How to Learn

Committing to a life of constant learning is a surefire way to develop personally and professionally.

The trick, my friend, is to be curious. Like any habit, this can be cultivated. We know from neuroscience that the brain has plastic qualities, as in it literally adapts to how we use it. Neural pathways and synapses that occur due to certain factors, like behaviour, environment, or neural processes, are not set in stone as we used to believe. Our brains engage in synaptic pruning, deleting the neural connections that are no longer necessary or useful and strengthening the necessary ones.

“Neurons that fire together… wire together.”

This means the more you run a neural circuit in your brain, the stronger that circuit becomes. This is how muscle memory works. If you practice a punch every day, you get better at it as the movement gets wired into the brain & body.

The more you study how we learn, the more you will be blown away by how ridiculously capable our bodies and brain are. There are scientifically proven strategies to help improve our cognitive function, such as movement, solving different types of problems, creative expression (creating art, music etc.) and sleep! There has been much media attention and several best-selling books written on sleep in recent years. To save you from reading them and as a reminder of yesterday’s lesson, please try and sleep a tad more. The evidence suggests that for most of us, having more quality sleep is better for our health, longevity and brain function.

Minds in Motion™

A few years ago, I was giving a talk about mind & body connection at the top of the Shard in London, and that’s where I met Dr Pippa Jayne, an NHS Psychiatrist. She wanted me to help her collaborate on creating a free fitness class to help people patients suffering from learning disabilities and personality disorders. Such a fantastic idea!.. We spent a lot of time co-creating a class and training program we called Minds in Motion, which we believed would specifically help brain function, memory, and all the standard social and health benefits exercise gives. It was very clever. NHS trusts first needed to see more evidence of it working before rolling it out. Sadly the masses of red tape sorting out a clinical trial to prove our concept, married with the fact Pippa and I were doing this as a non-commercial charitable endeavour, meant we’ve paused this project. We have the materials and resources to train health workers or fitness instructors so they can deliver this class in an outpatient setting.. but I can’t see our trial happening unless we get some help from someone high up in an NHS trust championing it or taking it over. That’s why I am writing about it now, as I’ve learned you never know who reads stuff you write online! Essentially it’s a fun group exercises class specifically and scientifically designed to help people suffering from personality and chronic brain disorders. No such class exists like this, and it will directly help so many people who are sadly suffering.. and obviously, it’s not about money – Pippa and I will never make a penny for it, so if you know anyone in the NHS who can help get this concept off the ground, please cut/paste this page to them and ask them to get in touch! Thank you.

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As discussed in the SKILL lesson, doing complex movements will make your brain more efficient. So since you have already read that, have you taken up anything new, and if not, why not?

Immersion & Obession

As an eternal student and professional teacher/coach – the issue of how we best learn has been an important one to play with. We all have different ways of learning, and the best teachers take responsibility for figuring that out rather than expecting the student to know fully! I also believe most of us merely scratch the surface of stuff… and we’re missing out.

Due to my slightly extreme all-or-nothing attitude (which I assure you is rarely a virtue), I have opted for immersion when trying to get good at something… essentially I go all in..that’s why I travel to the source when learning new things, hire caches, read books and ask many questions etc. Obsession is not a dirty word in my world. We need to obsess to master new skills quickly.

My career and global media reputation as a top ‘Celebrity Personal Trainer’ didn’t happen by accident. It’s due to my obsession over really learning the nuances in the science of exercise as well as striving to deeply understand the unique needs of my clients – from sitting at the back of a speedboat analysing my Wake Boarding client’s muscle tension to watching hours of slow-motion videos of my Team GB Sprinter client to see if their coach had missed something (they had) to even taking acting lessons purely so I could better empathise with my many Actor Clients – I have spent so much of my time trying to understand my clients and their worlds better! Good coaching is a balance of empathy and leadership – so I have obsessed over both and focused a lot of my energy on being a great coach to my clients. This is why my career is going pretty well. I had the same intense/committed approach when I used to compete in sports too..  One must ‘obsess’ over the details to get great at anything.

The nature of my work means I’ve formed close relations with a wide variety of highly creative and successful individuals, which has informed my opinions too. I’ve had the pleasure of watching multiple Ocsar-winning Actors preparing for a new role… and trust me .. they obsess!. Aside from Athletes, Actors and Models, I’ve also worked with numerous talented pop stars & Musicians. When you see a client, someone you hang out with nearly every day, become inspired to create a new album, then devote ten months of their life to writing, tweaking, brainstorming, editing, and finally recording an entire album. You see how immersion into one’s craft (or ‘obsession’)  is the way to create art and a fantastic way to learn about yourself and, therefore, better express yourself.

If you want to master a new skill or be great at something, I say dive head first and immerse yourself fully. Let’s take exercise as an example. It is way more fun, AND you’ll get better results training when you know your body and understand the science of exercise. So yeah, hire a trainer – most are great!…  but don’t just do the exercises they tell you to do… ask them why that exercise rather than another… why 12 reps, not 8? Why that tempo not faster or slower?… Constantly pick their brain and learn everything you can .. Knowledge is empowering, and working out it is way more fun the more you know!