The Friday Brain Upgrade

How to eliminate mental fatigue, amplify cognitive performance, and become an unstoppable learner

Edition 3 - December 13th

Today, we’re diving into a powerful concept that can transform your learning journey: The power of Compounding Knowledge

Let me share a personal example of compounding learning.

Since January 1, 2024, I’ve been writing one post on LinkedIn every day.

During this period, I’ve learned about writing in a skimmable format, the importance of engagement, leveraging AI for writing assistance, growing my network (from about 2,000 to nearly 7,500 followers), and validating my assumptions.

The compounding effect is visible: It started with consistent writing on LinkedIn and led to numerous learning moments, from improving my English writing to understanding the “LinkedIn game” and discovering the power of learning in cohorts and communities.

With compounded learning today, I:

→ Learn new, adjacent topics much faster

→ Start each of my new learning topics on a higher level

→ Ask higher-order questions that build on my previous learnings.

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Learning how to learn creates the foundation that accelerates our acquisition of new skills and knowledge. When you become a more proficient learner, you develop the ability to compound your knowledge. You create a snowball effect of growth and efficiency.

When skills accumulate, they often complement each other. This leads to synergistic growth. And at the same time, you increase your learning efficiency.

Sounds promising, right? Yet most miss out on leveraging the compounding effect.

They aim for the shortcuts:

→ They use summaries instead of reading a book by themselves.

→ They think knowing is enough and miss out on the equally important aspect to apply what they learned.

→ They don’t accept that compounding learning takes time.

As George Leonard beautifully put it in his book Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment:

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When you master the skill of learning and learn how to learn, you can influence the time it takes to leverage the effect of compounding learning.

So, how can you maximize the compounding effects for your learning?

Let me share four key strategies:

1. Follow your interests
2. Be in the journey, with joy
3. Leverage the power of small steps
4. Grow systems the support your daily learning

Let’s explore each of these in more detail.

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1) Follow your interests.

When we follow our passion, we’re more engaged and consistent in our practice.

To become more conscious of my interests, I reflected on my running list of 12 favorite problems that matter to me the most.

This reflection guides me on my learning path. It provides a filter for directing my attention.

Over time I experience the growing connections between my 12 topics.

For instance, three of my pillars are:

→ Continuous Learning

→ Helping others to grow

→ Wealth - to grow to a level where I can think and act independently

All three topics are highly connect in my actions.

For instance this newsletter:

→ Is about Learning to Learn and covers aspects of continuous learning.

→ Helps you on your journey of learning smarter and with joy.

→ And it is for me one step to grow.

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Compounding learning shows in the connecting through several topics I’m interested in.

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2) Discover the joy of being in the journey.

The process of learning itself can be designed in a way that is fulfilling and brings joy.

You might find joy in:

→ Understanding a topic

→ The small wins from new insights

→ The joy that comes from pure flow moments.

→ Discovering new connections between your thoughts

When I immerse in a topic, I often find myself in such moments where time flows, where thoughts go wild, where I deeply enjoy the moment.

Such moments of joy matter a lot to me. These moments show me that I’m present.
Too often I’m either in the past or the future with my thoughts.
But in such a joy-moment of my intentional learning, this is not the case.

Go with your flow and enjoy the moment of learning themselves.

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3) Leverage the 1%-Method and power of small steps

Small, even tiny steps each day compound to enormous results over time. It is about creating consistency in learning.

I learn something every day. And it is ok, even if it is a very tiny learning.

I practice patience too.

When you learn each day, when you start to connect your learnings, then over time you’ll experience your results.

Your results show when:

→ You might create that new presentation faster than all others before

→ You have this creative spark, that allows you to write a masterpiece

→ You can grow into new domains, where before you would have to opt out

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4) Build systems that empower your daily learning

In my previous Edition Newsletter 002 - The Second Brain approach, I touched on working with a Second Brain and leveraging the approach of Capture-Organize-Distill-Express information.

Such systems provide peace of mind:

→ When an idea appears, I know how to catch and where to put it.

→ When I want to work on a topic, I know where I have all the information about that topic

→ I can stop and start without friction. This way I can sync my learning with my energy.

If I need a break, I can take it without the fear of losing my thoughts or the effort of getting back on track.

In addition, such systems enable the connection of thoughts in a lightweight manner.
Instead of trying to keep all these connections in our brains, I leverage an external system that is specialized on storing insights, on maintaining connections.

Lots to explore on how to design such systems.
I promise that we will deep dive here later on in next editions of Your Friday Brain Upgrades.

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In summary, compounding learning makes you fast, you work on higher levels and you enjoy the journey of learning itself.

Speaking for myself, this is such a difference compared to my past experience of learning.
I will share more from that transformation in my next newsletter editions too.

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In that spirit, I wish you a joyful, compounding growth on your knowledge journey.

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Learn Smart,
Basti

P.S… To respond to this newsletter, just hit reply. I love getting replies, read all of them, and reply to as many as possible(And if you received this email from a friend, and would like to subscribe, please go here: https://pages.quintsmart.com/)

I will publish my newsletter every Friday at about 13:00 o'clock CET.

See you next Friday.

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The history

• ​Newsletter 002 - The Second Brain approach​
• ​Newsletter 001 - The Lip-Cut​

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