I run a design school. I’ve learned a thing or two about “Learning”..

One day, I sat to myself thinking how did my mom learn cooking? Or How did my dad learn about finances even though that’s diagonally opposite to what he does in his profession?

This thought led to me do a google search for a free design course online and I ended up spending two days learning design. When the course got completed, it felt as if I got new superpowers.

The first thing about learning continuously is learning to learn.

That’s your first superpower. If you have learned the art of learning, you have accomplished a way to succeed, no matter what.

The other day, my rockstar designer and I were designing a new experience of an app. To us, it seemed like we did a great job of accomplishing what we did after completing the designs. Accidentally, my wife saw the designs and started giving some feedback. The feedback was so basic and we had completely ignored it thinking it doesn’t matter to the user. That day I learned something new.

How to stress-test your work? How to break the thinking patterns to keep innovating?

For instance, Tim Ferriss asks this question to break the thinking pattern and continue innovating.

What would I do completely opposite for the next 48 hours?

When he was in a sales job, he asked this question to himself and changed the cold call timings to morning 6:30–8:30 and evening 5:30–7:30. Most of the executives used to receive calls from the sales executives between 9–5 while he chose to do the opposite. Tim eventually started doing better than most of his team members and got more business to his company.

Similar questions to ask:

“If I had a gun against my head and could only work two hours a week, what would I do?”

“What would you have to do in the next 6 months to 10x the economics of your business?”

While I was working with Vokal (India’s largest vernacular Q&A platform), one of the founders once told me, by the end of 1 month we will achieve XX target. The target was almost 10x of what we were sitting at. I remember, almost laughing to myself thinking, he is in a different world.

By the end of the next month, we had achieved that target.

That day, I learned how our mind gets fixated on a few things. We accept things the way they are. In India, there’s this phrase — “Aise hi hota hai” translated to English which is “This is how it is”.

When we achieved that target, I learned the importance of pushing the limits. Which is also one of the key principles of learning.

Pushing the limits and uncovering your superpowers.

When I onboarded the first cohort for my design school, here’s what I did which can be applied to your life too.

1. Learn to learn
2. Break your thinking patterns.
3. Push your limits & uncover your superpowers.

Happy to help those who are struggling to find their superpowers :)