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Tyson Popplestone is a Comedian from Melbourne Australia. Join him for a brand new interview each week.
Tyson (00:01.05)
awesome. Yeah. So, I'm sure like just based on the amount of podcasts you've done, we're going to cover some very familiar territory. But in saying that if I took a couple of curve balls at your man, I'm not bringing up UFOs cause I'm right at the beginning. Should we jump into it?
Scott H. Young (00:08.641)
Yeah, no problem. All right, let's slide some UFO talk right at the end. I'll be waiting for it. Yeah. Yeah, just go right into it. Yeah, sure.
Tyson (00:21.404)
Awesome, man. Dude, I was going to say actually, as soon as I saw you, that I always admire a good podcast setup. Like I saw, I don't know what microphone you're rocking there, but it's my constant battle to figure out, which doesn't really look like it based on the fact you can see two pictures in a frame in the background, trying to make a little online studio look good. And whenever a guest jumps on and they've got the lighting, the camera, the mic, the books in the background, go, okay, this guy, this guy knows something.
Scott H. Young (00:28.079)
thank you. Yeah.
Scott H. Young (00:45.933)
I'm very happy with this setup. It's had a lot of like, if you watched like a three year old podcast, it was not always as good. We've had a lot of like back and forth. So yeah, I've got a teleprompter with a Sony kind of like camera. So it does like the real focus, not the fake one. And we got a bookshelf. And then this mic here is a condenser mic, which I don't know the brand name actually. Sure, sure. And it's nice because it has a pretty steep drop off.
which can be pretty good for like avoiding background noise. But you gotta be careful because every once in while I have to tap it and then it always shows up in the thing or if it's right here and I'm doing a lot of aspirated consonants that you get issues.
Tyson (01:30.912)
That's funny, yeah, the background noise removal is a handy one. I've got a four year old boy and a two year old boy who 99 % of the time are outside of the house when I record a podcast. But every now and then when it's raining, I go thank God for background noise removal because it's a very good experience for the audience.
Scott H. Young (01:38.529)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (01:45.171)
Yeah, my home office got evicted when when our son was born and I was like, I got to do podcasts, everything needs to be quiet. And I was like, you need to get a place like, we're not doing this. We're not doing this. Like we got it. got a kid here. It can't just be silent for an hour. So here we are.
Tyson (02:02.132)
man, how's it all been going? I know you said like when the book was first released, it was a bit of a wild whirlwind of podcasts and promotion. I mean, it's amazing.
Scott H. Young (02:11.947)
Yeah, things are good. Yeah, things are good now. feel like there's that intense period where you're doing a lot of episodes and then there's kind of the period where you're doing them, you know, you got like one a week or one or two a week or this kind of thing. And then it's just sort of like a nice little thing that you do during the week. So it's not, doesn't feel like as much of a chore.
Tyson (02:34.27)
Yeah, man, it's such an interesting topic. I'm in the world of standup comedy here in Melbourne. And one thing I love talking to people about is the whole creative process of putting together an actual set on stage. And there's so many little iterations and ways you can approach it from writing to presentation to editing. And quite often I noticed there's no one right way to do it. Certain people seem to operate more effectively with a different style like
Scott H. Young (02:38.135)
Mm
Scott H. Young (02:45.894)
Mm
Tyson (02:59.306)
When I get on stage and I'm trying to memorize my set, one thing I'll do is I'll have a couple of mnemonic devices. I think that's what it's called where I'll like picture myself walking through my house and at different parts of my house, I'll have a different picture to represent a particular joke. And so if I ever get stuck, I'm like, okay, whereabouts in my house am I? And I'll say that to a number of comedians and they go, like what a wild way to approach. I actually stole it from, I'm blanking on his name, but we had like a, I can't believe I've blanked on it.
Scott H. Young (03:09.207)
Mm -hmm.
Scott H. Young (03:16.546)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (03:21.281)
Yeah.
Tyson (03:29.144)
another learning specialist or memory specialist on here a while ago. And he was explaining that a number of the world's best memory guys, I'm not sure what you call them, have a similar kind of process. And it just clicked. I go, I'll try that. But the reason I bring that up so early in this conversation is because one thing I've learned even in that particular field is that it's not a one size fits all approach to doing something well. There's different styles for different folks.
Scott H. Young (03:39.874)
Yeah.
Tyson (03:57.716)
And I thought this might be a nice foundation to kickstart the conversation on because I think often when you have the conversation around learning and it's not something that you've delved into or looked into in a great deal, people often think you've got to close yourself in your room, shut the door, no noise, have a book and do that for as long as you can before you vomit. And then whatever you manage to hold onto is yours to keep forever.
Scott H. Young (04:00.777)
Mm
Scott H. Young (04:04.93)
Mm
Scott H. Young (04:13.1)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (04:20.64)
You
Tyson (04:21.022)
And so I thought maybe we could just smash down a couple of the stereotypes around the conversation of effective learning to kickstart this one.
Scott H. Young (04:26.199)
That sounds great, tell me more. I love that. No, I mean, yeah, I think you're right. Well, I think part of it too is that so much of our associations with learning are with school. so like learning is school, I think for a lot of people. And so I think just taking a bigger view of learning, I mean, if you think about it in the literal sense of like just learning is just when your brain changes because of experience. So.
then you're learning all the time, right? You're learning just as your life unfolds and you're making new memories and all this kind of thing. And so as you just see it as this basic process in your life, then it kind of makes sense, I think, to want to understand a little bit about how it works and maybe how you could try to do it better if you were trying to achieve particular goals. So I think that's where my motivation comes in is not even so much like, how do you study to get like a good grade on an exam, but.
How do you think about the things that you want to do well in life, things you want to do better? And if you have some kind of mental model for like, how does that work in your brain? Maybe you can make choices that will get you there faster or with less vomiting in your bedroom or whatever it was you suggested before.
Tyson (05:34.24)
Makes it sound like I was abused in high school, just trying to get a good result. Certainly wasn't that, that was maybe my... That's the reason I can only be in my office with the door closed for maximum of an hour before I need a coffee break. But it is very true, like that, the idea of school or classic school learning, I think seems to be entrenched in so many minds. I'm not sure if that is breaking down slowly. I'm 37 and maybe I'm at some...
Scott H. Young (05:37.33)
Yeah, maybe dealing with your post -traumatic stress disorder from bad school classes,
Scott H. Young (05:53.612)
Mm
Tyson (06:02.826)
form of the tail end of that stereotype of what learning is. Like the beauty of podcasts and YouTube is there's very clearly different ways to approach different learning styles. I mean, what even got you involved in this particular field, man? Cause like it's quite a niche subject to get involved in. But when you dig into that niche a little, you realize how many people are writing some really incredible stuff on the subject.
Scott H. Young (06:17.097)
yeah.
Scott H. Young (06:25.517)
Yeah, I mean, I have an interesting story. I started writing online in 2006, the Stone Age of the internet. at the time I was a student, actually at the tail end of high school, I started, most of my writing was in university at beginning. And being a university student, there wasn't really anything I could like credibly write on other than that I was a good student and I thought a lot about like, how do you study effectively? And so,
that kind of naturally became a topic source for you because it certainly wasn't like, okay, I'm going to be giving people, you know, middle aged women advice on how to fix their marriage or something like I mean, clearly my expertise was pretty narrow at that point. And so that was the starting point. But I feel like I've always been interested in learning things reading lots of books. Like, so I think it was a natural fit for other reasons as well. And then when I graduated from university, I'd already been sort of like
doing well enough that I wanted to make this sort of writing, creating content, teaching courses, this kind of stuff, my livelihood. And so that was when I started kind of doubling down and doing some of these intensive learning projects. So the big one that I'm kind of known for, I guess, is I did a project I called the MIT Challenge, which was trying to learn MIT's four year computer science curriculum. And they happen to post a lot of their material online for free. This is not just something I figured out. This is something that they do.
And so I just wanted to see, you know, has anyone ever tried to learn their curriculum using the final exams and problem sets and stuff that they have without going to MIT? And so this is the first project is I tried to do that in 12 months. And then a year after that, I did another project with a friend where we traveled to four different countries learning different languages. So we went to Spain to learn Spanish, Brazil to learn Brazilian Portuguese. We went to China to learn Mandarin and South Korea to learn Korean.
And the kind of gimmick, as it were, of the project was that when we would land in each country, we would only speak to each other and people we meet in the language we were trying to learn. And it was a fun experience. We did these little documentary videos for it. And mean, certainly we're not perfect in every single language, especially, this is now 10 years in the past. But we got further than I was anticipating we were going to get. And so we were actually able to make friends and have conversations and all sorts of things. And so that was an interesting experience, too.
Scott H. Young (08:48.045)
I had a number of other little projects like learning to draw portraits and quantum mechanics and various things. And those kind of culminated in my 2019 book, Ultra Learning. And then more recently, I did like a fairly deep dive into a lot of the academic research on how learning works, cognitive science, cognitive psychology. And a lot of that research formed the basis of my second book, Get Better at Anything. So yeah, that's all the brief history of my last 20 years of doing this.
It's been a wild ride and I've enjoyed it.
Tyson (09:19.488)
Yeah, I mean, it's funny when you say it's something you've been speaking about now pretty consistently since 2006 and there's still so much more to say. So the idea of being able to delve down deep into every single one of these topics and doing it justice, I guess we've got our work cut out. But even in that little description of what it was that you did, you recognise quite quickly that depending on what it is that you're actually focused on learning, there's perhaps different approaches like that immersion style of learning that you just spoke about.
Scott H. Young (09:47.35)
Mm
Tyson (09:48.606)
with reference to the countries and languages that you are learning. I've heard that is perhaps maybe the most effective way when it comes to languages. I wouldn't know. I'm still navigating my way through English at this point in time. But it seems as though that seems to be the way to do it. I mean, I watch my two boys go from a blank slate to now speaking relatively good English. Like they can have basic conversations and understand basic concepts. And they never sat down once on Duolingo. It was purely...
Scott H. Young (09:59.233)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (10:06.957)
Mm
Scott H. Young (10:15.87)
Yeah.
Tyson (10:16.344)
them speaking to me and it was back and forth and it was attempts and it was failures and it was frustration. And then four years of that, or even less really, my youngest or my oldest boy, you could get through a decent conversation with him at two and a half. It's quite incredible what you can do just off the slate. But I think, I don't know if this is a stereotype or just something that goes on in my head, but the idea of how to learn, I think I sometimes throw out a one size fits all.
Scott H. Young (10:30.113)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Tyson (10:44.768)
approach. And that was maybe what I was getting at with the initial question around how I learned stand up effectively. Are there some general ground rules when it comes to actually taking huge steps forward, regardless of what it is that you're learning that sort of crossover or they're just clear distinctions between things like, all right, here's my computer science course I'm getting done in 12 months and this is how I learn a language in a brief state.
Scott H. Young (10:47.309)
Mm
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (11:08.555)
Yeah, well, I mean, I think at the sort of big scale, like taking on these big projects, there's a lot of little decisions that are being made that maybe make either the learning more efficient or you're sort of focusing on something particular. So you're maybe like ignoring having to learn some other things so that you can get really good at something in particular. So I think it's hard to draw like really, really broad generalizations like, we'll do this and then you'll learn everything faster.
But it's more, think, just having a deeper understanding of, okay, well, what is the thing that you have to do when you're learning? Like, what is the changes that are going on in your brain? And what do we know about, like, effective ways to do that? So, I mean, I think there's a lot of different things. Like, one of the things that I really stress in ultra learning is this idea of beginning a learning effort by trying to figure out how the subject or skill actually works. So, what is involved in getting good at this? Like, what...
facts do you need to memorize if you know we're thinking about languages again like vocabulary you have to memorize what are the procedures that you have to get good at and what are the concepts you need to understand and if you can kind of digest a big topic into a bunch of little things then really learning is just kind of checking off all those little things and I think sometimes the reason we struggle with learning is that we just approach it in this sort of amorphous mass or say I want to get good at this and it's just
unclear at all how to proceed with that. And so I think if you can break it down and sort of chart a map of like, well, this is how people learn to play the piano. This is how people learn to get good at tennis. And this is what's involved in speaking another language or becoming really good at chess. I mean, it doesn't on its own suggest that you're going to do it 100 times faster than anyone else. don't know 100 times is an exaggeration, but it's not on its own suggesting you're going to be doing it much more efficiently. But once you kind of know how it works,
it's easier to see how certain choices you make are going to maybe influence your results. So if you have a lot of things to memorize, I'm a big advocate of using like space repetition systems. You just mentioned, you know, the memory palace is a mnemonic technique for memorizing things on stage. So these are tools that like, once you figure out, memorizing this script is going to be really important for my success as an actor. And if I use this technique, I can memorize it faster. Well, then that's a way that you can do it better. And so I think that's sort of how I like to think about it.
Scott H. Young (13:31.129)
You can't really even start to optimize the process until you know what it is you're actually trying to do.
Tyson (13:37.108)
That's a really good point. So in reference, just to stay on topic a little bit in reference to the languages that you learned, like what does that boiling down process like that idea of understanding certain concepts and certain things look like where if you were to go out and start learning a new language tomorrow, what are your sort of first few steps in navigating your way through just the early stages of that?
Scott H. Young (13:58.707)
Right, so I mean, there's lots of different approaches to learning languages, so I don't want to be overly prescriptive about like this is the only way to do it, but this is how I think about it. I think the early phases, I think a lot of what people want is they want to be able to have simple conversations, I think is a goal many people have. And so if you want to have simple conversations, you need to be able to understand what people are saying to you, and you need to be able to say it back.
to whatever you need to ask. so that saying it back, it requires you to have a lot of very, very fluent, like, learned phrases and patterns and words. It doesn't have to be a huge vocabulary to deal with a lot of situations. You can have a much reduced vocabulary and still talk about a lot of different things. But it's clear that the fluency has to be there. Kind of like...
what I wasn't doing right there. It's very clear that you have to be able to say these things without a lot of hesitation. And so that's one of the disadvantages I think of a lot of traditional language learning classes is because the format is a lot of homework that's like writing exercises, listening, reading exercises, textbook practices, sitting in a class where this teacher talks and you listen.
Tyson (14:56.617)
Hehehehe
Scott H. Young (15:18.349)
Speaking practice tends to be at a bit of a deficit and so you're not necessarily making some of those early phrases, early phrasal patterns as over -learned as fluent. Not necessarily a problem for all goals, but it does mean that you can spend four years in high school Spanish and be like, I can't non -awkwardly say even a simple thing to someone. Whereas if you spend a month and you just really focus on that early part, you could get through some early interactions without difficulty.
And so I think that was one of the major strengths of this particular project that we did is because we were constraining ourselves to only speak in this language. And indeed, a lot of our interactions was just with each other. So our sort of two minimal Spanish combining. It's not that we were necessarily getting the huge list of vocabulary, the huge things that you would maybe learn in a classroom, but those basic things, you're saying them dozens of times a day.
And so they just get drilled ingrained to the point where you don't even think about them. They just come out automatically. And that gets you to a point where you feel very comfortable. I don't think that's the only thing for learning a language, but it's definitely an important first step. think as you get further on, once you want to like be able to understand more complicated conversations, listening comprehension becomes important. There's a lot of other things to it, but that is one area where if you make a kind of strategic choice that I'm going to focus on mastering some of those early patterns.
that can really equip you well if you're, let's say, going to travel somewhere and your main goal is like, you know, I want to go to this country and be able to interact in these sort of short little bursts without having to think about it too much. Definitely a learning methodology that emphasizes speaking and actually producing it frequently is going to help. So I recommend things like Pimsleur is a great service for getting the basics of that. Duolingo I don't typically recommend as much because
you do the little drop down exercises, but you don't practice speaking very much. And so you have the same problem that you're not usually that fluent, even if you've been doing Duolingo for like a year or so.
Tyson (17:24.864)
Yeah, my wife and I in 2017, we moved to the UK for a couple of years. And before we left, we mapped out a little trip through Europe and she'd been spending some time. I don't know if it was Duolingo. I think it was correct me if it wasn't around back then, but she'd been doing a little bit of Duolingo and navigating her way through the basics. And she was quite good at home just figuring it out by herself. But then like the emotional factor of trying to put it into practice in front of people who speak a language fluently is quite confronting. She started to get nervous and a little flustered and
Scott H. Young (17:31.014)
Mm -hmm.
Scott H. Young (17:48.898)
Yeah.
Tyson (17:55.092)
I kind of understood it because it's just demonstrating quite clearly that you're definitely not fluent. You got quite a lot to learn. I can imagine that'd be like another little hurdle you need to jump when it comes to figuring out languages and perhaps a reason that like full blown immersion, just throwing yourself in the culture is the best way. Cause you can only sort of sit behind your insecurity for so long until it gets a little bit lame.
Scott H. Young (17:57.036)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (18:02.455)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (18:18.391)
Well, so I think there's two parts to it of why this happened. So one we just talked about is this fluency reason that like, if you don't actually practice speaking a lot, then you kind of know the patterns in a sort of, I don't want to intellectual, it's the wrong way, in a kind of intellectual level, but it's not in the muscle memory, if I can abuse terminology here. so it doesn't just come out automatically, you kind of have to like think about it in your head. And that hesitation can make it more mentally taxing to do and
It can hold you back and can make you feel a little awkward when you're speaking. But then the second thing you're talking about is this anxiety of like, what if I say something and I get a negative response or this kind of thing? And so I think with the project that we did, for instance, the fact that we had this sort of overload of like, you just are speaking all the time. An interesting consequence of that is that the part of your brain that detects threats and makes you feel afraid and anxious and this kind of thing.
that is, if you can get exposure and you get a lot of exposure, that clamps down actually quicker than you might think. And so I mean, if you have this standup experience, I bet you've talked to a lot of people who, I mean, the idea of going up on stage and doing a little open mic special is terrifying to people, including me. I think about that and I'm like, my God, that would be terrifying. But if you did it like, I don't know, 10 times or something like that, it would, you know, not necessarily you're feeling like you're...
Tyson (19:42.837)
Thank
Scott H. Young (19:44.001)
Chris Rock or anything like that, but you wouldn't feel necessarily terrified just because of the exposure. And so the similar thing here is that I think for a lot of people who they learn the language in the classroom, they have both those problems that a lot of the classroom exercises are not very well geared towards fluency. And then at the same time, they've never had to get exposure to the situation. So their anxiety levels are high. And so when you have to do something that's
intellectually complicated, which is like stitching together the conjugation of words that you have not learned fluently. And then you're also doing it with anxiety. It can be disabling in some cases. And so I think, again, shifting to an approach where you do practice a lot of low -key speaking, either with a tutor or you just, I know there's a lot of online services for doing it.
using PIMS or these kind of things. If you can over learn those bases, you can get over that beginning hurdle. It doesn't make you fluent, but it does make it a lot more comfortable to try to do that.
Tyson (20:45.854)
Yeah, is that something you still, yeah, still, I don't wanna say dabble, because it seems like an understatement to your commitment to languages, but is the language world something you're still immersed in, pardon the pun, like you're trying to learn new languages or refine the current one?
Scott H. Young (20:49.569)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (20:57.525)
Yeah, mean, yeah, I mean, once you start learning more languages, you realize how much of like a burden you have of just like, well, I'm not where I want to be with all of these. So it just like it adds to your like queue of stuff you want to do. I have learned. So since I did that trip, I also added Macedonian, which is my wife was born in North Macedonia. So I added that to the list as well.
I think I use the languages less than I used to. like, clearly if I'm zooming back 10 years, when we were doing that project, I was maybe better at some of them then. But I do try my best to keep them up at least to some degree. And so, you know, even I was maybe a couple of weeks ago, I had a podcast with a fellow from Argentina. And so we did that one in Spanish. I mean, again, my Spanish is worse than my English, certainly, but we had like an hour long conversation. So it wasn't so bad.
Tyson (21:52.744)
That's incredible. If there's, I've got some Macedonian family members as well. And if there was one particular, yeah, there's one people group I would be intimidated practicing Macedonian in front of it's them because just by reputation, they seem to have no problems in coming forward with where they think you fall short in that. could just be my family, not the Macedonian people in general. So I'd to apologize to your wife if she's hearing this.
Scott H. Young (21:56.512)
really? congratulations, yeah.
Scott H. Young (22:01.436)
really?
Scott H. Young (22:08.429)
Yeah, but they mean well, they mean well. No, no, it's the Balkan like they criticize but with love. So it's a cultural difference. I don't know, for the Canadian thing is like people will, they won't say anything bad about you except behind your back. then so I sometimes appreciate the forthright cultures when you encounter them in the world.
Tyson (22:31.04)
100 % man, that's exactly the same in Australia. You can walk away thinking someone loves you and then find out just by default, are three other people they think you're an absolute dickhead. it's, yeah, I always find that refreshing as well when someone just calls me a dickhead to my face rather than through a number of friends. Man, it's really cool hearing you speak about language because obviously it's something that it's a personal curiosity. And I think for me going through school, I...
Scott H. Young (22:34.219)
Yeah. I hate that guy. Yeah.
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (22:54.327)
Mm -hmm.
Tyson (22:57.536)
I think I just kind of came to an assumption that I'm like, I'm not that academic. But I think looking back now, age 37, with the benefit of hindsight, I'm like, it wasn't that at all. I think it was just that I was very uninterested in so many of the structures and the subjects that we were learning. Like the books were boring. I didn't really care for maths. know, health and human development. I was interested in that from a running perspective, another interest of mine. But outside of that, I just felt like I was, you know, I was essentially just cramming stuff for the sake of a test.
Scott H. Young (23:01.281)
Right.
Scott H. Young (23:09.389)
Mmm, yeah.
Scott H. Young (23:18.721)
Hmm.
Tyson (23:26.13)
and not out of any real personal interest. And I find it interesting how quickly I catch on to so many subjects that I'm interested in without even recognising the fact that I'm really learning. And I often notice this when I'm reading books. And one thing I hear people speak about quite regularly is the fact that they'll read a book and for whatever reason, the information, it'll go in and then it'll just disappear. And they're like, what have I just read for the last four pages? And it is interesting. I notice this quite regularly, even with books that I do enjoy.
Scott H. Young (23:36.581)
Mm
Scott H. Young (23:49.111)
Yeah.
Tyson (23:54.293)
when I'm not focused, but I noticed there seems to be a central theme that if I'm reading something because I feel as though I should and not because I actually find it interesting, the amount that I retain is just so, so tiny. So I don't know you can speak to that because this is something that I hear quite regularly. Like why is it that I just can't retain the information that I'm reading?
Scott H. Young (24:08.151)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (24:14.559)
Yeah, so I mean, I think some of that is just a virtue of how memory works that we cannot spontaneously recall most of the things that we experience. If I asked you, like, what did you do today? You could remember, well, I woke up and I did this. But like, minute by minute, what were you doing? No, that's just not how your memory works. So there's a few reasons for that. One reason is just that our access to our memory, so we can remember something.
but you need to have some kind of cue to bring it up or surface it. And so a lot of times when you read something, the issue is not that necessarily that you haven't even remembered it, but unless you get kind of like the right key to open the right lock, it maybe won't come up. And so especially if I ask you like a very, very open -ended question like, so tell me about this book you're reading.
Now you kind of have no cues. You just have to use the book title as a sort of like a way to search through what you've just read. And depending on, you know, how you've organized in your brain, maybe it's hard to get all of those things. And so I think some of this is just like, I don't remember what I read is just a virtue of well, you know, this is just how memory works. There's lots of things that people don't remember. The other thing that can be a factor too is that
you tend to retain more the more you already know about something. So when you read a book on a topic that's less familiar to you, it's as if your brain doesn't have the little hooks for latching on the new information. Because what you're doing when you're reading is that the text is coming in, but then you're also trying to assemble with all your background knowledge, all the other things that you know that are kind of related to that to form this kind of, this is what the book is actually talking about. And so if you're missing some of that background knowledge,
the kind of sketch that you're making in your head of what it's describing is sort of impoverished in some ways. And so you tend to retain less. So if you want to remember more from books, then the kind of the best way to do that is actually just to read more books. Because as you read more and more on a topic, and you know, I can even just talk about this, like this last book, I had to do all this academic research. And when you first start reading papers on a topic, you're like, wait, what's this? What's this? By the time you read like paper number 600, you're kind of like,
Scott H. Young (26:27.189)
I don't believe that number because of this thing. And like you just you have this like whole like, this person's talking, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I know all about that. And then you go, you know, so I think I'm talking about this in this real intellectual sense. But this is true of all knowledge. Right. One of my favorite studies that kind of shows this is about students who were taken, they were given a description of a baseball game. And what was interesting is that the amount that they were able to remember was much more heavily weighted on
Tyson (26:28.615)
Hahaha!
Thank
Scott H. Young (26:56.791)
how much they already knew about baseball than how good readers they were. And I think there's another one that was done with soccer games where they measured intelligence. So again, it's not just okay, there's raw brain power is just absorbing this data coming in like it's a file download. It's really based on what you already know when you're linking it to. So the best advice I have for someone if they think like they're not retaining much from what they read is to read more.
And the more you read, the more you'll retain, the more that like you'll be able to form this kind of tight web of information. And so I think that's the best thing. If you feel like you're not retaining that much, don't get discouraged because it's not about reading one book. It's about reading, you know, 20.
Tyson (27:34.142)
Yeah, that's really good. I always wondered why it was this people who'd written books on standup comedy was so much more clear and able to convey ideas than than every other author in the whole world. But it turns out it's just something I got some hooks in the game for. I heard C .S. Lewis, man. I didn't hear it. I read it the other day. So I've got a C .S. Lewis quote book, and it's just quotes on a whole range of different subjects. And one of them was just about his approach to learning through books.
Scott H. Young (27:50.378)
Mm
Scott H. Young (27:54.07)
Okay.
Tyson (28:02.014)
And I thought you read a book, you picked it up, you put it down and you were left with the ideas that you had. And if you were smart enough, good on you, you remembered them. If not, go back and read it six more times until it sticks. One thing he says is, he was talking about how people have so many different forms of hobbies. And he goes, for example, like a stamp collecting hobby, someone might go out and they'll search through, he's obviously writing this in like the forties or whenever it was when stamp collecting was.
Scott H. Young (28:02.283)
Mm -hmm.
Scott H. Young (28:27.054)
Yeah
Tyson (28:27.936)
a little cooler than it is in 2024. No offense to all the stamp collectors out there. But one thing he was speaking about is, okay, well, people will go out and they'll commit so much time to this particular, this game or this hobby. And they're happy to do the research to search through the, wherever it is you search for their stamps. And over time, they'll find what it is they need to. He says he takes that approach that people have to different hobbies to the books that he reads. And he said, often, if he sits down to learn about a new concept or a new idea,
Scott H. Young (28:52.65)
Mm
Tyson (28:57.652)
He'll approach that as though it's gonna be his hobby for a few months and he'll have just written notes and written catalogs of, like there's a particular word, there's a particular concept, here's another idea. And through that, he starts connecting the dots. And he said, over time, if you start to approach it as though it's like, yeah, first of all, it is a commitment, but second of all, you're just treating this as a hobby. said, often you can break down subjects that you didn't think you might enjoy.
into bite -sized pieces that actually turned out to be quite enjoyable once you start getting your hands on these hooks to steal your words. And I thought what an interesting approach to learning that is and one that I'd never really thought of. I always, as I said at the outset, just assumed that you got to pick up the book, you read the book and that's what it is. But almost turning it into like a little bit of a game. I thought if it's good enough for a guy like C .S. Lewis, it could be a fun project to approach subjects that I might not think I'm overly interested in.
Scott H. Young (29:28.929)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (29:39.66)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (29:46.106)
Yeah.
Tyson (29:51.092)
but there's some part of me that's curious about learning it.
Scott H. Young (29:54.175)
Yeah, mean, well, I always recommend people start with the things that they are already interested in, because it's always hard enough to find time to think, to learn the things that you do care about than the things you don't care about. But I do think there is some truth to that. You know, I think one of the ways that we often think about something like curiosity is that, well, someone will be more curious when there's something that they don't know, right? Like if I don't know something, I'm going to be curious about it, right? Obviously, if you know it, then you're not curious about it.
But there's something almost paradoxical about curiosity because you actually are more curious about a topic the more you already know. And that's because it's not just the case that when you're learning something, you have this like blank canvas and you're kind of like filling it up with knowledge. The canvas is also getting larger while you're learning, right? Because when you start, you actually have not only not that much knowledge, but you also don't have that much blank space to ask questions into for things to be interested about.
You don't have like, okay, well, these are the things that I'm interested in, but I don't know yet. And as you start learning, yes, your knowledge expands, but that space of all the possible questions that might be relevant or interesting to you also expands. And so I think it's not surprising. You you tend to see, well, okay, someone knows a lot about X. Well, that's because they're really interested in X. But they go both ways, right? Like that as you...
Tyson (31:07.487)
Thank
Scott H. Young (31:19.349)
as you gain a lot of knowledge and something you increase your interest and as you increase your interest, you gain a lot of knowledge. And so there's a kind of a feedback loop there. So I do think it's often the case that you can start learning about something with just sort of like, yeah, maybe this is interesting. And then you can get kind of like obsessed with it because as you sort of, as you keep peeling off the layers, you're sort of like, wait a minute, what about this? What about this? And so I think that's a good habit to cultivate is, you know, picking some topic that.
you you don't know that much about and then you start reading and then you start getting really interested and then you start like getting into the debates and you start, you know, arguing with people in your head about who's right and this kind of thing. So that's, that's a great transition to make.
Tyson (31:57.591)
Thanks.
Tyson (32:01.403)
Yeah. Well, I find this point really interesting because one of my constant battles is, mean, there's so many things that I'll watch a YouTube video and tomorrow I'm like, all right, I'm to be a documentary filmmaker. My wife's like, babe, stay focused. Like you've got your lane, stay focused on your lane. Like you got to really, you know, try and unpack that, break that down, get a better understanding of what it is that you're already doing. And it is amazing when you commit to something for a few years, just exactly how big your canvas gets. It's fascinating to realize that there's questions you didn't even know.
Scott H. Young (32:13.559)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (32:27.499)
Mm -hmm.
Tyson (32:30.426)
you know, you might think curious about, but I often wonder there's, there's this focus, the conversation between, right, this deep learning, this approach to one particular subject, let's stick to this and become a master of that. Or do we just dabble in so many projects? And I definitely, I feel like I lean towards wanting to be a deep learner in one particular field and doing that really well. But the.
personality maybe of me is always like, but there's 15 other things over here that you can go and learn about. And the fun side of the gone learning about all the other stuff or the perk of that is the fun. It's interesting, it's new, it's exciting. But I feel like sometimes I'm like, I'm sacrificing the quality of the thing that I should be focused on because of all these hobbies that I've created. I don't know if you've got any advice or any thoughts around that.
Scott H. Young (33:01.439)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (33:19.223)
Well, I'm in the same boat. mean, I'm kind of like kind of famously a dilettante. Like I like learning lots of random stuff and weighing in on topics that I don't have any authoritative expertise in this kind of thing. I mean, I can't really give you advice on how to cure yourself of that. do think, like I think it's more interesting. I think that life is full of interesting stuff. feel like...
Tyson (33:32.657)
Thank
Tyson (33:38.33)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (33:45.537)
There's probably economic incentives to be more specialized, like to be the expert on X or to have really mastered a very narrow set of skills. And so sometimes encouraging yourself to do that for work, let's say, might be beneficial. But I mean, if you want to be ranging and think about lots of things, I think that's great. I mean, that's just what life's about.
I don't know, I don't really have any particular advice on it, but I mean, I've learned multiple languages. I definitely would be better if I had just stuck with one. Like if I had just decided, nope, I'm only gonna learn French. My French would probably be much better right now, you know? So I think that's a downside of doing it, but you also get to have more interesting experiences. I mean, that's just a choose your own adventure part of life.
Tyson (34:31.07)
That's true. Do you have any particular scaffolds that you use throughout your day to make sure that at particular times you're focused on the right task or you've got any routines that are sort of entrenched that you'll go through throughout the day?
Scott H. Young (34:38.732)
Well, my kind of main organizational device is I like to think in terms of projects. So I'll pick out a project and then that will be kind of my obsession for the moment. And there's other habits and other like day -to -day stuff you got to keep up at the time. But I like to think about it in terms of projects. Sometimes if I'm trying to maintain a skill over a longer period of time, I will make like, OK, this is going to be a regular habit. Like after I'd finished doing the language learning project,
I made an intentional point for like, I think for the first year, I made sure I had like one tutoring call, like so I could have a conversation with someone from each language once a week. And then I think for a couple of years after that, it was once a month. I don't do it regularly now. So I'm just at the mercy of when I have a chance to practice. But that sort of approach of thinking about it in terms of projects, I think is often...
profitable. It's something that suits me at least because then I can, I don't have to deal with this sort of like here's 18 different things and like which thing am I going to work on right now? I just know what I'm working on because that's what my project is. And then you do get this chance to kind of circle back to topics too. Like you, start learning something and then you can do a project to go deeper to like look at it from a different angle or this kind of thing. And then that gives you that chance to go back to some of those things that you'd already started.
Tyson (36:00.48)
Yeah, I feel when it comes to the world of productivity, it can almost be exhausting because you'll hear 15 different approaches to getting a task done or like the correct way to use the most time, the most effectively. And I've noticed in myself at least, as I start to try and get more in or more quality or whatever in my day, you start to recognise the fact that you're probably being a harsher critic on yourself than what you otherwise would. And regardless of what the end result of that day looks like, how much you get done or how effective it is.
Scott H. Young (36:24.258)
Mmm.
Tyson (36:30.068)
You always end the day seeing the little gaps in your progress or seeing where it was. You should have been more effective. I don't know this is something that you notice in, the world of learning, but I can imagine if I started to try and measure it subjectively without any like a clear landmarks, I guess, like the projects that you use as a landmark is a pretty good sign. can kind of be overwhelming and frustrating and feel as though you're not making any real progress. So the project is, kind of your tick of approval that you're moving in the right direction.
Scott H. Young (36:35.575)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (36:46.612)
Mm
Scott H. Young (36:54.368)
Yeah.
Tyson (36:59.75)
on what it is that you're working on in that moment.
Scott H. Young (37:02.701)
Well, I think with what you're talking about, about like trying to make improvement in something you're learning, I do think you need to have a certain amount of focus. So I tend to be a little bit skeptical of approaches where you sort of, I'm gonna pursue these 18 goals and I'm gonna chop up my time and like do like 10 minutes on each per day, like for like several years. It's not that I think that that's like, there's some real iron reason why that like that can never work. I just feel like I'm skeptical of it because
I tend to think that often what you need to do to make progress is sort of make these sort of larger investments either of time or of effort or of energy, or you have to get like resources or do certain things that it's often benefits to put that focus in there. I mean, there's probably exceptions to that. I think there's things that I've kind of learned about casually, because you you subscribe to a YouTube channel and then they update you about it every once in a while. like you, you know, every once in a while you read a book on a particular topic that you're interested in. I think that can work.
But I think if you're trying to push the needle or move the needle on something that you find difficult, I think it's helpful to be like, you know what, this is gonna be my focus for the next month or 90 days or what have you. Because unless you sort of make it that focus, I think it's very difficult to kind of aggregate like.
You know, it's a little bit like the magnifying glass, right? Like the sun is strong, but it's only when you like focus it onto that little dot that you can actually start a fire. And so I think that that's, there's that kind of activation cost for a lot of, harder projects and skills.
Tyson (38:35.976)
Yeah, that's really interesting, man. There was one theme that I notice in every field, I think that I've been involved in, whether it's stand -up comedy, distance running, golf, like all of the insert, whatever hobby, I've probably had a crack at it at one stage. I'll notice people, myself at times, dip their toes in the water of something. And like what we said with the languages earlier on, maybe it's the frustration that you haven't got it mastered.
Scott H. Young (38:48.791)
Mm
Tyson (39:04.348)
immediately the emotional impact of just revealing how much you know and feeling judged on that. There's a lot of people who start a particular project and for whatever reason, it won't go any further than that. Like the excitement is enough to get them there to learn or to think they're about to learn. And then as they start the investment or the journey, they go, okay, the excitement's worn off. Let's go and focus on something else. Is that something you speak too much? Cause that's something that I see happen quite a lot. People who would probably be
Scott H. Young (39:25.847)
Yeah. Yeah.
Tyson (39:33.672)
be quite skilled after a year or two of practicing guitar can't get past the fact that they don't yet know the chords.
Scott H. Young (39:39.019)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I do think there's a lot of skills where you need to kind of reach a certain threshold of ability before motivation and interest become self -sustaining. I actually did a TEDx talk with my friend about the language learning project, and that was kind of like our essential thesis was that for a lot of people, the issue with practicing a language is that
If you can't have any kind of productive exchange with someone in that language, then it's essentially you're just making an investment for a future benefit, right? Whenever you're studying, you're just studying, right? You're not actually using the skill in any meaningful way. But if you can actually use the skill in some way, then there's sort of an immediate reward to practicing it in that moment, right? Like it can be kind of this self -sustaining loop. So,
you know, if you're thinking about you're in Spain and you're and you're in your room and you're studying the conjugation, that's an investment. There's no benefit to your life for doing that in that moment. But if you're having a conversation with someone and you're like, you know, trying to order some paella or something like that, that that itself has a meaningful interaction. has some benefits to your life. And it's also improving your ability is making you a little bit more fluent. Maybe you're occasionally encountering new words and this kind of stuff. And so you can imagine it. There's this like investment. And then after that,
there is at least the potential that it will become self -sustaining because you're good enough at this skill. And you can think of lots of situations like that. when I learned to downhill ski as an adult, and I mean, it's not that much fun when you're like tumbling down the mountain, you're like, you can't turn and this kind of thing, you get some bumps and stuff. So you kind of have to reach it. You have to get kind of good enough before it's fun, like really at all, you know? And so if you sort of get stuck in that first few days on the bunny slope, then maybe you're not gonna continue doing it.
But once you're doing the green runs and you're not tumbling down, then you enjoy it again. And so lot of, I think a lot of skills have this sort of characteristic shape that you have to make an investment in order to reach a certain threshold. And then after that threshold, investment, further investment is easier. It's not as hard to do. And so think if you conceptualize it that way, then the project model makes a lot of sense because you are kind of...
Scott H. Young (41:57.015)
clearing away other goals, other distractions in your life. You're gonna focus on this, getting to that threshold. And then once you get to the threshold, again, it's not like you're automatically gonna become perfect at it, but you at least have something sustaining you to keep going. And so that's often what I recommend when people are trying to do some kind of learning project, is that you are trying to get it to that threshold. And the threshold's gonna vary depending on the specific subject and skill you're learning. But I think,
Tyson (42:11.881)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (42:26.093)
keeping that in mind is important because I think sometimes people will try to engage in this sort of very low key, but the threshold is maybe like a year or two out. And so even if it is a very low key, you're kind of making things, investments for like a year or two that you're not going to enjoy for like two years. Like that's a long time away to start doing it. Whereas if you're thinking, okay, I do this intensively for 90 days, but then after that, I'm going to be enjoying myself. I mean, that, that maybe is more worthwhile to you.
Tyson (42:55.178)
So just a recognition of the fact that there's gonna be some temporary frustration along the road to successes, perhaps a really good platform to start from.
Scott H. Young (43:04.735)
Yeah, I mean, it's not even just frustration. It's just sometimes your ability is so low that you can't like do anything fun with it. Like, I mean, every hobby and sport is kind of like that, but even career skills, right? Like, let's say I'm, you know, I want to start learning video editing, right? Well, you have to be good enough to get any work as a video editor. So if you're just thinking about doing this financially and not as a hobby, I mean, there's this investment period where you have to get good enough to get paid work video editing.
Tyson (43:11.24)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (43:31.233)
And then after that, you're going to get better as a video editor because it's your job and you have to do it all the time. I mean, sometimes those thresholds are really high. Like to become a neurosurgeon, there is a big investment period and that's why most people don't become neurosurgeons. But I think if you can understand that model, you can see, okay, well that maybe, maybe it makes sense to try to do a little sprint to get to that threshold, especially if it's not too, too far off.
Tyson (43:52.5)
Yeah, and so an example of a threshold obviously varies based on what it is that you're investing in. But if someone was thinking, all right, well, I'm gonna, we'll use video editing to continue with your example. I'm gonna get into this world of video editing. It's a new career, it's a new idea. Maybe in five years time, there's a full -time job paying really well, they're gonna be flourishing and what they work backwards from there and just try and navigate what the practical steps towards that final outcome for lack of a better term might be.
Scott H. Young (44:20.321)
Yeah, I mean, the first thing I would do if I was trying to learn a skill like this is again, make that map. Like you want to try to figure out what it is that you have to do to learn, break it down, what's involved. I think for professional skills, there's an additional variable on top of like, how do I learn the skill as, know, what is the kind of, you know, employment threshold or what is the competitive landscape? Like how good do I have to be at this in order to like not just do it well, but do it for a living?
And that can really vary too. And it's not skill dependent, it's just based on the competition. I mean, to be a professional chess player, you have to be extremely good at chess. There's very few professional chess players. It's hard to make money doing chess. To be a professional house cleaner requires not very much skill. There's not like a huge threshold before like, okay, I'm not good enough to clean other people's houses. Like you do need to know some things, but it's not gonna take you nearly as long.
And so I think that's something, so you need to understand how the skill works and then you need to understand for a professional skill, you need to understand how your skill interacts with the sort of supply and demand in the marketplace. And so I think for a lot of people who want to embark on skills, like you want to be a professional programmer, you need to keep both things in mind. You need to keep in mind, okay, what do I have to do to learn programming? You know, what are the different languages? What should I learn? How do I actually learn it? That's not a trivial thing. You have to break it down. But then you also have to look at, okay, this is what I want to do with it.
where do I have to be to like slot in at, know, freelancing, you know, doing some kind of like you're making a website for some nonprofit and they're going to pay you 50 bucks or something versus I want to work at, you know, Google in the, in the data center or something like that. Like there's going to be different thresholds you have to reach. And so I think having a good idea of both the skill landscape and the career landscape are very important if you're, if you're learning for that professional reason, if you're learning for a hobby, you can just do whatever you want.
Tyson (46:15.56)
Yeah, a skilled land, for sure. I love that phrase, skilled landscape. Like it's a really, really good way to put it. And just cause it's something that I'm, you know, quite, I love and maybe a bit selfish about, like, let me just steal this standup comedy conversation for a moment, because that's one that I've noticed there in the school landscape. There are so many factors that you have to navigate your way through. And some people are incredibly good at some of them.
and incredibly bad at others. And it's interesting just how much it can impact a performance because obviously you think of a standup comedian, you think of them on stage just doing their thing. And that's part of it. And some people just, they might take a dot point and go up and speak about a concept or an idea and try and find what's funny. But if you boil down like an effective standup comedian, you've got like their stage presence, their confidence on stage, their timing, like their writing, like their editing, their ability to go back and reflect honestly about how a set went.
Like their resilience, your ability to be able to get back on stage after a bomb and after a horrible experience or just navigate your way through a set where you're having a horrible experience. Like there's so many different factors that boil down into what makes a good comic. And I'll often notice in the, in the landscape world of standup comedy, someone might be an incredible writer. they might, their jokes might be amazing, but there's just like a disconnect between their ability to write those jokes and express those jokes in a way that really connects with the audience on like an emotional level.
And it really trips me out because people often ask the question, like, what do you think makes a good standup comic? And I'm like, I still don't a hundred percent know, because I know there's some people who have jokes, which aren't as clever or a little bit silly or a little bit lame that get huge laughs based on their stage presence alone. And the opposite of that's also true. Some great writers who just can't get laughs because they don't know how to communicate yet. And so, like that landscape is a great way to put it. Cause every single skill seems to have these little hooks within them that you have to navigate your way through.
But I guess when I started standup comedy, it was like the example you gave earlier. I hadn't been through, you know, 600 sets trying to figure out, like this is one particular skill. So you had no idea that it was something that you even had to focus on. And so like, I guess I'm circling back to your original point, but just navigating your way through that landscape is perhaps one of the key foundational elements in getting anywhere in that particular skill. But that's what I was, sorry, that's what I was gonna ask you. just remembered. So.
Tyson (48:37.192)
Actually trying to figure out which particular part of that landscape is the most important one to focus on can be quite challenging. I don't know you've got any particular advice to that because I still don't know. I've been involved in standup comedy for six years. I still don't know which one of those things I said is the most important despite recognizing the fact they're all important to some capacity.
Scott H. Young (48:43.051)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (48:47.477)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (48:56.15)
Well,
So to use a kind technical term, what you mean is that most skills are kind of multi -dimensional, meaning there's different kind of things that you could measure betterness on. someone's height is one dimension, right? But someone's body composition is multi -dimensional because you can be taller and you can also be bigger, right? And then you can think of all sorts of things as having maybe dozens or hundreds of different factors. So if you thought of it like...
you know, like one of those mixer boards, we have a bunch of different dials, right? There's this enormous amount of different combinations that you could have of like tweaking these sort of dials and just thinking about better, worse or stylistic differences in this kind of stuff. And so for realistic skills, especially creative skills, you're often dealing with the fact that the space that you're exploring that you're trying to get better at is there's many different factors and they could all work.
I don't think there's necessarily like some particular, okay, we'll do this and then that will be the correct thing to focus on. But I do think what is often a beneficial step is to do some kind of like, you try to work on different ones and then you see where you're getting, more sort of like where it's helping you more. So if you broke down standup comedy to 10 things, you could sort of say, okay, well for the next 10 sets, I'm going to focus on each of these and I'm going to see which one.
seems to have made the bigger difference. And that could be because it's a weakness. So it's sort of dragging down your whole performance. And so it's easier to get better at weaknesses often than things that you're already very good at. And so you can boost your performance. Or it could be doubling down on a strength. It could be that, well, this thing, if I just did it a little bit more, that would be even more distinctive. And so I don't think there's a hard and fast rule, whether it's your strengths or weaknesses you want to work on. It really just depends. But I think this idea of
Scott H. Young (50:49.037)
Okay, well, let's figure out what the components are, try to do a little bit in each and see where it seems to be making a difference, where I can kind of push in. And that's not a guarantee that you're gonna get like the optimal point, but it is probably a good way of going forward with it. So if I'm thinking of like speaking a language, you know, I can break that down into, you know, my listening ability, my writing ability, my speaking ability, my comprehension ability, all these things, these different components.
you could break it into like my conjugation, this kind of stuff. And you can just work on them. And then if you sort of see like, actually, I think that's making a bigger difference in this situation that I care about. Then you can spend more time on that. And so that's sort of one of these like choose your own adventure things that come with learning is like trying to make that decision about where do you invest time and energy. And I don't think there's a correct answer. But at least if you can kind of map it out, this is the landscape ahead, then you can kind of be kind of like, well, I think going this way is probably the best direction.
Tyson (51:46.76)
Yeah, see, I love hearing people like you speak on this. And I've got a heap of friends that remind me of you right now, very logical people who speak practically about what a good approach to a particular subject is. And I often laugh because I'll look at people who seem to operate in the world of logic far more than emotion and go, man, I crave that. I'm the opposite. I'll get up on stage and my initial reaction is after a set that I feel didn't go well, I was like, this is shit. Standup comedy is the wrong career. I suck, I'm going home.
Scott H. Young (51:52.599)
Yeah.
Scott H. Young (52:14.411)
Yeah, yeah.
Tyson (52:15.648)
I'm gonna go watch a TV show, do know what I mean? But the truth is, what would be far more effective for my development and people who share that same sort of approach to just leaning on emotion would be to go home and go, now which of these 10 particular skill sets did you focus on tonight? And how did that particular theme go? Just to steal exactly what you said, but it is funny, that idea of the emotion logic.
crossover is one that I see people really struggle to navigate their way through. I think like whenever there's a problem that I'm experiencing, whatever world, it's always that sitting down with a pen and paper and actually just trying to challenge a particular negative thought or a lazy thought or something that is the most effective. And yet in the, in the moment, emotion seems to yell so loud, it's hard to see any other way through the problem that you're trying to get through.
Scott H. Young (53:11.285)
Yeah, I mean, I think we are like I'm speaking about this very like coolly and analytically, but that's also because I'm sort of detached from it, right? I obviously I feel the same way, you know, you're working on things, you're like, this didn't work. you know, like, I'm I'm also human, right? I think everyone's emotional like that. I think I think often what is helpful is that when you're in this sort of emotionally charged moment is that like, you don't quickly jump to like this decision making analysis mode.
just let yourself settle down and then like, okay, all right. All right. Let's look at that. Because I think sometimes if you experience especially like you experience a bruising failure in some domain, there's a there's I think a temptation when your emotions are still relatively raw, to kind of like jump in there and like, okay, well, this is what I'm going to fix. So this never happens again. And this kind of thing. And often that like, it seems like you're being really coolly rational, but you're actually
Tyson (54:00.52)
you
Scott H. Young (54:05.943)
kind of making a secondary emotional mistake, like you made some mistake, don't compound it by like rushing to judgment on things. So I mean, one of the things that I've really tried to do even, you know, with my own work or my business and like when some things work, when they don't work and this kind of thing, and it can be exciting or disappointing is to like wait until there's a little bit more distance in the rear view mirror before you're like really making that, was that actually the wrong decision or right decision? Because
I think especially if you're in a domain where sometimes things will go well unexpectedly or badly unexpectedly and there is some chance involved. it's not like, yeah, if someone were to say, I'm making a mistake on this math problem, for instance, yeah, maybe go figure out what you're doing wrong right away, right? But if you're dealing with something where like, well, maybe you didn't do anything wrong, it was just unlucky or just something you couldn't have foreseen.
I think sometimes it's good to have a little bit of distance because then you're, think, going to be in a better state to apply that rational analysis. And before that, you can just go vent to a friend or go for a walk or have a beer, whatever your way of blowing off steam is.
Tyson (55:14.42)
That's a good point. Yeah, just letting the events and the emotions calm down. Again, you're making so much sense. It's really good point. what's on the cards right now? What are you working on at the moment?
Scott H. Young (55:26.157)
Yeah, so right now I'm actually kind of a little bit in between the beginning of a new project. So this project I'm calling Foundations. And so the idea is spending 12 months and each month is going to be focused on a kind of foundation for living well. So, you know, would be fitness, personal finance, relationships, kind of thing. And so it's sort of a learning project because each month I'm doing a lot of reading. I'm reading a lot of books trying to like kind of kind of like a little mini ultra learning project.
And then also I'm trying to make some behavior changes. And I'm also working with some students who are also trying to do the same thing along with me. And so that's sort of the project that I'm embarking on at the moment. the kind of like updates I'm going to be posting about it are starting, well, it depends on when this episode airs, but like starting in October, which is coming up soon. This is late September of 2024. But I've actually started working on the project for the last three months, sort of behind the scenes. And so the updates are going to be a little bit time delayed just because we've...
had to get everything coordinated. it's been a fun project. So it's also like a nice change for me because a lot of my early projects were like, they were learning projects, but they weren't about learning. And then I did this sort of two book detour where like all of my learning was also about learning. And so now I'm kind of back onto learning about things that are not learning, but hopefully still applying the learning techniques. Is that confusing? I don't know. Yeah.
Tyson (56:45.728)
That'll be the, that'll be the clip for the podcast. So what did you say? You last month, you started the project that you just spoke about or three months ago.
Scott H. Young (56:54.805)
Yeah, so the project is like officially like on my blog, it will be starting on the beginning of October. So if you so like if you, know, well, I don't know when you're hearing this. So if you go back in time and you start right when I'm saying this right now, then like the next post that I'm going to be putting on my blog are going to be about me starting this project. But I actually started it beginning of July. It was just because between getting stuff ready for the students and also getting, you know, the material ready and stuff. I've just now that I've like
I've grown my website and I have a little bit of a team. I can't do these sort of like in real time projects anymore because it's just unfair to everyone who has to like edit and do things. like, okay, I posted this, get this ready by six hours. I don't like running it like that. So we're keeping it kind of a little bit more delayed. But yeah, if you join the website, then you'll see about this project. And so I'm gonna be like, you know, talking about books I'm reading and habits and changing and stuff.
Tyson (57:37.041)
You
Tyson (57:48.826)
That sounds like a really awesome project. sounds fun. That sounds really cool. I don't know if you have heard of Casey Means. She's just written, I think it's probably already a bestselling book. It's called Good Energy. And I know in the world of personal development, there's some amazing stuff out there, but I feel like I'm primed to jump into a project like you're about to start writing about because...
Scott H. Young (57:51.214)
thank you.
Scott H. Young (57:57.704)
Mm, okay.
Scott H. Young (58:02.472)
Mmm, okay.
Tyson (58:12.376)
Her book sort of delves into a number. It's more to do with sort of physical health and so many of the misconceptions that we have about how great physical health is actually attained. But man, I recommend it. It's something that I feel whenever I'm talking about health and fitness at the moment, it's one that I can't stop recommending. listen to a lot of books on... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I listen to a lot of the books on the way to Melbourne from where I live, which is about an hour and a half.
Scott H. Young (58:29.111)
Well, I'll add it to the list then.
Tyson (58:38.304)
and I finished this book and pretty much just hit reset on it. Cause there was just so much stuff in there. like, it's just, yeah, was, it was just really enjoyable. man, that was a random tangent. I'm glad I saved it to 59 minutes into the podcast. for anyone listening, check that out. Dude, I've got my eye on the clock. I told you an hour. So I'm not going to keep talking to you for too much longer, but super grateful man that you are, you made the time to come on. I knew, I knew I was going to enjoy talking to you and I could say an hour later that I, certainly did. So.
Scott H. Young (58:44.107)
Yeah.
Tyson (59:04.842)
Brother, thank you and good luck with the current project, man. I'm pumped to keep tabs on how it's all going.
Scott H. Young (59:06.776)
wow.
Scott H. Young (59:11.199)
Yeah, thanks. Thanks Noah. It was great chatting and I hope everyone who's listening here, yeah, they can check out either my book or my vlog if they're interested in any more of these topics.
Tyson (59:21.002)
For sure, I'll make sure it's all linked in the description to this episode. But man, hey, thanks again.
Scott H. Young (59:22.999)
Perfect, thanks.
Yeah, take care.