PNTV: A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley (#241)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today, another great book, A Mind for Numbers. A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley. Subtitled how to excel at math and science, even if you flunked algebra. Now, although the book is ostensibly about math and science, it's really about learning in general. It's a great book tapping into the wisdom of neuroscience and research done in education, helping us develop our ability to optimize and actualize. Really enjoyed it. Philosopher's Note, Bunch of big ideas. I was turned on to this book from Cal Newport. So good they can't ignore you. I'm pretty sure that's where I found that. I'm featuring that book soon. But for now, let's look at five of my favorite big ideas. The first one is the two modes of thinking that enable us to learn effectively. Two different modes, one focused and two diffuse. So focused mode and diffuse mode. Focused mode is pretty straightforward, right? It is when you are working with a good amount of diligence and attention to what you're up to. It's kind of like if you're mountain climbing. Focus, focused mode is when you're actually climbing the mountain. Now, diffuse mode is more like your base camp, right? So if we are climbing up this mountain, we want to summit and put our little flag up there, right? We've got a base camp here where we set up shop, we make sure we're all in order, and then we cruise up, we set up another base camp, we cruise up, we set up another base camp, etc. So our focus mode is the actual mountain climbing. Our diffuse mode are these little base camps. It's the time we turn our brains off. You can't be on all the time. You can't be focused all the time. You need to allow your subconscious mind your diffuse mode of thinking to help you solve problems. She has a bunch of biographical sketches of great mathematicians and scientists and talking about how they use their diffuse mode thinking to solve extraordinary challenges. It's kind of like what we talk about with Jim Lore, right? Making waves where you're on and then you're off. You're on and then you're off. We talk about a lot of intense things in these videos, but you can't be always on, you can't be always focused. You have to, as Jim Lohr says, train recovery. You have to make that part of your learning strategy and part of your life strategy. And guess what? The best way that you can enter diffuse mode, what would you think it is? The best way to enter diffuse Mode where you're just shutting your brain off and relaxing. Sleep is the best way you can do it. Your brain is integrating all the ideas you're learning when you're sleeping. And if you're not getting a proper amount of rest, you're not going to learn optimally, period. She has a ton of ideas on how you can prepare for tests and how you can study. And at the end of a list of say 10 different ideas, the last one is sleep. And she says, look, if you didn't get a good night of sleep before your test, none of your other stuff is going to matter because you're not going to perform anywhere near where you could if you don't have that energy. So sleep is a huge way to enter diffuse mode. Hiking, taking a nap, meditating, working out, taking a bath or shower, all these ways of diffusing our attention are great ways to oscillate, great ways to make waves. Those are our two modes of learning. She also talks about working memory and long term memory. We talk about that in the note. I'm not going to talk about that now, but check out the note for more. Here's a good big idea. Procrastipane. So think of procrastination. We all procrastinate on different things to a varying degree. And we tend to procrastinate on the things obviously that we are uncomfortable with, that we want to avoid. But they've done mental imaging studies where they can actually look at our brains and expose us to something that stresses us out, something that we procrastinate about. Then see what our brains do and our brains light up with pain. Procrastipane. Right. In anticipation of doing a certain thing. So just anticipating doing something creates pain in our brains. Amazing aspect of procrastination. But what's fascinating is that when we actually engage in the activity that we avoid and that creates pain in anticipation, when we engage in it, the pain goes away. So people who are freaked out by math or whatever it is you're freaked out by, but for math, the anticipation creates pain. The actual doing of the math doesn't. It's a fascinating thing to keep in mind. It's the anticipation of it that's creating the pain. When you actually just step forward and do it, you're not going to feel that pain in your brain the same way. Procrastina pain only in the anticipation. Super cool. Third, big idea. P versus P. What are our two P's? Well, I'm glad you asked. Process and product. So we talk about process Is primary process over outcomes. Right. Systems versus results. These are all saying the same things. Process versus product, P versus P. If you want to get out of procrastination. And she has a number of chapters on procrastination in the book because as she says, procrastination is like an addiction. You get a small near term hit of feeling good, but the long term consequences of procrastinating are seriously dangerous. I mean, you're never going to reach your potential if you're consistently procrastinating. So she says that's a keystone bad habit. Charles Duhigg, the power of habit. We talked about him. I'll put a link to the episode on his great book below. Says we have keystone habits. When you figure out a keystone habit, everything else falls into place. You have keystone good habits and keystone bad habits. She says procrastination is unquestionably a keystone bad habit. We need to deal with it, we need to solve it. And one good way to do it is to focus on process rather than product. What does that mean? If you're studying for math, to use her context, you don't focus on getting the homework assignment done, which would be the product. You focus on putting in 20 minutes, you're going to work for 20 minutes. You're going to focus on the process of putting in the effort, not the outcome or the product of your effort. If you're just focused on the product, you're going to stress yourself out and procrastinate. But it's not that stressful to say, well, I'm just going to put in five or 10 or 15 or 20 minutes. That's what I'm going to measure myself to. Not how I did during that time, whether I finished my task, but just that I did the amount of time that I committed to. And I share the story in the note that this is actually how I wrote this note. I had some extra time in the afternoon and if I was focused on the product, I never would have worked on the note because I didn't quite have enough time to finish it. My energy wasn't great, but it was kind of, you know, there and I didn't feel like doing it. Gasp. Right. We talk about that all the time. But I didn't focus on the product. I just focused on the process and said, look, I got some time. Let me just go put 20, 25 minutes into this and just get a head start for tomorrow. Process, not product. And long story a little shorter. Wound up getting into it and energy just came and the time flew by and I got to completion. As I spent more time getting it done, I actually wound up finishing it when all I cared about was the process. Process versus Product Check in on your life and the next time you're procrastinating, see if you're too focused on the product side of things and see if you can focus on just show up, put in a little bit of time. Big idea. Process versus product P versus P. You may remember in our note on the Upside of stress by Kelly McGonigal, we talked about research done about the stress response when you're feeling stressed, and she shares this story in the context of test taking. When you're taking a test, most of us are going to feel a certain amount of stress. That's totally normal. So it could be a presentation at work, it could be anything that stresses you out. When you're in that stressful situation, naturally you have a stress response. Your heart rate increases, right? You get a little sweaty palms. You're feeling that energy going and you have two choices. You can choose to say, wow, I'm afraid. I hope I don't choke. Let me calm down, right? Or you can say, wow, my body's really kicking in. It really wants me to do well. I'm excited. Let's go out and do our best. It's how we interpret the stress response that determines what it does for us. Kelly McGonigal says we can cultivate the biology of courage by simply saying to ourselves, I'm excited. Barbara shares basically the exact same wisdom. And if you're taking a test, get excited about it. Your body is turning on so you can perform your best. Anytime you're feeling nerves fly by, realize it's how you interpret them that's going to determine how it affects you. Really, really big idea. I'm excited. Fifth big idea. If you want to learn something, teach it. She talks about Reddit and how they have a section called Explain like I'm five. Explain something to me like I'm five years old. Make it simple for me. Well, that's the best possible way to learn something is to teach it. And she says a lot of times we think we should only teach once we fully understood something. But oftentimes fully understanding something comes as a consequence of attempting to explain it to others and to ourselves. It's a really big idea. So if you really want to learn something, whether it's these ideas or anything else you're passionate about in your life, explain the ideas to other people. That's the way to drill it into our minds. One of the best ways to drill it into our consciousness so we really understand it. Really, really cool idea. Another idea she talks about that I talk about a little bit in the note is spaced repetition. So I studied this book because I'm passionate about becoming a better learner and I'm passionate about becoming a better teacher. And I want to understand how people learn best so I can teach that way. One of the ways to learn best is called spaced repetition. To move from working memory to long term memory, you want to have spaced repetition, repetition. You don't want to cram and then not think about something. You won't get that into long term memory. But if you study something right, you tune into something like this and then a week later you see an idea that's similar to this, and then another week later you see another idea that's similar to it. Kind of like this. Process versus product. The repetition spaced over time is extraordinarily helpful to help drill these ideas into our consciousness so they're really in our long term memory and we can go in and draw them out at will. So I get so much out of this. I see the same ideas again and again, but that's exciting for me because I see it from a slightly different facet which drills it into my consciousness in a more refined way that makes it more fresh and alive in my life. And I'm really excited because that's exactly what I do with these philosopher's notes and with the micro classes. Spaced repetition. So think about that. And again, this book is awesome. If you want to learn how to learn, you'll love it. If your kids are struggling with school, you'll love, you might dig it and get some great insights that will help them dramatically. If you're a student looking to get an edge, I think you'll enjoy it as well. And if you're just passionate about learning how to learn, pick it up. Alright, there you go. Explain it like I'm five. Teaching is a great way to learn. I'm excited. That's how we want to respond to our stress. P versus P. Remember, focus on the process, not the product. Procrastive pain. The pain is in the anticipation, not in the doing. So just remove the anticipation and go do it. And then two modes. We've got focus and diffuse. Remember our mountain that we're climbing? We're focused, but we're also taking breaks in the diffuse. Sleep is your number one diffuse mode. Way to integrate ideas. Napping, taking walks or hikes, baths, showers, etc. Find a way to oscillate. That's what it's all about. Train your on and train your recovery. Hope you enjoyed and I look forward to sharing more soon. Have another awesome day. See you. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that PNTV episode. A lot of people don't know all the stuff I do beyond these free videos I share on YouTube, so I thought I'd do a quick video to give you an overview of our membership program that you can get access to and get a ton of other stuff. So here's a quick look. 10 bucks a month Join the Optimal Living Membership program. You get Instant Access to 250 Philosopher's Notes on some of the best Optimal Living books out there. Old school classics, Positive Psychology, Modern stuff, Mindfulness, Peak Performance, purpose, neuroscience, wealth, etc. And what you may not know is that in addition to the PNTV episodes, I create PDFs on all these great books. So six page PDFs. Let's take a look at one of them. Joseph Campbell, you want to figure out how to live your hero's journey? Well, this is a great place to start. 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