Finding the right mentor and grad program was a huge luck break for me. A mentor can go a long way.
S1E2: A Mentor and a Grad Program v3
Tyler Small: Meeting Russ Osguthorpe totally changed the course of my life. This is Tyler Small with hacking emotional intelligence. And today I'm going to tell you the next chapter in my story . I was on my quest to learn what are the most important things that we should learn and how can we most efficiently learn those things?
[00:00:22] And, I had been through some difficulties with my professors . In the speech language pathology department, because well, I found out that you're not supposed to tell your professors when you figure out that their tests are flawed or their lecture points are incorrect. And I learned that the hard way.
[00:00:44] As I sat with my academic counselor. And talked about grad school. He let me know that it would not be an option to go there. Also that I would probably need a strong recommendation from professors in order to get into any , speech-language pathology grad department. I asked why that was, and he told me that I made people feel uncomfortable.
[00:01:10] So I set out to find my way. And where I went next was the neuroscience department. I actually spent a full year studying neuroscience. And as I mentioned in the last episode, I met my wife and some of those classes, which was great. But on the way I realized that neuroscience wasn't really , my path.
[00:01:30] I learned a lot about cells and molecules and physiology, anatomy of the brain. What it needs in order to, for the synapses to fire. And while it was really interesting, it didn't really answer my question of, what do we need to learn and how do we set up learning experiences to be really optimal.
[00:01:53] So I continued my search. And one day I walked into this place called the center for teaching and learning. And I had walked by dozens of times before. Not really knowing what it was for. It was weird, like you'd walk through one set of doors and then there was another set of doors. And then it was just this office area with cubes and some offices on the right side. And. I was wondering, what is this place for? this is interesting. There wasn't really a secretary there. And I just kind of started wandering around.
[00:02:29] I ended up, setting up a meeting with the director of the center for teaching and learning. His name was Russ Osguthorpe. and he also happened to be a professor in the department that I would later begin , for my graduate studies.
[00:02:45]And thirdly, he had this really interesting , assignment as it was kind of a part-time gig, but he was the head of this world education organization. It was very interesting. And he would travel the world , on these assignments. And come back and tell me about it.
[00:03:01] so anyway, as I sat down and started to talk with Russ, I realized that he could offer me quite a bit in terms of mentorship. So I asked him if he would mentor me. And he agreed and I volunteered my time that semester working in the center for teaching and learning, doing different projects with some of his people.
[00:03:23]As well as talking about books.
[00:03:25]He would always have this stack of books and he wouldn't just buy a book and read a book. He'd buy a stack of that book. And he'd give it to a bunch of people and say, Hey, read this book with me. And so he'd read the book and I'd read the book and I'm sure there was a dozen other people reading the book.
[00:03:42] And we'd meet every week and we talk about it for like an hour. And we'd talk about how it applied and in some of his experiences, all over world. And , we'd talk about the university and how these ideas compared to the courses I was taking in, and was just absolutely fascinating.
[00:03:58]So the most exciting book that he introduced me to was a book called Talent is Overrated. And it goes through the research of K Anders, Ericsson, and some others,
[00:04:11] it talked about. The difference between the underlying thought pattern in the United States and many other places that basically you're either born with a skill or you're born without this skill. And. It was a challenge to that concept and talked about something called deliberate practice , which I'll go over here in a minute.
[00:04:32] But the whole idea was that you could practice something in, in such a way that you could become really good at it.
[00:04:40] And this was very inspirational to me because I was a very late bloomer.
[00:04:44]Here I had gotten kicked out of one program, been denied entrance to another, and just kind of was wandering around, looking for my place in life. And not knowing. And not having many social skills.
[00:04:57] I really started to have hope that this deliberate practice thing could help me be successful in life.
[00:05:04]And I really think that looking back, that answered the how question for me. Like , what is the optimal way to teach people things? And, deliberate practice has, just over the past more than a decade deliberate practice is the thing that's emerged on the surface for me. As I've gone through many industries. And. Numerous different learning situations, I've designed learning experiences for hundreds of thousands of people and it just keeps coming back. Deliberate practice. As like the ultimate way to help people develop skills. And so this is very, very interesting. Because typically we don't use it. Now, let me explain what deliberate practice is really quick.
[00:05:48]Deliberate practice is most often confused with other types of practice. People hear the word, practicing anything. Oh, I know what deliberate practice is. You may have even heard of that 10,000 hour rule, which is probably , one of the most misunderstood and misinterpreted, and misquoted concepts of social psychology.
[00:06:08]Deliberate practice is utilized by pretty much every person who has reached a world-class level of expertise. And it's just so different than what you might assume, but take Michael Jordan, for example, one of the best basketball players of all time.
[00:06:27] So, if you imagine Michael Jordan. And he actually had several coaches to coach him on different things. But let's just imagine him on the basketball court. And practicing right with the coach. That's a central characteristic of deliberate practice. And he's standing at one specific place on the court and he's doing a jump shot.
[00:06:50] And he does the jump shot and he reflects to himself thinks about what he did, that he could have done better. He observes whether he made the basket or not. , but then he gets some specific feedback from a coach. And the coach instructs them on how to flex his toes or how to hold his arms or the posture of his back, how high he should be jumping , his breathing, all of these very granular, very specific elements of that specific sub skill in the sport .
[00:07:24] That's basically a picture of what deliberate practice is. Now you take away any of those elements and it's not delivered practice .
[00:07:31] So in order to do deliberate practice, it's actually very involved. You've got to have a coach you've got to have not just two or three practice instances. You've got to have dozens upon dozens upon dozens, and you've got to keep that up year after year after year. And as people do that type of practice, they often rise to these world class levels.
[00:07:54]So, although I didn't have much to apply it too , at that time. I set that in my pocket and carried it with me over the years. And as this plays out, you'll see that it's had a critical impact on my journey.
[00:08:08] As the semester progressed my mentorship from Russ Osguthorpe became an iconic highlight of my life. And he also wrote me the much needed recommendation letter in order to get into my dream department. Which was instructional psychology and technology. And we'll talk about that next time.
[00:08:27]This is Tyler's small with hacking emotional intelligence. I'll see you next time.