6 Keys to Rapid Learning | Jim Kwik

Welcome back to the Quick Brain Podcast. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. And in this episode, I'm going to share with you 6 keys to rapid learning. Now, if you're watching this on video, you might be subscribed to our YouTube, which I encourage each and every one of you to do that if you haven't done that now. It says learning is not a spectator sport. And I've been saying that a lot for the past 20-plus years. Learning is not a spectator sport. Learning like life is not a spectator sport because the human brain doesn't learn best just by consuming The human brain learns better through creating and co-creating and being active, getting off the bench and doing something. Because we know knowledge by itself is not power, it's potential power. It becomes power when we utilize it, when we exercise it, when we apply and we implement it. So I'm going to give you 6 different things that are very tactical that you could do to be a more active learner so you could learn rapidly. Now, if you join any of our live programs, whether they're streaming or in person, I'll do something like a purposeful pause where I'll teach something for about 15 minutes and then take a little break and say, okay, take a few minutes now and summarize what I just shared with you. You know, in your own words, take a couple minutes and summarize what you just learned. And then I'll say, okay, after they do that, I'll say, okay, now turn to a partner and for the next 5 minutes, teach them something that you learned or share in your own words something that you learned. And these are examples of turning passive learning into more active learning. And when you do so, you take agency, you take responsibility, and you own that information. When you're explaining to somebody else, you're writing out, you're using your own words. So you have this original awareness and it deepens the grooves of your learning. You're connecting things that you don't know yet to things that you already know. And this is all part of the active process. So let me give you 6 Rs that you could apply right away to be able to be a more rapid learner. So the first R is going to be read. Now when I say read, this is where you're actually learning the material. I like to go to reading because I think you read to succeed, but it could be listening to an audiobook, it could be listening to a lecture, it could be listening to a podcast, having a conversation with somebody, but you're intaking information. Now, obviously, if you are reading, definitely, if you haven't yet, join our Kwik Reading Program because that'll help you to triple your reading speed and get more comprehension and more focus and more understanding, retention, and enjoyment out of it. So the method definitely matters. Okay, so the first R is you read that information. That's being more active, but you're actively reading it. You're asking questions, you're using a visual pacer, you're very involved. Now the second R after you read is I want you to reflect. And this is kind of like the metacognition. You're thinking about what you just read. You're thinking about your own thinking because it's not just about rapid reading or rapid learning. It's about taking time to reflect and making it personally meaningful to you, getting new nuances from the information, learning new levels of comprehension, new levels of understanding. So you're reflecting on the information. That's a way of being more active. Now, after you do the reading and after you do your reflection, the 3rd R is I want you to record. So what does record mean? It could be what I talked about earlier, taking 2 minutes and just writing in a journal or your notebook the things that you learned. Right? Because now the information is coming in, but in order to express it out in the form of physical writing, you have to what? You have to deepen that knowledge, your understanding. You have to be able to comprehend it at a new level in order to be able to put it out, because it comes in through your eyes, right? It gets processed by your nervous system, and to be able to put it out and express yourself, you need to be able to understand, to organize the information. That's part of the learning journey. All right, so you're reading, you're reflecting, and then you're recording. Some people would prefer to audio record. There are many different ways of recording information. The 4th R, I would say, is after you did that, I want you to relate. What does that mean? Well, we know that learning doesn't have to be solo. It could also be effective being social, and you're talking to somebody else, you're relating to somebody else. So often at an event, or maybe if we're doing online training, we'll put people into breakout rooms and they'll share 5 minutes on what they just learned because you take advantage of the explanation effect. When you teach something, you get to learn it twice. So you're relating to somebody else what you just learned. So again, as a review, you first read it, you reflect on it, you record, and then what? Then you relate to somebody else about it. You share the ideas with that person. And the 5th R is retrieval, and they call this active retrieval. This is where you test yourself or have somebody else test you about what you just learned. So imagine you're reading a section of a book and then you're relating to somebody, explaining, maybe you did the writing and the reflecting, you know, the nuance of what you, what you, what is happening in that specific situation, and then you're relating, and then that person Quizzes you. You're doing active retrieval, or maybe you're asking questions of yourself. You're quizzing yourself with the book closed, for instance, and not looking at your notes, how much you actively remember. And they call it active retrieval. And I honestly would rather have somebody read something and do active retrieval than read something twice, because the act of going inside and trying to pull information out is the purest test in terms of whether or not you really have that information, right? So active retrieval, asking questions. We say questions are the answer. It helps you to direct your reticular activating system. So when you have those questions and you're reading again, you're just like, oh, there's an answer, there's an answer, there's an answer, there's the answer. Even when we are doing test preparation and we teach people to go look at the questions at the end before they do the reading comprehension, because then when they go through it, they see, oh, that's what the author was looking for. That's what they deemed was important. Right? So you read it, you reflect on it to give it personal meaning, you record your ideas, you relate to somebody else, and then you do active retrieval. You quiz yourself and you test yourself to see how much information is really inside. And finally, the last R, the 6R if you will, for rapid learning or active learning is going to be review. The power of spaced repetition, spaced review, that if you spread information out, maybe Let's say you go through this process and you read it and you did everything. You read it, you reflected on it, you recorded it, you know, related to somebody else. You did all these different things. Maybe the next day before you start studying and you pick up where you left off in that textbook or in that lecture or what have you, you review what you did the day before, right? Because when you spread out information, they call it spaced repetition or interval training. What it allows you to do, let's say you study it and then you review it an hour later. Maybe a day later, maybe a week later, maybe even a month later, it helps you to consolidate and transfer that short-term memory and make it more long-term memory. So that review is absolutely key. So you could review what you read, you could review your notes. Maybe you made, instead of record, instead of summarizing, you made a concept map, right? Or you did the capture create that we teach in our programs as well. But you get the main principles behind this. Do you even remember the 6 Rs, by the way? This is active retrieval, right? This is an example of active retrieval. What's the first R? You read. Good. After that, then what are you doing? You're reflecting on what you just read. Great. After that, what are you doing? Maybe you record, you take some notes, a concept map, mind map, whatever. After that, what are you doing? You are relating it to somebody else. Very good. And after you relate, what are you doing? Active retrieval. You're testing yourself. And then finally, the 6th R, do you remember what it was? We just did it. We're doing the review. So we're actually doing this. We're doing active retrieval and we're doing review all in one. So whatever subject you want to be able to learn, you can learn it better and faster, more rapidly with these 6 Rs for active learning. Remember, learning is not a spectator sport. You are the pilot of your brain. You are not the passenger. You are the pilot of this learning journey, right? You're not You're not just a passenger, so be active. And when you do, when you take personal responsibility, you have the ability to respond. You have the power to make things better and brighter. And so I'm your brain coach, Jim Kwik. If you enjoyed this quick episode, make sure what I want you to do right now is take a screenshot of this. Take a screenshot and share it. Remember, we're relating this to somebody else and we're passing it on. And so, and share the 6 Rs if you remember them, type them out because that'll be part of your recording and your review and your active retrieval. And you're teaching somebody else also, because when you teach it, you get to learn it twice. I, as always, every single week we repost some of our favorites, and then we also randomly send a copy of our book Limitless to one individual around the world, just as a thank you for being part of our community. I want to encourage you again, if you've enjoyed this, share it and please leave a review. That's the best thing. You know, we purposely, we don't have sponsors for our shows. We, you know, our goal is to build better, brighter brains, no brain left behind. And it takes an army. Right? It takes a village. So I want to thank you for your time. Thank you for your attention. Make sure you subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and YouTube so you don't miss the next episode. And until then, I'm your brain coach, Jim Quick. Be limitless.