Learning How To Learn, Sleeping Without Sleeping & Hacking Your Brain To Become A Learning Machine with Dr. Barbara Oakley

In this episode we discuss learning how to learn, meta learning, how Salvador Dali and Thomas Edison practiced the art of “sleeping without sleeping” to hack their neural systems, the concept of Chunking - what the neuroscience says about it and how you can use it to become a learning machine, why “following your passion” is not the right thing to focus, and much more with our guest Barbara Oakley.     Barbara Oakley is an associate professor of engineering at Oakland University in Michigan. She has been described as the “female Indiana Jones” and her research adventures have taken her from Russian fishing boats to Antarctica. She has authored several books on topics ranging from genetics to neuroscience and has a recent book called Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Human Potential.      We discuss:     -How Barbara’s journey has taken her from the Army to Russian Trawlers in the Bering Sea, to an outpost in Antarctica  -How Barbara went from a math-phobe to a professor of engineering (and what she learned along the way)  -Are you afraid of math? Why math can seem to be intimidating (and it doesn’t have to be)  -Why the emphasis on memorization as the sole basis of learning has sabotaged our efforts to learn  -How the concept of deliberate practice and why it's so important to learning  -How you can augment deliberate practice to become an even more effective learner   -Meta learning and how you can "learn how to learn"  -The concept of chunking - what the neuroscience says about it and how you can use it to become a learning machine  -What learning an instrument can teach us about learning physics and math  -How the brain learns - and the difference between “focused mode” and “diffused mode”  -The “task positive network” and the “default mode network” within your brain  -Why you can’t be in both the “focused mode” and the “diffused mode” at the same time  -How Salvador Dali and Thomas Edison practiced the art of “sleeping without sleeping” to hack their neural systems and