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your ability to learn is one of the most
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important skills in your life it is
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literally life defining but if you've
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ever tried to get better at learning you
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probably realize that what works for one
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person doesn't necessarily work for
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another person like have you ever try to
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copy something that some top student
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will do but then it just doesn't work
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for you or maybe you've heard those
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stories about those students that never
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seem to study but then they still get
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first place how do they do that are they
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just built different and if so what are
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you meant to do most of the time the
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answer lies in figuring out your learner
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type once you figure out your learner
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type improving is much smoother that's
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why one of the first things I do when I
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work with any new learner is to find
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their learner type and this is not some
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weird horoscope thing this is not
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talking about learning styles which are
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completely different learner types are
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about assessing your habits and
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processes the type of learner you are
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affects what you're good at that what is
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holding you back and therefore what is
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the thing that if you were to work on
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would make the biggest impact for your
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performance being able to identify
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someone's learner type is actually a
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trade secret of mine that has allowed me
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to help people improve their learning
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efficiency more in Just 4 weeks than
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they have been able to in the last four
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years combined as a professional
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learning coach it's been one of my
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greatest competitive advantages and by
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the end of this video you'll see why
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I've actually never revealed this on
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YouTube before not not because I didn't
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want to but because it's been such a
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core part of my practice for so many
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years now that I just didn't really
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think about making a video about this
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directly like it literally only occurred
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to me a couple of days ago that I have
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never talked about this which is wild so
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in this video I'll explain what a
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learner type is and how it's different
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to a learning style I'll go through and
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explain the different learner types that
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I've identified over the last decade of
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working with thousands of students and
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then I'll go through some
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recommendations on how you can figure
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out your own learner type and then what
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that means for you if you are new to
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this channel welcome I'm Dr Justin Sun
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I'm a learning coach in the head of
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learning at I can study for the last 10
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years I have helped thousands of people
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learn to learn more efficiently and for
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the last few years I have been sharing
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my experience and a few evidence-based
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ways that you can approach learning on
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YouTube before we jump in as always I
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would appreciate if you give this video
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a like the YouTube algorithm controls my
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fate and quality of life and the
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algorithm is controlled by how many
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likes and comments this video gets so
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every like is appreciated okay so what
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is the learner type and why does it
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matter firstly let me make it clear that
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learning styles are a completely
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separate thing learning styles is a
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theory that became popular in the 7s and
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it basically says that the human brain
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has a certain style of learning like
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visual auditory read and write or
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kinesthetic that it is bitter at and
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therefore finding that learning style
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will make you a bit and more efficient
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learner but after Decades of research we
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know that that is actually not the case
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this is not a dedicated video on
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learning Styles let me know if you want
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me to make one but the summary is that
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all people benefit from using multiple
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learning styles and the human brain is
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vastly better at processing visual
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information than basically any other
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type of information all humans and
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certainly there are learning preferences
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but those are usually because of Prior
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experiences and habits rather than
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something that is biological or innate
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everyone should get better at using
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multiple learning styles because number
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one it's called cognitively Superior and
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number two you just simply can't choose
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which style to learn from most of the
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time anyway so it creates unnecessary
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pigeon H holding and sets limits on your
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self-beliefs on how you can or can't
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learn efficiently rather than just
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learning to make learning work for you
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which is called self-regulated learning
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and self-regulated learning is my area
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of expertise so that's learning styles
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and it has nothing to do with learn a
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types I just wanted to clear that up
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you'll learn a typ type comes down to
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the core Dimensions that make up an
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efficient learner this is based on a
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conceptual framework of learning that I
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created which I'm in the process of
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getting published uh it's taking a while
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but it can be very technical so I'll try
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to keep this concise your learning
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efficiency is mainly determined by five
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key dimensions and they are number one
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deep processing number two
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self-regulation number three mindset
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number four self-management and number
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five retrieval practice as an analogy I
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like playing video games and characters
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and games usually have these stats like
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strength agility defense dexterity or
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something like that well these five core
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dimensions are basically the stats for
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your ability to learn the learner types
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are just a different combination of
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these five Dimensions as a quick and
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Shameless plug the icon study.com guided
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training program is based on training
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you through these core Dimensions which
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is why mapping these with a diagnostic
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assessment is step one of the program
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now in this video I want to focus on
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just the first three dimensions because
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these are the ones that are I think the
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most important and also the ones that
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people most commonly have issues with
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also this video will just get too long
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so starting with deep processing deep
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processing is the raw power of your mind
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think of a genius that you know or have
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heard of what you are thinking about is
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probably deep processing it's basically
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intelligence deep processing is the
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ability to think critically make
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connections between ideas extract me
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meaningful learning from information and
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understand complex Concepts most people
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with deep processing are high Achievers
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and they have high deep processing
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because of a combination of genetics and
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childhood experiences here's the
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important part of deep processing though
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deep processing can be trained your
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brain has this thing called
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neuroplasticity which is the ability for
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it to mold and adapt based on the
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pressures that you put on it that's how
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we form new habits deep processing is
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just a series of habits related to
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learning and they can be trained not
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every person is going to become the
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genius but everyone can get better FYI
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many in fact probably most of the videos
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that I put out on this channel are
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actually about training yourself to be
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better at De processing the second thing
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and this is
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crucial is that if you don't have high
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deep processing which most people don't
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and you try to copy someone that does
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have Pi deep processing you will
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probably not have the same level of
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success this single fact is the reason
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why there is so much bad studying advice
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out there people with high deep
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processing can use ineffective
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techniques and still do well their raw
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processing power can compensate for
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their bad technique let me explain an
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effective technique is one that helps
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you think in a way that is good for
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Learning and an ineffective technique is
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one that does not help your brain think
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in a way that is good for learning your
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cognitive habits are set by your deep
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processing so if you've got high deep
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processing you have good cognitive
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habits if you have low deep processing
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you don't have good cognitive habits and
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obviously this is kind of oversimplified
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in reality it's more of a spectrum if
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you have high deep processing and you
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use an ineffective technique you can
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usually still make it work obviously if
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you use an effective technique it works
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even better now if you have low deep Pro
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thing which again is most people they
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don't have the cognitive habits to pull
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this off and overcome it so if they use
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an ineffective technique they will not
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be able to make it work but the thing is
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that truly effective techniques actually
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less common and part of that is because
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High deep processors don't need to use
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the most effective techniques a lot of
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the time especially when they're in high
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school or things are a little bit easier
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most natural high Achievers are doing
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well despite their techniques not
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because of them that's why you might
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find that many high Achievers especially
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on social media and Reddit seem to look
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down on more deliberate learning methods
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because they think it's unnecessary
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because for them it genuinely may be
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unnecessary it's like someone who is
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crazy strong they can lift the weight
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even if they have bad form but if you
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aren't you probably can't or you might
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even injure yourself most high Achievers
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are also not experienced learning Cod
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coaches so what worked for them doesn't
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necessarily transfer to someone else
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this is one of the reasons why I always
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say take advice from people that have
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had personal success and have been able
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to replicate that success in other
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people again just because you are a
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terrific athlete doesn't necessarily
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mean that you're a good coach but the
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thing is that if you have low deep
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processing and you use these techniques
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that lots of high Achievers are using
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and then you don't do well which is
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statistically most people then you can
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conclude that you're not smart enough or
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you are just incapable which is sad and
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untrue so here's the summary if you have
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good deep processing good for you you're
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probably not going to be limited by this
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Dimension you can focus on the other
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dimensions if you do have low deep
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processing this is something that's
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probably worthwhile for you to work on
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as well as compensating for it with the
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other dimensions so the next Dimension
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is selfregulation
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self-regulation or in other words
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self-regulated learning is the ability
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to Monitor and adapt your learning
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methods to achieve your learning goals
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an efficient learner is like an
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efficient Builder they have a range of
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tools and they know how to use each one
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to achieve the outcome they want if
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they're not getting success with one
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tool they know to change the tool if one
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tool isn't working they know how to use
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it differently to get the job done for
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learning that means having Mastery over
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skills like your note taking your
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listening your pre-study and priming
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your review and your consolidation
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skills all of these things which I talk
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about in many of my other videos you
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also need to be able to monitor how it's
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going and then make adjustments on the
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Fly this requires self-awareness and the
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ability to think about thinking which is
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something called
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metacognition one of the most
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influential factors for academic success
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so if you have high deep processing but
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low
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self-regulation then you may do well
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normally but struggle with consistency
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especially if unexpected things pop up
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or when things become more challenging
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you might suddenly struggle to keep up I
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see this a lot with students going from
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high school to college or university
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where suddenly there's this very big
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jump from the amount of self-regulation
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they needed and then now there's more
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resources to manage the lectures are
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faster there's more Content Volume
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there's just overall less Direction and
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therefore they need a greater
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self-regulation ability but they don't
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have it and then they start struggling
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even if you had the raw power to process
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the information it's just an unnecessary
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amount of energy that's being spent on
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the flip side if you have low deep
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processing but you've got high self
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regulation then you can compensate for
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having lower level of raar power with
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just sheer technique and in fact
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actually that's what I recommend most of
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the time because good technique actually
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helps to train your deep processing Over
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time however both of these are limited
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by mindset which is the third dimension
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mindset is about your resilience and
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grit how do you react to the idea of
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making mistakes or jumping into the
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unknown with dealing with uncertainty do
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you jump right into it experiment and
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learn from your mistakes or are you
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Paralyzed by a fear of failure being
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afraid of making mistakes and feeling a
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sense of insecurity with failure is what
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we call a fixed mindset whereas the
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opposite where you're open to making
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mistakes and you learn from it and you
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even thrive in it that is called a
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growth mindset because both
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self-regulation and deep processing
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require practice and time to train
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mistakes are unavoidable in fact even if
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you could avoid them you wouldn't want
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to avoid them because making mistakes is
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where you get most of the learning from
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so if you are limited by a fixed mindset
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it's impossible to improve on anything
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and knowing this can make a big
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difference what I often see is people
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trying to improve their learning methods
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which is good by learning about more
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methods and more techniques which is
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good but they are so afraid of making
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mistakes that they don't really practice
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them or they practice them a little bit
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it's not really working so well for them
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and then they straight away just back
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off and then they get trapped in the
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spiral of wanting to improve learning
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methods to improve not practicing them
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enough and making enough mistakes to
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improve and then being again even more
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desperate to improve this is a really
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demotivating and anxious spiral to be in
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and just knowing that it's the mindset
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holding them back rather than the
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technique can be life-changing
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fortunately mindsets can also be trained
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but the research says that it is
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challenging and takes a lot of diligence
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so those are the three key Dimensions
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that I think you should know as I
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mentioned we've got two more in our full
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program but based on our data less than
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10% of Learners are limited by those now
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here are the learner types ranked by
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most common to the least common these
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learner types are not set in stone it's
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not some Cosmic Destiny for you they are
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just an indication of where you are at
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right now and therefore what you should
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focus your efforts and energy on
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improving next as you train and change
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your processes and habits your type will
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also change the most common type of
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learner is one that we call Unchained
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Unchained Learners are limited by their
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mindset and the other dimensions
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actually don't really matter so much
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because they're going to be limited by
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mindset anyway we call them Unchained
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because even though they are chained by
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their mindset right now we found that
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once we retrain the mindset they
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actually experience a very rapid growth
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spirit and I think this is because
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they're so used to putting in so much
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time and energy and effort into trying
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to improve that once we reframe the
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mindset they can direct that time and
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energy in a way that's a lot more
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productive and then they get this big
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grow Spike based on our data we have
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found that about 60% of Learners are
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unch
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now I suspect that this number is
00:14:31
actually higher in the general
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population because most of the Learners
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that we work with in our program are
00:14:35
already pretty proactive to begin with
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the next most common one is one that we
00:14:39
call the Sprout Sprouts as you can see
00:14:42
have a growth mindset but they have low
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de processing and they have low
00:14:45
self-regulation skills these are usually
00:14:47
people that are very early on in their
00:14:49
learning skills Journey it's not a bad
00:14:52
place to be it just means that Sprouts
00:14:54
need to work on developing good
00:14:56
depressing habits as well as creating a
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good foundation of self-regulated
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learning skills the third most common is
00:15:02
this one which we call Trooper Troopers
00:15:06
have high growth mindset they've got
00:15:08
high self-regulation but they have
00:15:10
limited deep processing Troopers are
00:15:12
called Troopers based on storm troopers
00:15:14
from Star Wars because Storm Troopers
00:15:16
fire their blasters a lot but they never
00:15:19
really hit anything and so Trooper
00:15:21
Learners they are really used to
00:15:23
experimenting and using lots of
00:15:25
different learning methods which is good
00:15:27
but they're limited by they deep
00:15:29
processing cognitive habits and so even
00:15:32
though they use a lot of methods they
00:15:33
don't really hit the mark they can spend
00:15:36
a lot of time and be quite stressed
00:15:37
about changing and adapting their
00:15:39
learning methods and not it ever being
00:15:42
quite good enough and there's sort of
00:15:43
like a seiling of how good it can be
00:15:45
this can also be pretty demotivating and
00:15:47
frustrating so Troopers need to focus on
00:15:50
developing their deep processing
00:15:51
abilities to get the most out of the
00:15:53
methods that they're using if you think
00:15:55
about your learning methods like
00:15:57
equipment then and you can see how you
00:15:59
can have really Hightech fancy amazing
00:16:03
state-of-the-art equipment but if you
00:16:05
actually don't know how to use the
00:16:06
equipment properly you're actually just
00:16:08
not going to get that much benefit it's
00:16:10
really exactly the same with learning
00:16:12
you can use an effective technique that
00:16:14
is helping your brain think in a very
00:16:16
productive way but if your brain is just
00:16:18
so not used to thinking in that way that
00:16:21
it can't keep up with the technique
00:16:24
that's where the bottleneck is going to
00:16:25
happen and then finally we have carps
00:16:27
which is the least common on here but
00:16:28
still pretty common which have low
00:16:32
levels of
00:16:33
self-regulation but they have good
00:16:35
mindset and good deep processing we call
00:16:38
them carps based on Magikarp from
00:16:41
Pokémon because if you've ever played
00:16:43
Pokémon magic car has like one attack
00:16:45
called Splash and it's not very
00:16:47
effective but they evolve into Gyarados
00:16:50
which is pretty badass so CS are
00:16:52
Learners that don't have very effective
00:16:55
methods but if you give them better
00:16:58
methods then they can become much more
00:17:01
powerful usually very suddenly cars are
00:17:04
actually pretty common among top
00:17:06
Achievers but they are less common in
00:17:08
the general population around 90% of
00:17:10
Learners will fall into one of these
00:17:12
four categories again there is actually
00:17:13
one more type when we introduce the
00:17:15
other two key Dimensions but we're just
00:17:17
not going to talk about that in this
00:17:18
video so how can you actually figure out
00:17:20
your learning type well trying to
00:17:22
explain how you can figure out your own
00:17:24
learning type through a video would be
00:17:27
insane complicated on our program we
00:17:30
have a very comprehensive diagnostic
00:17:32
assessment for all five Dimensions that
00:17:34
we've collected data on and researched
00:17:36
to make it really accurate but I've gone
00:17:37
ahead and created a simplified version
00:17:40
using just the three key Dimensions that
00:17:42
we've talked about in this video that
00:17:43
you can do completely for free it's not
00:17:46
quite as accurate as the full one
00:17:48
because it's missing a couple of
00:17:49
dimensions and the report you get at the
00:17:50
end is not as in depth and personalized
00:17:54
but it's less questions takes less time
00:17:56
to do and I think gives you a pretty
00:17:58
pretty solid understanding about what
00:18:01
dimensions are affecting you the most
00:18:03
and what you can work on next to make
00:18:05
the biggest impact for your learning
00:18:07
ability you can find a link to this quiz
00:18:09
in the description below once you've
00:18:11
figured out your learner type you might
00:18:13
want to know how you can actually
00:18:14
improve on each of those dimensions in
00:18:16
an effective way and if so then make
00:18:17
sure to stick around to the end of this
00:18:19
video where there's a playlist a
00:18:20
collection of videos that I think is a
00:18:21
pretty good place to start alternatively
00:18:24
if you want to do the full diagnostic
00:18:25
assessment and jump into our guided
00:18:26
program you can check that out at I
00:18:28
study . if you liked this video which I
00:18:30
hope you did I really did try make sure
00:18:32
to subscribe thank you for watching and
00:18:34
I'll see you next
00:18:43
[Music]
00:18:48
time
