Can I Use Strategies To Figure Out New Words With Little Help From My Teacher: Fill & Download for Free

I was about as under achieving as you could get.Barely graduated from high school. Suspended, arrested, etc.Luckily I went to an awesome community college and they turned me around.The full story is here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130521100832-4933865-class-of-2013-why-i-m-counting-on-you-to-failGiven one of the suggestions, here’s the speech:Failure is our only optionHave you ever been in one of those moments where you realized that gee, what’s the harm if I take the quick shortcut, who’s going to notice? (of course none of you did anything like that while here at Maryland) Well, I decided to take the opportunity to give myself an edge. As a Silicon Valley tech guy, I decided to use technology and the world to help me prepare for this commencement address. So, I asked people on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Quora to figure out what wise words you should be imparted with and also what they remember from their graduation speakers. You know what most people remember? Nothing! Zilch! Nada!So knowing this, I realized, I can say anything I want! Although, I’m sure someone will post this on YouTube. But seriously, as I got feedback from around the world and wracked my brain about what to say, one theme began to emerge.On your day of such great accomplishment, I’d like to talk about something we rarely celebrate: failure. And why we are counting on you to fail. Now bear with me, and you’ll see where I’m going.We’re all products of failure. You don’t remember it, but your parents definitely do. From the first time you rolled over, to your first steps. These successes were a culmination of failures. Need further proof? Make sure to ask them over dinner to recount your potty training.The funny thing is you can read all about me in the bio or my LinkedIn profile and you’ll see that I received my Ph.D in Applied Math from here 11 years ago. I’ve worked for the Department of Defense and been to Kazakhstan. But you won’t see all the failures that made up the journey. What you can’t see from my Facebook or LinkedIn page are what’s behind the most important moments of success all the failures.While growing up in California, to simply say I was bad at Math would have been an understatement. My freshman year of high school, I was kicked out of my algebra class and had to spend the summer retaking it. This (unfortunately) would become my regular paradigm for the next few years. By the time high school graduation came around, two things happened to me.First, I almost didn’t graduate. For the record, I did actually graduate, but it was only because a very kind administrator took pity on me and changed my failing grade in chemistry to a passing one.Second, I got a girlfriend. Since I didn’t get into any of the colleges I liked, I opted to go to the local Junior College with her. Do you remember that moment when you first got here and tried to figure out what classes you’re supposed to take? Well, I had a winning strategy. I enrolled in all the same classes my she was taking.One problem, the first class was Calculus. Wow, did I get my ass kicked that first day. It was then I realized that I wasn’t just stupid; I was really stupid.As I looked around at everyone else nodding along with the instructor (including my girlfriend), it dawned on me, I hadn’t failed because of the teachers or the material. No, I failed because I didn’t try. I didn’t even put my self in a position to fail.I was fundamentally afraid of being uncomfortable and having to address the failure that comes with it.To me it was like when you get to the top of the high dive, walk out the edge, looking down that the clear blue water (you can even see the dark lines at the bottom of the pool) everyone telling you to jump, and then running back down the steps. I couldn’t commit.So what did I do about my Calculus class? I committed. Instead of dropping out (my usual method), I went straight to the local library and checked out all the high school math books I could find. I then spent the next week going through them. And it was awesome. Suddenly I was failing at a problem, figuring out what I did wrong, and then course correcting. This feeling of being able to iterate was very new to me.Now, five weeks later that same girlfriend asked me one afternoon why I was spending so much time on my math homework. It was then that I uttered the fateful words that I will never forget:“I don’t know – It’s not like I’m going to become a math major or something”Much to my great surprise, I ended up becoming a Math major. (Actually, I think my parents are still surprised). Then the same thing happened when I got here to the University of Maryland for my graduate work. I got my ass kicked by everyone, again. I failed my first graduate class and even got the 2 lowest score on my first Ph.D. qualifying exam. (The lowest score was actually by a guy who didn’t even show up.) I really, really wanted to quit, but that wouldn’t be the uncomfortable path.So I stayed in the game by failing, getting back up, and continuing to push forward. It was probably one of the toughest and loneliest years of my life. The next time the qualifiers came around, however, I had the highest scores.The big take away I have from this is that tenacity and failure go hand in hand. Without both, you can’t move forward.Now it’s easy to say go forth and fail! But that’s not really that useful. What’s most important is how you fail. The best method is to fail fast. To help explain it, I want to tell you about one of my most recent experiences at a company called LinkedIn. Some of you may have gotten a few emails from us…LinkedIn wasn’t the first social network in a very competitive space nor did we know exactly where we were going. It was an extremely tough fight. What allowed us to succeed was our mantra of failing fast in order to survive. We would build products quickly, test them out, many of them failing, then learning about went wrong, and then trying again. In fact, if you looked at all the projects, code, design, and people’s time that was invested into building the company most people would be shocked by how much didn’t work.As my good friend Reid Hoffman, one of the founders of LinkedIn, says: Entrepreneurship is jumping off a cliff and assembling a plane on the way down.I think that’s a great analogy. First because it’s a statement that you have to fully commit by throwing yourself at the problem. Second, to build that plane in time, you have to be comfortable failing, learning and repeating the cycle until you accomplish your goal.If there is one thing that you take away today, remember this – fail quickly, don’t fail slow. I know it can sound a bit contrarian or even conflicting, but your goal is to move from a path of eventual failure to a path of success through iteration.For the cliché, but very necessary sports analogy – you are aiming for a home-run by taking as many chances at bat as you can.It’s essential you take risks, just make sure you have put yourself in a position to fail quickly. Failing slow is painful for you and painful for your loved ones to watch. It’s like watching your best friend being in a relationship that is clearly doomed, but they just won’t listen.So what’s the world’s advice (remember I cheated) on how to achieve success though failure?First and foremost, find your passion and work on what you love. There is a good chance many of you don’t know what your passion is yet. (That’s okay, after all, it too me over a decade to find out math is my passion). In fact, if you analyze LinkedIn’s data, the trends show that your generation will change jobs more times than any previous generation. That’s great in my opinion! You should try lots of things out. Why? Once you find your passion, you’ll never give up, take no for an answer, or have the patience for those that stand in your way. You’ll become an entrepreneur in your own right, by making your passion a reality.Now before we go on, we need to clear up something on entrepreneurship. Some people think entrepreneurship means going off and doing a startup. I think those are people who have either watched The Social Network one too many times or are following Facebook’s stock price a little too closely.My definition of entrepreneurship is “finding what you believe in, and creating something meaningful by failing at it over and over again until you eventually figure out how to make it a reality.”When a few of us had the idea to build the first digital library in Iraq, it wasn’t because we wanted to profit at it or to have an IPO, it was because there was a need. People were 30 years out of date (to put that in context, 30 years is just when the computer mouse was becoming a reality). And to figure out how to make it work, we had to try a massive number of things (most that didn’t work). But it became our passion and we refused to accept defeat. Today that digital library is one of the cornerstones of the Iraqi education system.Secondly, surround yourself with people you value and those who value you. Just like your body responds poorly to junk food (ok maybe in 10 years when it responds poorly to junk food), your mind and energy levels also respond to the company you keep. Keep the company of those that inspire you to do better, the people that aren’t afraid to tell you the unvarnished truth. It will hurt to hear, but it will allow you to iterate faster. Embrace those that will pick you up when you are down, because they will become your greatest allies in life.Thirdly, experience other people’s lives and continue to share your own. You’ve already done this. I remember many late nights cutting across the Chapel on the way to Wawa being in deep conversations with people who would become my closest friends and trusted advisors. You all know what I’m talking about. As you went through this journey, you opened up to each other. You shared your dreams, passions, heartaches and failures with those around you. Don’t let that go away. That’s where you learned about the human condition and what it means to have true relationships. The virtual ones will keep you in contact, but they don’t mean anything unless you have a common foundation of shared experiences.Lastly, strive to regularly put yourself in uncomfortable situations.The world is changing as we speak. Right now there are two people in a garage with a dog (don’t ask me why there is a dog, but there always seems to be one) creating the next iPhone, Facebook, Google. Those of you that are graduating today with your undergraduate degrees, you are the first generation to go through your entire social years (puberty onwards) with Facebook. During your entire educational experience you’ve had access to Google, mobile phones, and the Internet. And yet already during your time in college you have seen the introduction of the tablet. The notion of using a desktop or a laptop is already outdated to any preschooler. Given this rapid pace of change, the only advice that I can give you to stay on top of the curve is to keep learning. This means putting yourself in uncomfortable situations where you fail and subsequently teaching yourself new skills as a result.Why is this so important?Class of 2012, you are all about to embark on your next great journey. While many of you will travel far and wide, we are all counting on you to fail fast. While our society is moving forward faster than ever before, we are also facing a world with massive challenges.- Our health care system is going through a great debate.- Clean water is rapidly becoming a luxury.- We know the importance of education, but the majority of the world is restricted from it.- The capital and human costs associated with keeping our nation safe continues to rise- And, we have a disparity in the rights, both moral and physical, for all humans both here and abroad.The solutions to these problems won’t come from just having debates, relying on technology, or even worse, pushing the inevitable on to the next generation. The resolutions to our challenges will come through the process of trying, failing quickly, and then trying again with increased resolve.Finally, a graduation speech wouldn’t be complete without this most critical advice. Wear sunscreen. Yes, it’s the advice that is given over and over, but there is truth in it. If you’re stuck in bed with a cold, or a bad back, the world won’t stop and wait for you. In fact, many of the best leaders I know, take religious care of their bodies. The race is long and your body has to last for it.There you have it – my advice to you. We love to say things like “Failure is not an option”. But believe me, the most important thing the University of Maryland taught me is, “Failure, is our only option.”So if you can only remember one thing from this speech; remember: Every failure is an opportunity to succeed. Fail fast, don’t fail slow.Class of 2012 – this shared experience at college will always bind you together, and on this fantastic day remember that your success will be determined by how rapidly you learn from you failures.Congratulations class of 2012, I wish you a future of fast failures! May you go forth and fail so that we can all succeed!~DJ Patil

Here are 7 tips for learning better faster:small chunk and rehearse (focus)Want to get better at something? Learn step by step. Focus on one aspect at a time. Divide the stuff you want to learn into more manageable small chunks of information, and master one before moving on to the next.E.g., want to improve your social skills? Pick one area of social skills to invest most time on for now, either because it’s your main stumbling block (e.g., starting conversations with strangers), or either because it is something you do anyways but can improve (e.g., practice on family, colleagues and friends how to keep conversations more engaging).That doesn’t mean you cannot practice the rest of the skillset at all till you rounded this one point off: it just means dedicate to improving this one point till you reach a level of satisfaction, and keep the other aspects secondary till then. Then move on to another single point of focus.Just remember the analogy of eating an elephant: you can’t fit it in your mouth all at once. Instead you can only consume it…link to past experienceWhenever you learn something new, try to see how that principle applies to something you experienced previously. This is exploiting a memory bias called the self relevance effect: memories relating to the self are better recalled than similar memories not relating to yourself. So if you want to remember something more easily, relate it to yourself!E.g., when I first heard that small chunking is really crucial to absorbing information efficiently, I fought the tendency to dismiss it as something minor.Instead I thought back of times in my life where I learned a lot in a short-time span, and realized it was exactly because I cut the info into small chunks before moving forward.I also thought back of things that I had tried to learn and had trouble internalizing, and realized it was because the teacher absolutely resisted against letting me rehearse a small chunk before adding on the next chunk. Instead (s)he wanted me to internalize everything at once.forward link (visualize)Visualisation is often misunderstood and promoted in ways not supported by scientific findings: visualising yourself as having absorbed information, is called wishful thinking. It doesn’t bring you one step closer to absorbing the information or whatever goal you visualize having accomplished.However, visualizing yourself in a situation where you actively implement the information does help to retain the information and reach your goal: this is called forward linking.E.g., you have just learned about small chunking, and while you probably already had a notion of it, you want to internalize it so you will remember to apply it. To do so, imagine yourself applying the small chunking in a very specific setting regarding some area you plan to tackle soon.For example, let’s say you will join a martial arts class where people get sufficient individual attention. Visualize yourself saying to the (assistant) instructor: “Ok, that is an interesting form. Do you mind if I repeat these first two moves of the form a few times before you show me the rest in a few minutes?”You can learn a lot more and better in one week this way, than people who have been studying for a year and never intently focus on each chunk individually before proceeding.Regularly test your current understandingThis can be a two-edged sword.Expecting a certain outcome (scoring good) but not being able to make that outcome YET, can trigger some people to feel demotivated.This is more likely to happen if you currently have a fixed mindset that sees mistakes as permanent failures. A fixed mindset means you see any test as a test of you as a person, any mistake as as a fixed trait of yourself, rather than seeing a test for what it is.A test reflects a point in time to track your current knowledge: it doesn’t predict your future knowledge. You know what predicts your future success? Your mindset does. A fixed mindset makes you outcome dependent, meaning you value yourself depending on an uncontrollable outcome.However, by adopting a growth mindset, mistakes are seen for what they are: blessings, because they point out what currently needs more attention and can be improved.E.g., you as a person don’t intrinsically suck at math or languages for all eternity because at some moments in time you scored bad. Black belts and martial art instructors aren’t born that way: once they were worse than their classmates, but they persisted despite it. They got success thanks to a growth mindset.set deadlinesIf you give yourself specific learning goals with specific dates, preferably with good consequences if you make them, and bad if you don’t, you will be able to digest information more efficiently and faster. It helps you resist distractions and urges for instant gratification of things you don’t really need to be busy with.self-amuseThere is a memory bias called the humour effect, which refers to people being better able to recall humorous items. If you want to use this bias to your advantage, just try to have fun with what you are learning, so you will be better able to recall it. If your goal is for you to learn, it’s not important that others find it funny, as long as you find it funny. Lowbrow humour, double entendres, rhymes, absurdity… Whatever works for you.teach & shareMany people think that to be a teacher you have to be perfect at what you teach. Perfectionism doesn’t fuel progress: it fuels unsolvable frustration and it fuels you to become demotivated. It also stops you from taking action.The truth is, to be a teacher you don’t have to be the best, the most knowledgeable person on earth. You just have to be more knowledgeable than those who you teach.What’s most important: teaching doesn’t only help your students. It helps you! By teaching you are forced to not only rehearse, but to prepare and see a concept from multiple points of view, to distill the core from the details, and to examine something you learned more critically than when you would just learn it to satisfy your own intellectual hunger. It also helps you discover holes in your knowledge which you can then tackle. Repeating things you know while simplifying and using analogies helps yourself to strengthen your understanding.Ever heard about ‘the Feynman technique’? It’s just a fancy word for learning by teaching.But you don’t even need to be a teacher or be more knowledgeable: teaching is just a specific form of sharing. Sharing knowledge in other ways than teaching is something you can always do, and then you learn by exchanging information with others. (Thank you Quora)In summary:1 - tackle one small chunk at a time and rehearse before proceeding2 - make what you learned self-relevant by linking it to a past experience3 - imagine how you will apply the knowledge4 - keep regular track of your progress5 - set deadlines with consequences6 - have fun with what you are learning7 - share what you learned with others+ bonus tip for those who read this far:Question what you have learnedNot only try to figure out in which situations knowledge applies, but also try to figure out when it doesn’t. Whatever you learn, figure out if it is(a) a hard rule(b) more of a general rule(c) rather the exceptionor (d) never applicable.

It took me 10 years. But I did it.I turned the dingy blog I ran from my Stanford dorm room into a successful multimillion-dollar online business that's helped millions of people across the world.Now I help thousands of people just like you start their own online business every year.So I get asked this exact question. A LOT.Before I go further, if you think you're going to start an online business and make a gazillion dollars in your first year with little work, skip my answer and move on. As my friend Neville wrote:“I've met a ridiculous amount of people who've said to me, “I just want to have a business on auto-pilot where I don't have to do any work, and it spits out a lot of money.” Those people never go anywhere. I've never seen one of them succeed. They're dweebs who want SOMETHING for NOTHING. They want the world to give them something, without giving the world something back first.”Still here? Great.The problem is the question. We need to change it a little.The real question you should be asking is “What is the ‘easiest’ way for ME to make money online right NOW?”Instead of focusing on the easiest way for anyone to make money, let’s focus on the easiest way for YOU to make money.And the easiest way for you to start making money online is by using the skills you already have.Which means ...Freelancing is the ‘easiest’ (and best) way you can make money online right now.I know. It’s not as sexy as whatever the hot new online business fad of the day is (cryptocurrency trading, dropshipping, [insert other hairbrained business idea]), but it’s true.Freelancing is great because you don’t have to:Quit your dayjob to get startedHave a lot of cash to investSpend countless hours learning a new business or skillAND you can do something you’re already good at AND you enjoy.Now comes the inevitable next question, “But Ramit! How do I get started freelancing online?”You find your (profitable) idea.Most people have one of two problems at this point:They don’t have any business ideas orThey have too many and don’t know which to chooseSo here are 4 easy steps you can follow to examine your skills and find your money making idea today.The ‘right’ money-making idea meets 4 key criteriaThere are literally thousands of ‘right’ freelancing ideas out there, but here are 4 key criteria that every viable idea has to meet:Viable idea criteria #1: It unleashes your inner X-ManOver the years I’ve discovered that we all have a combination of knowledge, skills, and experiences. I call these X-Men abilities.Inside each and every one of us is an X-Men ability that might be invisible to us because we do and think about these things naturally. For example, I have a friend who just LOVES clothes. If her friends ever had a fashion question, they’d ask her. What seems like nothing special to you may be extremely valuable to someone else. I can easily see her writing an ebook on women’s fashion for $50 or doing a one-on-one Skype call for $100.YES, people do this already and have built thriving businesses around their skills! Think about the skills you have. They are tangible, countable abilities that you’ve acquired through experiences on the job, in school, or elsewhere. And listen, stop short-changing yourself. You HAVE skills. Are you really good at math? (Did you know I once hired a math tutor and paid him a lot of money?) Can you write really well? Are you really good at editing videos? Are you in shape?There are a million skills you have, but we overlook those things about ourselves all the time. To find your skills, ask what are all the specific things you could list on your resume? Examples of skills:• HTML• Personal training• Japanese• Ad sales• Video editingViable idea criteria #2: It showcases your strengthsYour money-making idea needs to showcase what you’re best at. Strengths are intangible qualities that you have a natural affinity for that make you stand out from the next person with your skillset. This is typically what college kids often cite in place of real experience and, while I like to mock it, these actually matter. For example, I know a woman who openly said she never wants to talk to customers — her strength is working behind a computer and that’s what she likes. Great! Be brutally honest. You might be really good at building systems or turning complex ideas into actionable insights.Find your strengths: What are the qualities that have gotten you the most praise on the job or in school? Which strengths have made you feel the most ‘in the zone?’Examples of strengths:• Developing rapport with others quickly• Managing multiple people and projects• Organizing data into actionable information• Teaching other people new ideasViable idea criteria #3: It’s something you like to doAh, the old cliche. “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”If you want to make money, you’ll still have to work, BUT you’ll have a lot more fun doing it and 99% of the time be a lot better at it.Plus, people can tell when you’re genuinely passionate about something, and that passion is contagious. Would you rather hire a piano teacher who:Is bursting with excitement at the opportunity to share with you what they know about the instrument they love, orActs like you just asked them to drop you at the airport during rush hour traffic every time you show up for your lessonDo you think I would have spent 15 years of my life writing about finance if I didn’t find it fascinating? Hell no!So find your interests: What do you read or research in your spare time? Magazines? Blogs? TV shows? What fascinates you most? A good example that my friend Ben (who blogs about entrepreneurship here) always mentions is, “What do you read on a Saturday morning?”Examples of interests:• American politics• Live music• Gardening• Cycling• Online gaming• Street fashionViable idea criteria #4: People will pay you for it (who aren’t your mom)OK, so someone may know their skills, strengths, and interests based on the above, and they might excitedly run to me, yelling, “EUREKA!!! I AM GOING TO EARN $5,000+/MONTH KNITTING COLORED BUTTONS ON FLANNEL SHIRTS ONLINE BECAUSE I AM REALLY GOOD AT KNITTING!!!” Then I slowly shed a single tear and wipe it away with my cashmere sweater.Your idea can only be profitable if there’s an actual market for it. In other words, you have people who are willing to pay you for your service.So how can you determine if there’s a market for your idea? Two quick tests:1. Check for supply: Is there anyone else offering your service?Now, a lot of people I know will actually get depressed when they notice there’s someone ‘already doing’ their idea. The competition makes them shrink away like a white guy in a spelling bee. This is the opposite of how I see it. When I see a healthy range of providers for an idea, it tells me there’s very likely a decent market for that offering. It’s good news — not something to shy away from. Since most people are terrible (see The Craigslist Penis Effect), with some ingenuity you can crush them.2. Check for demand: Is there anyone out there looking for your service?Have you ever seen a job posting or help wanted ad for the service you’re thinking of providing? On Craigslist, other jobs sites, or even via word of mouth? These are clear signs of demand in the marketplace for your idea, and that’s also very good news.Every one of my students knows that they MUST validate the demand of their idea.In other words, if you think that you can do marketing online for local restaurants, you had BETTER interview 15+ restaurant owners to see if they:Care about your ideaValue itUse the same words you do to describe their problem (Check out my free post on copywriting if you need help with this)Will pay you for itIf you have no demand, you have no business — end of story.Do your potential customers have the ABILITY and WILLINGNESS to pay?Your market must have the ability and willingness to pay. And some people and groups are markedly bad markets. Let’s take a look at 3 examples.If your idea is to offer web services to nonprofits, you might as well give up now. That is because most non-profits can’t (they have no money) or won’t pay (because they may not see your value), even though technically it would improve their organization.If your goal is to sell some computer game service to kids, think again. While they may have the willingness to pay, they generally don’t have the ability.And the CLASSIC, CLASSIC bad idea is, “Let me sell to mom and pop shops/restaurants/businesses” and help them create a website/do marketing/etc. While local businesses have the ABILITY to pay, they don’t have a willingness to pay, mostly because small-business people are often treading water and are, in the words of a coffee-shop owner where I write, “too busy to do marketing.” Yes, it’s irrational and dumb, but it’s TRUE. Do not pursue markets where people are not willing and able to pay you.Your 2 major takeaways are these:Your job does NOT have to be where you get your brilliant freelancing idea. Your job CAN shed light on your best skills and strengths, even if it doesn’t speak to your interests. Combining skills, strengths and interests to start generating income is NEVER a cookie-cutter formula (be wary if someone tries to tell you it is). It’s a process that requires being strategic and critical guidance.Your job skills CAN be transferred, no matter how unique you think your job is. So you’re a horse whisperer in Wyoming. Wow, unique job! Not really. You have skills in working with animals, obviously, but you also have expertise in behavioral change. There are plenty of academic labs and companies that would love to find your website and pay you for your advice and expertise.Your first idea might not be the one that works. That’s OK! But you won’t know if you don’t try. Most of my students who make 6 or 7 figures plus from their business didn’t find their winning idea their first time around.It’s like baseball. It doesn’t matter how many books you read about legends like Babe Ruth or YouTube videos you watch on proper hitting form. You’re not going to hit a home run until you step out onto the field and start swinging.So if you did all these steps already, now you have at least 1 idea to try. What next?It’s time to find your first client. I’ll show you how to do that (and lots more) in my free guide to freelancing, The official handbook to 6-figure freelancing with zero experience.Let me know what freelancing idea you’re going to try first in the comments! And if this answer helped you, please upvote it so it can help others too.