A couple questions & answers on how I approach the process of learning. I'll try to do more of these if it's of value to anyone. These two questions today comes from Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman

First question is, you've reached a high level of ability slash expertise in a number of fields, martial arts, AI, music, et cetera.

I'm curious to know how you think about the learning process when juggling all of these things.

It takes a huge amount of time and dedication to master any 1 of these skills?

Where do you draw the line between balance and obsession?

Put another way, how deeply do you immerse yourself when learning something?

How do you schedule your day for work slash learning?

Is it appropriate to spend nearly every waking hour learning and developing a skill?

Do you try to learn a number of things at once or narrow your focus to 1 thing?

So first of all, obviously I have not achieved mastery in any of these things.

And I should also say that I don't think I've figured out the art of learning very much, but I can give my 2 cents of the way I see it.

So 1 passion I think is exceptionally important for learning anything.

And if I look back at my life, I certainly have spent days and weeks and months at a time really obsessed with things.

Now to me, that's not necessarily useful on the long journey of learning a skill from the beginner to mastery.

What has been useful to me, and if I have a philosophy on it, it's probably centered around the rigor of discipline.

So making sure that every single day you do a minimum amount of that particular thing, and you do it for weeks, months, years.

And Also, the way to remove motivation from the picture is to build a habit.

When I'm first learning something, I try to set the goal of doing a minimum of 2 hours a day of that thing for a year to build the foundation.

It's so easy to kinda skip out on a few days, and then days becomes weeks, and weeks become months, and you lose completely that initial hook that pulls you into the depth of the particular topic.

So I really wanna be a stickler of putting in, I would say 1 to 2 hours, but if I look at my life, successful things like music have been at least 2 hours a day for a year to build the foundation.

Then looking out farther into, let's say a 5 year range, you can lower that to about 1 hour a day.

And that's to build the, what I would think of as expertise.

I think you can get pretty good at something in 5 years if you just do it 1 hour a day.

I don't know if this is true for everyone, but I think for me, not even an hour, just 10 minutes a day, it's been really surprising how good I can get at a bunch of little things from just doing every single day, not even 10 minutes, like 1 minute a day.

Because it rarely becomes a 1 minute thing.

It usually blows up into a thing that takes an hour.

But if you just set a hard lower limit and make sure you do it every single day, no matter what, no matter where you are, you end up forming this habit and there's an accumulation effect of skill that's just fascinating.

So that's 5 years, and I think at that point, the skill is solidified nicely.

I don't think it's mastery by any means, but there's a level of expertise that seems to persist for a long period of time.

What I found with music for me, not singing, just music, I haven't actually practiced singing, I suck at singing, but the music part, I think I've achieved a sort of minimal kind of understanding, and at this point, just even 10 minutes a day for the rest of your life is 1 way to, I think, take further and further steps into mastery.

But to increase the skill over time, I think a very minimum amount of time, but every single day is good.

The other magic thing about it is you can, at this point, at least for me, take off months at a time, and when you return to it, you'll pick up almost right where you started.

I don't think you wanna overdo it, but I think after you put in that first few years of every single day of an hour or 2, there's something about the mind that's kinda solidified in there.

You know, I've certainly had months where I don't play guitar at all, and I return to it, maybe it'll take a day or 2 and you're right back into it.

But still, if you really wanna grow, you wanna put in every single day.

For me, 20 minutes is just the right minimal amount to give me time to get pulled into the task fully, get immersed fully, enough to where I can pick up little tidbits of new stuff, new ideas that kind of get going, ready for the next day.

For me, there's always a kind of fascinating dance here between passion and discipline.

I think passion goes up and down, and that's where discipline is essential to keep carrying you forward, to keep doing the thing every day.

And I'm not a big believer of resting and then returning to the task.

I'm a bigger believer in when you don't really want to do it, still grinding it out, and days later, your passion for the thing will return.

People are different, but that's how I am.

Because the greater danger for me is when you take a break, when you rest, is you're going to destroy the habit that you've built.

And once you destroy the habit, it's too easy to never return to the pursuit of expertise that you were on for many years before.

Also, a related question was asked, I loved your video on recipe for success in AI.

Do you have any advice for dealing with frustration slash difficulty in making progress?

I'm learning high school math right now with a proof-based course, and sometimes it gets hard.

Do you have any advice for pushing past frustration and dead ends?

I personally think that struggle is a sign that you're on the right path.

So all the things in my life that I have gotten the most meaning from learning, I've struggled through it.

I think the biggest reward at the lowest level of your brain, like the things you actually remember, and just the self-satisfaction and happiness you feel about life is when something is really hard, but you stick to it, and then you eventually succeed.

That locks in the lessons into your brain that makes you feel good about yourself, that gives you more confidence for keep doing that in the future.

Also, I think this is helpful for a bunch of people, like David Goggins.

It's not as helpful to me, but I'll just give it to you because I've tried it and it doesn't really work for me.

But a little mind hack, which is imagining that you're kind of a competition with everybody else in the world.

And so if something is difficult for you, imagine that it's probably going to be difficult for a lot of people, and if you just stick by it, you're going to leave all those people behind you, and eventually, if you keep doing it long enough, you'll be the best person in the world at it.

So kind of seeing struggle as a sign that most people would be quitting at this point, and it gives you motivation that like, struggle is a sign that you're on the path towards being number 1.

If you enjoy the kind of idea of you being at that top tier of excellence in a thing, then that kind of mind hack can help.

I personally don't often like to think in that way, especially in competition with others.

I just like the art itself, So I enjoy the idea of pursuing mastery, not in comparison to others, but just for myself.

So in that sense, that mind hack doesn't really work for me.

I kind of tend to believe that If I embrace the grind of habit of everyday doing something that months from now, years from now, as I've had many times in my life, I will experience these moments, these long periods of flow of truly enjoying the process of practicing that thing.

So for me, music now that I've achieved the level that I've achieved on my own personal, quiet, private moments, I can truly enjoy feeling the music I'm creating on the guitar, playing Jimi Hendrix, playing Stevie Ray Vaughan, improvising different blues, or even just like much simpler songs, like these crying melodic songs of Eric Clapton, Wonderful Tonight, or even just strumming in a way where I can also sing.

Just, it allows me to enjoy both the musicality and the deep meaning and the words and all that kind of stuff.

And that was only possible because I put in that time in the early years of the foundation that I built.

If you form the habit, if you do the thing every single day, eventually you'll get to a set of activities that you enjoy partaking that are a source of a lot of meaning and happiness in your life.

So you could think of it as a mind hack, which is believing that discipline eventually leads to a meaningful life.


Speaker 0: First question is, you've reached a high level of ability slash expertise in a number of fields, martial arts, AI, music, et cetera. I'm curious to know how you think about the learning process when juggling all of these things. It takes a huge amount of time and dedication to master any 1 of these skills? Where do you draw the line between balance and obsession? Put another way, how deeply do you immerse yourself when learning something?

How do you schedule your day for work slash learning? Is it appropriate to spend nearly every waking hour learning and developing a skill? Do you try to learn a number of things at once or narrow your focus to 1 thing? So first of all, obviously I have not achieved mastery in any of these things. And I should also say that I don't think I've figured out the art of learning very much, but I can give my 2 cents of the way I see it.

So 1 passion I think is exceptionally important for learning anything. And if I look back at my life, I certainly have spent days and weeks and months at a time really obsessed with things. Now to me, that's not necessarily useful on the long journey of learning a skill from the beginner to mastery. What has been useful to me, and if I have a philosophy on it, it's probably centered around the rigor of discipline. So making sure that every single day you do a minimum amount of that particular thing, and you do it for weeks, months, years.

And Also, the way to remove motivation from the picture is to build a habit. When I'm first learning something, I try to set the goal of doing a minimum of 2 hours a day of that thing for a year to build the foundation. So that first year is really important. It's so easy to kinda skip out on a few days, and then days becomes weeks, and weeks become months, and you lose completely that initial hook that pulls you into the depth of the particular topic. So I really wanna be a stickler of putting in, I would say 1 to 2 hours, but if I look at my life, successful things like music have been at least 2 hours a day for a year to build the foundation.

Then looking out farther into, let's say a 5 year range, you can lower that to about 1 hour a day. And that's to build the, what I would think of as expertise. I think you can get pretty good at something in 5 years if you just do it 1 hour a day. I don't know if this is true for everyone, but I think for me, not even an hour, just 10 minutes a day, it's been really surprising how good I can get at a bunch of little things from just doing every single day, not even 10 minutes, like 1 minute a day. Because it rarely becomes a 1 minute thing.

It usually blows up into a thing that takes an hour. But if you just set a hard lower limit and make sure you do it every single day, no matter what, no matter where you are, you end up forming this habit and there's an accumulation effect of skill that's just fascinating. So that's 5 years, and I think at that point, the skill is solidified nicely. I don't think it's mastery by any means, but there's a level of expertise that seems to persist for a long period of time. What I found with music for me, not singing, just music, I haven't actually practiced singing, I suck at singing, but the music part, I think I've achieved a sort of minimal kind of understanding, and at this point, just even 10 minutes a day for the rest of your life is 1 way to, I think, take further and further steps into mastery.

Again, I think mastery is impossible. But to increase the skill over time, I think a very minimum amount of time, but every single day is good. The other magic thing about it is you can, at this point, at least for me, take off months at a time, and when you return to it, you'll pick up almost right where you started. I don't think you wanna overdo it, but I think after you put in that first few years of every single day of an hour or 2, there's something about the mind that's kinda solidified in there. You know, I've certainly had months where I don't play guitar at all, and I return to it, maybe it'll take a day or 2 and you're right back into it.

But still, if you really wanna grow, you wanna put in every single day. For me, 20 minutes is just the right minimal amount to give me time to get pulled into the task fully, get immersed fully, enough to where I can pick up little tidbits of new stuff, new ideas that kind of get going, ready for the next day. For me, there's always a kind of fascinating dance here between passion and discipline. I think passion goes up and down, and that's where discipline is essential to keep carrying you forward, to keep doing the thing every day. And I'm not a big believer of resting and then returning to the task.

I'm a bigger believer in when you don't really want to do it, still grinding it out, and days later, your passion for the thing will return. People are different, but that's how I am. Because the greater danger for me is when you take a break, when you rest, is you're going to destroy the habit that you've built. And once you destroy the habit, it's too easy to never return to the pursuit of expertise that you were on for many years before. Also, a related question was asked, I loved your video on recipe for success in AI.

Do you have any advice for dealing with frustration slash difficulty in making progress? I'm learning high school math right now with a proof-based course, and sometimes it gets hard. I feel like crying. Do you have any advice for pushing past frustration and dead ends? Thanks.

I personally think that struggle is a sign that you're on the right path. So all the things in my life that I have gotten the most meaning from learning, I've struggled through it. I think the biggest reward at the lowest level of your brain, like the things you actually remember, and just the self-satisfaction and happiness you feel about life is when something is really hard, but you stick to it, and then you eventually succeed. That locks in the lessons into your brain that makes you feel good about yourself, that gives you more confidence for keep doing that in the future. Also, I think this is helpful for a bunch of people, like David Goggins.

It's not as helpful to me, but I'll just give it to you because I've tried it and it doesn't really work for me. But a little mind hack, which is imagining that you're kind of a competition with everybody else in the world. And so if something is difficult for you, imagine that it's probably going to be difficult for a lot of people, and if you just stick by it, you're going to leave all those people behind you, and eventually, if you keep doing it long enough, you'll be the best person in the world at it. So kind of seeing struggle as a sign that most people would be quitting at this point, and it gives you motivation that like, struggle is a sign that you're on the path towards being number 1. If you enjoy the kind of idea of you being at that top tier of excellence in a thing, then that kind of mind hack can help.

I personally don't often like to think in that way, especially in competition with others. I just like the art itself, So I enjoy the idea of pursuing mastery, not in comparison to others, but just for myself. So in that sense, that mind hack doesn't really work for me. I kind of tend to believe that If I embrace the grind of habit of everyday doing something that months from now, years from now, as I've had many times in my life, I will experience these moments, these long periods of flow of truly enjoying the process of practicing that thing. So for me, music now that I've achieved the level that I've achieved on my own personal, quiet, private moments, I can truly enjoy feeling the music I'm creating on the guitar, playing Jimi Hendrix, playing Stevie Ray Vaughan, improvising different blues, or even just like much simpler songs, like these crying melodic songs of Eric Clapton, Wonderful Tonight, or even just strumming in a way where I can also sing.

Just, it allows me to enjoy both the musicality and the deep meaning and the words and all that kind of stuff. And that was only possible because I put in that time in the early years of the foundation that I built. It allows you to enjoy life. And I believe in that. If you form the habit, if you do the thing every single day, eventually you'll get to a set of activities that you enjoy partaking that are a source of a lot of meaning and happiness in your life.

So you could think of it as a mind hack, which is believing that discipline eventually leads to a meaningful life. Hope that answers the question. Good luck. You

See all Lex Fridman transcripts on Youtube

How to learn and master a new skill