“Without Warren Buffett being a learning machine, the [Berkshire Hathaway investing] record would have been absolutely impossible. The same is true at lower walks of life. I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they’re learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than when they get up.”

Collecting the most useful, universal, and timeless mental models in the world to build a base of rare and valuable knowledge that is instantly practical, applies across domains, will never expire, and that will compound — all to become a modern polymath.

Using the 5-Hour Rule to set aside a minimum of 5 hours per week (typically 25 for me) for deliberate learning.

The idea is simple: Teach what you learn — as soon as you learn it.

“I don’t know what I think until I write it down.”
― Joan Didion

Research shows that when we teach what we learn, something magical happens in our minds. We suddenly notice mistakes in our thinking. We have more creative insights. Our ideas become sharper. We remember what we learned for longer. We see patterns more effectively.

Looking at text and expecting to learn is not far off from looking at food and expecting to get its nutrients. We need to digest our life experiences just like we digest our food. Without some form of active processing, almost everything we read is lost within weeks.

When we incorporate teaching into our daily lives, we exponentially increase our learning potential, build deeper relationships with those around us, and make a bigger impact on the world.

There is NOTHING more scalable than teaching.

Teaching may be the future of the sharing economy.

At the end of the day, we are ALL each other’s teachers on some level — whether it be as colleagues, friends, mentors, parents, or spouses.

Teaching others what we have learned is one of the noblest things we can do with our short time on this planet.

Knowledge is an innately social organism. It wants to move, to land in other’s minds, to connect to other knowledge.

We humans are designed to learn and teach.

“No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.”
― Peter Drucker

The famous Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca once proclaimed, “While we teach, we learn.”

In 2016, Buffett took things a step further and wrote a 50-year retrospective. Writing about the report, he says, “As you might guess, I ended up being the prime beneficiary of this effort. There’s nothing like actually writing something out to clarify thinking.”

Learning Conversations. Many of the most remarkable insights in history came from pairs of friends who spent years dialoguing, conversing, and debating with each other.

“When one teaches, two learn.”
— Robert Heinlein

As you move down the pyramid from internal to external, the benefits of the Explanation Effect mental model increase exponentially.

The easiest way to get started with the habit of teaching is by creating a daily “Today I Learned” email. The idea is inspired by the popular Today I Learned subreddit.

the Harvard research that spending 15 minutes at the end of the day can increase your learning for the day by 23%.

Build deeper relationships. By sharing what you’re learning with others, you stay connected, and you help people grow in their own life.

“Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.”
― Dalai Lama