How to be an expert at almost anything

"To become great, you must be willing to do what other's wont." - uncredited

This saying has always carried a lot of weight with me. I am not gifted technically or mentally, like some people are. But what I do have is grit and a willingness to put in the hard work to accomplish my goal. "You must be willing to do what other's wont." Sacrifice. Hard Work. Repetition. And, what I think is the most important; to Teach other's what you have learned, Simply.

Another quote, which I often ask myself when I am trying to demonstrate or explain a concept to someone that I absolutely love:

“If you can't explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it.” - Richard Feynman

With that out of the way, here is the magical secret. It's simple.

1. Write the problem down, visualizing the outcome you desire
2. Brainstorm what it's going to take to accomplish your goal. Write these ideas down. When I brainstorm, there is no stone left unturned and no idea that is off the table, at least at this point in the process
   1. Mind mapping works incredibly well: Want to Learn Better?
3. Evaluate your list, remove the ideas that aren't achievable or don't make sense
4. Order the list by the steps necessary (you may find that you already have some of the skills required to complete the bigger task)
5. Reevaluate your list, can we reduce further, or is this list what it will take to accomplish our goal
6. With your list of smaller, attainable goals, in a spreadsheet or text file, put some meaningful dates on learning each component that you outlined
7. At this stage, you may consider breaking those steps down further, with additional milestones. This is one of the most critical steps. Unless its written down, with achievable and realistic timelines, its unlikely to be achieved
8. Armed with your list of milestones, embark on your journey, researching the topic, taking good notes, practicing the concepts you need to learn the topic
9. Document your journey, write a blog post, or start a GitHub repository to hold yourself accountable
10. Finally, teach someone your smaller milestones, this will help you master the topic. This forces you to explain your objective, in extremely simple and concise terms, most likely to someone that has no experience

That's it.

"The secret ingredient is ... There is no secret ingredient." - Po, Kung Fu Panda