How I Learn Any Skill Fast

This is the Unbreakable Business newsletter - created just for COOs and Operations Teams who want to build a company that won’t fall apart.

This is a primer on how I learn ANY SKILL - FAST. Skill acquisition is one of the most important parts of being a competent leader - and the faster you get good at it, the higher your ceiling will become.

Today, we’ll cover:

• 🥕 The true “carrot” you need to actually focus on learning

• 😬 Why “figuring it out” is the worst way to learn

• 📊 How to measure your progress even if it’s brand new

This is an important one - can’t wait to share with you all!

Enjoy!!

🎓️ Why Learning Is Broken

I lasted about a year in college.

Felt lucky that I got to go, but I could tell pretty quickly that it wasn’t for me.

And reflecting on it 20 years later, I can boil it down to one thing.

❌ It wasn’t that I wasn’t smart enough.

❌ It wasn’t that I lacked motivation or drive.

It was something else…

I didn’t care about being well-rounded.

I didn’t want to learn theory without immediate application.

I didn’t want to take an Art History class when I was supposed to be learning “business”.

I wanted to learn ABOUT BUSINESS. And immediately go and…oh, I don’t know…do some business? Start a business? Do literally anything that felt business-y?

Maybe it’s a “me” problem. But I know that I’m not alone.

Fast forward to today, I’m a perpetual student of the game of business. I feel like no matter how much I learn and how much success I have, there’s still a ton to learn and I’m always at the starting line.

So how does someone that couldn’t even make it through a couple semesters of college without getting bored manage to laser-focus on skill acquisition and learn the sh*t out of just about anything?

Well, that’s what this issue is about.

👎️ What I’m Not Covering

This isn’t about the mechanics of how to learn.

I’m not covering study habits, note taking, spaced repetition systems, or anything else (although I am a big fan of Scott Young’s book Ultralearning for stuff like that).

This issue is gonna be about three things:

1. How I’ve managed to hack my psychology to eliminate failing due to boredom

2. The way that I skip the minefield of painful lessons that seem to linger at the start of trying new things

3. My process for building a SUPER tight feedback loop to make sure I’m improving.

Let’s get after it 🔥 

⚽️ Principle 1: Don’t Learn For Sport

Some of you might not like this.

I think of my brain like a water tank - it has inlets and outlets, and can be full, or have extra space, at any given time.

Yes, I know this is not how brains physically work 😂 but roll with me for a minute.

The useful part of this metaphor is that to learn effectively, you need an OUTLET - an activity, project, or task to APPLY what you’re learning.

If I don’t have this, the tank gets full - and I find that I can’t keep learning just for the hell of it.

Focus on learning things that you can apply IMMEDIATELY.

Some examples:

• Learn a new skill that you need in order to complete a project for your business - and set the performance goals, by a certain date, up front.

• Learn some new management strategies and immediately apply them with your team.

• Learn to play the guitar and actually commit to playing a song in front of someone on a specific date (see, I do have hobbies, I promise).

You get the idea.

The best conditions for skill acquisition are when you have a real, legitimate, time-bound need to develop competence.

It’s essentially Parkinson’s Law, just applied to learning instead of project management.

Or, the Verlaque version of this: Learn shit you actually need to learn.

Because having a strong “why” solves a lot of problems.

👂️Principle 2: Ask For Advice & Pay For Answers

Have you ever noticed that the things you’re best at are also the things that hold you back?

For instance, I’m really good at just figuring stuff out. If you give me a solid reason and some time, I’ll usually figure out how to get something done. Doesn’t really matter what it is (within reason).

But after scaling a couple companies, I realized that this can be VERY useful in the early days, and as destructive as a hand grenade later on.

Just because you can take yourself to the School of Hard Knocks and figure it out on your own, doesn’t mean that you should.

If you’re following Principle 1, you officially have a real-life, time-bound need to pick up a new skill. And if that skill is for a business goal, speed always matters.

It’s simple, really.

• Businesses become more valuable by either getting more customers, keeping them longer, or making them more valuable.

• Most of the skills you need to learn are to accomplish a goal that’s in support of one of those three things.

And when it comes to business growth, TIME is the dimension that people often forget.

Ok, cool - so we’re on board that there is an ROI on speed. Now what?

Buy some answers.

In 99% of cases, there are people out there who can teach you what you need faster than you can learn it on your own.

My first step is always to hit my network - look through my Facebook and LinkedIn friends, the contacts on my phone, the mastermind groups I’ve been in over the years, etc - and write down a list of everyone I already know who could help me.

And I start to send messages.

Second step after that is looking around to see who the experts are, and if they sell consulting, courses, or implementation services for the thing that I need.

Pro Tip: Working with a consultant / specialist for 6 months to learn how they do things, and then bringing it in-house, is a beautiful pattern for skill acquisition.

If you did the math with me in the yellow box, you’ll see that a three month delay in my example would cost you $33k in 2024 revenue.

So would I spend, say, $10k for someone to show me how to go faster?

Easy decision. Get after it.

📏 Principle 3: Measure Results From Day One

This might feel a little crazy, but it’s probably the most important step.

You GOTTA track your progress from Day One.

In my world, I measure everything weekly on a spreadsheet that I call The Precision Scorecard. And I measure progress on anything that’s important to me - in business or in life.

Part One: Have Goals

“But Matt, how should I track progress and set goals for something that’s brand new?!?”

Easy…it’s called a SWAG.

SWAG: Scientific Wild-Ass Guess.

See, a goal is nothing more than a tool that helps you reverse-engineer STANDARDS OF ACTION.

Let’s take this newsletter, for example.

This is my fourth issue. I’ve been promoting it on LinkedIn and a few other places, and I’ve got a couple hundred subscribers as of this writing.

But my 2024 goal is to reach 5,000 subscribers.

So instead of continuing to do the same thing over and over and watching 2024 melt away with me only getting a hundred new subs per month, I started with the goal and asked one of my Magic Questions:

That question opens up a world of possibilities. For instance, I probably need to be running ads.

Cool - well what would need to be true in order for THAT to be true?

I’d probably have to figure out an offer around my content that generates enough revenue to cover the ad spend.

And so on and so forth.

Each step in the strategy uncovers a new skill that I need to learn.

And the faster I learn the skill, the closer I bring the outcome that I desire.

Rinse and repeat, over and over.

But that’s only half the battle.

Part Two: Measure Results

Let’s say I start running those ads, and I launch a product - awesome.

That’ll feel productive - but is it actually getting me closer?

• How many subscribers are the ads generating?

• How much revenue is the offer generating?

• Am I covering my ad spend?

• Are the new subscribers even coming from the ads in the first place?

• Am I getting better or worse over time?

• Am I on pace to hit my goal of 5,000 subscribers?

How the heck do we answer all this stuff?

By tracking the data on a weekly basis.

Because learning a skill feels great, but making sure you don’t suck at it is how you actually generate results.

And that truth, my friends, lies in the data you collect and the trends that you measure.

📽️ Go To The Movies

I riff on this concept in my latest YouTube video:

Also, make sure you subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss anything awesome - I’d be crazy grateful for it!

🎯 Default To Action

Here are the key action steps you can take TODAY to make sure that you’re learning the right things, at the right time, as fast as possible:

1️⃣ Turn Goals Into Skills

If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably got a list of annual goals you’re trying to achieve.

Instead of just making your list and checking it twice, list out the specific skills you’ll need to learn in order to hit them. There’s probably something you need to learn in order to achieve it

✅ Every goal should also have a list of “skills needed” in order to achieve it.

2️⃣ Build Your “Network List”

For every goal you have, write down a list of where you can get help.

For example:

• People in your network

• Social media friends & people you follow

• Courses, consultants, and experts

• Peers that have solved the problem before

✅ Entrepreneurship is already lonely enough. Reach out to people for help and you’ll be surprised how much faster you’ll learn what you need to learn.

3️⃣ Track Your Progress

Use a simple spreadsheet - the rows are the data points, and the columns are the weeks.

For any new skill that you’re putting into play, track the key data points so you can understand where you’re pointed and if you’re being effective.

✅ Don’t learn just to “do things” - learn to “achieve outcomes”. The only way to know if you’re doing this is to measure the results - from day one.

I hope this helps you frame out some ways to make sure that you’re learning as efficiently as possible, and turning it into progress in your business.

Next week, I’ll be going deeper on something that I personally learned in 2023 - how to deliver financial results in a way that ACTUALLY changes people’s behavior 🤯 

If you’re the person who is accountable for the numbers and you’re tired of everyone “not getting it”…next week’s issue is JUST what you need.

Always in your corner,

MV

📣 Overheard On The Interwebs

YouTube Thumbnails

I know that most of you probably aren’t making YouTube videos for a living, but hear me out.

This issue is all about how to learn - so I wanted to feature a video that does a GREAT job teaching.

This week’s shoutout goes to Aprilynne Alter - she made a BANGER video on how to create YouTube Thumbnails that has really blown up.

There’s a lot of inspo to take from this approach if you need to teach anything to anyone…which is part of EVERYONE’S job (especially if you’re a leader / boss in any capacity)

Enjoy!!