Structuring Self-Study to Prevent Tutorial Hell
We were told that competence is a linear staircase.
REMEMBER-> UNDERSTAND-> APPLY-> ANALYZE-> EVALUATE-> CREATE
usually shown as a pyramid where learning happens bottom-up
This is a lie.
Do you know who builds a staircase like that? Bureauc-rats. People who need to grade you. People who need you to sit quietly in rows for 16 years so they can justify their tenure.
> “Memorize the facts first. Be a good boy. Then, verify the inputs (Understand). Only after 10 years, if you are a good employee, do you get the security clearance to make a decision (Create)”
It is a seductive lie that tells you: “You cannot do the thing until you are ready to do the thing.”
It captures you because it weaponizes your own perfectionism against you. It whispers that if you just prepare long enough, you can bypass the messy stage of being a beginner and emerge immediately as a master.
And because you are “smart”, and because you have high standards, you think, “Well, I can’t launch the project yet, I don’t fully understand the underlying theory of the sub-market dynamics!”
So you hide.
You hide inside academic institutions. You hide inside “tutorials.” You hide inside “research.”
You tell yourself you are being responsible. You are “building a foundation.”
Bullshit. You are performing janitorial work.
Here is the brutal truth the rats won’t tell you because it puts them out of a job: There is no such thing as “Ready.”
“Ready” is a horizon line. You walk toward it, and it moves away. If you wait until you feel competent to start, you will die waiting.
If you believe you must “master the basics” before you are allowed to “play the game,” then any time you play the game without mastering the basics, you feel like a criminal.
You feel like you skipped the line.
You feel like a child wearing their dad’s suit.
You feel like you are getting away with something.
Good.
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@EliLizzieLizbet · Mar 16, 2019
Embrace imposter syndrome.
Revel in the fact you have fooled everyone.
You are a Trickster Goddess.
You are the Imposter Child for Deception and Clever Ruses.
💬 1,309 Retweets ❤️ 3,177 Likes
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Look at the “Experts”, do you think they climbed the ladder one rung at a time?
You think they memorized all the business textbooks before they started the company?
I am telling you, right now, that is a lie.
The Knowledge Executives? They didn’t climb the ladder. They burned the ladder and stole the elevator.
They started at Level 6. They tried to build the house first, realized they didn’t know how to mix concrete, panic-Googled “how to mix concrete,” and then finished the house.
They are not “experts” who learned to execute.
They are executors who learned by failing.
Stop trying to “understand” marketing before you sell a product.
Stop trying to “master” Python before you build an app.
Stop treating your life like a dress rehearsal.
The curtain is already up. The audience is watching. And you are standing there reading the script, waiting for someone to tell you it’s okay to speak.
Put down the script.
Flip the pyramid.
Start at the top.
To achieve Cognitive Sovereignty, you must do exactly the OPPOSITE.
Do not crawl. JUMP!
Skip the memorization. Skip the “basics.” Go directly to the throat of the subject: Level 4 (Analyze) and Level 5 (Evaluate).
> “But wait!” you cry, clutching your obsidian pearls. “How can I analyze what I don’t understand?”
That panic you feel. That is the point.
When you force your brain to answer a high-level question before you are “ready,” you trigger a survival mechanism. You stop “trying” to memorize. Instead, your brain realizes it needs the data to survive the problem you just threw at it.
It’s the difference between reading a manual on how to swim and being thrown into the deep end. In the deep end, you do not “try” to learn to kick. You kick because you NEED oxygen.
When you start with the Big Picture, the brain automatically backfills the lower levels. It hunts for the facts. It grabs the definitions. It organizes the chaos because it has to.
The memorization becomes a byproduct of the mission. You get the knowledge without trying. It’s lazy, efficient, and lethal. My favorite combination.
When a new piece of intel hits your sensory memory, you have seconds (literally) before it evaporates. That information is a grenade with the pin pulled.
If you do what the Data Laborers do…
“Oh, this looks smart, I’ll save this to my ‘To Read’ folder in Notion🤓”
the grenade blows up in your face.
The signal dies. You have filed it away in the Graveyard of Good Intentions.
This is Domesticated Thinking. It is the safe, soft belief that if you just save it, you possess it.
From the moment a new idea enters your radar, you must interrogate it immediately. The Knowledge Executive does not politely store information. He metabolizes it.
You must treat the information like a suspect in a crime investigation. You shine the light in its face, and you demand answers.
“How does this connect to what I already know?”
If you can’t tie this new fact to an old fact, you will lose it. Anchor it immediately.
“Where does this fit into the big picture?”
If it doesn’t solve a current problem, it is noise. Discard it.
“What is the relationship between this idea and that one?”
Force a comparison. Conflict creates memory.
The nerds call this “Elaborative Encoding.”
If you don’t know where a piece of information belongs the second you see it, you don’t own it. It owns you.
Connect it instantly. Or let it burn.
Command your mind. (And close your tabs).
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