How To GET SMARTER In 2023

How to get smarter in 2023 the Alux way.

Hello, Alexers! We hope you had a wonderful time during the holidays and don't worry, the Alex lady will be back this week. But some of you might be already familiar with my voice from the Alux app. Now, back to the video. A lot of you have the potential to make great things happen for yourself. You have the work ethic, the drive, and the hunger for a better life. But there is one problem: You are not smart enough to connect all the dots. You don't know exactly where to begin. And no amount of motivation or confidence will change that.

This is what this video is about: how to get smarter this year so you can start connecting those dots that will lead you to a better life. This is how we do it, and from now on, this will be how you do us too. Welcome to Alux!

First, let's define what being smart means in this context. To some people, being smarter means having a higher IQ or being able to perform well on standardized tests. For others, being smarter means having a wider range of knowledge and being able to think critically and creatively. For us, being smart means seeing what other people cannot. It's about finding opportunities, playing the long game, and being strategic with your actions.

It's about holistic thinking, being able to see the full picture beyond the surface level, and considering the long-term consequences of your actions. At the moment you're watching this video, the world has never been more complex, and it will be even more so tomorrow. It's extremely important to cultivate a sense of holistic perspective, and you do that by getting smarter.

So let's begin with the first thing we do every day: do stay sharp.

Number two, read, watch, and listen. Make a habit for yourself to read, watch, or listen to a piece of valuable content every single day for at least 30 minutes. It can be a newsletter, YouTube video, or podcast. This will give you a new perspective on how people from different backgrounds see the world and will open your thinking horizon.

Now, here's the thing: you are not living in your city or even your country anymore; you are living on planet Earth, along with almost 8 billion people. Everything is interconnected, and one of the most dangerous things you can do is to live in your own little bubble. If you have no clue how the rest of the world works, you will have big problems trying to navigate it. And unless you plan to live alone in a hut hidden within the mountains, it's important to see how other people view the world.

People who say they don't care what others think are ignorant, so be smart about it. Do your best to expose yourself to different ideas and points of view as often as possible. We read newsletters or listen to podcasts almost every single morning.

Three, use your brain in a new way. Your body has this incredible ability to adapt to repetitive tasks to conserve energy. In other words, it figures out how to get to the same outcome with less effort. Those of you who work out know that in order to get your muscle to grow, you need to add variations to your routines. You need your body to keep guessing and stay focused.

It's the same way with your brain. If you stick to one way of thinking or doing things, you will eventually start to use less and less energy for it, which means your cognitive ability will decrease over time. And when something new comes along, your brain won't be able to pick it up. So here's what you need to do: the same way you would add variations to your workout routine, you also need to add variations to your way of thinking.

The most straightforward way to do that is to learn something completely new. The purpose of this exercise is not the skill itself but lies in the actual process of learning. Because when you learn something completely new, your brain cannot rely on good old habits anymore; it needs to form a new way of thinking. That's why you can feel your brain literally lighting up when you think of something new for the first time.

Let's take running, for example. You could say everyone knows how to run. Well, yeah, everyone knows how to run for about 30 seconds. After that, it becomes a problem. There are correct and wrong ways to run, from your breathing pattern to the way you hit the pavement. It's an entire skill set, and your brain does not know how to read your body and respond to it. You haven't developed that way of thinking yet.

So for your second exercise, pick a new skill and practice it until you can confidently say you can do it. This should take you anywhere between three to six months. Four, surround yourself with intelligent people. Seek out conversations and relationships with people who are more knowledgeable than you. This will raise the bar for your own way of thinking.

There is one huge realization when you hang out with people more capable than you: you realize that what seems incredibly hard for you is extremely easy for others, and the other way around. And the value from this is deconstructing why exactly that seems to be the case. More often than not, you will find that the reason you can't do something is your own disbelief in yourself. You think you can't do it, and that's it.

Surrounding yourself with intelligent people broadens your perspective. It gives you something to work with and, in many cases, also a way to do it. Also, on this topic, one mistake we saw a few people do is abandoning their long-term friends in the search of a higher caliber social group. Don't be this kind of person. Instead, simply choose to introduce yourself to someone you find interesting. So for your next exercise, next time you come across someone you consider intelligent, just introduce yourself. We might do a dedicated video on this topic.

Five, ask, don't wonder. The simplest and probably most overlooked exercise to get smarter is asking questions. Too many people get stuck at "I wonder how" and never get to the point where they actually find out. You wonder how something works? Ask! You wonder how something did that? Ask! Those who are genuine will have no problem answering. Curiosity keeps your mind active and engaged.

So for your next exercise, here's what you want to do: monitor your thoughts, and the next time you say to yourself, "I wonder how," immediately follow it by finding out.

Six, go deep when you need to. One of the biggest everyday problems society is facing right now is surface knowledge. Information today is being delivered in a clickbait format; everyone wants to go viral, and they rush to hit publish with something that sounds as sensational as possible. This creates an environment where people know the title of something but not what actually happened or how it works. Everyone is aware, but very few are educated on the topic. And with chatbots and AIs taking over content creation, get ready for an ocean of surface knowledge and copy-pasted information.

Now the problem with surface knowledge is that it makes you think you know stuff when in reality you have no clue. And this does the opposite of making you smarter. So to combat this, here's what you will do: first of all, let's split information into two groups. We did this before in one of our past videos. We like to think of information as either "just in case" or "just in time."

Just in case information means something you don't really need to know right now. It may become useful at some point; it may not. For example, learning how to survive a bear attack is just-in-case information. Just in time information, on the other hand, is something that you will use immediately, as in this week. For this type of information, you need to go deep, and we suggest you adopt a different attitude here.

Think of doing research rather than reading about it. Think of Gandalf researching information about the One Ring in the old archives. Now this is a four-step process:

1. You gather information you can find about the topic.
2. You put what you learn into practice.
3. You draw up your own conclusions.
4. Iterate.

So for your final exercise, this is what you are going to do: sometime during this year, and you can pick the time frame yourself, you will do proper research on something that has a lot of value to you. It can be something for your work, for your passions, or for your own self-development. You will dedicate a whole month to this process, and you will split it into four weeks.

For the first week, you will spend at least two hours a day gathering everything you can find on the topic and reading about it. We suggest you make a Google doc with all the links for future reference. At the end of the week, you should have at least 10 to 15 hours of documentation and learning.

For the next two weeks, you will put into practice what you've learned and figure out what works and what doesn't. You need to draw your own conclusions and see what suits you best. For the final week, you will iterate based on your new findings. This process will teach you how to learn for yourself. You will exercise your brain in new ways and you will also get a head start into something new.

We bet there is at least one thing you always thought of trying out. Maybe it's starting an ad agency, maybe it's playing an instrument, maybe it's completely reinventing yourself. Follow the process and take a month to go deep. It will do wonders for you, and it will make you smarter along the way.

We hope you learned something valuable today, Aluxers. As a thank you for sticking with us until the end, we have a bonus for you. In 2023, we'll try to get smarter by reinventing ourselves and our business and trying new approaches. Our mission to educate 1 billion people has already had its first milestone complete with the school in Uganda, and we are preparing an exciting year for you guys. Get subscribed, and we'll see you tomorrow!