Frustration can be a sign that learning is working

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 31:29

   argue with their critics. One thing we haven't talked about with flow is its relationship to learning. So I know Cal Newport argues that flow isn't the optimal learning state because we need a lot of discomfort. I'm curious, what's your reaction to that? One of my pet peeves is people who coin a whole bunch of new language for themselves. one of the reasons flow research was so damn hard so damn hard the entire altered state space is everybody wanted to coin a new name right maslow called it peak experiences chick sent me high was flow then phil jackson the zone and so i look at cal and i think and i'm picking a fight here that i don't really need to pick a fight but like it bugs the shit out of me i'm like deep work is another word for flow, brother. Like, I'm sorry, you've coined a new term. When he says, well,

2. 32:20

   no, you're going to need a lot of struggle for flow. Well, that's because there's a flow cycle. The front end of a flow state is what is known as struggle. It's a loading phase. Flow is unconscious when we can perform tests without much conscious interference. To perform something unconsciously, we first have to learn it consciously. Right. And so that's why there's front end of flow state is struggle, right? It's all conscious. It's all thinking. It's And Cal is exactly correct.

3. 32:49

   And this is Colleen Seifert sort of did some of the original work here. She was the University of Michigan. She's brilliant. But she found that in struggle, the more frustrated you get, the more sort of overloaded your RAM, the better chance you have of A, solving the problem later and B, of getting into flow once that solution shows up. If you're curious about this, if anybody who's listening, thing uh if you look my name and our big paper on the neural dynamics of intuition it's called pathfinding a neurodynamical account of intuition ran in nature we found that uh this is also true if you want an intuitive breakthrough like when you're learning a subject the more frustrated you are the better chance you will later like intuit the solution and this is so this is i'll talk more about flow and learning but this is like for parents i think it's one of the most important

4. 33:40

   things that you need to teach kids. And I think it's one of the most important things that all of us need to learn. So I always say, if you actually understand peak performance, you find out that a lot of our emotions don't mean what we think they mean. You know, frustration is a great example. When most people get frustrated, they're learning something they can't learn, they're frustrated, they can't solve them. They think it's a sign they did something wrong. They think it's a sign that they're moving in the wrong direction or they should stop or whatever. From the literature, I can tell you it's the it's exactly right you have a label on it you like it still feels like shit it's still frustrating but you're actually moving in the exact right direction okay good thing not a bad thing it just doesn't feel very good or so frustration is feedback frustration

5. 34:26

   kind of feedback it's all it's telling you is that you've overloaded your working memory but anyways frustration is a sign that you're moving in the right direction and uh so yes is he right Like, do you need to struggle for learning? Yes. In fact, you need norepinephrine in your system to learn. Norepinephrine is low levels is curiosity, high levels is anxiety, right? And you cannot learn without a little bit of norepinephrine in your system. It will completely block learning.

6. 34:55

   So he's not wrong, but there's a biological cycle here. It goes farther than that. And what he's calling deep work is like, as far as I can tell, is flow. And you've just reblanded, you know, something else. And you've just made it harder for people who are trying to study this and get smarter about it.