The #1 Way to Help Your Kids (and You) Learn Faster and Remember More
How do Horses Learn?
Welcome to this week's You Are Destined For Greatness. I'm coming to you from our little riding pen today with my good brown colt and I want to talk to you about learning and retaining learning.
People often say, "Well, Shane, how do you get a horse to do what you want it to do?" And the answer is, "It’s a hell of a lot of clear, consistent communication." Repeated. A lot of repetition. That’s how horses learn, and there is no substitute for that time on task.
The Real Questions: How Do We Learn Best?
The next question I ask you is: How do you learn and how do you get your kids to learn and be able to retain or really take in, fully understand and recall that information that you want them to?
There are four levels of retention or how our brains retain learning and information.
Level 1: Hearing Only
The first level is the lowest percentage of retention and that is if we simply hear it, right? If we hear information, our brain is able to hold single digits in percentage. So maybe 9 or 10% max is what our brain can hold on to if we simply hear information.
Level 2: Seeing and Hearing
If we see and hear information, the retention level goes up. Now we're in the 20s or maybe even up to the 30s.
Level 3: Experience Boosts Retention
If we see it, hear it, and experience it—in other words, if we do it, or experience it, then sometimes we’ll have feelings associated with it. That retention level goes up, and we can have a lot of retention.
Level 4: Teach It to Keep It
Here’s the big key. Here’s the takeaway for the day.
Number four is - if we’re able to pass that information on or teach it. We use that here at our feed company. I use it with teens at Stable Living coaching, and you can use it for yourself and your kids.
Here’s what I mean. If you want to retain something that you just heard about, teach it to somebody within 24 hours.
How to Help Your Kids Learn More Effectively
If you want your kids to learn something, here’s the key: have them hear it, have them see it, have them experience it, and then have them teach it to someone within the next 24 hours. It could be anybody. It could be one of their friends, your spouse, or anyone else.
People like to be in charge, be the authority, and teach things. It’s a pretty smooth process, and that is the highest level of retention—where we can retain over 70% of the information.
You Are Destined for Greatness
Hope that helps you today. There’s a great podcast on this, and this is some other things that we really delve into in Stable Living.
Have a great day. Thanks for joining us, and remember: You Are Destined For Greatness.
