The Skill of Learning Skills, with Tommo Carroll

My favorite film is "The Matrix." And you know, the scene where he's learning about all this thing and now he knows Kung Fu because they just uploaded it to his brain? The idea that you could just learn a brand new skill like that has been on my mind since I saw that film for the first time when I was a kid. So just the idea that you could be like, "I wanna learn that skill. Okay, I'm gonna learn that skill." Obviously, I can't just upload it to my head, so it's gonna take some time to do it. Hey everyone, it's Rosie. Welcome back to "Radio Headspace." Learning new skills as an adult is hard. It's scary, but it's also an essential component to brain health. As someone who's been trying to learn French for the last 10 years, I know this process can be wildly frustrating. So I wanted to figure out how we learn things faster. And I came upon a YouTuber named Tommo Carroll. Tommo has embarked on a journey to learn 100 skills in two years, which is pretty unbelievable. And he's actually doing it. So I sat down with him to discuss what he feels is the key to learning new things. I found this conversation to be so helpful and delightful. I hope you do too. Tommo, thank you so much for joining us today. I've been looking forward to having you on "Radio Headspace" for a very long time, so thank you for being here. You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Very excited to be here and to chat to you today, Rosie. Well, one of the things that compelled me to follow you and your content the most was this goal, this task of learning 100 skills. At the time, I was trying to figure out how to hack my way into learning all of my grad school content and have a full-time job and be podcasting. So I was trying to find these different methods as we do, and I stumbled upon your content and I was just really fascinated and inspired and interested. And so I wanted to chat with you about that. That's amazing to hear. You know, as a content creator, you do get some messages from people from time to time saying that the content you make impacts them or how they feel about it, but hearing it like that was very nice. So, I mean, what compelled you to even begin this journey? That is a good question. So, just for a little bit of context, so I am a content creator and I have been doing this for a few more years than I'd like to admit. I've gone through a few different iterations of what I actually do make content about, and I started with making science and technology content, and it got round to me coming up to the ripe old age of 30. And I...