Video Discription |
Greetings, SuperFriends!
Welcome to a special episode of the Becoming SuperHuman podcast. I'm calling this episode special because it's a little bit of a different format, once again.
If you guys liked the episode where I focused in and explored a specific skill, did a spotlight if you will, then you will really love this episode. The goal of this episode is to spotlight the life of a real-world SuperLearner. To try and understand what they did, how they did it, what the results were, and what kind of amazing life were they able to lead because of their incredible learning ability.
We get to start out with a SuperLearner that you may have never heard of, but I'm not gonna tell you just yet who it is. I want to know what you guys think of this episode because I so enjoyed reading the books by this individual, exploring their life and just being inspired by what they were able to accomplish.
I hope you guys enjoy it! If you guys do and if you guys want me to do more spotlights like this, I have to say they take a heck of a lot longer than interviewing. But, if you guys enjoy them, I'll be more than happy to do more of them, more spotlights on history's famous SuperLearners, and see what we can all learn from them.
So, without any further ado, let me present to you the first and maybe last SuperLearner spotlight.
One of the best ways to learn is by example.
As the years march forward and I teach more and more, I’ve realized that often times, a metaphor, analogy, or perfectly-timed example can be the difference between a student nodding and smiling and truly understanding.
This is applicable not only to small things - such as calculating curves in Algebra or understanding shapes in geometry - but also to very big things… Such as understanding and gaining benefit and insight from the life of another.
Allow me to explain.
People don’t often ask me to articulate what exactly I mean by the term “SuperLearner.” After all, the name is, I’d say, pretty self-explanatory.
With that said, on the rare occasion that they do, I find that any explanation I could offer usually comes up somewhat short.
“A SuperLearner is someone who understands and implements a seemingly impossible amount of knowledge from any number of fields, quickly and effortlessly.”
Big whup.
But, if I throw out a name or two…
“A SuperLearner is someone like Elon Musk, Tim Ferriss, or Leonardo Da Vinci. Someone who can dominate various fields of business, art, and life to make a lasting impact on the world around them in ways that others simply cannot.”
Well, now we’re talking.
That’s why, in this series, which, as with all ongoing projects on this podcast, could very well start and end here, I want to explore the life of a specific SuperLearner.
To summarize, analyze, and extract any wisdom possible from the example they’ve lived, in order to see not only how they did it, but also what the outcome was.
In short: I want to show you all what’s really possible when someone has the ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn a diverse set of skills and subjects, and apply it to their lives and their careers.
There are a great number of SuperLearners that I could choose from for this first exploration…
Indeed, history has had no shortage of truly great learners and leaders.
But rather than borrow from the list of “the obvious” - the Benjamin Franklin’s and Albert Einstein’s, I’d like to focus on a name that many of you probably have never heard of:
Theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate Dr. Richard Feynman.
Richard Phillips Feynman was born on May 11th, 1918 in Queens, New York City, to Lucille and Melville Arthur Feynman, a homemaker and a sales manager respectively. Though he would eventually go on to become a brilliant genius, it’s worth noting that Feynman, like Albert Einstein, developed verbal skills very late: in fact, his third birthday came and went without Feynman uttering even a single word.
In time, Feynman developed, and as a child immediately took an interest in science and engineering. From a very young age, he built and maintained a laboratory in his parents’ home, and delighted in fixing radios and other electronic devices.
Feynman would often design and develop his own types of inventions, including ham radios to contact foreign countries and an electronic burglar alarm system to detect when his parents had tampered with his laboratory.
By the age of 15, Feynman had taught himself trigonometry, advanced algebra, infinite series, analytic geometry, and both differential and integral calculus.
Up until this point, you might be thinking that all this is very impressive. Indeed, it’s plain to see that Feynman was a gifted genius and autodidact, right?
But, alas, he had only begun to strut his skills as a SuperLearner!
Feynman went on to attend MIT, and... [8Ft8tXh5JNw] |