If you're a coach, an expert, an author,
a course creator, or anyone who teaches
for a living, this episode
might rattle you a little bit.
And I think it's a good thing because you
pour everything into your content, your
modules, your videos, your live calls,
and then you watch students who consume
it and somehow they don't change.
They tell you that it was amazing, but
six months later, nothing's different in
their life or their business.
And you wonder what's going on.
Well, today I'm gonna share what I
learned from a conversation that
genuinely shifted how
I'm thinking about this.
And there's research behind
it that's pretty staggering.
And by the end, you're gonna have a
simple five-letter test that you can run
your content through.
I'm calling it the
STICK test because if your
where I gave you a debrief
of some of the Summit stats.
One of the things that stood out to me
that I was sharing with our Impact
Mastermind, and by the way, this is a
group of people who are all running seven
and eight-figure memberships.
So I was sharing with them some of the
behind-the-scenes of the Summit and how
it went and so forth.
And one of the numbers that I shared with
them was that we
identified a glaring opportunity.
And that opportunity was that 30% of the
people registered consumed
some portion of the content.
Either they showed up live to our live
trainings or they watched the videos.
And I framed this as a glaring
opportunity because if we can get that
number up, then we're gonna be able to
support and help more people.
Then Scott Paley in our
Mastermind, he chimed in.
And he said, "Well, Stu, I consumed all
of the content, "but I probably didn't
show up "in your
engagement stats at all."
And so I was curious.
I was like, "Well, what do you mean?"
And he said, "Well, what I did was "I
didn't watch the videos "and I didn't
attend any of the live trainings."
He said, "I took the transcripts though
"from each of the videos and I ran them
through Claude "and used a skill designed
to give me "the best
learnings for my business."
And that right there made me pause.
See, Scott didn't quote,
"engage" in the traditional way.
He didn't show up live or he didn't
consume the videos, but he was learning
through a new learning partner in AI.
And that moment cracked something open
for me because people aren't consuming
content the way they used to.
They're taking long form content like
podcasts or YouTube videos or in this
case, Summit Replays, and they're just
feeding them into AI for the summaries.
So then I went on my social media,
specifically Instagram,
and I asked my audience.
I said, "Which way do you like learning?
"Is it video, audio, text,
live, or is it AI summaries?"
And there was a ton of mixed responses.
But then there was
one comment that stuck.
A woman said that she doesn't like AI
summaries because they don't exercise her
brain the same way watching,
reading, or listening does.
And she said, "In fact, her preference is
live "because that is the most engaging."
So this got me curious.
What is the most
effective way for people to learn?
So then I went and did some research, and
what I found has massive implications for
any of us who are teaching for a living.
That includes you, that includes me,
And so I wanna share with you three
things that stood out,
and then a simple test.
Point number one, the
research is staggering.
So a randomized
controlled trial of 120 students.
These were students who were using
ChatGPT to study for their tests.
And those who used ChatGPT to study
scored 57.5% on
retention tests 45 days later.
The traditional learners who did not use
ChatGPT scored much higher, 68.5%.
That's a massive gap.
And it's not because AI is bad, it's
because of something
called cognitive offloading.
So think of your brain
like a muscle at the gym.
If you watch someone else lift the
weights, you're not gonna get stronger.
You only get stronger when you pick up
the weight yourself.
And AI summaries are like having someone
chew your food for you.
You get the nutrients faster for sure,
but your jaw never gets stronger.
Now here's the deeper finding.
It's not just AI summaries.
The pattern shows up everywhere.
So there's two ways that
your brain takes in information.
There's passive learning, which is when
you're just absorbing it.
And this may be through like watching a
video, listening to a podcast or reading
a book, but the
information is flowing at you.
Active learning is when your brain has to
do something with the information.
Maybe it's answer a question, maybe it's
apply in some way, maybe it's teaching it
to somebody else or solving a problem.
So passive learning is
like watching a cooking show.
Active learning is like
actually cooking the meal.
Both feel productive, but only one
teaches you how to actually cook.
Now here's where it gets interesting.
Researchers compared active learners to
passive learners, and they asked both
groups how prepared they
felt before going into a test.
Interestingly enough, the passive
learners were the ones
that were more confident.
62.5% of them said that they felt
prepared, but only 53% of
active learners said the same.
Now here's where it
gets even more interesting.
The passive group were more confident
going into the test, right?
Well, then they tested them.
And the passive group, the ones who felt
more prepared, they scored worse, like
way worse by a huge margin.
Passive learners only retained 79% of the
information, whereas
active learners retained 94%
of the information.
Huge difference.
So passive learning feels like progress,
but it isn't actually progress.
And your students can't tell the
difference, and that's the trap.
They binge your content, they feel
transformed, and they
tell you it was amazing.
But then,
nothing changes.
And it's not because they're lazy, it's
because their brain lied to them.
Is this all making sense so far?
So this is the trap that your students
are falling into right now, and it's
getting worse with AI in the mix.
Okay, point number two.
All of this changes
what your job actually is.
So most coaches, experts, authors, we
measure ourselves
typically by what we put out.
That could be our books, slide decks,
modules, workbooks,
lives, all our content.
We think value is in the content.
But the research says the content was
never the bottleneck.
The student's effort
during the content is.
So here's what I want you to think about.
You are not paid to teach.
You are paid to make it stick.
And there's a big difference.
So if we go back to the gym analogy
again, a personal trainer doesn't get
paid to know about exercise.
They get paid to make you do the reps.
And we need to think the same way when
we're teaching anybody
inside of our programs.
Anybody can deliver information now.
AI can summarize your book in 30 seconds.
So your job isn't to inform, it's to make
the information stick.
And a lot of people are nervous that AI
is gonna replace them.
I mean, though I've heard so many people
share with me, like, well, why is
somebody gonna pay me to join my
membership or my program when AI can just
summarize my course?
Well, this research flips that whole
argument because AI summaries actually
make retention worse, which means people
who consume your work through AI
summaries will get less out of it.
They'll need a real teacher who can teach
them and help them process the
information and utilize the information.
So the moat isn't information anymore.
It's effort,
accountability, and application.
Is this all making sense?
Are you starting to get some ideas on
things that you might need to shift in
the way that you teach?
I'm hoping so because it
really got my wheels turning.
Okay, point number three, the stick test.
So the question then becomes, how do you
actually make your information stick so
that when people learn it, it stays with
them and they're able
to use it in the future?
Well, I built a simple test that you can
run your content through.
It's five letters that
spell the word stick, S-T-I-C-K.
So let's walk through it.
S, space the teaching.
So the key here is you don't wanna dump
all of your teaching up front.
It's easy to think that we are providing
as much information as we can, as quickly
as we can, and the sooner people have all
the information, the better.
But the research shows otherwise.
When you give people information all up
front, they have a lower
retention of that information.
So it's much more effective
if what we do is space it out.
So the brain locks information in when
it's revisited over time.
So drip your ideas
across weeks and months.
The T in stick stands for trigger recall.
So don't just summarize what you taught.
Make them summarize it back.
A simple before our next call, write me a
one paragraph on what you took from this
week, outperforms any recap email.
And the act of retrieving it is what
carves the lesson into long-term memory.
So I want you to think about this with
your lessons, with your live trainings.
How can you request people to summarize
the content back or
share their learnings back?
that retrieval is what is
going to make the lessons stick.
Okay, the I in stick is
illustrate with story.
Frameworks dressed in stories stick.
Frameworks delivered as
bullet points evaporate.
So every lesson needs a
face, a moment, a real example.
Story isn't just decoration.
Story is the carrier.
So when you're thinking about this, I
want you to think about how you can wrap
the lessons in stories.
Hopefully my conversation with Scott is a
story that will stick for you.
Realizing that people are getting more
and more interactive with AI.
And they're doing less
and less deeper learning.
And this is the
danger point for you and I.
This is the danger
point for our students.
We've got to make this information stick.
and the only way we can do that is if we
take it from passive
learning to active learning.
So illustrate with a story.
Hopefully Scott Paley will now will come
to mind when you are thinking about how
to deliver your content.
Okay, the C in stick is
community teaches community.
The fastest way for somebody to lock in
information and to remember and to retain
it is to explain it to somebody else.
The best programs have
members coaching members.
That's not a bug.
That's the whole point.
When your students teach what they're
learning, they own it.
I think of my friend, Eryko in Brazil.
He's got this brilliant program.
But one of the things that I love most
about it is he has a black belt system.
So the people that are in the early
stages of learning, they're white belts.
The people that have truly mastered the
content, they are black belts.
And so the students work through these
different colors, much
like the karate belt system.
But here's what's interesting.
When people get to the brown belt level,
they then have to spend a certain number
of hours helping and
teaching the earlier students.
And what this does is it just deepens
their learning to get
to true mastery level.
And I love that.
This is community teaching community.
It is your students helping other
students and therefore going deeper and
deeper in their level of retention and
mastery with your content.
Okay, the K in stick is keep the rhythm.
Many times we think because we've taught
it once, then we should move
on and teach something new.
But the research shows otherwise.
Same ideas, just
different angles across months.
Not new content every week,
reinforced content every week.
Repetition is not boring, my friend.
Repetition is how brains build mastery.
So I know that you're probably gonna get
bored way sooner than your audience will.
But you've gotta revisit the same core
concepts over and over and over again in
order for it to stick.
The way you keep it fresh is just new
stories, new analogies, new examples.
So when we think of the stick test, I
wanna ask you, how does
your content stack up?
The S, remember, is space the teaching.
Instead of dumping it all up in front,
space it out over time.
The T stands for trigger recall.
Don't summarize what you taught, make
them summarize it back.
In fact, if I were to ask you what the
stick test stands for, would
you be able to recite it back?
Okay, space the teaching.
T is trigger the recall.
I is illustrate with story.
C is community teaches community.
And K is keep the rhythm.
Now I will say this, the stick test is
really hard to
deliver in a one-off course.
It can be done for sure.
In fact, when I look back at some of the
changes that we made in our signature
program, a lot of them now in hindsight
follow this methodology.
We spaced it out.
We had a whole week where people were all
launching together so we were actively
applying and implementing.
And so there's so many elements of what
we tweaked are baked into this.
But here's the reality.
This is why I love a membership because
it runs naturally and
it's spaced delivery.
There's recall on lives and trainings.
There's breakout sessions
where people are helping people.
There's stories all baked into this and
it's the same ideas just revisited from
different angles all the time.
And I'm not telling you this
to pitch you on memberships.
I'm telling you because
the research is clear.
The membership model is a better model
over time for helping
people retain the information.
So here's what I want
you to do this week.
I want you to take whatever
you're currently teaching.
Maybe it's a course, a coaching program.
Maybe it's a book, whatever it is.
And I want you to run it
through the stick test.
Where are you spacing?
Where are you triggering recall?
Where's the stories?
And where's the community piece?
And what's the rhythm?
Don't try to fix all five at once.
Just pick the weakest one and strengthen
that, then move to the next.
All right, my friend.
So thank you so much for listening.
And one of the things that I hope that
you recall is how important it is to rate
and review the show.
I would love, it would be a huge thank
you, if you just go and share your
thoughts on this podcast.
Because I don't get to interact with you.
This is one of the
downsides of podcasting.
I have no idea whether you like the show,
whether you hate the show, whether you
are referring the show.
But the only time that I ever heard from
people in like mass, so to speak, was
when I stopped recording the show.
And that's when I heard from people
saying, "I used to
listen to you all the time.
I loved the podcast."
And so I would love it.
If you go rate the show, review the show,
shoot me a message on Instagram and let
me know what you think of these episodes.
All right, my friend.
So let's recap today's episode.
It all started with this conversation
with Scott when I was talking about the
engagement of our summit.
And he said, "Look, I engage, I just
engage in a different way.
And I just took the
transcripts and put it into AI.
And that is now my method of learning."
And this just sparked my curiosity about
what is the most effective way to learn.
And in the research, what I'm discovering
is that students using AI summaries
retain about 11 points less than
traditional learners.
And active learners retain over 93%,
whereas passive learners are around 79%.
But passive, it feels better walking in
because it feels like
you're learning the information.
But the truth of the matter is, you're
actually retaining less.
And your job, my job is not to teach,
it's to make the information stick.
It is all about
progress and transformation.
The only way that can happen
is if the information sticks.
And that's where we
came to the stick test.
Space, trigger,
illustrate, community, keep.
Here's the reality,
information is free now.
And transformation though,
that's the thing that's rare.
And the teachers who understand that will
build the businesses of
the next decade and beyond.
The ones who don't will keep wondering
why their students
aren't getting results.
Go be the few who are dedicated and
committed to getting your
students transformation.
All right, my friend,