The Principles of the Specialist
These principles were designed and are currently being perfected in order to make someone so good and so focused on something that there is virtually no one better than them at something than themselves (Except if there’s an identical specialist who studies for more time with the same quality. Quality here meaning perfection or near perfection on the learning process). Results on this are based on 2 subjects, so... Not a lot of scietific value to that but hey, getting past the basic principles is already hard enough, imagine getting past the excelence principles. If I were to guess, I’d say 0.1% of people getting past that is already too much of a high expectation to rely on (But then again, that’s an opinion. Do your research. Maybe you find out I’m wrong).
1 - Study the area for at least 2 years (5 years is the recommended)
To acquire this, there are 3 steps: First you must have learned and conditioned all of the Basic Principles and almost all of the Principles of Excelence (With the exception of the 2nd, 6th and 7th. Although not having the 7th would be very risky, it could still work, but if you do not have the rest of them... There are simply too many drawbacks for me to consider you a quality self-learner). Second you’ll need to follow IN.ORDER. the 6 steps to be a self learner. Third you’ll need to keep yourself on the same track for at least 2 years and the reccomended would be 5. So yeah... Good luck with that.
First of all, if you do not have the 2nd, 6th and 7th of the principles of excellence, you’re gonna have drawbacks. Not having the 2nd can lead to depression, giving up or accepting authoritiy’s opinions instead of yours and many other fallacies based on the lack of self-esteem. Not having the 6th will make possible for your thoughts to be clouded by judgement and bad feelings that will hold you back in your learning because your brain will be clogged with anxiety, tension and pain. Not having the 7th is gonna hurt your descriptions unless you’re capable of distinguishing objective from subjective and judgmental apart with 100% of accuracy. Now to the actual main problem: If you study something for one year, (With all the principles ready) it may take sometime until you get understand and map ou your entire area and be presented to all the common arguments you find to defend each position. Again... It is possible to do that in 2 years if you’re an absolute beast (That’s why I say 5 years is reccomended).
2 - Recognize pseudo-sciences inside your own area
To acquire this, you need to understand the 8 steps of the scientific method. Respectively: Ask a question; search for answers and informations related to the question; form a hypothesis; plan an experiment to test the hypothesis; perform the experiment; analyze the data; draw a conclusion; share the results. If you understand all of that you can identify a pseudoscience if you see one. Be aware of logical fallacies and remember the 8th and 9th principles of excelence. Once you’re able to do that practice everytime you look at something that says it’s scientific and judge it from this perspective.
If you fail to recognize a pseudo-science when you see one, chances are you are going to believe it and use it to explain the world around you causing contradictions that don’t actually exist and ultimately leading you into a downward spiral to conspiracy theories that are fundamentally innaccurate.
3 - Completely map out the area you are studying
To acquire this you’re going to need a good amount of meditation (Roughly a month or 6, once you are well rounded in your area). You’re gonna ahave to name every field there is in your area and finally describing each one very briefly. Take me in education for example. Education is divided in times of learning, types of learning and finaly the definitions and discussions of learning. Respectively: Pedagogy (Study of learning in children); Andragogy (Study of learning in teenagers and adults) Geragogy (Study of learning in old people); Heutagogy (Study of learning in Self-Learners); Epistemology (Study of the study); Art of teaching (Various ways of passing on the rationalization and conditionings down to others).
If you fail to do that, your brain is going to have a hard time linking the informations and arguments it has into a solid chunk of your memory and is also gonna have an even harder time trying to come up with neural pathways to understand the area you are studying and where each thing fits directly. A great example of this is how people learn history in school. They may know that the Egyptians were building pyramids and that mamoths lived long ago but they’d have no idea that both these things happened at the same time...Which is horrible to think about. Litterally everyone who learns history in school fucked up in their learning process.
4 - Use all the 9 types of teachers
To acquire that you’ll need to check if you have used and if you still use all of them on your learning process. Which is absolutely crucial for not having your learning limited by a 10 thousand year old book that claims to have all the answers. (http://psychobender.tumblr.com/post/160738209793/the-types-of-teachers-preme)Â
If you fail to do that your learning process will most likely be lacking in some aspects such as never having tested your conclusions, trusting books to tell you the truth, trusting your own anecdotal evidence to help you master anything. How bad could this be? Just look at every person who has joined a talent show believing they had a great talent only to have their dreams obliterated in front of a milion people audience.
5 - Access contents in the world’s common language (currently english)
To do that you must first understand the spoken and written language as well as be integrated in the international culture (Such as understanding references and common knowledge of it). Given you have this, you will need to check if everything you learned has a double check in the english speaking world. Once you meditate enough to know if everything you learned, you checked the english field, you can be safe that you looked at a reasonable amount of intelectual variety.
If you fail this, you’re going to limit your expertise to the information present in your native language only. And that is specially harmful if you are living in a country that doesn’t speak english as a second language. Even if you’re talking about the history of a local tribe, having access to the interpretation and arguments of people from all over the world is crucial to build any robust knowledge.
6 - Study at least 3x a week
To acquire that it recommended that you find a need to study instead of simply building a routine. For example, if you are studying random ass texts and articles just for the sake of studying, it’s not gonna be much of a useful talent, unless you get lucky to use those later in life. It must come from demand. If your happiness depends on helping people and in order to do that you need to study psychology, now THAT is demand. It could even be that your happiness comes from looking smart in front of people but it needs to come from somewhere. Pure conditioning won’t save you here. NOTE: 3x a week is the bare minimum for you to get any sort of absoluteness out of your talent. I’d recommend 5 - 7x a week.
If you fail this, that is, underdoing it, you’re gonna be travelling on below average grounds for expertise and that is NOT what I’d recommend for any specialist of any area. Also, having an purely conditioning driven study routine is going to increase your stress (Cortisol) levels and your brain will interpret studying as a punishment instead of reinforcement (With reason), further decreasing any chances you thought you had of becoming the best.
7 - Be capable of explaining your expertise to all ranges of people. (4 year olds to 20+ and layman to world renowned genius)
To acquire that you need to understand what you do in the simplest terms. For example in education: Simplest terms is: “I teach people how to learn better”. Hardest terms would be “I study Pedagogy, Andragogy, Geragogy to understand the mind’s development in learning, Heutagogy to understand the process of acquiring with different levels of autonomy, Neurology to complement the use of the brain, a bit of nutrition of the brain for the same reason, Epistemology to be able to question the very base of learning as a whole and psychology to be able to use their technologies to boost the mind and it’s development throughout learning”.Â
If you fail this, you’re gonna have a hard time selling yourself to work somewhere or even to provide a service or justify your expertise to other people and in the end it won’t matter how much you know since you’ll never be able to put your ideas to the test or even make them useful for someone else who might wanna hire you. Might as well pretend you’re good at something. You’ll get the same results, if not better by simply pretending.
To acquire this, you can’t just like it, you can’t simply enjoy your work. It must be one of the main, if not the ultimate priority in your life. The stepping stones are simple. Find out exactly what makes you happy (I personally suggest the archetype family test but anything that can pin down the actions that make you happy will suffice); try to find happiness in different ways on the same area; use your area as a tool to find happiness and pleasure. After you’ve done that for 2 to 5 years, you'll probably keep this passion forever (Unless we find a cure for aging. In which case, I’d say you’d keep it for about 200 to 500 years).
If you fail this, you’re going to lose 90 to 99.99% of all your potential willpower towards your expertise since there will be no reward (Reinforcement) for the effort in the end. It’s going to build up stress and every day on the job will feel like hell until the point that the only reason you have to go is gonna be that you’re 1 day closer to retirement. You may even get to the point where you’re the best but everytime someone comes up to you with a request, you’re gonna look at them as if they just asked for an organ transplant of your left lung.
