about recording videos, editing, developing learning materials, or content marketing—but I knew how to learn. One weekend, I opened forty-five or so tabs on everything from pedagogical design to branding and even how to use basic editing software. I figured out not only how to create online courses but how to create great ones. I then worked diligently to translate the materials from Hebrew to English. Two months later, on December 26, 2013, we launched the first Become a SuperLearner online course.
The rest, as they say, is history. In a short while, we were one of the top courses on the web. Within five years, we would have over two hundred thousand students, nearly a dozen online courses, an award-winning podcast, and two books. At every step of the way, I would apply my SuperLearning skills to whatever it took to grow the business, from marketing to leadership, to lighting and audio, copyrighting, and more. Today, I am blessed to say that my business is one of the leaders in the accelerated learning space. More importantly, the books I read outside of work have helped me build lasting relationships with a group of friends—and an incredible woman—who love me and support me in all that I do.
Not bad for a kid who almost didn’t survive the seventh grade.
Behind it all, I credit my ability to learn as the reason I am where I am today. Learning has not only made me a happier, healthier, and wealthier person—it’s saved my life.
But the SuperLearner method hasn’t just changed my life. Over the last five years, I’ve made it my life’s mission to prevent as many people as possible from ever feeling the suffering I felt: the suffering of feeling stupid, or of being unable to understand the complex world around them.
Along this journey, we have had some truly incredible stories come out of our SuperLearner programs. Stories like that of Dr. Juli La Rocca. After struggling through medical school, Juli became pregnant and gave birth during residency. Unfortunately, at that time, her relationship also became abusive, unhealthy, and dangerous. Determined to make a change, she turned to the SuperLearner program and began upgrading her ability to learn effectively. This empowered her to do her own research and create a powerful, holistic toolkit for developing emotional strength and navigating single motherhood.
What’s more, it unlocked within her a deeper passion for learning. Juli picked up a copy of our Branding You program and, within a matter of months, learned everything she needed to know to launch a successful online business teaching her method to other single moms. At the time of this writing, she is leaving medicine to launch http://Unbreakable.mom. I have no doubt that she’ll impact the lives of many people and create the best possible life for her and her daughter, Zulei, along the way.
Or how about the story of Dwight, an overwhelmed Air Force pilot who was battling to keep up with all the learning and memorization needed to succeed as a commercial pilot. Dwight spends as much as four hours a day commuting, leaving him almost zero time for studying. Fortunately, after trying some other accelerated learning programs, he discovered SuperLearner and immediately began reaping the benefits. He figured out an ingenious way to practice the skills while driving and was able to effectively triple his reading speed and learning capacity. Gone were the days of endlessly reviewing and forgetting, and in no time, Dwight realized that he had essentially memorized the entire manual—in a fraction of the time. He learned all of this so quickly, in fact, that in 2019, he’ll be promoted to an entirely new plane. I’m confident that with the tools taught in this book, he’ll ace it in no time.
With stories like these, it’s easy to see why my team and I believe that learning is the only skill that matters. After all, if you can learn effectively, you can learn—or become—anything you want. With these skills, you can go from being a depressed social outcast to a happy and successful entrepreneur. You can go from being a struggling young professional to a leader in the company of your dreams. Most of all, you can go from wherever you are today to wherever it is you aspire to go. And that’s why, now, it’s your turn to learn.