How to Train Yourself to Learn Faster

What if you could learn anything faster and remember it for years instead of forgetting it after a test? In this episode, I’m breaking down the neuroscience-backed strategies to master anything faster, from using mistakes to your advantage and teaching what you learn to spaced repetition, better sleep, and memory tricks that make information stick. If you’re ready to rewire your brain, improve your memory, and unlock your full learning potential, these techniques will change the way you learn forever. Freedom Live is a 3-day live experience in Austin designed to help you break through what’s keeping you from your next level. Get $100 off your ticket: https://robdial.short.gy/freedomlive The Mindset Mentor™ podcast is designed for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life. Past guests of The Mindset Mentor include Tony Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, Lewis Howes, Gregg Braden, Rich Roll, and Dr. Steven Gundry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  To the millions of small business owners out there, we appreciate you. We see your early mornings, late nights, and all the hard work in between. And with the US Bank Business Essentials Card, you don't have to go it alone. With unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase, because we know your community is counting on you to be here, there, everywhere. So yeah, we don't just appreciate you, we support you. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from VC USA Inc., some restrictions may apply.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Let's talk about Angie. Angie's been connecting homeowners with skilled pros for over 30 years, and they've made it easier than ever to tackle home projects. Their nationwide network has experts in everything from plumbing and landscaping to roofing, remodels, and more. You can read verified reviews and requests and compare quotes to find your best price. So join the millions of homeowners who use Angie for the projects that matter. Download the Angie app today or visit Angie.com. Making hiring decisions on my own means I'm often the only person weighing each candidate and deciding who's the right fit. Having a partner who understands what I'm looking for and can challenge my thinking would make the process much stronger. Hiring for a small business is hard. LinkedIn Hiring Pro acts like a helpful hiring partner.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  Chat with it about what matters most, compare candidates side by side, and share feedback like, I want someone with more hands-on experience. Hiring Pro adjusts and surfaces candidates who fit your needs. With 88% of small businesses trusting LinkedIn's recommendations, you can feel confident in your hiring decisions when using LinkedIn Hiring Pro. Get started by posting your job for free at LinkedIn.com/dial. Terms and conditions apply.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you want to finish this year strong, join my free three-day challenge, October 27th to 29th, live with me. Here's why. Because most people check out around this time of year. They look at their goals that they've set, they see how far away they are, and then tell themselves that they'll start over again in January. Don't do that. There's still enough time for you to make real progress this year. You just have to use it. Over these three days, I'm going to teach you how to deprogram and reprogram your identity, how to start taking real action, and also how to start changing your brain to the new you. You're going to get a 60-day roadmap for the rest of 2026 and a workbook, so you know exactly what you need to focus on next.

• 2:31Speaker 01

  To join for free, go to finish2026strong.com. Once again, finish2026strong.com, and I'll see you live on the challenge. Today, I'm going to teach you how to learn anything so fast that it almost feels unfair from what you've been doing in the past. Because what if the reason why you struggle to learn isn't lack of time, or intelligence, or focus, but the way that you've actually been taught to learn? Because here's the truth. Most people are stuck in outdated school methods and ignore how the brain actually wires knowledge neurologically inside of your head. And then meanwhile, there's people like elite performers and memory champions

• 3:14Speaker 01

  and special ops units that are using psychological and neurological tricks that make learning faster and deeper and nearly permanent in your brain. And the best part about all of that is that you can use them too. So this isn't about just like reading faster or cramming harder. Really what it's about is about understanding your brain and understanding how to flip a switch in your brain that makes learning your superpower instead of your downfall. And so let's dive into it. The first thing that you need to really understand is that you have to actually dismantle the thought that learning is just about input. Like when I was in school, I thought it's like reading and watching and listening and writing it down and being like, okay, I've got to memorize this.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  And so there's a difference between memorizing something and mastering something. Usually when you memorize something for like a test, it's gone right after the test. I'm talking about how do you get something so encoded into your brain that you remember it years from now? And so real learning is knowing how your brain learns and holds information in it, and then how to do it in a way that makes learning sticky. And so the first thing that we really need to dive into is to understand that your brain learns what you believe it's supposed to learn, which sounds weird, but there was a study done at Stanford in 2007 that showed that the beliefs about intelligence change how people's brains light up during mistakes.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  And so people who had a growth mindset, which are people that believe they can improve, like they're like, I know I can improve, I know I can get better, had what's called longer neural engagement after errors, which means they literally stayed more present, longer, through discomfort, which made their learning even deeper. Versus people who have what's called a fixed mindset, which is like, oh, I can't really get better, this is just how I am. I'm going to try to force this information into my brain. Those people actually disconnected after mistakes, which means that they disengaged instead of staying engaged, like the people who have growth mindsets. And so you have to understand that making mistakes actually triggers

• 5:25Speaker 01

  a neurochemical cocktail of acetylcholine and norepinephrine. And those heighten your focus, they heighten your engagement, and they heighten your neuroplasticity, which is the actual changing and rewiring of your brain. And so making mistakes actually makes your brain more ready to learn. And so if you think about this in layman's terms, when you mess up, your brain focuses more. And most people who have a fixed mindset shut down. You need to go, okay, hold on, my brain is about to get focused, so I don't need to shut down, I need to push forward a little bit more. If you stay focused and keep pushing through after you mess up, after some sort of mistake, instead of shutting down,

• 6:08Speaker 01

  you can actually learn faster and more deeply than if you had actually gotten it right the first time you did this. And so instead of thinking to yourself like, oh, I'm bad at languages, I'm not really a great learner, you need to actually believe like, I know I'm going to learn this language. And if I get pissed off because I'm making mistakes, my frustration means that my brain is more engaged, I need to push through. And now your brain goes, ah, mistakes are a good thing, let's keep going. So that's the first thing you need to understand. The second thing that you need to understand is that you can use what's called state-dependent learning, so that you can actually prime your brain to learn like they do in special operations.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  You don't learn very well when you're bored and you're just like sitting on the couch and you're like, okay, I'm going to take out my textbook and try to learn. You learn when you're actually alive. Like, and what I mean by that is like you're in a prime state. And so what you want to do before you go into a learning session, whether that be I'm going to read a book, whether that be I'm in a journal, or whether that be you're in college and you want to make sure that you retain as much information as possible, what you want to make sure that you do is you want to make sure that you prime your body and your brain to encode this knowledge faster. And so what you want to do is activate the sympathetic nervous system, which is your fight or flight, just a little bit. You raise your energy, and then you drop down into your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the calm.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  And so there's a real quick priming protocol you can go through. First thing, one to two minutes of intense movement. That could be like burpees, or air squats, or running up and down the stairs. Intense movement, not like, oh, I'm just going to sit here and, you know, do a squat or something like, it's like, no, I need to get my heart rate up. So you go to intense movement, and then you get about three minutes of deep breathing. You want to get it really, really heightened and then slow everything down. And then you want to speak out loud to yourself, so that you say it, but you also hear it. Today, I'm smart and I retain everything I learn. Then, sit down, start learning whatever it is. What you've done is you've set up another neurological cocktail of learning.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  And what that means, you get a surge of dopamine, you get norepinephrine, and you get acetylcholine, which is the holy trinity of focus, motivation, and memory. And so this mix kind of puts your brain into a high alert, high reward state, making it easier to absorb and then lock in new information faster. So that's the next thing that you want to do. And we will be right back. I used to take a whole bunch of different supplements every day. And honestly, it was a lot to keep track of. Since starting IM8, I've simplified my routine so much. I just have one daily drink and I'm done. The problem with supplements is you think you need a cabinet full of them to feel your best, but you don't. IM8 is the way to simplify your supplement routine once and for all.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  IM8's Daily Ultimate Essentials has 16 supplements, replacing 90 ingredients across nine major organ systems in one drink for $2.61 a day. IM8 has made my daily routine so much simpler. Instead of keeping up with a bunch of different supplements, I just have my daily IM8 and it feels good knowing I'm keeping my routine simple and consistent. Go to im8health.com/mindsetmentor right now and use code mindsetmentor for a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, plus 10% off your order. That's code mindsetmentor at im8health.com/mindsetmentor. Code mindsetmentor at im8health.com/mindsetmentor. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Lessons move quickly this time of year. iXL aligns with what kids are learning in school so they can practice the same concepts they're covering in class and keep pace with confidence. iXL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning, whether they're building math confidence, strengthening reading and writing skills, or reviewing science concepts. From pre-K through 12th grade, iXL offers personalized, interactive learning that adapts to each child's level and pace. Now that the first quarter is underway, I want to make sure my child feels confident with what they're learning. I like that iXL gives instant feedback and clear explanations, is organized by grade and skill, and makes it easy to track progress

• 10:29Speaker 01

  while staying aligned with what they're learning in school. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get iXL now. And the Mindset Mentor listeners can get an exclusive 20% off iXL membership when they sign up today at ixl.com/mindsetmentor. Visit ixl.com/mindsetmentor to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. For kids, summer means freedom. And as adults, summer still means freedom thanks to Mint Mobile's summer sale. Right now, all of Mint's plans are $15 per month, even unlimited. Free yourself from big wireless and switch to Mint for high-speed data and coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network. My experience with Mint Mobile has been really simple. The setup was easy, the service has been reliable,

• 11:12Speaker 01

  and I love that I'm getting what I need without overcomplicating my phone plan. To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com/mindsetmentor. That's mintmobile.com/mindsetmentor. Cut your wireless bill to $15 a month at mintmobile.com/mindsetmentor. That's it, there's no catch. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months. Plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50GB may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20GB hotspot. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. And now, back to the show.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  Next thing that you want to do after this is you want to actually start to encode whatever it is that you learned as fast as possible. And how you do this is you teach it immediately. Not next week, not tomorrow, right after you learn it. So as soon as you learn something, whether that's I just went through an hour session or two-hour session, whatever it might be, you're going to teach it. And there's a reason why. Because teaching forces your brain to retrieve the information, to organize it, and then to translate your knowledge into your own words, which creates multiple neuropathways around the concept. And so this is actually called the retrieval effect. And it encodes the knowledge into your brain faster.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Now, I prefer to teach it to somebody else. So my wife tends to be the person who just learns all this stuff. I'm like, oh my God, I should learn this thing, I have to teach it to you. And then I go and I try to teach it to her. And if she looks confused, I'm going, hmm, I don't know it very well. But if she goes, oh wow, that's awesome, I really get it. I'm like, okay, I think I understand it now. If I can teach it and I can teach it simply, then I really understand something. And if you don't have somebody to teach it to, like sometimes my wife isn't here, or sometimes she's taking a nap or something, you don't need an audience. Like, talk to your couch, talk to your cat, talk to the wall, just speak out loud. There's some times where I'll just learn something, I'm like, oh my God, this is amazing. And then I'll take out my notepad and I'll start talking out loud to myself

• 13:24Speaker 01

  as if I'm teaching it on a whiteboard to a group of people. This simple act of doing this solidifies your memory. And then what's really good about it is it also will expose the gaps in your understanding. Because when you're trying to teach something and then it doesn't fully connect, you're going, oh, hold on. Yeah, I don't fully understand this part right here. Maybe I should learn a little bit more about this. And so it exposes the gaps in your knowledge and your understanding. And so when you teach something, right after you learn it, what you're doing is you're stacking active recall. There's another thing that's called self-generated elaboration. And another thing which is called contextual encoding. And so you're stacking those three things.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  And those are three of the most powerful memory enhancers that are known in neuroscience. So it's active recall, self-generated elaboration, and contextual encoding. And so, talk to yourself. It's not weird. Like, it's a brilliant thing that you can do to actually start to get something encoded into your brain faster. The next thing is I want you to forget the idea of cramming. Like, when I was in college, I would just cram and cram and cram. And then I would take a test and then a week later, I feel like I had none of that stuff in my brain. What you want to actually do is use something that's called the spacing effect, and then use your sleep. And so I'll explain what that means, okay? There was a study that was done at UC San Diego in 2012

• 14:49Speaker 01

  that showed that spaced repetition not only increases your retention, but it actually alters the physical structure of your hippocampus, which means that you're literally rewiring your brain when you use spaced repetition. And so you don't learn while you're studying. You actually learn deeper when you're sleeping. And so like, you learn it and then you like fully encode it and really get locked into your brain when you sleep. So if you're trying to learn something really well, you need to get a lot of sleep. So if you're trying to memorize something, this is what you would basically do, right? So what you're going to do is day one, you're going to learn something for 30, 45 minutes with 100% focus. Like, take your phone, put it in another room.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Whatever's you're trying to learn, nothing else in this world can exist. You've got to try to bring 100% of your focus to this thing. Then what you want to do after your 30 or 45-minute session is then teach it to yourself or teach it to somebody else. Now, if you're done and that's all you needed to learn, cool, you'll go on to the next thing. If you're not done, then you'll need to do another round. 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 100% focus, teach it to yourself. 30, 45 minutes, 100% focus, teach it to yourself. So that's day one. Then, you're going to want to get a really good night of sleep because that's when your brain actually starts to hardwire it into your brain. Day two, what you want to do is review briefly in the morning.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  So 10 to 15 minutes, read through everything that you read, write everything, you know, everything that you wrote down, talk out loud to yourself. Take 10 or 15 minutes. That's day two in the morning. Day two in the afternoon, you want to try to quiz yourself cold. And so, how could you do that? Well, you could take everything that you learned, you could copy and paste it, throw it into ChatGPT and say, hey, come up with 20-word questions, or 20 questions and quiz me on this information and see how you do. And then day three, you want to then go out and teach it to somebody else. And so, when you do this, you're what's called your synaptic consolidation, goes from really shallow roots to like deep roots. Like, it's deeply anchored into your brain. You're repeatedly wiring this knowledge into your brain.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  A bonus tip on this is after you learn, take a 10-minute, 20-minute nap or do a quick meditation right after learning. The hippocampus starts consolidating new memories in that nap window, but it also consolidates memories during meditation when you're doing nothing else with your eyes closed. And so this is like the ultimate cheat code. This is one thing that I wish I would have known when I was in college. Like, learn for 30, 45 minutes, take a 10-minute meditation. Learn for 45 minutes, take a 10-minute meditation. And you're actually in this meditation time, your brain, your hippocampus is consolidating all these new memories. And then, if you want to take a nap, a nap is even better than the meditation, okay?

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Next thing that you want to do and how you can actually get it encoded into your brain faster is to trick your brain with word hooks. And this is basically like, like mental glue. Like, raw repetition, which is what I always thought that I was supposed to do, it's so exhausting and it's so inefficient. And so if you're out there and you're like, well, my memory's not that good, you don't need a better memory, you need like mental glue. And what it is, and I've been using these for years and like, it's really, really helped me memorize stuff, is what's called mnemonic associations. So this is where you link something new with something that you already know that's familiar, usually through visual similarity, or sound, or emotional charge.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Your brain loves patterns and it loves shortcuts. And it loves things that are novel and weird. So just try to give it something. I'll give you an example for me. When I was going through my pilot exam to get my pilot license, I could not get in my brain the difference between latitude and longitude. I was like, my entire life, I've like, which one's which? Latitude, longitude, like, I don't know what is what. And then I looked at it and I was like, latitude goes from left to right and it kind of looks like a ladder going up the earth. And so I was like, wait. Latitude ladder. Okay, I'll never forget that. And it like locked it into my brain. Now, if you're listening to this, you'll probably

• 19:12Speaker 01

  never forget which lines run east and west. Yeah, latitude, because it's like a ladder. And so you want to do stuff like that. You know, if you're trying to remember like that the hippocampus is responsible for memory, visualize a hippo sitting on campus, reading flashcards or reading a book. Right? Like, that's how you remember the hippocampus is responsible for memory. A hippo on campus, reading a book. Is it absurd? It's completely absurd. Is it effective? Extremely effective. And so this is the reason why it works. Hooks for new info to known pathways make the retrieval of that information easier.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  So the, the key to it is this, the more bizarre or ridiculous or vivid the images that you create in your mind, the more your brain will flag it as important. Your brain loves novel stuff. So I've said this in an episode before, but let me just give you a quick example. The reason why if you go on vacation for a week, time feels like it's way slower than if you're a week at home and you're going through your normal routine is because the week vacation, you're doing things you've never done before, places you've never been before, and it's novel. So your brain actually seems like it slows down time because it's actually processing that information in real time. When you're doing something in a routine that you've done over and over and over again,

• 20:40Speaker 01

  it's just normal, your brain doesn't even like to store it. And so your brain loves novel. How can you give it the most bizarre, ridiculous, novel image so that your brain remembers that thing? And so what you're doing is you're stacking semantic encoding, which is meaning with visual imagery, which is just basically like a double win for your memory. And so when you're learning something hard, don't just try to memorize it. Try to associate it with something else. Turn the abstract into something silly or familiar or visual, the weirder the better, because the brain doesn't love boring, it loves weird. And so make it meaningful, make it strange, try to make it visual or try to make the

• 21:23Speaker 01

  words match up like, you know, latitude or bladder, whatever it might be. So I want you to understand your memory is not bad. It just might be that you haven't been taught to really learn based off of how your brain holds information. And so these are the strategies that you want to use every single day, which makes learning faster and almost unfair compared to the way they used to do it. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it with someone that you know and love. And once again, if you're out there and you're ready to finish this year strong so that you set yourself up for a great 2027, join my free three day live finish 2026 strong challenge. Once again, all you gotta do is go to finish2026strong.com, register for free and I'll see you live on the challenge.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Hey, Fidelity. How can I remember to invest every month?

• 22:25Speaker 03

  With the Fidelity app, you can choose a schedule and set up recurring investments in stocks and ETFs.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Oh, that sounds easier than I thought.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  You got this.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do. Now, where did I put my keys?

• 22:39Speaker 03

  You will find them where you left them.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC, member NYSE, SIPC.

• 22:50Speaker 04

  Traditional home security only alerts you after a break in, and that's too late. SimpliSafe is changing that. Stop, this is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way. We don't just alert, we help stop crime before it starts. Plans starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 70% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/sxm. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime, in real time. Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.