People don’t remember what you say, they remember how you make them feel.
If I ask you for specific details about a book you read 5 years ago there are very few books you can actually tell me much about.
Yet nearly every book you have read you can give me a score out of 10 on how good it was. Because we remember how it made us feel.
So to remember details we need to feel them.
That doesn’t seem intuitively useful for remembering equations for a maths test or learning how to build a website.
When we analyse the psychology of learning in the schooling system. It doesn’t seem to do us any favours if we want to learn much.
There is a thing called the learning pyramid.
At the top is the the worst tool for helping students retain information, that is giving them a lecture with less than 5% retention of content.
Next worse is reading about a topic - that has 10% retention, yet as students or adults that’s the majority of what we do…
Things only really get useful when we actually get involved ourselves. Most learning happens when we are active.
The best way to learn and remember something is to teach it.
What About Feelings?
This doesn’t sound related to emotions or how things make us feel.
However, trying to memorise a maths equation by reading it doesn’t make you feel much except for bored.
If you have to teach it you feel embarrassed, and worried about parts you don’t know. You feel concerned for the people you have taught and which parts they have understood.
You feel ecstatic when you see someone piece things together and get it.
There are a lot of emotions and feelings related to teaching something. Because of all the different tests of our knowledge, we build a much deeper understanding of the topic.
So emotions drive interest and retention, that’s why if you want to really learn something you should teach it.
I haven’t looked back at all when it comes to running my podcast and teaching others about psychology. It’s a perfect excuse to research extra stories on a hard topic to make it interesting whilst also building a much deeper core knowledge for myself at the same time.
Feynman’s Technique to master anything
The concept of teaching could mean many things. I want to specifically talk about Richard Feynman and the technique that made him famous.
Feynmann was an influential physicist and is considered one of the most brilliant teachers who has lived. He had an incredible gift for making difficult things understandable.
He won a Nobel prize in physics for his invention of a technique of diagrams to explain Quantum physics. The technique helped lead to many breakthroughs because it made quantum particle dynamics so understandable.
Richard Feynman - “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.”
He lectured 60 years ago. Despite that, his lectures on Physics at Caltech are considered some of the best teaching material for university physicists (or anyone who is curious).
Anyone wanting to geek out on physics I would also recommend his 2 books:
- 6 Easy Pieces
- 6 Not So Easy Pieces
He found that bad teaching also causes bad learning. He noticed top students could do well by memorising facts but didn’t have a depth of understanding in the jargon-filled statements they were reproducing.
Feynman’s Razor - “If someone uses a lot of complexity and Jargon to explain something, they probably don’t understand it.”
It’s so true and a useful tool to remember.
He created a learning model that prioritized teaching and breaking things down into their simplest form.
It has 4 key stages to help you master anything.
Wide then Deep
ELI5 (Explain It To Me Like I’m 5)
Feedback Assessment & Re-Study
Organize, Convey & Review
Let’s cover each step:
Step 1: Wide then Deep
What’s the topic you want to learn?
Starting with a blank page, write the topic at the top and jot down everything you know about it.
Next, start at the top of the learning pyramid and progress down towards the base. Listen to lectures, read, watch, and discuss with others. Start broad and wide, and then go deep.
As you do, add any new learnings or insights to your blank page.
This completely matches what we know from psychology about diffuse and focused modes of learning.
(Diffuse is more abstract and about ideas and cross-pollinating ideas. Focussed is zeroed in on one thing and going deep.)
Step 2: Explain it to me like I’m 5
Now you can progress to the base of the pyramid: Teaching.
Attempt to teach the topic to someone who does not have a basic understanding of it (i.e. a “5-year-old”). This can be a friend, partner, colleague, or classmate.
The only requirement is that it is someone you would consider uninitiated in the topic.
This important step requires you to simplify the topic for them to understand it. That means avoiding all jargon and acronyms.
“There is a big difference between knowing something and knowing the name of something”
Note
If you don't have a person to teach, you can make notes on a blank page or on your computer.
Write down everything you know about your topic—but pretend you are explaining it to a child.
Use only simple language.
If you have digital notes you can put them into the Hemingway app to test the reading level.
You can also get ChatGPT to pretend to be a student. Tell it that you need to practice teaching a 5-year-old the concept.
Step 3: Feedback Assessment & Re-Study
Ask for feedback from your student and personally reflect on your performance to form an honest assessment:
How well were you able to explain the topic to the uninitiated person?
What questions did the person ask?
Where did you get frustrated?
Where did you turn to jargon?
Your answers to these questions will surface the gaps in your understanding.
“As I get older I realize that being wrong isn’t a bad thing like they teach you in school. It is an opportunity to learn something”
At this point, Return to Step 1 and study more to fill these gaps.
Step 4: Organize, Convey, & Review
Organize your elegant, simple understanding of the topic into a clear, compelling story, lecture or podcast.
Convey it to a few others, continue to iterate and refine it accordingly.
This might sound like a lot of work but nothing is stopping you from writing short blogs or tweet threads on something you want to understand deeply.
We established emotion is important. The emotion of exposing yourself helps to fill in the gaps in your knowledge.
Every time I publish an episode, the week after I have more ideas of ways I could fill in gaps in the episode to be more clear. There are always opportunities where I can explain the topic better.
The feeling of being scrutinised is incredibly powerful.
Writer Neil Geyman says the most important part of getting better at something is to finish it. That means not giving up when it’s difficult or imperfectly formed. Just find a way to commit to being a completer.
He’s totally right.
Simple is Beautiful
Overall the Feynman Technique is a powerful framework for learning anything.
The best entrepreneurs, investors, and thinkers have leveraged this technique—whether they know it or not! Their common genius is the ability to abstract complexity and convey ideas in simple, digestible ways.
Some of the best speeches of Steve Jobs convey the importance of the iPhone in simple terms.
It's so easy to overcomplicate and intimidate—we all know people who try to do this. But don't be fooled—complexity and jargon are often used to mask a lack of deep understanding.
So be better.
Use the Feynman Technique: Find beauty in simplicity.
Possibly my favourite story of Richard Feynman's teaching really shows his character.
He worked on the Manhattan Project in Las Alamos and noticed the security was lacking considering it was the “most top-secret” project in the world.
He taught himself the basics of picking locks and safes and broke into different safes containing incredibly top-secret information.
He didn’t take anything or care about the contents. He simply left a handwritten note in each safe to teach the fact that the security was crap.
Now I think even a 5-year-old could understand that message.