How You Can Become An Agileish Super Learner AKA How You Can Become A Super Thinker AKA The Proof Of Concept (POC)
Table of contents
- Being a super learner the first time
- Losing my superpower
- My attempts to become a super learner again
- It is possible to become a memory champion
- Becoming a Super Thinker AKA The Hundred Thinkingish Smurfs Methodish
- Open sourcing myself
- Being an Agileish Superhero AKA The Agileish Mind Methodish
- The Pomodoroisch Techniqueish
- Where I am at the moment?
- My plans for the future
- The proof of the usefulness of techniqueishish I have written above
- My first-ever live Agileish superhero session
HI!
I am Miki Szeles from Hungary, Budapest.
I am an average guy, a single human just like you. A single human with one small twist.
I am a super learner.
Being a super learner the first time
The first time, when I was a super learner was 40 years ago, just right after I was born.
Kids are super learners. They such the information into themselves as a sponge sucks the water.
Babies are touching, smelling, and tasting everything. They are playing with each object they find. They drop it to the ground, to hear its sound, to see whether it breaks or not.
Super learning is the ability with which babies extend their knowledge about the world at an extreme speed.
Losing my superpower
As I got to kindergarten and later school, I was taught a different method of learning.
I was told I must repeat things in my head many times in order to memorize it. Unfortunately, there was nobody with me who could tell me that this method is completely flawed.
So, I learned this method. It was enough to get 5s(As) in almost every subject in the school, but it was far not enough to get good grades at the university later.
At that time, I thought being a super learner is a very important skill.
By now, I know being a super learner is the most important skill for a human.
Why?
Because in case you are a super learner, you can exponentially increase in everything, no matter what it is exactly.
My attempts to become a super learner again
I was around 10 years old when my parents enrolled me in the Silva method for kids course. It was interesting, that was the first time I met with the peg lists (Memóriafogasok in Hungarian).
I played with the peg list, but back then I did not see its value of it.
Later I turned toward the supernatural.
I did believe things like telekinesis, telepathy, clairvoyance, astral traveling, and reality shifting are existing.
After I went to university, I did not believe in this anymore. By going to grammar school, I got a new religion called SCIENTIST.
I did not believe in anything that was not proven by science.
But before this happened, I tried a few things.
Reiki
I thought regeneration and healing others are a real thing, so I have learned Reiki. I used Reiki a lot when I was a child, and it did great things, but there was no exact thing by which I could say, this is definitely working.
Silva method
I have visited the normal Silva method course of László Domján.
It was amazing. This was the second time when I have met with brainwaves like alpha, beta, delta, and theta.
The first one was when I had an epileptic seizure and thanks to that, I had to go to check-ups for years.
During these check-ups they have put cold gel on my head, then they have attached small electrodes, just to draw an EEG curve. I will talk about this in an upcoming article soon.
Let's get back to the Silva method.
I have seen in life that the Silva method works. You can achieve unbelievable things with that. I even had 2 books with the title Agykontrollsikerek, which is a collection of success stories.
Photo-reading and mind maps
In order to improve my learning, I tried to learn Photo-reading. First via a series of audio cassettes but later also on a Photo-reading course.
This was the time I met with mind maps. However, it was fun, I did not use it afterward as I thought it is too cumbersome to draw something just to remember one simple thing.
Today I am using mind maps all the time but in a completely different way. Instead of having one connection between elements, I have several connections between all the things in my head.
I tried to employ photo-reading in my life, but I have miserably failed. Despite I failed I learned 2 very important things:
Előolvasás (preview in English), is a crucial point in reading anything. With előolvasás you can immediately whether this book is for you or not, most importantly it can wake up the curiosity of your inner child, which is one of the cornerstones of learning.
During prereading, your inner child comes up with a lot of questions if you let it do that. Having questions that are relevant to us is crucial in the learning process.
I was great in subjects that had a clear logic in them like Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, and many others.
Ok, I lied. I was only good in those 2 subjects.
But I was struggling with history, grammar, literature, biology, geography, and especially with PE as I was 86 kgs back then.
I was good at learning practical things, especially if I could use them immediately in practice. For example, when I have learned a mathematical formula, I could immediately apply it to calculate some results. That was a good first step to memorizing something.
It is possible to become a memory champion
Later I read Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer. That book is amazing. Joshua is a single human just like you and me and without any background, he was able to become a memory champion. I highly recommend reading that book, I will also reread it soon to further boost my already very strong motivation.
Memorization techniques
I have read multiple books from Dominic O'Brian about memorization. I highly recommend reading them, I will reread them again soon.
I had many attempts with memory palaces, peg lists, associations, and number memorizing techniques.
Peg list
This technique is very simple. You come up with an object for each number. For example, 1 looks like a candle, so my object for 1 is a candle.
For me, the number 2 looks like a pirate's hook on his arm.
Let's say I want to memorize a deck of cards which I did back then. You can read about it on [my former personal blog] (msz.team/3NSGB14). It is in Hungarian, but thanks to Google translate you can read it if you are interested.
To keep it short let's say I want to memorize a queen of heart, and a diamond king in this order.
So I imagine a queen with a crown on her head wearing a robe. The robe is open, and I can see a T-shirt on the queen with the text "I ❤ chocolate cake". To connect it with number 1, I imagine she is eating a pistachio cake that has a single candle on it.
This is enough, especially as I was able to connect it with a very memorable thing. The movie "És megint dühbe jövünk... (Odds and Evens in English)" features Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill.
So for the king, I imagine a huge room in which there is a hook on the ceiling. A king has clenched his fists on this hook, to make sure he won't fall to the ground. As the room is completely full of alligators. The king has a huge diamond in his hand but in order to prevent falling, he drops the diamond and one of the alligators swallows it.
As you can see this is a very effective technique to memorize things in a certain order.
The PAO (Person, Action, Object) method
The PAO method is like the peg list, but in addition to having objects, you also have actions and persons.
In PAO we do not care about the order of things, but of course, you can combine it with the peg list technique.
My first person will be my son Levi. I could reuse the previous image, but to demonstrate how easy is the process let's create another image.
So, I imagine Levi wearing a robe and a crown, sitting on the iron throne from Game of Thrones eating chocolate from a heart-shaped box.
The action will be carried for example. I imagine a burglar who just escaped from a jewelry shop carrying a one-meter-high diamond. He cannot really bring it, so he puts it on a truck and immediately brings it to her queen Sasha, who is his love of life.
As you can see, things get much more memorable in case you extend them with tiny details, as I did with the name Sasha.
Also, as you can see you can create not just single images but also imaginary videos which will make memorization much more efficient.
And let the 3rd card be a 7 of Spade. For me, the spade looks like a fan. To connect it with 7 I imagine the seven dwarves holding a fan in their hand all of them are fanning Snowwhite as she is very hot.
Well, I have to tell you I messed up. However, the above-mentioned thing works pretty well, this is not the PAO method.
So, let's revisit the topic.
Person: Levi wearing a robe and a crown, sitting on the iron throne, eating chocolate cake.
In order to use the PAO, Levi has to do something.
So, Levi is holding a diamond in his left hand, and a Barbie doll called Stacie (who is dressed as a queen) in his right hand (watch out for the tiny details, they make everything much more memorable). In order to have some action too, let's imagine Levi throws both to see, how far they can get.
The object is a 7 of the spades. After Levi has thrown the diamond and the Barbie doll a 7-headed dragon called Draco comes in then collects the thingies and brings it back to Levi. Except not. He puts the diamond in his treasure chest and starts playing with the Barbie doll, as he is so lonely. He only has a visitor haphazardly. Instead of stamps, he is collecting shields and swords.
As you can see this technique is very simple but extremely powerful.
Memory palace
Memory palaces are highly effective to memorize anything either ordered or unordered list of things. There are people who memorised all single bones in the human body using this technique. Of course, you can do that without this technique, but this one is not just much more effective, but also much more fun.
The memory palace can be either a real place, an imaginary place, or even a place from your favorite game.
The idea behind this technique is to put the information you want to memorize somewhere in a room.
It is very important to connect the thing you want to memorize with a certain part of your room. For example, I want to memorise the word gulyás (Goulash in English and グヤーシュ in Japanese) which is traditional Hungarian food. Maybe even you heard about it. 😊
Dear Reader! What is the first word that comes into your mind when you hear the word Hungarian? Please share it in the comment section.
While I was using memory palaces, I usually used the place with which I am most familiar which is our flat.
So in order to get into the flat, I open the door, but an accident happens. There was a bogrács (cauldron in English, 大釜 in Japanese) and the door dumped the cauldron, and the hall is completely filled with potatoes, carrots, and meat cubes.
That's it.
If you want to memorize the order too, it is important to have a visiting order in which you visit the parts of your room.
That's enough about memorization techniques. Let's talk about the big gun!
Speed reading
I have tried to learn speed reading 3 times. The first 2 were a complete disaster. I have used tools like Spreeder and others with which I was able to boost my reading speed.
But there was a tiny little problem.
I could remember almost nothing.
The fact that I have never known a single person who can really do reading with 700 words per minute with 90% of comprehension leads me to the conclusion of speed reading is a hoax.
That is how I lived my last 15 years.
But something changed since then.
My Udemy course library is similar to my Steam library. It is full of never visited courses/games which I bought when there was a sale.
So back then in December, I found a course called SuperLearner and bought it.
As it is promised I will become a super learner I immediately bought it and started to watch it.
It was a disappointment for me. The subject was interesting, but I had the feeling it is just talking about things, and not giving any guidelines to follow.
Then I found out it might be intentional as Jonathan Levi who has created the course founded a company Super Learner Academy.
You can enroll at this academy for a nice amount of money. In exchange for that, you will get access to a lot of courses. There is a basic and a premium offering, and I have decided to go with the premium to get the most value from it.
I have only watched a small portion of the Super Learner Master Class, as for me it did not provide enough extra value, except for an excel sheet, which contains what you should practice when.
So, I decided to cancel my subscription. After writing a mail to the support to cancel my subscription I got a mail (I guess an automatic mail) from Jonathan Levi in which he explains why I should stay.
This is a perfect marketing strategy; he was able to convince me to keep the subscription as I was interested in productivity-boosting about which they also have a course.
I just canceled my subscription a few days ago, as I am becoming more and more productive since I became an agileish super learner.
Despite this, I highly recommend giving it a try. If it can only improve your learning speed a little bit, it is still a great value. And of course, you can cancel your subscription anytime, as I did.
I happily pay even a high price for something which gives me value, but as I am constantly changing it is always something different in which I see the value now.
I have learned one very important thing from the Udemy Super Learner course:
Up till you do not have a great memory, there is no point in learning speed reading, as you will forget everything.
The course came up with the example of filling a bucket with a water hose. No matter how fast the water is coming, in case your bucket is full, then you just waste the water/time by trying to fill it.
The information that you must improve your memory first was crucial for me.
Becoming a Super Thinker AKA The Hundred Thinkingish Smurfs Methodish
In case you read my writings you already know I have introduced more than 30 imaginary characters by now. In the beginning, they were inspired by Edward de Bono (who is a genius)'s Six Thinking Hat, then later I realized there is an even better method.
The method is coming from Peyo who is an even bigger genius than Edward de Bono.
Peyo is the father of the Hupikék Törpikék (Smurfs in English, スマーフ in Japanese).
But he does not only have 6 hats, but he has more than 100 smurfs.
So, let's see how they connect:
My character | Edward De Bono's Hat | Smurf in Hungarian | Smurf in English | Smurf in Japanese | Attributes |
Minnie | Red | Törpilla | Smurfette | スマーフェット | empathy, enthusiasm |
Minnie | Red | Törpilla | Smurfette | スマーフェット | empathy, enthusiasm |
Nikolai | Black | Dulifuli | Grouchy Smurf | Grouchy sumāfu | negativity, critical thinking |
Mictor | Green | Törpingáló | Painter Smurf | 画家スマーフ | creativity |
Metro | Blue | Okoska | Brainy Smurf | 聡明なスマーフ | thinking about thinking, keeps focus, reflects |
Not employed yet | Yellow | még nincs beazonosítva | not identified yet | まだ特定されていません | In reality I have a rainbow-coloured hat, as I am all my characters together. |
Miki | White | Törpapa | Papa Smurf | パパスマーフ | In reality I have a rainbow-coloured hat, as I am all my characters together |
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