The Best Mindset to Learn Something New

Rule # 7 of Stubbornly Young is "Learn New Things."  Why?  Because learning new things gives us an overall sense of freshness and excitement - except maybe dancing - the jury's still out on that one for me.  

Brian Reynolds is the co-founder of The Bridge Teachers.  I know, BRIDGE?  Isn't that the game for "old people," not for the Stubbornly Young?   That perception (and sometimes the truth) created an irony that made me curious.  What I learned from Brian, a decades-long teacher, about the BEST MINDSET for learning anything was a wild "AHA" for me!  Definitely something you'll want to try.  

Read my Blog called Rules For Being Stubbornly Young and let me know what you think!

Email your thoughts at dave@stubbornlyyoung.com

Check out where it’s all happening on the Stubbornly Young website

Thanks and looking forward to hearing how you’re remaining stubbornly young!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Brian Reynolds: I think the biggest difference between, especially the younger you get, the biggest difference between a younger student and an older student is younger students don't care about being bad at something.
I want you to imagine that you're not learning. You're watching your grandchild learn. Don't say anything to yourself. That you wouldn't say to your grandchild.

[00:00:37] Dave Tabor: Welcome to the Stubbornly Young podcast, Episode 17. I've got a guest, Brian Reynolds, founder of The Bridge Teachers, an online platform that teaches visitors and subscribers about the game of Bridge. And to be clear, today's conversation won't really be so much about Bridge, the card game, listeners who care nothing about the game of Bridge, that's fine. I'll be speaking with Brian about Rule Seven of Stubbornly Young, Learn Something New. Learning something new keeps life interesting, keeps us interesting. So with Brian, whose business and life are both around teaching, I thought it would be fun to explore learning using the game of Bridge as a metaphor, perhaps for learning anything new.

And if a, for those of you who follow Brian, love him from a Bridge perspective, love his world of Bridge that may be why you're listening, but you won't get better playing Bridge from this episode, maybe, though, you might get better at being stubbornly young. So with that context, Brian, are you ready to jump in?

[00:01:52] Brian Reynolds: Absolutely, I'm super excited. 

Good. Now it's, I will admit this, that when I told people I'd be interviewing a Bridge teacher and that, that was the context, one comment I got is great. You can learn Bridge and you can hang out with the old ladies. Now you learned Bridge in college as a young man, but based on what what are the demographics for Bridge?

[00:01:52] Brian Reynolds: Yeah, the average age of a Bridge player in the U. S. last I heard was 73 and steadily rising. The really [00:02:00] funny thing is that my grandmother, before she passed, used to love to tell the story of, we were at, I think we were at a chess tournament, and next door there was a Bridge tournament. I was playing in the chess tournament and, My grandmother never played Bridge.

And she was like, oh, she was teasing. She's, maybe I'll go play Bridge. And I said, oh, grandma, you're not old enough to play Bridge. And this was my grandmother. And then years later, I ended up being, becoming a professional Bridge player. I have been the youngest player in the room for pretty much my entire career, that hasn't really changed.

There are younger players at the higher level, but yeah it's definitely an older game in terms of the demographic. 

[00:02:37] Dave Tabor: Yeah. Do you think that's going to change? Do you see a new wave of young people entering, you know, that world or do you think it's going to stay that way?

[00:02:46] Brian Reynolds: I don't think it can stay that way and I really hope it changes. I think that if you look at something like chess.com where they didn't even really know how they were going to get their funding and then all of a sudden it became this huge resurgence in chess. 

[00:03:00] Everything from Youtube streamers to people keep playing on Twitch to, you know, a much younger crowd taking on chess, which was weird for me to see, because I haven't played chess since like my senior year of high school.
And I think that it, I think that Bridge as a community needs that. We need kids. The youngest I've ever taught was six years old. We need kids playing in, middle school, junior high school. And then I think probably what happens with most activities that you do extracurricularly in school is you might be passionate about it until you get through college and then, other things take precedence, whether that's, family.

[00:03:39] Dave Tabor: Family (inaudible). 

[00:03:42] Brian Reynolds: Then you come back to it, you or maybe you find 
time on the weekend so. 

[00:03:45] Dave Tabor: It's so funny, my boys are, both my boys, they're my grown sons, have both gotten into chess.com lately and they have, they get into these like quick 10-minute matches and this stuff and they're, they're,
really into it. 

[00:03:57] Brian Reynolds: Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I'm hoping 

[00:04:00] starts happening for Bridge because speaking of someone who used to play chess a lot at for my age at a highly competitive level, I actually prefer bridge as a game. And so I think that people who like chess, if they give Bridge a try, they might find that they like it as much or more.

They might not like it as much, which is fine. But I think that it's all about getting people to try it, right? It's similar with everything. I find that most of the things that I love people, I go, oh you should try, like I'm studying singing right now because I've always wanted to be a singer.

And I just started like six months ago being very serious about my practice and studying and things like that. And I'm now I'm just like all about like when people are like, singing, I'm talking about singing, I'm like, oh, you have to do this and this. So I think that if we can get people to find the game, then they'll just develop the passion for it if they like it.

[00:04:56] Dave Tabor: Are there parallels in how you're learning to sing and how you teach students to play Bridge? 

[00:05:01] Brian Reynolds: Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm a big believer in diligent practice. So there's five aspects of diligent practice. Everything from consulting with an expert to, practicing mindfully with intention, feedback, things like that.
I don't think there's any difference between learning singing and learning knitting. 

[00:05:23] Dave Tabor: When you think about how you're learning to sing are you doing this deliberately because you want to become good at it or are you doing this because you want to enjoy it, and it sounds, it seems like fun? 

[00:05:34] Brian Reynolds: I've never been good at doing things for fun.
I wish I was better at it. When I was a kid, I really liked bowling, like super, loved it. And then we moved to the Midwest and I ended up becoming semi-professional at it. So I, I wish I had more hobbies. What I have are hobbies that become like I'm going to practice three hours a day. And I know that I'm an outlier in that sense. So I, when I'm talking to people about things they're passionate about, I really try to think about what fits into their life and what makes them happy. 

[00:06:11] Dave Tabor: I want to come back to that as we talk about learning, but first thing I wanted to ask you is, in teaching, have you discovered differences in how younger students want to learn bridge from, my audience, fifties, sixties and beyond, right? Is there, do they approach it differently? And do you approach it differently? 

[00:06:29] Brian Reynolds: Yes, for sure. So with younger people, I talk a lot less because they're willing to have me not talk. I don't. 

[00:06:41] Dave Tabor: What's that mean? What's the, why? What are they doing instead? Just playing? 

[00:06:44] Brian Reynolds: They're just playing. They're trying things out.
I think the biggest difference between especially the younger you get, the biggest difference between a younger student and older student is younger students don't care about being bad at something they don't care because they have no perspective of what can happen if you're not good at something you're trying to do. They don't have enough results where something went wrong and then they felt bad and as we get older, we have all this knowledge of if what, if I do this wrong, I know what's coming, right? I feel regret, Especially, kids will do something they don't care if it's stupid or dumb, or they're just trying things. 

[00:07:30] Dave Tabor: So does that make the learning faster for them? I would think it would. 

[00:07:33] Brian Reynolds: A lot faster, most of what I do when I'm teaching, regardless of the subject, is just try to get people to be kind to themselves while they're beginners or while they're learning a new skill, because if you can let go of any attachment or ego about being good at something and simply do it, then it frees up your brain to learn from what you just did. 

[00:08:05] Dave Tabor: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. In fact, I'm listening to a book on audible and I'm pulling it up right now. And it's called, oh, Hidden Potential by Adam Grant. And he talks a lot about foreign language learners and how quickly they can progress if they don't mind looking bad, making mistakes. If they don't mind saying the wrong words, they don't mind saying embarrassing phrases. They progress so much faster than people that worry about making mistakes. 

[00:08:33] Brian Reynolds: I couldn't agree more. I have to check out this book. It sounds fantastic. I love books like that. 

[00:08:39] Dave Tabor: Yeah. I'll shoot it to you. Hidden Potential by Adam Grant, the famous psychologist, author and speaker and all that. But, so now, when older, so are you saying, am I gathering what you mean Brian, when that, when adults want you to talk more, it's because they want you to talk to them long enough and hard enough that they don't make as many mistakes?

[00:08:59] Brian Reynolds: [00:09:00] Sure. 

[00:09:00] Dave Tabor: That sounds, no, that doesn't sound very productive at all. 

[00:09:04] Brian Reynolds: No. And it's something you always have to balance. You have to balance the student's emotional needs, right? They might be sensitive. They might feel a certain way with what you know will be effective. I know the most effective way to learn anything is to do it, mess it up, get some of it get some of it wrong. Get feedback on what was good. I like to focus on what's good. I like to just remember the good and forget about everything else. And then just repeat that cycle as, as frequently as you can. 

[00:09:40] Dave Tabor: So if I were your neighbor, would I notice your bad singing for a while until you became good at it?

[00:09:46] Brian Reynolds: You might knock on my door and say, if you do that scale one more time, I'm going to park, park my Buick through your bedroom. 
[00:09:53] Dave Tabor: The younger learners. Okay. They learn clearly. They learn more freely, in your experience. Now that's probably not always the case, but it's the pattern, right? But the younger learners and older learners have different objectives when they're learning. Do they, in your experience, want something different? 

[00:10:10] Brian Reynolds: That's actually the, one of the first things I ask any student, regardless of what they want to learn, is what is your goal right now?
But I'm not a singing coach, but if someone came to see me, I want to be an excellent singer. I'd be like what's your goal, right? You want to be better at karaoke or you want to be on Broadway? And those paths are completely different. And the, and people's goals can change, but I think knowing what your goal is
will help inform you, the student. 

[00:10:36] Dave Tabor: Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good point. I have been learning pickable and every time I say that it just drives me nuts. I wish they'd come up with a better name for it, but in any case I've been learning it and I'm one who likes to get good enough to a certain point, at least to where I, I feel like I can compete and enjoy the competitive aspect of a sport. Win or lose, it doesn't really actually matter that much, although I try really hard to win. But, I never really thought about what's my objective? My objective is to get good enough to be able to have regular competitive outings that are joyful for me right now. What does that mean?
It probably doesn't mean, traveling around the country, but if I ever got good enough, like okay, I do know a guy who's like travels around the country and goes to tournaments and, but that's not my goal. My, my goal now is to become a solid competitive player, whatever that means, but not professional.
I don't know. Maybe that changes. 

[00:11:35] Brian Reynolds: I think that's so important. I think that knowing, setting good goals for yourself and knowing what your goals are, not only will help inform how you approach your learning, but it'll also help you with, validation to me is the sort of the part that most people leave out of the learning process is when you do something better, even if it's only one percent better, you need to celebrate that as if you just won the Super Bowl because your brain listens to you, your brain and your brain is risk avoided.

So if you only look at the bad, your brain stops wanting to interact with that experience. Whereas if you're like, wow let's say you hit a shot and you just barely miss, then if you celebrate, whoa, I was so close, your brain goes, oh, we like that. Let's do that some more. Whereas if you go, oh, I missed again.

Now your brain goes I don't actually want to engage with this whole activity. So I, yeah, I'm a big believer in, like, find little victories as many as you can and just pile them up. It's amazing how, if you continually pile up little tiny victories, you turn around, all of a sudden you've got this huge mountain of progress.

[00:12:59] Dave Tabor: It seems [00:13:00] like that might be easier in some things that like, like Bridge, for example, that might be easier to, get that first 10 percent and, competence under your belt and there's something like painting or like I've got to start dance lessons on my wife I say I've got to but I want to but anyway, but those early stages are so can be so bad someone's first painting can look dreadful, horrible and embarrassing and I know that's how I'm gonna look when I start dancing. And but Bridge seems like a little bit quieter where you're like, okay, I'm sitting at a table and yeah, I played the wrong card. It doesn't seem it seems less threatening. There's some of these other things that can look so horrible. 

[00:13:44] Brian Reynolds: Sure. Sure. 

[00:13:45] Dave Tabor: How do you think about that? 

[00:13:48] Brian Reynolds: I think like having played a card that costs, cost me a chance at a major tournament. I would say that it stings. I think it stings worse, especially with my attitude towards learning when someone's learning I really want them to focus on, like for instance, you mentioned dance my wife dances in a lot of She just ballroom dancing and she dances in a lot of they call them competitions I to me they're big parties and I think They're amazing. And she's won some, she's lost some and, for her goals, and I think this comes from just having her top for so long, her goals have nothing to do with result. And I think that's the key. I think when you set a goal, it's based on result, oh, I want to win this pickleball tournament, or I want to look a certain way when I'm dancing. It's very easy to fail. So for me, I don't have a goal to have perfect pitch or be a brilliant singer. My goal is to, practice an hour every day. And if I practice over an hour every day, then I've succeeded. And I think that the more you can set goals that are based on your practice and your effort, things you can control. And less on result, because a lot of times we can't control the result. I think that leads to not only better learning, but just a happier life, cause now you're six, now you're succeeding, right? You're not failing. 

[00:15:23] Dave Tabor: Yeah, that's a really, yeah, that's a really good point. I think about I mentioned like my inclination when I learn anything new is to get to some point where I can enjoy a competitive something. At whatever level that is. Me, that's always my goal. I want to get good enough, whatever that is to make me happy. I don't know, but other people just want to have fun. Is that a goal? Can, if you learn as you're teaching someone brand new on Bridge, or if you're teaching somebody how to sing, can having fun be enough of a goal to help people learn, or do you really need something more concrete than that?

[00:15:54] Brian Reynolds: Samantha and I say our number one rule is have fun. 
[00:15:57] Dave Tabor: I saw that on your website and I'm like, that's trite and I didn't, I know. And so just talk more about that because that doesn't satisfy me. 

[00:16:05] Brian Reynolds: Yeah, no, I get that. I get that. I think that you don't have to incentivize people to try to win. I think that I don't, I think I've, it's a very rare for a human being to be blasé about winning or losing. So for me, when I, when some, especially if they come to me and they say, I want lessons from you. Regardless of what it is, they obviously want to be good, so I don't need to incentivize them to be good. Now, what I need to do is I need to make their practice and as effective as possible, and first of all, I don't want anyone to be grinding through misery. That doesn't sound like very much fun and also like very much just neurologically, we don't learn as well when we're miserable. So have fun.

I agree. [00:17:00] It sounds very trite. That's our number one rule. It comes from a place of, I don't actually think you can do anything else very well, unless you're having fun while you're learning. 

[00:17:15] Dave Tabor: What if someone comes to you and they say, my goal is to know enough about how to do this so that I can be social and not look silly?
Is that a goal? 

[00:17:24] Brian Reynolds: Yeah, that's 95% of my clients for sure, since 2000, when I first started teaching, that's 95% of my clients. I know, I think that's, should be the goal for everybody to start. I've had some, I've had some students who reach a certain point and they go, actually, now my goal is to play in tournaments.
Now my goal is to go win some stuff. And the few students I've had that reversed that order that started with the goal of, I want to win stuff, instead of I want to have basic [00:18:00] competence with my friend group, those people didn't learn very well. That took them a long time because they, again, they focused on the wrong thing.

And Bridge is really good at punishing you for focusing on the wrong thing. It will absolutely, I think Bridge is pretty, not unique, but I think it's very focused on the correct process is way more important than an individual action. And what I mean by that is, if you're thinking about things the right way, then you will get good results. But if you're trying to get good results, you will fail. Pretty spectacularly. 

[00:18:44] Dave Tabor: Wow. And just to reframe this up about Bridge and because we're not really going to be talking further about the game, but is it possible without a whole long journey to become what you described as competent in a social circle?

[00:19:00] Brian Reynolds: Oh yeah, for sure. I, when people say to me, I want to get, I want to be competent with my friend, within my friends group, how long will that take? I'm like, six months. 

[00:19:12] Dave Tabor: Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Good. Now, when you think about teaching something new, because I think about I think anybody in my audience, 50s, 60s beyond, are looking at, okay, how might we do, how might we spend our time differently as we, wind down maybe perhaps the full time demands of a career and into some other things with more options. And so when you think about teaching people, whether it's. Bridge or whether it's pottery or whatever the case, what does the learning arc look quickness and then what, how does that, yeah, how does that work? 

[00:19:44] Brian Reynolds: Yeah. I, my, my first thought is exploration. The first part of the learning process should be exploration. What is this? What is this thing that I'm exploring? I don't know anything about pickleball. I know a little bit more about tennis than I do about pickleball. And, but I know nothing about pickleball. So if you were to start talking to me in as much detail as you could about the world of pickleball and the game and et cetera, et cetera, there were a whole new world would open up in front of me. A dear friend of mine made the mistake of dinner one night of asking me to tell him, quote, everything I know about bowling. And I said, I don't think that's a good idea, but I'll tell you what, I'll talk until you tell me to stop. And after about five minutes, he says stop. He's like, how much more do you have? I don't, I said a couple of hours, maybe. So to me it's exploration because from the outside in, everything looks small. Pickleball looks small. Singing looks small. Pottery looks small. But you talk about pottery, now you start talking about different types of clays and glazing. And I'm just talking, I don't do pottery
I'm just talking about, some things I've heard, right? So everything looks small. You've got to get in and you've got to start rummaging around and saying what is this world? And then you decide, oh, I like this. I want to, I really want to, I really want singing to be part of my life or, oh, I really enjoy, moving my body this way.
I want pickleball to be a part of my life. 

[00:21:21] Dave Tabor: It almost seems though the contrary strikes me Brian, and that if I want to learn about something new, I don't. I'm not sure I want to rummage around. I might go to a pottery class and somebody put some clay down there and they say, okay, do this. And, it's oh so I'm not sure I'd rummage around as much as I would jump in. And what's the difference though? Because jumping in sometimes is really the best way to rather than just becoming exposed to a ton of stuff. 

[00:21:46] Brian Reynolds: Yeah, I agree. I would feel to me that would be rummaging around. I was like, I want to do pottery. They're doing a they have these things in my area where you can go and you have a glass of wine and you paint a picture. And it's this whole. 

[00:22:00] Dave Tabor: Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:22:02] Brian Reynolds: Yeah. And to me, that's rummaging around in painting. It's I went, I drank a glass of wine, I slapped some paint on a canvas, it looks like a sunset. There's a cactus on one side. I hung it up. And maybe that's it. 

[00:22:18] Dave Tabor: For some people that might be, for one in a hundred that becomes the impetus to doing something more. 

[00:22:22] Brian Reynolds: Exactly. 

[00:22:23] Dave Tabor: Do you ever see students who you think have a knack for it? And the game of Bridge like, man this person could be awesome. My God, I've never seen somebody get up and they just don't care. Yeah, I just want to play. 
Do you see that? 

[00:22:36] Brian Reynolds: Sure. I see that in a lot of different areas of life. I had a chance to mentor a young man who could have been a professional basketball player and he did not, it did not speak to him. High school could not be over fast enough so he could stop playing. Yeah. And I think that. That is why it's so important to jump in as you say, because that's really the only way you'll know if you enjoy it is to jump into something, try it, and then if it doesn't speak to you, great. Now you can go explore something else.

[00:23:18] Dave Tabor: Now, when you think about teaching people in their 50s, 60s and beyond, you must do that a lot because of the demographic of this group. What advice do you, you mentioned young people tend to be less worried about mistakes, but generally if somebody were really decided to get engaged, what advice would you say would help them the most based on your experience?

[00:23:40] Brian Reynolds: Yeah, to just treat yourself with kindness when you're a beginner I'm really a big fan of this idea of, I say this a lot to my older students who have grandkids, I said, I want you to imagine that you're not learning. You're watching your grandchild learn. Don't say anything to yourself that you wouldn't say to your grandchild.

So if you wouldn't call your grandchild a stupid idiot, please don't call yourself a stupid idiot. I think that treating yourself with that dignity and respect and giving yourself the framework of I am a beginner, I am like a child playing at this new activity, and I'm proud of that child playing, that leads to, first of all, it just leads to way faster learning, so much faster. 

[00:24:37] Dave Tabor: But I could see where it would be emotionally freeing.
To have that kind of an attitude. 

[00:24:44] Brian Reynolds: For sure. 

[00:24:45] Dave Tabor: Because that's the hardest part is like being inept is the hardest part of starting something. 

[00:24:52] Brian Reynolds: Yeah. And I think it's a reason why a lot of people don't try things. 

[00:24:56] Dave Tabor: Wow. Now the other side of the coin is [00:25:00] that people in there, in my audience, the stubbornly young, 50s, 60s, and beyond, we've got wisdom and perspective to draw on and to apply in learning a new skill. Is that useful or is it better to just, what you just said, think of yourself as like you would a grandchild?

[00:25:18] Brian Reynolds: That is useful and what I would think of as the intermediary stages of learning something is when you start relating it to other disciplines. 

[00:25:27] Dave Tabor: Is there like a Yoda-like quality that, you know, those of us that are over 50 and 60 and stuff that, we can bring to help us learn something new, and is it, to your point, after you get past the early stages? 

[00:25:42] Brian Reynolds: Yes, because you do have that database of knowledge to draw on. 

[00:25:47] Dave Tabor: That's what I wanted to explore with you. The 
idea that, it's hard to get started learning something new and, whether it's dance or painting or Bridge. And that's what I wanted to explore with you today. And so I'm glad you were with me on stubbornly young, let's wrap up. Should we do that? 

[00:26:00] Brian Reynolds: Yeah, that'd be great. 

[00:26:00] Dave Tabor: Yeah. Stubbornly Young friends, listeners, you've been listening to my episode number 17 with Brian Reynolds, who's the founder of The Bridge Teachers.

And by the way, I'm hopeful Brian, that some of your students from The Bridge Teachers will be listening to this podcast, getting to know you a little differently than they might through your website. And I'm glad you joined me. 

[00:26:19] Brian Reynolds: Thank you so much for having me on. It was an absolute blast.

[00:26:22] Dave Tabor: Good. And listeners, this is for you. It's for Stubbornly Young are people in their 50s, 60s and beyond who care about staying engaged in the world and relevant to the younger people in their lives. I'm glad you've joined me in today's episode. Stay listening. Watch for the next episode as well of Stubbornly Young. 

And Brian, good to know you and I look forward, before I leave, you and I talked briefly about the idea of getting back together after I've played around with Bridge for a while on your website and maybe coming back and talking further about that whole learning process. Let's do that. 

[00:26:54] Brian Reynolds: I would love that.

[00:26:55] Dave Tabor: Yeah. So, listeners, we'll be back in touch with an update on, we'll see how well I do, but I'm fascinated to learn and I'm glad Brian, you're going to be helping me. That's it for Stubbornly Young. Bye.