We trust people and they betray us.

They give big promises and keep us hanging in daydreaming. We rely on them and they never turn up. They shatter our hopes and dreams. They loudly tell what they believe is true but they are liars. They look like our supporters but they are fake.

In this podcast episode, Mayur talks about

How these liars and fake supporters can surprisingly help us in growing our business? How can we take advantage of them?

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This podcast is different than the rest of the episodes.  It’s very close to my story and not with my story but in most of our story.  It’s probably your story too. It’s something personal and I always wanted to share.

Back in 2010, when I started into training and coaching business, I started meeting a lot of people.
I was new to the business and as a beginner, my hopes were very high, just like everyone who start their own business. I had great things to offer. I was meeting and demonstrating my skill and knowledge.  I met all sorts of people. I met people who design the website, people who do the outdoor marketing, people who want to join me, people who say that they will promote my work and all those people who show you big hopes. I was delivering sessions on various skills such as NLP, hypnosis, communication, sales and topics related to personal development. I had some products to sell. Yes, I have been selling products since 2010.

Now, there were many people who promised to give me work but never did.
They told me they will spread my words around and help me to promote because they said they liked what I do. But they disappeared and never bothered. I am sure you must have met many like those.

They treat you like a friend, they make you feel that you are the best person they ever found. But they don’t reply. They are what I call ‘Fake Supporters’.
The first person was the website designer. You know we need to be present online too. I didn’t know how to manage a website but some of my old friends came to me and said “Hey, you need a cool website! I will design a website that will give you an online presence.” I was hoping that it’s going to be really exciting. They charged me a lot and designed an ugly website. The money got wasted. I felt cheated when he refused to do a small correction on the website. I was upset because I have already prepared 10-15 pages to upload on my website but I could not show those pages which have articles, products and free goodies to the visitors to my website. That was one of the first few bad experiences.

Then a good man called ‘Dhairya Cholera’. We met almost accidentally and he helped in designing the website.
He is the founder of the company called ‘Webiots’. He taught me how to present the webpages and taught me how to do small corrections without seeking his help. He has been generous on many occasions and helped me to do small and sometimes bigger changes. Once he developed my website, it was a matter of 2-3 days for me to publish my website with enough content.

I didn’t have to start from scratch.
It’s all easy because the first web designer who gave me false promises made me do all the work upfront. The first web designer lied and gave false hopes. I was angry at him but people like him are part of the business. Bad people come in our business and make us frustrated. I was frustrated too but thanks to Dhairya Cholera for coming along and fulfilled my expectations.

So yes, good people also come.
I was also conducting workshops. I was doing advertisements for those workshops. Many people showed interest in attending but fewer turned up. All the hopes and dreams collapse when they don’t do what they say they are going to do. It’s really annoying when they say they really want to attend but they don’t show up. That keeps us wondering how are we going to plan and to manage

There was a company who wanted me to train their staff to upgrade their skill for marketing and sales.
They wanted me to teach marketing and sales using the NLP and hypnosis. The HR and senior managers called me a few times. I was supposed to train their not only sales and marketing team of 150+ people but also their middle and senior managers, as THEY SAID. I did a lot of analysis and meetings with their team. I spent 2 months just to prepare the training structure and topics that are right for them. They asked me to do a lot of changes and I happily agreed. Then I asked for the dates to begin.

They said, “Oh, we are having an annual audit, so we can’t do now!”
Then after 15 days, they said, “Our team is very busy right now. We will do next month”
After a month, they said, “Our senior management is not ready yet. Wait for another month.”
Then after another month, they ran out of fake promises, and said, “We will call you whenever it’s the right time.”

Then I never heard anything from them. They never answered my call.
My 5 months were wasted. I was upset and very angry. I looked at the entire work I have done for them. And Something clicked in mind. I turned that content into a product, an online course and a workshop called, “Conversational Hypnosis– How to communicate hypnotically?”. It has been one of the best-selling products so far. There are more than 5,000 students who learned from this course alone.

I secretly thank that company who kept me waiting for 5 months and didn’t bother to reply.
Now the question is “Are they bad for the business?” Well, they are not bad and not even good. They are not here to support us in any way. But they give us the initial kickstart to our projects. They give us new ideas and new direction but they don’t take part in our journey. They promise to join us in the direction they suggest but they don’t join. Many of my workshops and products were designed and prepared because someone asked for them but never bought them. They gave me a hint of what I can do more of. They took me to the new world of possibilities.

I could have probably never imagined those possibilities if they didn’t show me.
They are coming in our life to give that boost. They teach us the lesson of persistence. They show us how to value something that you get after so much of struggle.  I get so happy when someone buys my course or book called “Conversational Hypnosis” because I created as a result of painstaking efforts. I have organised workshops because some people promised to attend whenever I was organising. Those people didn’t attend but surprisingly, many more attended my workshops and I didn’t even meet most of them before. I could have never met some of the fantastic students at my workshops and online courses if some of those people earlier on didn’t give me fake promises. I got irritated at that time when we hope they will keep their words. Now, I feel thankful to them for showing me the things I could do but never thought of doing them.

So, yes, those fake supporters are needed in our business. They accidentally help you to meet real fans and great customers you enjoy working with. There was a guy called, Kevin, who was one of my consulting clients. He wanted to learn how to write marketing offers effectively. Well, I showed him how to do it over the 3 sessions but he asked for some notes or cheat-sheet so that he can easily apply. And he refused to move ahead with the coaching program if I don’t prepare that short note.  I condensed my lessons and after so much of work, I managed to create a small cheat-sheet that can help him to create the compelling promotional offers. I also had to do a lot of changes and updates. It was actually a lot better to teach and a lot easier to implement than before. I was excited to share the new system which is far more efficient than before. And when I asked Kevin to arrange a session to teach him how to use this short note or cheat sheet, he didn’t schedule the meeting.

He never did. I was surprised but Kevin never ever scheduled.
But, that cheat-sheet has helped many of my other clients to develop and analyse their business offers. It has been a game-changer for many clients. Finally, it was eventually turned in to a book called ‘Offer Craft’– How to create the marketing offer your customer can’t refuse to buy? It was released in July’20 and sold more than 400 copies in just a month. If Kevin hasn’t asked me to condense my entire system and structure onto a page, I wouldn’t have created this book at this stage. I probably would have created a cheat-sheet afterwards if I have thought so but the book came into this world earlier because of the fake supporter, Kevin. So yes, he somehow helped me in growing my business

Let’ summarise what we have covered.
There are people who will promise you to do business with you but they won’t. But they somehow push you ahead. They show you options to chose from. Some options are not worth taking but some are really game-changers. The entire journey of 10 years in this business hasn’t been interesting and exciting without those fake supporters.

They act as a devil but they dress as an angel. They tell you what’s possible for you.
You don’t have to ignore them. Think of what they suggest. There are already some people right now in your business who are giving you promises but not doing anything. It doesn’t matter. Decide what you want to do. They are pushing you beyond your boundary and that’s what needed sometimes in our business.

If I hadn’t met those devils or fake supporters, I probably haven’t created the range of products, workshops and courses.

Why do someone else’s opinions shape our lives? We seek the approval of what would people think if we did this or do that.

We lose control over our lives and become sad when people don’t like what we do. How to have more control over our lives and be happy?

In this podcast, we will discuss how to stop giving importance to what people would say.

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When someone takes our picture, we become alert.
We make sure we are looking alright. We ask to take more than 1 picture so that we have options to select from. We even look at the picture and see if we are looking good or not.

My daughter, Aarna, has been too shy to be photographed.
Being a parents, we want to take her photo but she never liked to be photographed. And the more I try to push her to give a pose, the more she resisted. It frustrates me and made me think why she hated to be photographed. And it’s not just with my daughter only.

Many people don’t want to be under the spotlight.
They are too afraid to be on stage in front of people. Even if people love to get them photographed they want to know how many people liked their photos and what people have to say about those photos. Social media is making people constantly worried about what would people say for what they post. When we try to do things differently, we secretly worry if people would like it or not. We are programmed to seek approval from the people. We like it when people like what we say, post or do. People nowadays are addicted to getting attention from others.

It’s a new kind of hunger for getting liked.
We would get really upset if someone doesn’t like what We said or did. Such behaviour eventually makes us even worse and depressed. Social media has made our life more miserable. People constantly chase approval. Everyone wants to impress everyone.

People constantly think,
“What would people say if I do this?”
“What will someone think if I fail?”
“Will I disappoint someone if I become successful?”

It’s too weak behaviour.
It continues even if you determine to stop thinking about others. In this small episode, we are going to discuss how to stop giving importance to what people think. Once you learn how to do it, you will become confident and happy. You are going to know how to cut the invisible strings holding you to the opinions of others. Once you implement what you will know in this article, you will have more control over your life. You will be happier.

The Internet has been around since 1990 but the traffic on the internet started rising since 2000.
That means only 21 years ago. Social media platforms came in around 2003/04. And became popular after 2006. Nobody had anything post to hundreds of people before that. So, the history of social media and the internet is not so old. But many people have become experts in telling you how to do this and to do that. All designed to impress others. All designed to make others to like you. All designed to seek praise.

Everybody asks you to jump around on all social media platforms and even offline.
“Oh, look at this, look at that.” Before the era of the internet, people used to just mind their own business but that doesn’t mean that people were not seeking approval from others. They did. I remember that I have been in the same boat. Not only me, but I know many people who were far too afraid of people’s opinions. If you don’t deal with this issue at an early age, the older you grow, the more attached you become to the opinions of those around you.

Like I said before,
“What would someone say if I do this?”
“What will someone think if I fail?”
“Will I disappoint someone if I become successful?”

These thoughts live in your brain – without your awareness.
No matter how much you try, it influences your every action, influencing your every move. They are controlling you and how much you achieve. How do you snap out of it? How do you stop giving importance to what others think? I didn’t know. But then I found out a few years ago. And it’s actually quite simple.

I remember when I first started writing in 2009/10, I would post articles.
Then sit back. And read the comments. Some made me feel good. Some made me feel bad. Then I did a trick. It was only when I trained my mind to treat the good with indifference that I was free to not care about the bad and write how I wanted to write. I stopped giving too much importance to comments. I stopped paying attention to the number of likes on my posts and articles.

The reason you give importance to what others or someone think is that:
Let’s say someone is Robin. When Robin says nice things about you, you feel good. When Robin says bad things about you, you feel bad. If you give Robin permission to make you feel good, you’re also giving Robin permission to make you feel bad. In other words, your emotional state is 100% contingent on Robin’s opinion.

This puts you at the mercy of someone called Robin.
That Robin is anyone. The key to not giving importance is to treat both positive comments and negative comments with indifference. Show no difference between praise or negativity. When you react to praise with no interest, you can react to negativity with no interest, too.

But there is a problem.
Most people are so hungry for praise, so hungry to be respected, so hungry to hear good things about themselves. That it keeps them forever tied to the opinions of others. If you let someone make you feel good, you’re also giving them permission to make you feel bad. The trick here is to treat praise with no interest or concern. This is how you STOP giving a damn about what others think… This is how you take back control over your life… This is how you start living for yourself.

So quick exercise for you…
The next time someone says nice things about you, thank them and mean it. But don’t let it make you feel good. Don’t ride the high. Just let it enter one ear, then let it go out the other. React with indifference. Do this long enough. And you’ll eventually start reacting to negativity with indifference too because you realize just how meaningless it is to live for others. And just how fun it is to live according to your own accord.

When you start a business, it seems like you should be able to run it successfully.

You carefully make plans, create the product or prepare yourself for world-class service. However, when you go out into the real world, your plans turns to failure because there are not many customers. You get distracted by a lot of new-age management strategies and social media hypes.

Often this problem arises because of a simple strategy that we ignore.

In this Podcast, we look at a simple idea to find the customers, without worrying where the next customer is coming from.

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If you have heard of Willi Sutton, you probably know he has been one of the top 10 most wanted criminals listed by the FBI in 1950.
If you haven’t heard of him, well he has robbed more than 100 banks. Yes, he was very charismatic and he had great persuasion skills. He could influence people with his communication and get out of difficult situations.

Did he ever get caught in 100 robberies? Was he caught any time?
Of course yes. But he managed to escape. Once along with his other 11 inmates in prison, he dug a tunnel and escaped. On another occasion, he and a few of his friends in prison managed to get the uniform of prison guards. They climbed the high wall with two ladders and crossed the wall. When they were running away, a guard with a searchlight found them running and focused on them. And Sutton simply yelled “It’s Okay!” – and no one stopped them!

He got caught and arrested for the final time in 1952.
After getting arrested for the final time, he still was running after banks not as a robber but as a consultant to banks and helping banks with security. He was interviewed by a journalist, Mitch Ohnstad. The journalist was impressed with the skill and attitude of Willie Sutton.  The journalist asked him “you are so smart why you he choose to rob banks instead of running a business and making millions? His answer was short but profound. He said, “I rob banks because … that’s where the money is!”

Most people focus on their business operations only and expect customers to find them.
That’s not how it works. The fisherman never hunts for fish randomly, instead, he goes where fish gathers. You can’t expect people to find you. You have to be where the customers gather, find what they are looking for and spend their money. Let’s find out more examples.

If you believe that McDonald’s is in the food business, here’s a small edition.
McDonald’s is in the real estate business. They spend their time and money in finding out the best location to open their outlet. They don’t open their outlet randomly. They carefully observe where most people pass through. They are mostly found at malls, airports, or places where people stop and stay for a longer time. Burger King and KFC are smarter than McDonalds. They don’t waste their time and money like McDonalds. Instead, they open their outlets next to or closer to McDonalds. It’s pointless to be where customers are not aware or customers don’t go

Find out where your competitors are going.
They probably know where your customers are. Ever wondered, why people open their shops in a market where there are 10s and hundreds of shops just like them? They don’t worry about competition because they know the market is the place where customers will come and spend money. And that’s where the money is.

So, see where your competitors are going and go to the place where the money is.

We know that jealousy is bad but we don’t how to deal with it without freely accepting it.

We secretly see what our competitors are doing. If someone is similar to us or does something that’s similar to us, we feel jealousy. If someone has what we want to have, we feel envy and hate. We don’t like to feel jealous but we have no control over the feeling of jealousy. It burns our energy and kills us from inside.

No matter whoever you are, either a common person who lives a normal life or a celebrity, poor or rich, everybody needs to do something about their feeling of jealousy. But nobody discusses jealousy.

So, how do we deal with this feeling of jealousy?

We are going to discuss

1. Is it good to be jealous or not?
2. How to stop being jealous?
3. How to stay happy and motivated instead?

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I suggest a small experiment.
Take a good friend to his favourite restaurant for lunch/dinner. Tell him to order his favourite dish. Now, sit across from him and order what you like. The only rule is, throughout the meal, you cannot look at your plate. You should keep looking at your friend’s plate, talking to him and watching him eating his food while you are having your food. Please don’t cheat. Don’t look at mirrors. Don’t ask your friend to instruct you anything. Don’t look at your plate. Just keep looking at your friend’s plate.

Can you imagine how uncomfortable the meal would be?
In spite of having your favourite dish in front of you, you cant enjoy it. And it doesn’t matter that you have watched your friend eat every bite off his plate.

His plate is an analogy for his life and your plate is yours.
This is what happens when you keep watching someone else’s life instead of focusing on how we can do better in ours. There is really no point in doing that. This is what we do when we are jealous. You may call it hate or envy.

Facebook and other social media platforms were designed to interact with more people.
Its purpose is to connect people and engage them. It’s quite good. It has helped me and many others to connect with people we could have never met. Our life has changed. Our habits are different than before. People spend more amount of time on social media and sometimes it’s for good too.

But there are also some bad things about it.
I was talking to a friend of mine, Mr Dharmesh Joshi, who helps people in dealing with emotional problems. What he said that there is a huge rise of clients who are dealing with lower self-esteem, anger, and greed. Our discussion went on for 2 hours or so. He found out that most of his clients were using social media extensively. They have become jealous of others. They became jealous and the jealousy led to them feel unworthy and angry. They keep checking what others are saying and what others are doing.

Jealousy is driving people to good results at some level.
But if it’s not handled correctly, it can make you miserable. This jealousy or envy is found in everyone, including me. I admit it. I was jealous. I was envious. The jealousy builds up quickly and most of the time without your awareness. 

We want our peers to succeed as long as they don’t see more success than we do.
Other people’s success makes you feel insecure. Other people’s success makes you think about your mistakes, failures and shortcomings. It is scary and it was these types of thoughts that ruin our life. You want to be happy and motivated, but the feeling of jealousy makes you frustrated. We don’t want to do business like that.

So, let’s find out, how to deal with jealousy and stay motivated instead.

We are going to discuss

1. Is it good to be jealous or not?
2. How to stop being jealous?
3. How to stay happy and motivated instead?

Let’s find out.

Is it good to be jealous? Can envy help us?
In the summer of 2015, I had a chance to meet a swimming coach who was coaching swimmers who were playing at an international level. Now, swimming is a fast-paced game where you need to be at the high-energy level at all times. It’s one of those sports where you are required to have strong stamina. I asked him about what a swimmer must have to win the race. He answered, “Just keep an eye on your finish line and don’t look elsewhere.”

Feeling envy is a warning: you should refocus on yourself.
In business, we do random things. We are trying to find out what others are doing. We secretly follow our competitors on social media and find out what they are doing. Then we start copying. And it doesn’t work out. Why? Because we are not focusing on our efforts. We are focusing on what others have got. And we feel angry.

We look at people posting their income, their cars, their house and their holiday pictures.
We feel that others are having all the fun, I am not. Nobody posts their failure or miserable life on Facebook or share in public. We don’t see what they don’t show. We don’t live our dream life, and we feel hate and jealousy when others have what we don’t have.  

Jealousy makes us ugly from the inside out.
It consumes your energy and turns them into negative energy. As a result, you feel tired, unworthy and depressed. Soon, you become lazy. You become addicted to jealousy and you want more proof to feel jealous. So, it keeps going on. This negative energy builds up inside you and drains even more energy. Guess what, you release more hate out.

You get angry and irritated.
Jealousy is a poison that occupies enormous space in the mind. As a result, You stop creating ideas. You struggle to focus and become lazy. You look elsewhere and don’t focus on your finish line. And you lose. Winners focus on winning and losers focus on others. That takes us to the second part.

How to stop being jealous?
In my journey, I have been doing a lot of things. I worked in textile companies, hotels, corporates, universities, colleges, and many more things I can’t even remember, I have seen the time where I had no work. When I started in the training and coaching business in 2010, things were not moving at all.

In fact, for a year, there was almost no work. I was going here and there but nothing significant was happening. I presented at places and almost none of them replied. There was no hope. It was complete darkness.

Then I got my first client. I at least began with.
Then, I served a few more clients. Fortunately, some of them liked what I did for them. They recommended me to more people. The darkness was moving away slowly. Then more people added to my list. There were many people I didn’t even know have recommended me. I got support from people. They were like angels to me. I started moving up. I was serving clients in my city, surat in India. Eventually, I started delivering training to people from all over India and the world.

My products and courses have reached more than 150 countries.
It took 10 years. It was not possible without those few angels who gave me the opportunity to demonstrate my skill. Those people helped me to kick off my business and gave me the confidence to create more content, courses, and products. They were way ahead of me in business, and if they didn’t have come into my life, I wouldn’t be speaking on this podcast. They gave me love, kindness and support.

This is what I don’t want to forget. It helps me in dealing with jealousy.
When I envy, I quickly remind myself of what I was when I started. I go back to the time when I started. It gives me pleasure and joy. This trick has helped me in staying focused on my work and on my finish line. I am still going forward. I am still in the process of learning more and delivering more. I don’t feel envy because the people who trusted me in the early stage of my business reminds me to be kind, caring and helpful.

Because we don’t want to be jealous, we also want to enjoy doing our business.

That takes us to the third part.

How to stay happy and motivated instead?
I was having a walk at the seaside near my place. At one point, I saw a man catching crabs. He had a big bucket full of crabs. I saw that every time a crab tries to get out of the bucket, another crab pulls it down. Each crab who could not get out was trying to pull the crab who was trying to get out of the bucket. They all were hating each other. If I can’t get out, by all means, I won’t allow you to get out of the bucket. But some crabs managed to escape and ran away. They survived being hunted and went back to the sea.

We are like those crabs trying to pull the other crab down, but it doesn’t work.
The crab has escaped and now we are left alone in this dark bucket and we are afraid. We see no light. Isn’t it what you probably are doing too?

You spent days and weeks and months in the bucket. Contemplating and wishing and thinking. You are tired of seeing the people around you doing well while you are trying to make the improbable, probable. They were making big money, getting a good life and you are in the same position or at the worst position.

You regret wasting your time, money and energy. No matter how hard you try, you can’t get ahead of others when you envy them. It’s pointless to follow someone and hate them at the same time.

You don’t need to keep checking others where they are heading to.
You haven’t got any clue where they are heading to. You don’t know their purpose. Their goals are different than yours. Yet, you secretly want to reach where they are going. Your envy gets you so distracted from the road that you go in a whole different direction you don’t want to go to. Instead, you can focus on what matters to you.

Your competitors have different plans. You can never know. By the time you know their plans, they are already many steps ahead of yours. They are ahead of us or probably we think they are ahead of us, that’s why we feel jealous.

Now, If I envy people ahead of me, I can not become like them.
You can’t get what you hate. So, if you hate what people have, you can’t get what they have. If you envy people where they are right now, you can’t get to that position. It’s because, when you hate, your mind starts avoiding it.

You are only competing with yourself because everybody is You.
To envy another is to envy yourself.
To beat another is to beat yourself.

You could learn from the person you envy if you are not blinded by hate and bitterness.
Learning feels better than hate. A better life is waiting on the other side of envy. Envy is a negative version of inspiration. Jealousy, envy, and insecurity are chains for your mind that bind you to the approval of others

Make the most of your precious time on this earth.
You weren’t created to live in guilt or envy. Every life is special in the sense that it is different. I can’t compete with you. And you can’t compete with me. The only person I can compete with is the person I was yesterday. Competing with others not only a waste of time but it is a waste of life…because it will get you off your track and will have you doing stuff you hate. Don’t compete with the crowd.

Just keep an eye on your finish line and follow your track with a smile on your face.

That takes us to the end of the podcast.

Let’s summarize what we have covered in this podcast.

Jealousy or envy is found in everyone, including me.
I was jealous. I was envious. Now, I know how to deal with it. The jealousy builds up quickly and most of the time without your awareness. We want our peers to succeed as long as they don’t see more success than we do. Other people’s success makes you feel insecure. Other people’s success makes you think about your mistakes, failures and shortcomings.

Then we discussed, Is it good to be jealous or not?

Feeling envy is a warning: you should refocus on yourself.
We secretly follow our competitors on social media and find out what they are doing. Then we start copying. And it doesn’t work out. Why? Because we are not focusing on our efforts. We are focusing on what others have got. And we feel angry.

Just keep an eye on your finish line and don’t look elsewhere.
Jealousy consumes your energy and turns them into negative energy. As a result, you feel tired, unworthy and depressed. Soon, you become lazy. You become addicted to jealousy and you want more proof to feel jealous. So, it keeps going on. Jealousy is a poison that occupies enormous space in mind. You stop creating ideas. You struggle to focus and become lazy. You look elsewhere and don’t focus on your finish line. And you lose.

Winners focus on winning and losers focus on others.
Then, we talked about how to stop being jealous? I have seen the time where I had no work for almost a year. Then, I served one client and a few more clients were added. And Things started getting bigger. It took 10 years. It was not possible without those few angels who gave me the opportunity to demonstrate my skill. They were way ahead of me in business, and if they didn’t have come in my life, I wouldn’t be speaking on this podcast. They gave me love, kindness and support.

This is what I don’t want to forget. It helps me in dealing with jealousy. When I envy, I quickly remind myself of what I was when I started. I go back to the time when I started. It gives me pleasure and joy. This trick has helped me in staying focused on my work and on my finish line. Because I also want to enjoy doing my business.

That takes us to the third part.

We talked about those crabs who could not get out and were trying to pull the crab who was trying to get out of the bucket because they all were hating each other. But some crabs managed to escape and ran away. They survived being hunted and went back to the sea. We are like those crabs trying to pull the other crabs down, but it doesn’t work.

It’s pointless to follow someone and hate them at the same time.
Competing with others not only a waste of time but it is a waste of life…because it will get you off the track and will have you doing stuff you hate.

Just keep an eye on your finish line and follow your track with a smile on your face.

We have tried many times to learn lots of things but we are unable to learn in the shortest amount of time.

So, how to learn rapidly without compromising the understanding of the subject.
In this article, you will be amazed at how a seemingly simple technique can speed up your learning process. You will not only be able to learn but also be able to implement what you will learn.

What if you can remember everything even after 20 years?
I mean everything! Well, in the case of dolphins, they can remember the whistle sound of another dolphin even after 20 years of separation. Dolphins are not only one of the animals with the best memory.  They are also one of the smartest animals on the planet. Land Animals, such as Elephants, Chimpanzees and dogs have similar abilities but they haven’t been tested. In birds, Ravens and Parrots are good at remembering for a long time. Sometimes, animals can deal with memory tests much better than some humans.

We, humans, have poor memory due to ignorance of brain exercising.
Mental capacity allows people to achieve great results. If you can learn and remember faster, you can do better things quickly. People avoid learning because they find it difficult to learn.

What if you can supercharge your learning and become smarter?
In this article, you are going to learn the Feynman Technique. It’s the best way to learn absolutely anything.  The Feynman Learning Technique is a simple way of approaching anything new you want to learn. Why use it? Because learning doesn’t happen from skimming through a book or remembering enough to pass a test.

Information is learned when you can explain it and use it in a wide variety of situations. 
You can give yourself a tool to use for the rest of your life. The interesting thing is that the more you know, the fewer surprises you will encounter because most new things will connect to something you already understand. Ultimately, the point of learning is to understand the world. But most of us don’t bother to deliberately learn anything. We memorize what we need to as we move through school, then forget most of it.

In this article, you are going to learn 3 key steps of the Feynman Learning Technique, based on the method Richard Feynman originally used. The steps are as follows:

1. How you can learn in the fastest way by teaching others?
2. Identify the gaps
3. Organise and simplify

1. How you can learn in the fastest way by teaching others?
How a rubber duck at your desk can help you learn quickly? Richard Feynman explains this well. This first step is crucial and it will make your learning faster than any other learning techniques. 

Take out a blank sheet of paper.
At the top, write the subject you want to learn. Now write out everything you know about the subject as if you were teaching it to a child. You are not teaching to your smart adult friend, but rather a child who has just enough vocabulary and attention span to understand basic concepts and relationships.

Also, you could place a rubber duck on your desk and try explaining the concept to it.
Software engineers sometimes tackle debugging by explaining their code, line by line, to a rubber duck. The idea is that explaining something to a silly-looking lifeless will force you to be as simple as possible.

We make a big mistake when we try to explain to others.
We use complicated vocabulary and jargon. You don’t need to do it. The truth is, if you can’t define the words and terms you are using, you don’t really know what you’re talking about. Humans understand better in the simplest language. 

We hate to be confused.
Many times, we even confuse ourselves by using complex words. You need to make sure your explanation isn’t above, say, a sixth-grade reading level by using easily accessible words and phrases.

The simplest language is the best language to learn and teach.
When you write out an idea from start to finish in simple language that a child can understand, you force yourself to understand the concept at a deeper level and simplify relationships and connections between ideas. You can better explain the why behind your description of the what. 

Now, we move on to the next step.

2. Identify the gaps
I asked for guidance for the location I wanted to go to and I got lost completely. In the year 2011, I was visiting the city of Mumbai by car. I had to reach a training venue on time. I am not familiar with the locations of Mumbai because I don’t live there. I tried to google the location but it was not showing anything precisely.

Back then, the google map was not so sophisticated and accurate.
I had to rely on the locals. Well, when I asked people to guide me from point A which is where I was to point B which is where I want to be. That means my hotel. He explained to me, I took notes and I followed his advice.

I got completely lost and reached a whole different area.
While that local person was guiding me, he missed crucial locations where I had to take important turns and exits. He missed many landmarks and He lost me completely. My time was wasted and I almost got late by 15-20 minutes for the event. That’s exactly what we do when we explain. In the first step, we talked about explaining the concept with simple vocabs and generate relationships between ideas that a child can understand.

But it’s not enough.
There are some areas where you struggle in Step 1 are the points where you have some gaps in your understanding. Identifying gaps in your knowledge—where you forget something important, aren’t able to explain it, or simply have trouble thinking of how ideas are connected.

It’s a critical part of the learning process.
Filling those gaps is when you really make the learning stick. Now that you know where you have gaps in your understanding, go back to the source material. Find more supporting ideas. Find out how those ideas are connected with each other with the consequences of each. Look up definitions. Find more synonyms.

Keep going until you can explain everything you need to in basic terms.
You can add more stories and examples to strengthen your explanation. Sometimes, you need to rearrange ideas and easily combine them with other words to communicate your point. When you can say something in multiple ways using different words, you understand it really well.

Missing this step will create the illusion of knowledge.
And you will be challenged with arguments and questions. And many times, it’s good so that you know the gaps in your understanding. It’s good to know what you don’t know. That takes us to the third part. Let’s dive in.

3. Organise and simplify

I have been cooking food for the last 17 years. And I love it.
I remember the first few times, I was making food. I was asking people to share the recipe. Well, they are so kind enough to tell me the recipe but the outcome was not as I expected. The final product was so much different than they make.

What was wrong?
They used to tell me the recipe like they were assuming that I know exactly what they know. They were telling me all steps correctly but they were in the wrong order. Instead of going from 1^st to the 2^nd to the 3^rd and so on to the 10^th step, they used to tell me let’s say, 1^st step then the 4^th step, then 7^th step and then the 2^nd step and so on. You know how I did. That’s why I couldn’t cook as delicious food as them.

That’s the right way to confuse others.
You don’t have to do it when you learn by explaining or teaching others. After step -1 and step-2, you now have a set of hand-crafted notes containing a simple explanation. Organize them into a narrative that you can tell from beginning to end. Read it out loud.

If the explanation sounds confusing at any point, go back to Step 2.
Keep repeating until you have a story that you can tell to anyone who will listen. If you follow this approach over and over, you will end up with a binder full of pages on different subjects. If you take some time twice a year to go through this binder, you will find just how much you retain. You are going to learn way much more and way much more quickly than others.

The ultimate test of your knowledge is your capacity to convey it to another.
You can read out directly what you’ve written. You can present the material like a lecture. You can ask your friends for a few minutes of their time while you’re having dinner with them. You can volunteer as a guest speaker in your child’s classroom or a friend’s place. All that really matters is that you attempt to transmit the material to at least one person who isn’t that familiar with it. The questions you get and the feedback you receive are invaluable for further developing your understanding.

Pay attention to what your audience is curious about.
Note down what they ask and where they get confused. Fill up those gaps of understanding. The Feynman Technique is not only a wonderful recipe for learning but also a window into a different way of thinking that allows you to break complex ideas apart and reconstruct them from the ground up.

Not only will you supercharge your learning, but you’ll also supercharge theirs.