The First 20 Hours - How to Learn Anything: Josh Kaufman at TEDxCSU

Like always, I get amazed by TEDx´s publications. This time I watched a  relatively new video. It was about the 20 hour rule. Implemented by Josh Kaufman, an American speaker with astounding talent for learning things. She´d recently had a child, though his time was cut off.

Therefore his passion for learning was kind of thwarted by this development. Regardless of what he had to go through with his new child, he still found the time to learn this new rule. At first, he started off by geeking in the library for quite some time. He learned that it takes a 1000 hours to master any new skill.

Not to learn it though. So that he decided to go deeper in his search for answers. He dug up more precise information saying that it only takes 20 hours to learn the foundations of any new skill. This time can even be broken up for better improvement. He wanted to master the ukulele; what he did was basically divvy up his time and focus as much as he could on this goal.

Even though he didn´t actually master it, he could learn to play quite a few songs. Josh wrapped up his speech by performing on stage and saying the following: ¨ Sometimes people are scared to try new stuff. They´ll be blown away when they realize how much you can improve in such a short time¨. I wasn´t exactly quoting but you get the gist.

I remember one time that I was quite depressed, I watched this video from ¨TED-talks¨. For the ones who still don´t know ¨TED-talks¨ is a site in which you can watch conferences and lectures about almost everything. It guests the most prestigious speakers known to mankind. From whiz-kids to very experienced people. This particular time was the turn of Nick Vujicic to speak, a world wide known Serbian-Australian performer.

He inspired me that day mainly because of one of the things he said in his speech. Life hadn´t been easy for  him growing up due to his disability. The fact of being looked with disdain by bullies in school was one of those setbacks. Nevertheless, this strong-willed man has blown away more than one person. Not only because of his courage but for his desire to live and help out others.

During his speech he mentioned he had attempted to commit suicide at the age of 10 by drowning himself in his bathtub.

However he realized while doing this it was not worth it. He thought about how much pain his parents would have gone through if he had killed himself that day. It made me cry to hear what he was saying at that moment. Everyone experiences blips once in while. However, I myself would  have not plucked up enough courage to keep going If I had been in his situation. It is indeed admirable and heroic what this man has done. Regardless of all he has undergone, he even managed to get a Bachelor´s degree in Accounting and marry a wonderful woman. He´s controverted the former belief that you need to be 100% physically healthy to succeed in life. A lot of hale and hearty people haven´t even achieved half of what he has. He also gives motivational talks around the world and has written several novels such as ¨Life without Limbs¨.

Not to mention his appearance in the short film ¨The Butterfly Circus¨ in which he was the protagonist. Lastly, I´d say that we all have a thing or two to learn from this wonderful human being. If he never threw in the towel, why would you?

It is said that we´re almost never 100% free to make the decisions we want. For instance, in some countries lefthanders are not allowed to use their creativity cause of some restrictions that still exist. We can never say however that our entire future is riding on an interview or something like that. We gotta take as many chances as we can. Most of the time we even have to steep ourselves in what we wanna improve.
 Along the way of course we ride out difficulties, but what matter´s that we keep in mind what we set out for. Planing on a project is like writing an essay. You basically set out your ideas as organized as possible following a format. As well as one vets their questions prior to an interview. Sometimes  we even gotta repurpose the content of our project for it to succeed.

It is important to consider things like plunking down a postgraduate program in the way of improving our chances. Furthermore, it ain´t easy to start out any project. A crucial thing to do is to glean info from different sources. Making sure everything is well sorted out before going on quest to success is essential. Life is like a wayward kid, it gets difficult to control.Therefore we cannot put all our eggs in one basket. Not even the greatest people on Earth have gotten away without getting rejected several times. Once one gets lucky enough to reach their goals though.

It´s much easier to unbend and chill out. I myself have tried to avail myself of every single opportunity I could have got. I wish I had done more however. I´ve learned that to be assailed by worries about the past ain´t a solution to any problem though. Besides, it also helps to indulge your passion for what you mostly like. Having said that I´d go so far as to say that what it all boils down to is either you try and succeed or you don´t try and live in uncertainty.