FansOfLearning

@omarvvvr Learn something new 💃🎥🎶✍️

What’s the fastest way to stop wasting time ?

Some of what we learn looks controversial from the outside. We usually pour huge time into something with no obvious payoff, toward a goal that isn’t clear, that even we can’t fully articulate yet. From the outside, it looks like a waste. Why spend months on that? Where’s it going? But not all learning is supposed to look reasonable to other people. Some of the most important things we’ve learned started exactly like this, unjustifiable, unclear, just a strong pull toward something we couldn’t explain. If you only ever learn things that look sensible to others, you’ll miss the most important learning of all: the kind that takes you beyond your own horizon. It’s in those unjustifiable spaces that the real magic happens. What are you drawn to learn that you can’t quite justify?

@PaigeKKelly @readswithravi Awesome! I just bought 🐺. Looking forward to reading it! /Erika

@readswithravi Women Who Run With Wolves 🐺 for 2026. You Are The One You’ve Been Waiting For 🧩 for 2025.

what is the best book you’ve read in 2026 so far?

@readswithravi Learning how to become an entrepreneur with Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson🙌

When we get stuck learning something, we usually blame ourselves first. The motivation. Not being smart enough. Too late to start. None of those turned out to be true. When we dug into it, the stop was usually a phase where the course moved too fast, or a method we never quite understood and needed explained a different way. Blaming ourselves only shamed us. It never helped us keep going. Finding the real reason for the stop is what got us past it, and gave us something to work with. /Erika & Martin

For years, if I said something wrong, I had to fix it right away. Scrub it, say the right version, get it out of my head fast. I was sure the wrong one was what would stick. Then I read the opposite in Make It Stick. The wrong answer doesn’t stick. What sticks is the right one, and it holds better because you tried and missed first. Even guessing before anyone shows you beats just being told. /Erika

@LORWEN108 @wealth_director The part about protection slowly making you less sharp happens with learning too. Something that really helped you at the start can quietly become the reason you stop improving, and you don’t notice because it still feels like effort.

Your brain erases what it stops using. Shoes do this to your feet in months. Childhood does this to your real self in years. This was never just about shoes. 7 shocking parallels most people never see: 👇 1. Your toes stop spreading.

@Nicolascole77 Yes, when you really like something, the hard parts don’t stop you the same way. The same difficulty that makes you quit something you’re not that into is the thing you’ll keep working at when you love it.

I'm optimistic about AI. So, if I had a kid going to college soon, this is what I would tell them: "Study whatever is most interesting to you." I've made millions of dollars as a writer, even though society tells you "nobody makes a living as a writer." And for context, in 2012, my parents told me I should study journalism. I didn't. Instead, I majored in fiction writing in college because it was more interesting to me. Everyone said I was lighting money on fire. But since then? Journalism has basically died. And fiction & creative writing have made me a millionaire. So, that's why when I have kids of my own, I'm going to tell them: "Study whatever is most interesting to you." Every single industry is going to be affected by new technology/AI. So the game isn't "picking the perfect/most lucrative industry." The game is picking an industry you: • Won't give up on • Love enough to sink your teeth into • And will stick to for the next 5+ years Despite all the headwinds and uncertainty. So, you can ride the AI wave while your industry evolves.

Yes, and one thing I’d add for learning: discipline isn’t always knowing where it leads. Sometimes it’s letting yourself keep going without the proof yet, just to see what shows up. The trick is having a couple of trip wires set, so if you’re drifting somewhere you don’t want, you catch it. Usually you already feel it before you can explain it. Discipline there is staying long enough to read the signal, not forcing a result.

I’m convinced discipline is just the highest form of self-respect. It’s choosing what you want most over what you want now. It’s keeping your word. It’s an act of service to your future self.

Agreed, it’s not skill level. The discomfort is a stop, and stops carry information. Not “you’re bad at this,” but a clue about what’s in your way right now, which is different for everyone. Learning to read that in yourself is the real skill. The one that helps you follow through anything you want.

Most entrepreneurs don't hate marketing because they're bad at it. They hate it because they're just new and it feels uncomfortable.

@ThePeterMick Hi! We are Martin and Erika 🇸🇪 We’ve studied how learning works together for almost ten years. Most advice is generic. But how you learn is personal. We share how to read your own learning, the signals, the frames, so you can succeed in learning what you want.

To cheer you up on Mondays I want to help you grow your following Tell us: ✅ Your first name (or nickname), and ✅ Why should we follow you?

@Markmanson True for learning too. When something starts to feel boring, that’s usually right when it gets hard for real. I used to quit there and tell myself it wasn’t for me. Most of the time it just meant I’d reached the part that takes effort. /Erika

Everything that matters most in life will sometimes bore you. Your marriage will bore you. Your career will bore you. Your kids will bore you. But boredom isn’t a sign that you chose wrong. It’s a signal that you have chosen to make something more important than your own momentary pleasure. It’s the hidden fee that comes with purpose and meaning.

@theandreilucian This is right. I used to read my own clunky writing as proof I wasn’t built for it. Took me years to notice the clunky part was the signal, not the flaw. It shows you the exact spot that needs your compassion.

I'm not a natural writer. • I post on X daily • I write newsletters • I reply to hundreds of comments And I still write clunky sentences. But I couldn't care less. Stop letting your weaknesses hold you back.

I’m doing my Chinese flashcards and a character comes up and I think “Oh, I know this one.” I start writing, and halfway through I realize I’m writing a different character. I had two of them mixed up. The first thing I felt was a small drop of shame. But that moment, the mixup and the catch, was the learning. That was my brain pulling the two characters apart and finding what makes them different. Nothing was going wrong. I spent years reading moments like this as proof something was wrong with me. Where do you feel that drop, when you’re learning something? /Erika

I felt behind on AI for a long time. Every post told me the window was closing and I’d already missed it. Then I noticed who was saying it. Almost always someone with a course, a cohort, a tool to sell. Creating FOMO is what you reach for when you want a fast yes. Here’s where the “you’re behind” line falls apart. If you haven’t trained your body in 20 years, late is real. The work builds up inside the other person, and you can’t borrow their 20 years. You start from where you are. AI is the opposite. The thing itself keeps getting better, outside you. Someone who started two years ago doesn’t get to keep their head start, because the model they learned on is gone. You don’t begin on the old slow version and work your way up. You open the newest one, same as them. So there’s nothing to catch up to. There’s just starting. You’re not late. You’re right on time to learn it your way. Erika

Do you find yourself saying “I’m lazy,” “I lost motivation,” “I’m not consistent,” “I didn’t have the time”? The story might be true. It might also be the first explanation your brain hands you when you get stuck and don’t know how to keep going. Next time it happens, stop and ask: what if it isn’t true? What if something else is going on here? See where that leads you. Erika & Martin

We started filming only our legs in tango practice. The idea was simple: if I can’t see my face, I can’t obsess over how I look. It helped a little bit but not enough. The trap wasn’t the camera angle. It was that “watch the video” had no target. So our brains picked the easiest question available: do I suck at this overall? Yes. You’re new. Of course you do. The real fix was when we named one thing to look for before we pressed play. That let everything else be ugly. Erika & Martin

@DanielPink The same is true for learning. When something won’t stick, the question usually isn’t ‘what’s wrong with me?’ It’s ‘what’s wrong with my setup?’ /Erika

When you're struggling to focus, stop asking "what's wrong with me?" Ask "what's wrong with my setup?" Flow is mechanics, not magic. Build the machine and it functions for you.

Flow is one of the greatest sensations in work and in life. But it’s not something that happens to you. It’s something you engineer. Here's how. 👇

Exactly. You took plenty of action, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was you couldn’t tell which actions counted, so “doing tasks” and “moving” felt like the same thing until months later. I had a version of this with a speed reading course, grading myself busy while measuring the wrong thing. The fix wasn’t more action. It was figuring out what to count. /Erika

@danmartell Action does kill overthinking, but you need to focus on the actions that will make you grow. I was stuck for many months just doing tasks but wasn’t growing due to focus on the wrong actions

Action kills overthinking. Do something. Anything.