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Procrastinating is robbing your future.

Last week, we talked about the “learning pyramid” and how we don’t retain much information by simply listening or reading about new ideas or concepts.

The way to thoroughly learn a concept is to take action on what you’ve learned.  You’ve got to start DOING!

Beyond that, if you want to challenge yourself, try teaching the concept to someone else. For example, try explaining the concept of the “learning pyramid” to a friend or your spouse.

Chances are you’ll mess up at first.  But don’t worry!  Making mistakes is part of the process.  Just go back and study the material further.  Try to focus and concentrate on retaining the information.  This isn’t easy in our distraction-filled world, but that’s life, folks.  Learning is a struggle.

When you can clearly teach a concept to someone else, you now KNOW the information.  Through the struggle of learning, the new information is now hard-wired into your brain, which has physically formed new neuro-transmitters and connections.

Just like a physical workout, your mental workout can be painful.  Do you want bigger or more toned biceps?  You can read all about how to do bicep curls properly, but the act of reading doesn’t do much. You’ve got to DO them.

To train your brain, accept the pain. 

By the way, all of the above was included in last week’s post.  However, by repeating it in a slightly different way, you probably now understand it better than before.

Spaced repetition is another important concept to understand when it comes to learning.  This gives those neuro-transmitters a chance to reset and build upon what they’ve already retained.

Which do you think is better?  Going to the gym for three hours once per week, or going for one hour, three times per week?  The answer is obvious, and it’s the exact same concept.

If you really want to build knowledge and skills, it requires revisiting the information several times.  Our brains actually pay LESS attention the first time we experience something new.  You’ll learn noticeably more the second and third time you focus on any topic.

Studies have proven that your focused learning sessions should be between 30 and 90 minutes.  Anything less is not enough to solidify the information, and more is too much for the brain to retain.

I strongly suggest that you make an ‘Appointment with Yourself’ for your learning sessions.  This means you time block a specific time to do the work, you turn off all distractions (just as you would if you had an appointment with anyone else), and you concentrate 100% of your energy on learning the topic at hand.

Another important learning concept is to go deep vs. wide.  Concentrate on thoroughly learning one subject, rather than trying to learn a little bit about a wide range of disconnected topics.  This just causes confusions and you won’t retain ANYTHING, so what’s the point?

Avoid subjecting your brain to all kinds of non-purposeful, unimportant information.  This actually stunts the learning process, and your ability to retain anything, which is obviously counter-productive, and can cause you to quit trying.

Having a purpose to your learning is important!  Ask yourself, “What is the end goal for me learning this information?”  And be as specific as possible.  For example, why should you care about the “learning pyramid”?

“To make more money,” is a lousy answer because it is completely disconnected.  Here’s a good answer:

“By understanding the process of learning better, I’ll be able to make better use of my time, learn more things faster, put those things into action, improve my skills, and thereby serve my clients better.  This will improve my overall job satisfaction, and ultimately, I’ll make more money.”

When you have a clear focus for learning, your brain will filter out distractions from the constant bombardment of useless information that is constantly swirling around every one of us.  Without a clear focus, it won’t.

You’ll need to decide what to focus on, and this may be a new skill in itself that you need to develop.  That’s because our school system has inadvertently trained us NOT to have a natural curiosity about things.  You were told what to study and what was going to be on the test.  The goal was to provide the correct answers to already-known solutions, as opposed to discovering anything new.

You need to stoke your natural childlike curiosity that is stored deep inside you!  Start questioning everything.  Stop looking for the quick one-word answers and instead seek out a deeper understanding.

If you want to differentiate yourself as a talented, deeply knowledgeable, highly skilled REALTOR®, devote yourself to a course of continuous learning.

If you’ve lost your spark for learning, the most important thing you can do in your life is to get it back, my friend.  The best time to do that might have been twenty years ago.  The second best time?

Now.

Don’t wait another five years, look back, and say to yourself, “I wish I had started five years ago.”

—Coach Ted

I teach GOOD REALTORS® how to become GREAT REALTORS®, with a simple, step-by-step, logical, easy-to-follow, easy-to-implement, inspirational program that requires zero interpretation.

Ted Greenhough
Agent Skills Real Estate Training
Knowledge + Action = Skill

Have you ever gone to a lecture, been inspired, vowed to implement some of the strategies, never got around to it, forgot everything you learned, and changed absolutely nothing?

We all have.

Our crazy distraction-filled world doesn’t help.  I think it’s alarming how the ability to concentrate is becoming a rare skill.

We’ve become ridiculously lazy.  Why bother learning anything when we can instantly Google the answer?

But here’s the thing.  Google can give you instant answers to simple questions, but it cannot give you the deep knowledge that is required to build SKILL.

You’ll never differentiate yourself as a talented, deeply knowledgeable, highly skilled REALTOR®, until you start DOING, as opposed to LISTENING or READING.

The “learning pyramid,” developed by the National Training Laboratory, suggests that students only retain about 10% of what they learn from textbooks, but they retain about 90% of what they learn through teaching others.  The exact percentages are debatable due to numerous variables, but there is little doubt that the order of the pyramid from top to bottom is highly accurate.

Every teacher will agree that contemplating how to help others understand a concept is the best way to improve one’s understanding of the subject.

I can personally attest to this!

As an individual agent, I earned in the range of $590K-$865K throughout my Real Estate career, which most would regard as being highly successful.

Confession time:  I did this mostly by instinct and seat-of-the-pants decision making.  Yes, I did certain things that turned out to be massively helpful, but I made most of the decisions to do those things by pure fluke.  Here’s my decision-making process early on in my career:

“Well, I’ve got nothing else to do, so I guess I’ll try doing this.”

It’s a fluke that I happened to choose to do the right things.  But here’s the key point:

I DID things.  That’s how I learned.  I didn’t just sit around and listen to others or read about what to do.  I DID.  Yes, I listened and read, but then I took action.

Did I make mistakes?

Hundreds of them!  That’s an important part of the process of learning.  You do things, you make mistakes, you make adjustments, and you become SKILLED.

Now, in my new career as a coach and trainer, I’m discovering something I never expected:

I’m elevating my skill level far beyond what it ever was before!

By teaching others, I have to learn concepts far more thoroughly than my previous “seat-of-the-pants” knowledge.  The practice of teaching concepts to others is forcing me to learn and retain information at a much deeper level than I ever had before.

This is exciting for me, as I transform my life from REALTOR® to educator.

And this is guiding my actions as I work towards the development of my online course.  I’ve had the entire first section (half a book) written for a while now.  But that’s just the first step.  I don’t want my course to be just another “regurgitation of information”, to be briefly experienced and forgotten.

My challenge is to design the course so that it is interactive and encourages my students to take action on the concepts.  That is how they will become SKILLED.

I will never be satisfied to simply sell my course to a thousand REALTORS®.  I have a far more lofty goal that that:

I want each one of my students to put the ideas into practice and achieve true success.

Truly wanting my clients to achieve success is the same attitude I had in my Real Estate career, and I’m still the same person, after all.

Here’s the key lesson for you from this post:

If you truly want to learn a new skill, put it into practice.  DO it.

Beyond that, try to teach the new skill to someone else.  This could be as simple as discussing a new concept with your spouse.

You may trip over your words at first.  That’s part of the process.  If you can’t clearly explain the concept to someone else, it means you don’t know it well enough.  Go back, re-read, study, practice, and try again.

Is it a struggle?   Yes, indeed!

You need to accept that learning anything new is a struggle.  Your brain is literally building new neuro-transmitters and connections.  Just like a physical workout, your mental workout can be painful.

To train your brain, accept the pain.

That’s life, folks.  If you’ve got lofty goals, you don’t reach them by sitting around day-dreaming.  You DO what you need to DO, including learning new skills.

How do I know learning is a painful experience?  Because I’m doing it right now!  You think I’m pulling all this stuff straight out of my brain?  Ha!

Sure, it’s painful, but it’s also immensely rewarding.

I’m thoroughly intrigued by what I’m currently learning about learning, so watch for more tips on how to learn more effectively, coming next week!

—Coach Ted

I teach GOOD REALTORS® how to become GREAT REALTORS®, with a simple, step-by-step, logical, easy-to-follow, easy-to-implement, inspirational program that requires zero interpretation.

Ted Greenhough
Agent Skills Real Estate Training
Knowledge + Action = Skill