How to Achieve Competence and Create Confidence

July 20, 2018 / Oskar Cymerman

The following is a Letter to All Teens and Their Parents.

“Competence Creates Confidence”

I heard that somewhere and it got me thinking...

What is Competence exactly? How do you get it?

Think about something you are good at, maybe really good at. Maybe it’s a sport like soccer or basketball. Maybe it’s painting, sculpture, or another art form. Maybe you’re good at fixing stuff or cooking or gaming or have some other skill you feel competent in. How do you feel when you do stuff that requires you to use this skill?

Chances are whatever your mind conjured was positive. You feel good to do stuff you’re good at because you experience success in it. This motivates you to keep going. You keep doing it and as a result you keep getting better at it. You keep getting better because once you feel competent you have the confidence to try new things. You try new ways; new techniques and strategies. Some don’t help much but some lead to small improvements. Over time, this series of small improvements adds up to a big improvement which you likely don’t even notice because you enjoy doing this thing you’re good at so much.

Imagine school being this way. You might already be a good student but how would you feel knowing that no matter what subject you have to take you can crush it? How would you feel to have the confidence that you can understand difficult concepts, learn them fast, and actually remember them months later when it’s final exam time?

You see, there are 2 types of people in this world - those who fear change and let their anxieties paralyze them to keep them stuck and those who fear change but decide to face their anxieties and grow as individuals. The first type stays comfortable but average (or less than) while the second type of people succeeds at school, work, and life. The good news is that everyone has the potential to be successful.

No matter how good or ugly your school competence is you can get much better at school. And don’t worry - you won’t have to drink the weird Kool Aid to get there. All you have to do is follow the same process that took you to the level of competence and confidence you have in the other skills you’re good at. Except this time it won’t be trial-and-error. You will have small, easy, and specific strategies at your disposal.

You already have the “school skill.” It’s far from perfect but it’s a skill and as such it can be improved. The only way to improve it is to change how you approach school - learn and apply new learning techniques and study strategies - things that help you do school smarter, faster, and better.

You see, after overcoming the initial anxiety of trying something new you will realize that it’s the new experiences and new learning that lead to an upward spiral of success. As you get more comfortable doing things outside of your comfort zone, you end up learning even more, being more competent, and feeling much more confident. This is a result of the “happy” brain chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin your brain produces when you experience positive feelings such as joy, confidence, or feeling successful.

Once you accept and understand that fear-induced stress chemicals like cortisol and adrenaline are normal brain reactions to all things unknown, you will lessen their effect on your decision-making. They will no longer prevent you from venturing into the unknown. It will become easier to start making small changes to how you do school and other life things. Each small change will bring more competence and more confidence and reduce stress while increasing the happy chemicals. Keep at it and you will become more than a great student - you will turn into a learning machine - someone who learns and applies new things to make their life better every day.

So, you’ve reached a decision intersection. You can go straight, left, or turn right. Here’s what awaits you:

Straight: Do nothing. Keep complaining. Stay as you are. Complain some more.
Left: Try to change. Study more. Grind it out. Do somewhat better at school.
Right: Learn and apply skills that help you learn faster, study smarter, and remember more. Improve your learning skills in small, easy steps that make you a much better student and school much easier.

Decision Intersection: Which decision involves the most progress?

The Right decision involves Change, which involves Uncertainty, which involves Facing Your Fears. But, it helps you Achieve Competence which Creates Confidence.

But you already know that. It's time to choose who you want to be.

Good luck to you no matter what you decide.

And to Your Parents:

Being a dad I know how you feel about your children's success. If you're a bit like me you don't want to leave their success up to luck or school alone. This is why I wrote my new book Crush School Student Guide: Learn Faster, Study Smarter, Remember More, and Make School Easier, which is a workbook that contains a series of short, fun, and easy to follow lessons designed to incrementally turn a mediocre or good student into an advanced learner ready to crush the challenges of high school, college, and the world of work.

It is now 33% off regular price on Amazon. Just click here.

You have the power to change lives. Use it often so they can change the world.

Oskar

Hi! I'm Oskar.

I teach, write, speak, rant to make school better.

BOOKS & TOOLS

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categories / Learning
tags / focus, teaching teens, deeper learning, learning, teaching, smarter people, smart teams, lateral thinking

Create Killer Presentations Your Audiences Will Love

July 16, 2018 / Oskar Cymerman

The 3 types of presentations we've all been a part of:

The kill me now type: Presentations done for the sake of filling time with an activity that seems productive but is a waste of time for everyone involved, including the presenter. We've all been there and want to forget. Luckily, they don't happen all that often and when they do, we've learned to use the weak bladder excuse to periodically stop the brain pain (the flight response).
The I think I heard something about it but forgot type: Content-rich presentations delivered in such a way that we forget most of what was taught even though we might have stayed engaged throughout. This is the type we experience most often. The presenter has good intentions but lacks the understanding of how to deliver a killer talk or multimedia presentation.
The killer type: Engaging presentations full of valuable content presented in such a way that we can remember and apply it to our work or personal life. They don't kill us. They kill IT. They cause us to have strong, positive, and hopefully appropriate feelings toward the presenter. We feel thankful, inspired, and challenged to action.

The infographic below is about the elusive presentation type - one that showcases the speaker's knowledge as much as skill. One, that proves he or she can communicate ideas in a way anyone can understand and apply them. One, that leaves us in awe of the presenter and wanting more because somehow, some way the presenter understands how the human brain learns and leverages it when creating the presentation. One, that we'll talk about to others. One, that leads to professional success because everyone wants that person on their team.

When employers talk about communication skills they specifically want an employee who communicates effectively, is engaging. and energizes others to act.

Below, is a start. My future posts will explain how to practice and deliver killer presentations. I hope I communicate my ideas effectively...

My new book Crush School Student Guide: Learn Faster, Study Smarter, Remember More, and Make School Easier contains 4 lessons designed to help students create, practice, and deliver effective presentations and avoid the dreaded "Death by PowerPoint." Each lesson contains exercises and examples. But I don't just tell students how to do it - I walk them through the process and provide a plan and a template to follow so they can create their presentation right in the book.

It's kind of like having a coach who helps you practice a skill after it's shown to you. In fact, all 60 chapters/lessons are designed for students to use the skills after they're described. The infographic below is merely an "information-delivery" medium. Applying it is the key to learning. Check it out!

Creating Killer Presentations Audiences Love

When writing Crush School Student Guide: Learn Faster, Study Smarter, Remember More, and Make School Easier, I wanted to create a resource a student can use for school and beyond. My goal was not only to write a book that helps teens learn more effectively while stressing less about school - I also set out to create a guide that helps them learn transferable skills they will need in college and later work.

The infographic above is one of a series of three I use to teach students how to create, prepare for, and deliver more effective presentations.

If you're like me, you've sat through hours of mind-numbing PowerPoints or Google Slide presentations you remember little from. This is because the presenters did not know how to do it better. They were asked to give presentations in school but not taught how. They just did what their teachers did. I bet their information was valuable but it was delivered ineffectively.

Skills, such as effective presentation and communication of ideas are the biggest reasons why some individuals achieve great success and others stay stuck on the first few rungs of the professional ladder. As these skills are often an afterthought in high school and college, students who choose to learn them on their own rise above the average and advance in their future professions.

Just take a look at the list below and think about how many of the skills below were deliberately taught in your high school and how much class time was spent analyzing how to improve them.

Creating, Preparing for, and Delivering Effective and Engaging (Killer) Presentations
Improving Critical Thinking
Better Decision-making
Becoming More Open-minded
Creativity and Innovation
Teamwork Basics and Creating Effective Teams
Setting Goals and Creating Plans
Understanding and Developing Habits
Training Memory
Speed Reading
Problem Solving
Project Completion

My guess is... not much. Chances are you were expected to use them but not explicitly taught how to or given a plan to improve. This realization of how inadequate schools are at skills instruction is what guides my writing.

The Crush School Student Guide is an all-in-one book, guide, and exercise manual that contains a series of short, fun, and easy to follow lessons designed to teach students skills needed for school and work success; skills required but not explicitly taught in today's schools.

Imagine your kids having a book that gives them:

Over 60 strategies they can use to learn faster, study smarter, and remember (a lot) more of what they learn.
A self-paced fun way to learn how to learn and acquire success skills they'll be able to use in school and beyond.
A reference guide that shows them how to use brain-friendly strategies to do better at school (understand difficult concepts, complete school projects, and study for tests).

It is now available on Amazon for pre-order. Just click here.

You have the power to change lives. Use it often so they can change the world.

Oskar

Hi! I'm Oskar.

I teach, write, speak, rant to make learning better.

BOOKS & TOOLS

Buy on Amazon

BLOG ARCHIVE:

Buy on Amazon

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categories / Teaching
tags / teaching teens, parenting teens, brain, sharpness, clarity, brain rules, neuroscience, presentation, communication

Learn Faster, Study Smarter, and Remember More

July 14, 2018 / Oskar Cymerman

"Learning is a marathon not a race," they say but is this statement true? On one hand, cramming is a "rushed" method that doesn't work. On the other, learning things quickly and applying them effectively is highly sought after by employers.

We live in a world full of paradoxes. And, education isn't immune to them. Because schools emphasize tests and grades not learning, and by learning I mean deep understanding, effective application, and long-term memory of concepts, the best students cram, get good grades, and forget. They did it quickly, but what is it? Can you call it learning if it's quickly forgotten? If you can't use it in the future, are you learning or merely wasting time?

While grades are important and get students into good colleges, they don't guarantee college or future job success. In fact, the latest college completion data shows only 54.8% of students graduate with a 4-year degree in 6 years or fewer. But if they're able to get into colleges, then why do over 45% of students fail and end up with exorbitant tuition bills with nothing to show for them?

We all know the answer to this. While some students cannot afford to continue, many simply don't have the skills to perform well at the university level and it's not their fault!

They wanted to go to college!

They wanted to succeed!

They didn't...

But they could have if they had the skills. If only they knew and could use effective learning strategies.

Check out the one below. Look how common sense it is!

Yet, most students don't use it. They don't know it.

Learn Faster, Study Smarter, and Remember More with The 4R Approach

While steps 1 and 2 (Receive and Record) happen in the classroom, students are frequently left to their own devices when it comes to memory consolidation, which steps 3 and 4 (Reflect and Recreate) lead to. A student who has the understanding, the time, and the discipline to these things at home is likely to learn (understand, remember, and be able to apply) the information.

Problem is, even at the high school level many students do not realize they should review and use the information immediately after they receive it. They don't know because classes are built and teachers trained to deliver information not to help students learn it.

Of course every teacher wants all their students to learn! But, school curricula are written to deliver massive amounts of content, leaving little room for teaching skills and learning how to learn.

However, any student who understands how her brain learns can make strategic decisions about her learning. If she has skills and knows effective learning strategies, she can use them to learn faster and smarter. She can improve her working and long-term memory. But chances are, she must acquire many of these skills on her own. Or, she might get lucky...

But if you're like me, you don't want to leave your kids' success up to luck or school alone. I want my son to do well in school and life but as schools are now, they mostly focus on teaching subjects not transferable skills.

The good news is the neuroscience developments of the last decade have allowed scientists to identify how the brain learns best, and all you have to do is apply these realizations and methods that support them to learning. But again, schools teach only a few of these skills.

There are many books on the market on learning how to learn, accelerated learning, memory training, and doing better at school.

Many contain useful information but I have not found one that isn't descriptive.

Most, just tell you what to do to get better.

The better books give you examples.

None of them have students practice what they preach in the book.

They don't contain exercises that have students apply the information, which is ironically how we learn best and that is why most of the information the students read is forgotten and never used.

A perfect example of this is to think about a book you read, say... 1 month ago. How much do you remember from it? How much can you use right now?

If you don't open it back up, chances are you remember a few things well and only vaguely remember a few others. The rest of the information, which is most of it, never made it into your long-term memory. This is because your brain did not evolve to remember it in such a way...

And this is why I created my new book Crush School Student Guide: Learn Faster, Study Smarter, Remember More, and Make School Easier, to be a workbook that contains a series of short, fun, and easy to follow lessons designed to incrementally turn a mediocre or good student into an advanced learner ready to crush the challenges of high school, college, and the world of work.

It is now available on Amazon for pre-order. Just click here.

Before you make your mind up, consider this:

The book contains well over 60 strategies and tips anyone can use to learn faster and smarter and train their memory.
In the book, I don't just tell students to "read and apply." Rather, I built the book to be a Learning How to Learn Course.
Any student can use the Crush School Student Guide at home or the book can be used by teachers as a series of lessons done in class.

But don't worry, if you're not ready to spend $29.95 on the paperback, you can check out the Kindle version at low risk for $3.45 only. It's easy as 1,2,3 by clicking here.

You have the power to change lives. Use it often so they can change the world.

Oskar

Hi! I'm Oskar.

I teach, write, speak, rant to make learning better.

BOOKS & TOOLS

Buy on Amazon

BLOG ARCHIVE:

Buy on Amazon

Comment 0 Likes

categories / Learning
tags / focus, productivity, teaching teens, parenting teens, brain, sharpness, clarity, brain rules, neuroscience