New Years Skills, Not Resolutions
You don't have to tell everyone you don't watch the Super Bowl.
There’s a segment of society that mocks New Years Resolutions, which I personally don’t make because there is a better way. Those people remind me of the I Don’t Watch The Superbowl crowd. Cool. Want a cookie? Anyway, this method works much better than hating on people who want to improve but maybe never learned how to.
It takes about a year to get good enough (and why that’s enough).
Reply guys can argue about total hours and perfect practice and whatever they picked up from an airport book. I don’t care. Based on real life, I’ve learned it takes about a year to become competent in a new skill.
Not great. Not excellent. Competent.
You’ll see later why this is what we are going for.
One Skill a Year, Compounded Over 3 years.
Each year (and sometimes this stretches out to 18 months or two full years, it depends) I set out to learn a new skill. Some I’ve posted publicly and others were kept private due to the nature of the work. But I’ve followed this model pretty strictly for about 20 years.
This is totally up to you what you decide. There has to be a level of enjoyment or else you won’t stick to it. As is often the best advice you can give yourself: Do what you want, not what you believe you should want. (Self-awareness is a psychological skill you’ll need to learn.)
Generally speaking there are some skills everyone should have. Physical fitness would be one. Yes, break that down into skills.
Instead of saying, “I’m going to go the gym,” which doesn’t mean much, you’d say you want to learn the skill of weightlifting. That gives you clarity and focus. Pick up a few books on lifting (people seem to like Starting Strength a lot) and start your way up the learning curve.
About two years ago I decided to start doing more endurance style stuff. Not to race, it was totally an issue of heart health and dealing with the inventible aerobic decline that arises with age. (Read more here.)
I had to learn about what a heart rate monitor was and how it was used and how to monitor stuff. It takes time and practice to learn what a “heart rate zone” is and how to get and hold a zone.
What did I do to learn this? Picked up a few books, read the ones I liked, and let Amazon’s algorithm keep recommending me new titles.
Then as you see terms, run some Google searches. Google sucks these days for nearly all subjects except apolitical and technical ones. G still gets you good information when you use “terms of art” to search.
Depending on your age and stage of life, your interests will vary.
If I were a young man who wanted secular “success,” I’d set out to master these skills:
Public speaking.
Brand Building / Social Media.
Cash flow / accounting.
Excel.
E-Commerce.
Psychology of Business.
Emotional empathy / reading people / soft skills of persuasion.
Public speaking is the King Kong of everything.
Skills Compound.
Scott Adams talks about this: “Every new skill you learn doubles your chance of success.”
One skill doesn’t do you much. What if you speak well but don’t have anything interesting to say? But what if you understand finance and know how to “talk your book.” Watch the Warren Buffett video above.
Andrew and Tristan Tate, now world famous, are kickboxers who know how to talk, dress, and perform. There are lots of kickboxers and MMA pros. How many knew how to build a brand? It isn’t enough to be world class in one area. You need to be good in overlapping areas.
Gordan Ryan is another example. There have been many great BJJ champions (tho he’s clearly the goat) who weren’t able to make a living doing this stuff. Gordan understands the pro wrestling / theatrical aspect of showmanship. He knows Reddit dorks are going to be obsessed with hating him, and he understands that’s beneficial.
Gordan Ryan recently ran into some troubles with his e-commerce store. Even the goat needs general business understanding or the soft skills to deal with a biz partner.
Public speaking + great skill + general biz = unlimited upside.
How do you learn new skills?
If you wanted your kids to learn a second language, you’d hire them a tutor, set aside time each week, and have them do worksheets.
But when it comes to us, we act like it’s a huge freaking mystery to learn.
You can hire someone to help you, self-study via YouTube, or do a hybrid. But it’s truly not a mystery. There are people who make a living teaching you anything you could imagine, and for an hourly rate that’s usually reasonable.
Once I wanted to learn storytelling. I went to seminars, bought books, and practiced practiced practiced. Got over the fear of embarrassment. Kept going. Then I focused on “going to somebody to nobody” because the rise towards fame was something I didn’t want.
“Drillers are killers.”
I watched a documentary on the Grateful Dead. Gerry Garcia’s daughter talked about how he’d spend hours practicing his scales.
Even if you don’t want to be world class, you need to drill the basics over and over. If you want to learn how to do storytelling, you should be writing out material. If you want to learn public speaking, you need to be standing in front of a mirror.
In one year you’ll be totally unrecognizable.
The fear of looking stupid.
People will make up reasons for why they can’t do something. Some reasons are valid. I’m not going to set out to learn quadratic equations (tho maybe I could learn them if I did math for a year). That would be a lot of work for not much reward.
What stops most people is the fear of looking stupid. If you can get over this fear, there’s not much that can stop you.
Consider one example of how this fear isn’t even real.
When young men and women tell me they want to learn how to be more self-confident, I tell them to practice speaking in front of a mirror. (Almost none of them will do that.)
“Feels weird man.”
No one is watching you.
You still feel stupid.
Why?
The voices are in your head, put there by society, and you need to get over them.
You will eventually, once you venture out into the real world, “bomb a set,” so to speak. Getting over that takes a different skill. That’s hard. I won’t lie.
If you won’t even practice by yourself, you needn’t worry about such challenges.
You can’t look stupid when you’re by yourself.
Rabbit Holes and the 5 Book Rule
I call this the “5 book method,” but probably others reached a similar realization.
If you read five books in any genre, you’re set.
You’re not an expert.
The goal isn’t expertise.
The goal is to acquire a skill, then move onto a new skill, because you’re more focusing on the compounding effect of skill rather than achieving an arbitrary view of “mastery.”
You also become a well-rounded person and good conversationalist by knowing “a little about a lot.” Life becomes more interesting and understandable after you’ve gone through 250-500 books.
That’s how to have the most impactful 2023.
Instead of worrying about goals or resolutions, focus on learning and building a new skill.
If you don’t know how to learn, then maybe that’s where you start.
“Mike how do I know what books to read?”
That’s easy. Amazon’s algorithm will recommended them. Sometimes people “tell on themselves” by asking questions.
If you’re reading, you already know how this works.
Go on YouTube and type in “How to ____.”
Or “Book reviews on ____.”
Physically it’s easy, once you get over the fear of looking stupid when you’re all by yourself and there is no one to judge you except for the voices that were implanted in your head and that you’d be better off not listening to.
Happy New Year!
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47 years old and I started both BJJ and Spanish this year.
Oh, and became a dad for the first time.
I'm so glad you made the move over here, Mike. Becoming a writer on Substack was the best decision I made in 2022 (and I made some good ones!). Your mindset skills have helped me to be where I am today, which is a very good place. I hope you stay awhile. I thank you sincerely for being just exactly the beautifully complicated human that you are!