Learning Lesson's from Sun Tzu's Art of War

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy are the noise before defeat” — Sun Tzu

Learning is like war.

You have to be smart about how you approach it or you’ll lose the battle of turning yourself into the most skilled you.

History shows us that the best army’s aren’t the ones with the most people or strongest soldiers, they’re the ones with the best strategy. Those who learn best aren’t the smartest or hardest working, they’re the ones who have mastered the right approach.

The Art of War is an ancient text, written by a highly-esteemed military general, that covers his unique perspective on how to win wars.

It’s pretty counterintuitive.

He saw wars as won before they even started.

You don’t win wars by charging headfirst, You win wars by outmaneuvering your enemy.

Similarly, learning sessions are won before they are even started-because it depends on what you do apriori.

In learning science, this is known as meta-learning.

Meta-learning: Your ability to reflect, monitor and plan your approach in response to new information and desired outcomes.

It’s one of the three foundations I teach and follow every day.

In Sun Tzu’s Art of War, his war-plans take a top-down framework:

• Objective
• Strategy
• Tactics

This is how he reigned victorious in the Battle of Boju in 506 BCE against the much larger state of Chu.

But it can be broadly applied to life, business and learning as well.

This is how Top 0.1% learners structure their learning projects and sessions.

Without the right objectives, strategy and tactics in war you die, without the right objectives, strategy, tactics, in learning you remain unskilled.

When I became obsessed with self-education- from the onset of COVID, I started my learning projects and sessions by jumping right into it. This meant randomly searching stuff up, watching videos as they came, and feeling like I was spinning my wheels most days. But after my research into meta-learning I tweaked my approach and made my learning intentional. It wasn’t easy. There’s always a cost to make the switch in the short-term but it’s worth every bit of the learning gains you get in the long-run.

Meta-learning is a hard learning skill to master.

You need self-awareness, consistency and knowledge of learning science to cook up the right plans and approaches when you encounter barriers in your learning process.

Inside Self-Learners we’ll build your learning system from the ground up, and make sure you master meta-learning so that you can join the top 1% club of learners world-wide.

I’m currently opening up the waitlist to 5 people so that they get first dibs & 1 month free access to everything inside.

If you’re the type of person that wants to sharpen their learning skills, this is the community for you- just send a quick reply to this email with “Self-Learner” and I’ll add you to the waitlist.

PS: Here’s the link to the community (to get an overview):

skool.com/self-learners

All the best,

Diego The Meta-Learner