How to Learn Anything

when i was eight years old

i looked something like that and i had a

friend

and that friend drew beautifully i could

not understand how someone so young

could draw so well and i interviewed her

a lot

because i couldn’t and so as many people

do

i forgot about drawing and i marked it

of the list of the things

that i could do in life but a few years

passed

and i became interested in animation i

thought it would be cool to become an

animator

like the guys at pixar or dreamworks

so i went on google i typed in how to

learn animation

and i spent a few months moving shapes

around my screen

and that was cool but then i read

somewhere that if you want to become a

better animator

then you should learn to draw i actually

was like learn to draw

i always wanted to do that so i went on

google

i typed in how to learn drawing and i

found a drawing guide that i completed

after a month

i kept on practicing and practicing i

even signed up for drawing classes

after four months i was able to draw

like that then i met a magician

and he was like do you want to see a

card trick and i was like

sure i love card tricks and you know he

did the trick

30 seconds passed and he was like is

this your card

and it was it actually was my card

and i was amazed my voice was taken away

and we just stood there like

and i exclaimed how did you do that that

was amazing

and he wouldn’t tell me so that went on

google

i typed him how to do card tricks and

i spent a year learning that after that

time

i learned enough to actually approach

random people on the street

and show them tricks i finally gained

the skills

to evoke the same sense of wonder

amazement and mystery

that a stranger once provoked in me

[Laughter]

so that didn’t work out and i decided to

learn to code

when i was little i gamed a lot and so i

always wanted to create a game

uh so you know i went on google i typed

in

how to make a game and i spent a year

watching online tutorials

and developing my project after that

time

the project was finished my game was

finished

i learned a lot throughout the process

and i could show off the result to my

friends

besides well i have to say the game was

a spectacular success

so i finished the game last summer

and i was sitting on my couch watching

youtube videos

and wasting time as i usually do and i

stumbled upon a video

made by google it was called abu story

and abu was a high school student who

discovered artificial intelligence

and decided to use it in a in an

extracurricular project in order to

classify breast tumors

as malignant or benign malignant tumors

are those that are dangerous

benign are those that are less dangerous

so what abu exactly wanted to do

was find examples of malignant and

benign breast tumors

and then showed them to his computer the

computer would learn to recognize them

and then if habu had a new tumor and he

did not know

whether it was malignant or benign he

could show it to the computer

and the computer would tell him that

i thought to myself if some kid my age

can get one of the biggest companies in

the world to make a video about him

just because he learned how to use his

computer in an efficient manner

so i went on google i typed in how to

learn machine learning

and i spent three months learning that

after that time i found a data set on

the internet

with examples of malignant and benign

breast tumors

and i showed them to my machine learning

algorithm

it learned to recognize malignant and

benign breast tumors

with 93 accuracy

what i’m trying to say through all of

that is that you can learn things

on the internet you may not realize this

but this is a unique opportunity there

had never been a time in history

when learning was so simple for example

if you were born a shoemaker in the

medieval times

and you had a weird nose and

you decided you would like to check out

what goat breeding was like

then firstly you wouldn’t because you

were shoemaker

in the medieval times secondly assuming

you were really really set on learning

how to breed goats then you would need

to find information

on where you can find a goat breeder

then leave your village

find companions embark on a journey save

the widow fight the pagans get killed be

resurrected slay dragon and that old

loud with goats still wouldn’t teach you

because you had a weird nose

these days you literally go on google

type in how to read goats and there’s a

reddit post that tells you exactly what

to learn and where

you are in a unique position to access

the miracle of free education

and you may say okay hugo i get what

you’re saying

but i once tried to learn something on

the internet and i learned a thing but

then i didn’t know what the next thing

to learn was

and i didn’t learn the thing i wanted to

learn and i get that

i actually had the same problem myself

once

for example when i was trying to learn

to code

there were many tutorials on programming

languages online

and i completed a lot of them but still

was not able to code something up myself

such as the game i wanted to create so

the question arises

how do you actually learn things on the

internet

and the answer is actually pretty simple

and comes down to two steps one

find a road map two follow it

a road up is a list of the things you

need to learn in order to gain a complex

skill

it’s also a list of places where you can

find learning resources

such as articles books or courses

and if it sounds obvious to you it is

when you go to school there is an entire

curriculum ready for you

so that you know what to learn in order

to master subject

but on the internet there’s no

curriculum you have to find one yourself

and people forget about that so

a good first step to finding yourself a

roadmap is to google the thing you want

to learn

followed by reddit i have yet to find a

subject for which i could not find a

basic outline with this method

try it yourself i even began studying

machine learning that exact way

if the topic you’re interested in is

academic or technical in its nature

then you should also look for online

courses you can use sites

such as coursera udemy or udacity

many courses are free and some of these

sites even offer financial aid if you

cannot afford their fees

a third great learning resource are

simply books and pdfs

that you can find online simply googling

the thing you want to learn

followed by book often use great results

and if you’re looking for shorter

tutorials on more

let’s say miscellaneous skills then you

should go on youtube

you’re bound to learn something along

the way

and i know what you’re thinking that

sounds

like a lot of work hugo but surprisingly

it’s not i learned to code by spending

only 30 minutes a day programming over

the course of two years

and on many of these days i did

absolutely nothing

the same goes for any other skill i have

talked about

and if you actually use these methods

and learn something new

think of all the ways you could benefit

not only yourself

but also and more importantly other

people

what you might do could have a real

influence

on not just your life but on other

people

who benefit from your enhanced impact

on the world so i am proposing a

challenge

think of one thing you’ve always wanted

to learn

then google how to learn it then

learn it 30 minutes a day is enough

now the only thing you need to do is

find the time

thank you