All posts tagged education

How a Gymnastics Coach Became a Single-Digit Handicap Golfer in Six Years

by Jason on February 11, 2013 in General with 1 Comment

Is athletic ability something that’s transferable? Deion Sanders was an outstanding baseball and football player, but Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, struggled in his short-lived baseball career.

I spent over a decade as a nationally competitive gymnast and learned a ton about performing under pressure, overcoming fear and mastering skills. I owe much of my success to my amazing coach, Levon Karakhanyan, who trained me for the last 3 years of high school and helped me earn a spot on the US Jr. National Team. (He also is the only man I have truly feared because he was … aggressive about correcting my mistakes and making sure I finished every last rep of my strength conditioning. And yes, there were serious consequences if I cheated.)

In 2007, Levon picked up golf as a hobby but quickly made leaps and bounds in his play. He is now a single digit handicap golfer (about 7.3), which puts him in the top 16% of all golfers in the US who keep a handicap, which is even more impressive when you consider that most golfers probably don’t keep a handicap at all.

And he’s done all this while being the Head Coach for the boy’s program at NESA and raising a young son. He’s now

In the interview, Levon and I discuss:

  • How he got started as a gymnast himself
  • What differentiated him from other gymnasts
  • Why patience was a key quality of becoming a better coach
  • How he found the time to practice while holding down a full-time job
  • Why the ratio of practice to competition matters so much 
  • Jason:  Levon, let’s start with gymnastics.  You’re my gymnastics coach.  When did you start doing gymnastics?
  • Levon:  I was about six years old in Armenia.
  • Jason: Did they pick you up from a program?  How did they find you?
  • Levon: My parents were very concerned about me doing all kinds of crazy things.
  • Jason:  You were a really active as a kid so they wanted to put you in a gym.
  • Levon: Yes.  My aunt actually had a friend who worked in a gymnastics facility, after her complaining about me doing crazy things, she said,”Oh, it looks like he might be just the right person to do gymnastics.  Why don’t you bring him over so they can check it out and see if he’s good.”
  • Jason: So were you a good gymnast as a kid? Did you immediately …
  • Levon:  When I came, it was a selection process.  They wouldn’t pick anybody.  They were impressed.  They put me on the bars.  I did 10 pull-ups, and they said, “Enough,” and they were pulling me off the bars, and I was still trying to do more pull-ups.
  • Jason: You were pretty strong as a kid.
  • Levon: Yes.
  • Jason: Did you have good air sense? Were you able to pick up some of that like the skills? Did you learn skills quickly, do you feel?
  • Levon: Yes, relatively quickly. It was a long process from that point. Many years of training and everything else.
  • Jason: You liked gymnastics too.
  • Levon: Oh, yes. Absolutely. It was a lot of fun. I could do everything that I wanted to do instead of everybody telling me, “Oh, stop doing that.” Everybody was like, “Oh, yes. Do more.” Continue reading →
I am writing a book called Winning Isn't Normal. Check it out.

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Learning to Code: Lessons from Building a Rails App with Treehouse

by Jason on February 4, 2013 in Essays with 23 Comments
Learning to Code: Lessons From Building a Rails App with Treehouse

Last night I pushed my first Rails app to production – you can find it at (oops! It looks like all the traffic has crashed the app. Hiding the URL for now) Here’s what it looks like.

It’s like a super stripped down version of Twitter – you can create an account and post statuses. It uses Twitter Bootstrap for some basic styling and Gravatars for profile pics. One obvious area for improvement (among many) is that right now, you can post a status as any user (not just yourself) and edit anyone’s status.

Despite this issue, I’m still very proud of it. Deploying the app to Heroku was a very satisfying moment and feels like a real milestone in my quest to learn how to code. I have a long way to go, but I thought I’d stop and share some lessons I’ve learned so far as a business guy venturing into web development.

Note: My friend Bevan is starting a Ruby on Rails Newbies Meetup in SF if you’re interesting in connecting in meatspace.

Learning to Code: Lessons From Building a Rails App with Treehouse

1) Have a learning plan

I signed up for Treehouse (referral link) in late December and have been going through their modules for the past 6 weeks . You can see my progress here. Treehouse was recommended to me by a non-technical friend (thanks Tony!) who found it very accessible and I completely agree.

Having a program or system, especially an interactive one that’s designed for newbies, is incredibly comforting. I know I can work my way through the modules and learn the basics without missing something important or getting too stuck. Obviously there are many options beyond Treehouse. CodeSchool and Lynda are paid subscription based models, and the Ruby on Rails Tutorial are other learning plans that would be worth checking out.

2) Setup is a big hurdle and something to be proud of

When I tried to learn Rails a few years ago, I struggled with correctly configuring Rails and Ruby. It was frustrating and embarrassing to be stymied by such a basic issue that I didn’t feel comfortable asking for help. That was a mistake. I am comforted by Michale Hartle (author of Ruby on Rails Tutorial) when he talks about getting up and running:

There is quite a bit of overhead here, especially if you don’t have extensive programming experience, so don’t get discouraged if it takes a while to get started. It’s not just you; every developer goes through it (often more than once), but rest assured that the effort will be richly rewarded.

So don’t be discouraged by the first hurdle of just getting setup. When you finally get it done, celebrate it – it’s a worthy accomplishment for a newbie. Continue reading →

I am writing a book called Winning Isn't Normal. Check it out.

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When Software is Eating the World, You Better Start Making Dishes

by Jason on January 27, 2013 in General with 4 Comments

Photo Credit: Kuba Bożanowski via Compfight cc

One of my goals for 2013 is to learn enough about programming to build and release publicly a simple web application that does something interesting.

I’ve been working toward this goal for about a month and wanted to share some thoughts on it so far. In this post, I’ll share my history with programming and why I’ve dedicated myself toward this goal. In a later post, I’ll talk more about how it’s progressing.

My history with programming

In high school and college, I took a few basic computer science courses. I learned Java and Python, played with if/then statements and while loops, and built little applications that did things like simulate games of Craps.

While it was interesting, I struggled with the assignments and learned more towards basic sciences, like biology, where simply mastering a lot of content was enough to get good grades. I didn’t pursue advanced studies in CS.

In September 2010, I made my first attempt at learning Ruby on Rails. Back then I was still working at isocket as a business guy and not a founder.  I made a number of mistakes, including not having a learning plan and trying to start on the newly updated versions of Ruby and Rails at the time (1.9.2 and 3.0.0, respectively). Continue reading →

I am writing a book called Winning Isn't Normal. Check it out.

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5 Reasons Why You Need to Teach a Skillshare Class

by Jason on May 2, 2012 in General with 7 Comments

reasons why you need to teach a class on skillshare

After taking a class on UX Design for Non Designers via Skillshare, I got the teaching bug and taught my first skillshare class a few weeks ago on creating compelling web content that gets read as part of Skillshare’s  SF Tech Semester.

So how did it go?

It was a great experience. Skillshare has really built a wonderful platform and fostered a positive community where people are excited to teach and learn from one another. I had 7 brave souls show up for this newbie’s class and gave them everything I’ve learned about blogging and building an audience.

I think everyone should try teaching a class via Skillshare. They’re in tons of major cities like San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Austin, Portland, and more and there are a lot of good reasons why you should take the plunge. Here are five:

1) Empower people with new knowledge and skills, and the motivation to use them

Maybe you’re thinking – “But there’s nothing I can teach!” Baloney. If you’re reading this blog post, there are probably a few topics/subject matters that you know significantly more than the average person and that people would pay money to have you teach.

Whether it’s getting started with Python, navigating your way through a big music festival, tricking out your Gmail inbox or knitting 101, there’s probably something you would enjoy teaching and could teach well. You don’t have to be the world’s expert – most classes on Skillshare are introductory level ones that people will little background in the subject can still take and enjoy.

And you’re not just imparting information, as a teacher, you are imparting passion. One student left me this kind review: “I learned a lot, enjoyed listening to him as a speaker, and totally walked away inspired and empowered to start my blog, and start it well.”

The truth is, most people can learn the basics of blogging by searching on Google and Quora, following a few WordPress tutorials and reading Copyblogger articles. As a teacher, one of the greatest things you can provide is your sense of passion and excitement to this subject and show them where they can take these skills/knowledge to. And that can be a great feeling.

2) Consolidate (and expand) your area of expertise

You’re going to learn a lot from teaching the class. If you’ve never taught something before, you’ll quickly realize that there’s no better way to understand a subject area than to try to teach it. As I built the Keynote deck that formed the foundation of my class, I was looking things up, grabbing links, re-reading blog posts, watching videos and basically immersing in the topic of blogging.

Before you can really teach something well, you need to deeply and full understand it. If you are interested in knowing more about your field or honing your craft, I assure you that teaching a class on it will only bolster that cause.

3) Improve your communication skills

The best teachers aren’t simply domain experts. They are great communicators. It’s obvious that the people who have had the greatest influence in our society aren’t just smart or skilled or knowledgeable. They were incredible at delivering a clear and compelling message: Jobs. Gandhi. King. Churchill.

Teaching a class forces you to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, think about how they see the world and build upon what they already know. For my class, I kind of struggled on how to present everything I knew until I ironed out the four-part framework:

Identifying your audience -> Content Generation -> Writing nuts & bolts -> Distribution / readership.

This made everything else much easier. Each section had important big ideas, resources and knowledge. I also created an short exercise and opened up Q&A between each section to break the class up and make it interactive.

Teaching a class on Skillshare forces you to become a better communicator and that’s a really valuable skill to have.

4) Connect with people in your field/extended network/city

Teaching a class on Skillshare is a great way to connect with people in your area - in real life! I think online education is incredible – things like Udacity, Udemy and Khan Academy are fantastic initiatives and are making our society better. But there’s something special about an in person class that forms a special connection.

My friend Derek Flanzraich has taught his class on growing to 750k uniques in under a year several times on Skillshare and he tells me that everytime, he’s developed a relationship with at least one interesting person who ends up being able to help his company Greatist in some way. I’m not saying that all connections need to be professional or work related, but the fact is, by sharing your passions via this class, you are likely to bump into people interested in similar things and it’s totally like you’ll hit it off well with your students.

5) Make some dough

Let’s face it – getting paid to do something fun is like the best of both worlds. With the money you earn from your Skillshare class, you can go treat your friends to a round of drinks, splurge on that icon set you’ve been savoring over or take that weekend getaway.

I charged $30 for my first class and with eight students, ended up making $204 after Skillshare’s fees. I raised the price by $5 because now this class is more of a sure thing and I expect to sell out. I’m not doing this class for the money, but the money isn’t bad.

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So think about it. Brainstorm a list of potential classes you could teach, take a look at what’s being offered in your city and jump in. Even if you just teach a 45 min class in a coffee shop for 3 people – I promise you’re going to get something out of it.

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Oh and by the way – I liked teaching my class so much I’m doing it again.

“I’ve Read Your Blog” : Creating Compelling Web Content

Wednesday May 16th from 7:30pm – 9pm at NextSpace in SF. First 5 people to sign up using this code: BLOGFTW will get 50% off the price of admission. Check it out!

Blogging not your thing? Check out my buddy Al Abut’s class: Intro to HTML & CSS! I’m signed up for his May 24th class.

I am writing a book called Winning Isn't Normal. Check it out.

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I’m Teaching a Class on Skillshare

by Jason on March 26, 2012 in General with 5 Comments

As the cofounder of a collaborative consumption startup, I do my best to try all kinds of “sharing economy” services like Couchsurfing, TaskRabbit, Airbnb, Vayable, Grubwithus and Skillshare. I even blogged about my experience taking a UX Design for Non-Designers Skillshare class.

But there’s of course generally two sides to these products – the consumer and the producer. In Couchsurfing, theres the host and the surfer. In Vayable there’s the guide and the explorer. And in Skillshare there is the student and the teacher. It’s important to get both perspectives when you can.

I’ve worked hard to avoid blogging about blogging here at The Art of Ass-Kicking. The vast majority of my posts are on overcoming your fears, doing great work and making epic sh*t happen.

At the same time, in building this blog up, I have learned some great lessons about creating compelling content, discovering my audience and attracting 100,000+ visits over 2011.

And I’m sharing what I’ve learned in a class.

Continue reading →

I am writing a book called Winning Isn't Normal. Check it out.

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