Forget university? 4 steps to design your own education | Till H. Groß | TEDxKlagenfurt

let's start so with 19 I decided I want to become the best therapist in the world right and for this reason I was super excited to finally leave high school and go on to university in order to study and had pretty high expectations for University first of all mentors I thought my professors would be like my mentors who are like open books who can ask questions and bounce ideas off secondly I thought University itself is designed to give me skill in my profession and thing number three I thought unlike in high school and university my fellow students would be actually passionate about learning and discovering new ideas about psychology you know then arriving at University I was confronted with reality and most of my professors were not like my mentors they would just underpaid and overworked and often didn't even have time to get back to my emails secondly University itself is not designed to give you skill in your profession but it's rather about how good you are at taking exams and the third thing is that most of my peers did not really care about studying but rather complain that books are boring in there's too much stuff to read so pretty soon I noticed University itself will not bring me closer to my goal of become the boss personal therapist I could be so pretty soon I decided to go the quote by Mark Twain and Mark Twain once famously said I have never let schooling interfere with medication and that's what I would do from then on you know on the side I would finish my degree simply because it's necessary in psychology in order to have a certain standing but then I vote devote most of my time towards take my education to my own hands this would mean over the last years I would try all number of things how can basically educate myself and a bunch of things did not work out and a couple of things worked out and over the last years I figured out exactly four things that are helpful if you want to design your own education and you know here at the beginning was really important for me to say is that are just my experience I don't think it's the right way and other things is the best way I'm 22 I have not figured it out yet but maybe some of the things might be helpful for some people so before it started small appetizer what exactly we talked about and it will tell you how manage it to get therapy and coaching education was 25,000 years without paying a single cent for it secondly how you can learn from superstar mentors and how I managed it to learn from Nobel Prize winners best-selling authors and founders of whole psychotherapy directions how I also managed to give talks all over Germany in Austria at the age of 19 sometimes the Fortuner 300 people and how many to give a guest lecturer at the University of Vienna when I was 20 and for those of you who still care about traditional and formal education those techniques also helped me though when I talk about it also helped me to get exchange scholarship for top 10 university in the world despite having shitty grades so let's start and my story basically begins here with 18 I broke my left arm and back then I was a professional basketball player so breaking my arm would mean I couldn't play for half a year and before this since I was 12 at two times practice day games on the weekend so this would mean I had spare time for like literally the first time my dad kind of jumped on this opportunity and he was a therapist back then and he offered me to read books about psychology for him then recorded so he could listen to the recordings in his car and at the beginning I just did it because he just paid me way too much money for this so I started to read dozens of dozens of books over half a year simply because he paid me and then at one point I started to get interested in it myself so I had my first foot in the door of the psychology field and then I started to read those books of my own and then I did something that back then I did it unknowingly but now I understand the importance of this and this is thing number one if you want to become really good in something you need to develop skill and some of you might think of course if you want to become good in some food skill obviously but he's the thing just think how many college graduates come out of university who have hardly any skill that they can apply in real life and if you go to university or your kids go to university ask yourself or ask them and not really learning anything and am I getting better anything and if you just cram the night before exams or just study for multiple-choice tests the answer is probably no so what should you do instead I did two things one of the things was deep work as Cal Newport closet and deep work is that you not only read the books but I read the books and then I summarized them in my own words and then I explained to other people if you do this you grasp the real deep meaning of the stuff that you read the second thing that it was deliberate practice so and what would invite classmates over one over the 18:19 and try all kind of coaching techniques in them record those session send it to my dad and he would give me feedback on my process by doing that for the half a year step-by-step I was able to develop a certain level of skill which I then could leverage in the next step to do other things right and at this point I noticed at one point I kind of hit the ceiling rate so thinking hey I'm okay with it now but how to become really good at it now and then I was thinking hey to the at the answer to the question how do become really good at something I already know the answer because back then I mentioned it to go from very humble beginnings in basketball this is the lowest leak in Germany to exactly send me later to play in one of the highest league in Germany's and actually be top scorer my last game against the current German champion other Berlin so thinking how did I manage to do this there so first thing obviously a certain amount of talent second thing a certain amount of hard work obviously but this only got me to a certain level and then I was thinking what always get me to the next level and to a bunch of really lucky opportunities are often at the chance to play those players who are way better than me and I noticed that if you want to become really good at something you should learn from the best because back then of course the competition was better players than the one that make me better but also adapting their work ethic and their work habits and people completely underestimate the difference in work ethic and work is between average players and pros and I'm telling you pros not only work harder they work way way way harder and this Lord started to adapt the work habits and work ethics of those people around me and for example back then were 16 17 and all my friends I was living with them went out 5 o'clock in the morning before school in order to practice a jump shot and if everybody around you starts doing it you also start to adaptive and then I became better than I would have been otherwise if I just stayed with the average team so what I did then was because I knew how to become good at something so I applied this lesson to psychology and what I would do is I would reach out to my favorite authors - founders of whole therapy schools and so on and so on and now I just want to give you one example the first time ever I reached out to somebody and it made a bunch of mistakes here so no worries so I reached out to this guy for example and he's the best paid coach in europe he's the best-selling author and he runs huge seminars so I would start out by reading his stuff and I read everything and then I would write him a letter and in this letter stated how important this would be for me to actually learn for him and for ever reason that I had back then the exact same letter I printed it three times and sent him the exact same letter three times for whatever reason and obviously didn't get an answer more emails more letters more emails more letters no answer and then I was thinking hey maybe I should do something different and among other things this guy was working with hypnosis and if you don't have any idea about hypnosis this will seem pretty weird so what I did was I wrote him a letter which at the same time was it trance induction so it would read the following and while your eyes glide across the lines you can start relax more and more and understand how important everything in this letter might be for you and I send it to him enough finally got an answer and I was so happy that he got an answer that I didn't even care wasn't no but a few emails later and a few weeks later he actually agreed and I got my first scholarship with 3,500 euros and actually went on in order to learn from him face to face and that's Miam hit on the stage so but this one is showing it's possible check to reach out to those people and I made a bunch of mistakes here and I think the biggest mistake I made here was that it just focus on what I can get and if you want to learn from a person isn't high level than you you should focus on what you can give to the other person and this can be everything from taking off some menial work from their shoulders redesign their website doing social media for them whatever it is that adds value to them and brings you close enough to actually learn from the person and they're a bunch of examples how different people did it and I talked for example to those guys I think the most prominent example of who did it was Charlie hoon he is the most structured approach ever and we when he was 22 23 he worked with best-selling authors like Tim Ferriss taka Max or ramit sethi Edward ruse was 17 and applied lots of hustle when he became the right-hand man of best-selling author Matthew Hussey or max turnoff actually from Vienna she worked for internships over a whole year for free just adding value and then went on to become the right hand of one of the leading dating gurus and now he has thousands of YouTube's fans himself so what I'm going to show you with this it is actually possible to do this and who ever talked to whether it is done in Cana man or Paul Ekman or Cal Newport they all said how important is to have a skilled mentor and it is possible but but you need to understand that if you want to do this you need to put yourself out there and actually take an active role in this process or asthma buddy Edward drew says it don't wait for mr. Miyagi to come around and this the reason why I picked my first example where I made a bunch of mistakes to show you your approach doesn't need to be perfect and you just can't ride and step by step work closer to it so that's what bursting develop skill through deep work deliberate practice second thing got my skill to the next level by learning from some of the best therapists in the world what I needed then was real life experience and you get this by focusing that learnings more important than making money at least at the beginning of your career because as you stop focus on making a quick back but rather focus on how much experience you can get and willing to work for free more and more and more and more opportunities actually pop up and if you do this step by step you can work up the letter and as Cal Newport calls it gain career capital and then get cooler gigs later on and one example of how I get a bunch of speaking experience when I was 19 this guy's a german therapist hands early Schaffner and i started out as I approached him then I started to sell his books these DVDs and so on and in return he mentored me and then one day he needed to give a talk in this city I was living in and he knew that I know his stuff inside out so he offered me to give the talk for him I prepared weeks ahead and did okay job I got quite okay feedback from the audience then I walked up to him and said hey you know what I can this do I do this more often for you and I'm willing to do it completely for free he obviously agreed because she knew I was reliable he knew a country you can trust me and he would save a lot of time and money and on the other hand I was 19 it would get dozens of public speaking opportunities where could gain experience and this one I did over the last years and then a year later when I was 20 I actually leveraged this experience to give a guest lecture when my professor klaus lamb gave me the opportunity at the university of vienna this returned once more as well completed for free this one year later i could leverage this because the right people watched it and got a bunch of high-paying speaking gigs so this is an example of how you can step a step is be at the beginning working completely for free step-by-step work up the letter and then get really cool gigs later on as you know when i tell this to people a lot of people go like oh yeah but this sounds like a lot of effort you're so lucky that you found your passion where you were so young here come things for because thing for is hassle comes first and passion actually follows because for me it was not like this that I opened my first psychology book and I was like this is what we do for the rest of my life and war rather like this like a complex mixture of lucky opportunities and a lot of effort beforehand so first lucky think my dad his therapist so was always surrounded by therapy and then when I was 18 I was really lucky that no dad paid me to make the initial effort but still I made the initial effort you know and then here's the interesting thing even when I started with all this deep work and deliberate practice still from the exact same time I have an application where actually applied at the University to become an engineer so was not always sure if I really wanted to do this but sticking with it over a long period of time and applying the effort step by step get me really interesting opportunities and now obviously I ended up with something that really care about real love and I think a lot of young people especially underestimate the complexity and the effort it takes to arrive at a job or a career that really matters to you but there's also good news because as soon as you start to apply the effort you can rise to the top pretty easily because most people not applying it so for this reason I want to encourage you to take your education to your own hands and start to develop skill by deep work and liberal practice then reach out to the luminaries of the field because it's easier than you might think and then be willing to work for free to gain hands-on experience and step-by-step work up the letter and then think number four you might end up with a career that really matters to you but I also want to warn you because if you start to do this and stray away from the normal path two things will happen on the one hand a lot of people will just wait until you fail and will tell you what you're doing is the wrong thing but this is alright because they have to justify their own crappity decisions the second thing is you will need to get accustomed to this word because if you're young and you don't have any skills yet and you approach the luminary of the field you will obviously be rejected most of the time but this is okay and just part the process and of course might get rough here and there but my opinion is worth it at least it was worth it for me because I actually got all those things that are hopeful University first of all as I told you I got a bunch of mentors secondly I'm not only good skill but I also got real-life experience and the third thing and this is one of the things I'm the most happy about I also found peers because as if you're young and start to put yourself out there you're going to attract other young people who are equally passionate about and you can go on this journey together so I hope that my talk might be starting on for a couple of people to actually go out and take responsibility for their own education and not rely on formal education system to make some of the most important decisions on your view life what you learn and how you learn and rather start early otherwise at one point you might be the point where you regret to lay the foundation for a career that matters to you and the job that you love and now I want to close with a quote by actually Pink Floyd which are found in Max's book the defining decade and they once sang tired of laying the sunshine staying home to watch the rain you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today and then one day you find ten years have got behind you no one charity want to run you missed the starting gun thank you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 355,805

Rating: 4.9190764 out of 5

Keywords: ted x, Sports, tedx, Psychology, tedx talk, TEDxTalks, ted talk, ted, Career/Life Development, English, tedx talks, Education, ted talks, Austria

Id: TUnpSYMNEhY

Length: 16min 53sec (1013 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 20 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/tomcmustang]

The most immediate question is how do you end up giving a TED talk? What sort of checks and balances are there to make sure you do not go up there to say something crazy?

[u/UltimateWand]

Wow! This video is really inspirational, makes me want to pursue my career but the failure and uncertainty is so demeaning. Still, glad you posted this.

[u/Kirioko]

As a high school student... this is really mind-blowing to me. I am one of those people who thinks that university will be an educational heaven because people will actually be interested in learning, but it may not be true in reality. Thank you for explaining this.

I don't know what to do, though. I still want to go to university, but I'm not very good at things that aren't academic in nature.

[u/T-Stunna]

Oh. Somebody gave my reddit gold for this submission. Thank you noble Lady or Sir and see you in the /r/lounge for some fine malt or a glass of champagne.

[u/oneinch]

I happen to be at work, but I will watch this when I get home. Thanks for the share and thanks in advance for giving the talk.

[u/[deleted]]

I always say that the most important part of university is leveraging the access to people and knowledge. There aren't many places with so many great minds and so many great books all in one place.

[u/adrianwarp]

Did you participate in online forums? I picked up speedcubing and it seems that not only reading, but participating in the forums is keeping me motivated. Great talk!