0:02 I grew up a poor kid in Mumbai who
0:04 struggled in school, who struggled with
0:07 learning. Today I am an MIT grad, former
0:10 CEO and board adviser to billion-dollar
0:12 companies. And it's not because I'm
0:14 smarter or read more, but because I
0:17 learn how to learn faster than everyone
0:19 around me. And here's the truth.
0:22 Intelligence is a commodity in the world
0:24 of AI today. Any skill advantage you
0:29 have is temporary. The only real edge is
0:31 how you learn and how fast you can stay
0:34 ahead. So, in this video, I'm not going
0:36 to give you any hacks. I'll share with
0:39 you how our brains actually work and
0:41 show you a learning system that puts you
0:44 in the top 1% even if you've always felt
0:47 like a slow learner. But first, you need
0:51 to understand why 99% of people fail at
0:53 learning. Your brain weighs only three
0:57 lbs but it burns up to 20% of your
1:00 body's total fuel. One of its hungriest
1:03 part is your prefrontal cortex. This is
1:06 the uh CEO function of your brain. Every
1:09 new theory, every new idea you cram into
1:12 that region spikes up the demand for
1:14 glucose and oxygen. And that's
1:17 metabolically very expensive. This
1:21 region is your tiny cognitive bowl. 99%
1:23 of the learners try to learn by jamming
1:26 and cramming. Now, if you dump a gallon
1:29 of theory into a 4 oz bowl, how much do
1:32 you think it will retain? Well, exactly
1:34 4 oz of it, right? And it's a trap that
1:38 has an almost 100% failure rate. Today's
1:40 AI can run millions of processes in
1:43 parallel, but our human brain cannot do
1:46 that. We're built for serial learning,
1:49 serial processing, one transfer at a
1:52 time. So give yourself and your brain a
1:54 break. Now the next thing you have to
1:55 understand if you want to learn like the
1:58 top 1% is that your brain is lying to
2:01 you. Carnegie Melon University tested an
2:03 adaptive learning system for its
2:06 students. The material would get
2:08 increasingly difficult based on the
2:10 students prior success. Now of course
2:13 students at CMU totally hated it but
2:16 they ended up learning twice as much as
2:18 those who took the standard test. And
2:21 that's the point we miss. Sometimes we
2:24 feel friction and we assume failure.
2:27 Neuroscience calls it the generation
2:29 effect. The harder you work to generate
2:32 the answer, the deeper it's wired in
2:36 your brain. 99% of us use AI as a
2:39 crutch, not as a coach. Your brain
2:42 doesn't hate struggle. It hungers for
2:45 it. The real question is how do you feed
2:48 it? Well, for that we have to build a
2:50 better learning system. And I call it
2:53 the 3C protocol. Compress, compile, and
2:56 consolidate. Each step accelerates your
2:59 learning machine. And when you fire all
3:01 three of them, you will break out of the
3:04 orbit of the ordinary. So, let's dive
3:06 into the first C, compress. The best way
3:08 to learn that is from one of the best
3:11 chess players. If you watch Magnus
3:13 Carlson sitting down at the chessboard,
3:16 he's not thinking about any specific
3:19 move. What's happening in his brain is
3:22 really fascinating. Cognitive studies on
3:24 chess grandmasters estimate that they
3:28 can internalize 50,000 or even 100,000
3:30 patterns on the chessboard. But they're
3:33 not memorizing. They compress what they
3:35 have learned into patterns that their
3:37 brain can actually handle. Now, why do
3:38 they have to do that? Because recent
3:40 research shows that our brain can only
3:44 juggle about four independent ideas at a
3:46 time. Any more than that and it drops
3:49 the ball. So the first C is compress and
3:52 it's not about memorizing more. It is
3:55 about reducing many ideas into fewer
3:57 stronger chunks and patterns that your
4:00 brain can carry. So how do you actually
4:02 compress? The first step is selection.
4:05 Here's an example. When I want to learn
4:08 from a book, I first compress. I ask
4:10 what's the 20% of the book that I must
4:13 read that will give me 80% of the
4:15 benefit. Most books are just about one
4:17 single idea. So I read only selective
4:19 chapters. Sometimes I would read them
4:22 more than once until it sinks in. That
4:25 is selection. Always pick the 20% that
4:29 matters. Then comes association. A paper
4:32 in Science magazine showed that you
4:34 can't learn something new until you
4:36 connect it to something you already
4:39 know. That's the secret behind mastering
4:41 how you learn. You have to ask, where
4:44 have I seen this idea before? How does
4:46 it connect to something I already know?
4:48 This is why Magnus Carlson wins, right?
4:52 Because he connects a new move to an old
4:55 pattern. He sees the harmony. Then comes
4:57 chunking. This is the third step. You
4:59 take these ideas and compress them into
5:01 a simple model. It could be anything. A
5:04 drawing, a short summary, a metaphor you
5:08 can remember, a song in your head. 99%
5:11 of us get overloaded. But the top 1%
5:14 compress before they consume. But the
5:16 next C is about how you cut down the
5:19 tree, compile. A lot of you might have
5:21 watched a movie called Rainman, and it
5:24 was actually based on a real person. His
5:27 name was Kim Peak. Kim grew up in the
5:30 Midwest. He was a savant, kind of like
5:32 walking, talking Google. He could
5:35 reportedly recall every word of any of
5:38 the 12,000 books he had read. And he
5:40 could also add events tied to that day.
5:42 He would tell you exactly what happened
5:44 that day. And his unique abilities were
5:47 linked to his brain's unusual design.
5:49 His brain scans found that the bridge
5:52 between his brain's hemispheres was
5:54 missing completely from birth. But
5:56 here's the part that broke my heart.
6:00 That uniqueness also made his daily life
6:02 very difficult to navigate. His father
6:04 would have to take care of his basic
6:07 needs that you and I take for granted.
6:10 He lived with his father until he passed
6:13 away at 58. Never got married. Kim had
6:16 these incredible gifts, but he had
6:18 difficulty mastering simple chores and
6:21 social cues. It tells you that memory
6:24 alone is not mastery. You can store the
6:27 entire world and still struggle to live
6:31 in it. That's Kim's tragedy. And this is
6:34 the 99% trap. We focus on the goal of
6:36 hoarding information and mistake
6:39 consumption for learning. And you need
6:41 three things to do that. The timer, the
6:44 test, and the tools. The timer is about
6:47 managing your learning cadence. This is
6:50 called the ultradian cycle. Your brain
6:52 operates in 90-minute cycles. then it
6:54 needs to rest. So you get about 90
6:56 minutes of peak focus and then your
7:00 brain must rest for at least about 20
7:02 minutes. So here's something actionable.
7:04 Look at your weekly calendar. Do you
7:07 have one or two blocks of deep work? If
7:11 yes, then use this timer. 90 minutes of
7:14 deep work plus 20 minutes of rest. Have
7:16 one or two such blocks per week and
7:19 protect them ruthlessly. This is how
7:21 you're going to learn fast. Second, the
7:25 test. Most people learn, learn, learn
7:28 for 6 weeks, for 6 months and then there
7:30 is a big test and a big presentation at
7:32 the end. This is a giant waste of time.
7:34 This is one of the biggest mistakes we
7:36 make in learning. You know, software
7:38 engineers talk about agile development
7:41 all day long. Everything is a twoe
7:42 sprint. In fact, in today's AI
7:45 companies, everything is a single day
7:47 sprint. So, why not apply the same
7:48 concept to learning? Build a different
7:52 loop. Learn, test, learn, test, learn,
7:55 test. So, pick a concept, learn it, and
7:58 then test. Then pick another concept.
8:00 And how do you test? That's where the
8:02 tools come into play. There are three
8:04 that are my favorite. Tool number one,
8:07 slow burn. If you're learning something
8:10 physical, like playing a guitar, do it
8:14 at an excruciatingly slow pace and do it
8:16 a lot of times. But don't turn off your
8:19 brain because slow is boring. Focus on
8:22 every micro move. The slower you play,
8:25 the faster you learn. Tool number two,
8:28 immersion. Every musician will tell you
8:31 this. No matter how you practice and
8:33 rehearse with the band, the moment you
8:35 start playing on stage, everything goes
8:38 haywire. So, you must test in the arena.
8:40 Practicing a speech in front of a mirror
8:43 is a good start. But practicing it in
8:44 front of real people, that's even
8:47 better. And the third tool, teach to
8:49 learn. Now, this is the boss tool. I do
8:51 this all the time. Once I learn
8:54 something, I teach it to someone.
8:57 Sometimes I even lecture the wall as if
8:59 I'm giving a TED talk because I'm
9:02 learning, I'm internalizing, I'm
9:04 connecting, I'm refraraming. And I would
9:06 do it a few times and try different
9:10 angles until I feel I have learned it.
9:12 Well, we compress the map. We compile
9:14 the work. Now comes the final C. you
9:17 have to consolidate it to retain what
9:19 you've just learned forever. If time was
9:21 money and you wanted to invest it in
9:24 learning, then relying on stickies and
9:26 flashcards will give you short-term
9:29 gains but terrible long-term returns.
9:31 And the most important insight is this.
9:34 Learning is a two-stage process. Stage
9:37 one is focus. You're sending the request
9:39 to your brain to rewire. But stage two
9:42 is even more important. Rest. This is
9:45 where the actual consolidation happens.
9:47 So you've got to leave some room for it.
9:49 You have to manage your rest as much as
9:52 you manage your work both at the micro
9:54 and macro level. So think about the
9:56 learning cycle in terms of work rest
9:59 work rest work rest. First on the micro
10:02 level inside your 90minute block you
10:05 have to think about taking frequent 10
10:08 20 second breaks. Research shows that
10:10 after some heavy learning, if you pause
10:13 for just 10 seconds, your brain replays
10:15 the information you just learned at 10
10:18 to 20 times the speed. And it might fire
10:20 that sequence 20 times over. So you're
10:23 literally getting 20 free reps in your
10:26 brain just by taking a break. And on the
10:28 macro level, we're talking about the
10:31 ultradian cycle of 90 minutes of work
10:33 and 20 minutes of rest again. And what
10:35 you do in those 20 minutes is also
10:38 important. I for one do NSDR which is
10:41 non-sleep deep rest in Sanskrit is
10:44 called yoga nindra which literally means
10:47 the rest that helps you connect. So what
10:49 do you have to do during that 20 minute
10:52 NSDR period? Absolutely nothing. For
10:56 instance, I just lie down or sit, close
10:58 my eyes for 15 minutes, 20 minutes and
11:00 do nothing. And sometimes I would go for
11:02 a leisurely walk if I can. But the point
11:04 is not to distract yourself and do
11:07 nothing. And the third most macro thing
11:10 is a good night's sleep. There is a lot
11:11 of research that suggests that when
11:14 we're sleeping, our brain replays the
11:17 entire thing we learn in reverse. So
11:19 these three rests are super important.
11:21 You know, in this postindustrial
11:24 technological age, we've forgotten what
11:26 farmers have always intuitively known.
11:29 You can't keep plowing the field every
11:31 day of the year. The soil, the ground,
11:34 it must rest to regain its fertility.
11:36 And that's the most important lesson. I
11:38 struggled with learning when I was
11:40 growing up. I failed every single course
11:42 in college. Couldn't focus, couldn't
11:45 retain anything. But these techniques,
11:48 they changed my life and they might work
11:50 for you too. Remember three things.
11:53 First, stop racing other people. There
11:54 will always be someone who learns
11:57 faster. So what? There is someone faster
12:00 than them. That loop never ends. Your
12:03 only competition is you from yesterday.
12:06 Second, get out of your head. You cannot
12:08 be the performer and the critic at the
12:11 same time. While you're learning, be the
12:14 performer, not the critic. And finally,
12:16 give yourself time. Learning is like an
12:20 ocean. It has its rhythm. It es flows.
12:23 Honor that cycle. With enough time,
12:26 there is nothing you can't learn and
12:29 nothing you can't become.
12:31 If you like this video, please
