4 Hour Chef

Question 1

Failure Points

Answer 1

try to ask why people most commonly fail, what are the mistakes that are made again and again

Question 2

How to Breakdown Mastery

Answer 2

Describe what you want to know, do or accomplish, then list the competencies required, what you need to learn and where you can find the knowledge or skill, then work to get it.

Question 3

How VS What

Answer 3

what you study is more important than how you study.
Students are subordinate to materials, much like novice cooks are subordinate to recipes. If you select the wrong material, the wrong textbook, the wrong group of words, it doesn’t matter how much (or how well) you study. It doesn’t matter how good your teacher is. One must find the highest-frequency material.

Question 4

Key to Accelerated Learning: DSSS

Answer 4

Deconstruction
Selection
Sequencing
Stakes

Question 5

CFE

Answer 5

Compression
Frequency
Encoding

Question 6

Questions for your Method

Answer 6

“Is the method effective? Have you narrowed down your material to the highest frequency?

Is the method sustainable? Have you chosen a schedule and subject matter that you can stick with (or at least put up with) until reaching fluency? Will you actually swallow the pill you’ve prescribed yourself?”

Question 7

Deconstruction

Answer 7

What are the minimal learnable units, the lego blocks I should be starting with

“First and foremost, it is where we answer the question: how do I break this amorphous “skill” into small, manageable pieces?”

Reducing:
breaking down the underlying larger breakdowns for the skill
Layering knowledge is important, finding out how it changes and interacts in other situations.

Isolate the basic molecular units. the most basic version.

Question 8

Deconstruction: Interview

Answer 8

Make contact and provide context. Interview must benefit the contact. freelance the article out.

Ask your questions:

“Who is good at ultra-running despite being poorly built for it? Who’s good at this who shouldn’t be?”

“Who are the most controversial or unorthodox runners or trainers? Why? What do you think of them?”

“Who are the most impressive lesser-known teachers?”

“What makes you different? Who trained you or influenced you?”

“Have you trained others to do this? Have they replicated your results?”

“What are the biggest mistakes and myths you see in ultra-running training? What are the biggest wastes of time?”

“What are your favorite instructional books or resources on the subject? If people had to teach themselves, what would you suggest they use?

“If you were to train me for four weeks for a [fill in the blank] competition and had a million dollars on the line, what would the training look like? What if I trained for eight weeks?”

“First, what are the biggest mistakes novices make when shooting or practicing shooting? What are the biggest misuses of time?
Even at the pro level, what mistakes are most common?
What are your key principles for better, more consistent shooting? What are they for foul shots (free throws) vs. 3-pointers?
What does the progression of exercises look like?

Question 9

Deconstruction: Reversal

Answer 9

find the contrary example for how to do something, deconstruct the skill or find another way of looking at it by approaching it backwards

Question 10

Selection

Answer 10

Which 20 percent of the blocks should I focus on for 80 percent or more of the outcomes I want. Minimum effective dose.

“Do as little as is needed, not as much as possible”

to breakdown a skill isolate the most important aspects that do outsize work and focus on them first, ordered in such a way that you get early wins which can boost confidence.

Question 11

Selection: Language Example

Answer 11

What you need to remember: 100 well-selected words give you 50% of the practical use of 171,476 words.
So, do you work from A to Z through 250,000 words over 25+ years, or do you master this high-frequency 100-word list in less than a week, then decide on next steps? Clearly, you do the second.”

Question 12

Sequencing

Answer 12

In what order should I learn the blocks

Logically sequencing the blocks of a skill can make it greater than the sum of its parts.

The macro principles that can be divined by organizing the practice in certain ways.

Question 13

Sequencing Examples

Answer 13

Make the implicit of expertise explicit. find out what they do in common, try to codify it.

• What are commonalities among the best competitors?
• Which of these aren’t being actively taught (i.e., implicit) in most classes?
• Which neglected skills (answers to #2) could I get good at abnormally quickly

Question 14

Stakes

Answer 14

How do I set up stakes, real consequences and guarantee i follow the program?

Use the stick and carrot on yourself. Build in rewards, keep yourself honest, measure your progress objectively

Question 15

Seneca Quote

Answer 15

“It’s not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It’s because we dare not venture that they are difficult.”

Question 16

Accelerated Learning Part 2: CFE

Answer 16

Compression
Frequency
Encoding

Question 17

Compression

Answer 17

“Making effective decisions—and learning effectively—requires massive elimination and the removal of options.”

“The easiest way to avoid being overwhelmed is to create positive constraints: put up walls that dramatically restrict whatever it is that you’re trying to do.
In the world of work, a task will swell in complexity to fill the time you allot it, a phenomenon often referred to as Parkinson’s Law.”

Question 18

Compression: 1 Pagers

Answer 18

Can I encapsulate the most important 20% into an easily graspable one-pager
2 types of one pagers:

• The first is the prescriptive one pager, which lists principles that help you generate real world examples—here are the rules
• The second is the practice one pager, which lists real world examples to practice that indirectly teach the principles.

Question 19

Frequency

Answer 19

How frequently should I practice? What should my schedule look like? What growing pains can I predict? What is the minimum effective dose for volume?

Question 20

Accelerated learning Motivation

Answer 20

It is possible to vastly compress most learning. In a surprising number of cases, it is possible to do something in 1–10 months that is assumed to take 1–10 years.
The more you compress things, the more physical limiters become a bottleneck. All learning is physically limited. The brain is dependent on finite quantities of neurotransmitters, memories require REM and non-REM (NREM) sleep for consolidation, etc. The learning graph is not unlike the stress-recovery-hyper-adaptation curves of weight training.

Question 21

How To Plan Accelerated Learning

Answer 21

“Pick your world-class (top 5%) objective, and set your timeline. For this example, we’ll use Spanish in one month (28 days).
Use deconstruction, 80/20, and everything in META-LEARNING to nail your materials, determine your sequence, and map out your calendar.
To forecast different milestones, work backward from your total allotted time
“Even if you fail at your ambitious thing, it’s very hard to fail completely. That’s the thing that people don’t get.”

Question 22

Be Aware of Setbacks

Answer 22

due to the bipolar nature of the learning process, you can forecast setbacks. If you don’t, you increase the likelihood of losing morale and quitting before the inflection point

Question 23

Encoding

Answer 23

How do I anchor the new material to what I already know for rapid recall?

Question 24

Rules of Behaviour Change

Answer 24

Make it small and temporary: you don’t have to do binge, just constantly improve

Make it measurable, make it a game:
assign value and rewards to tasks you want to get done.

Make it competitive.

Question 25

Amateurs vs Professionals

Answer 25

Amateurs practice until they get it right, Professionals practice until they get it wrong