Most of us learn and make things at a prescribed pace. We learn a language one semester at a time, finish college in four years, follow set project milestones, and so on. But learning isn't necessarily a one-size-fits-all affair. Entrepreneur and programmer Derek Siver explains the impact of realizing that there's no set speed limit to learning. Here's his example of the life-changing power of a great teacher and raised expectations.

Whether you're a student, teacher, or parent, I think you'll appreciate this story of how one teacher can completely and permanently change someone's life in only a few lessons.

I met Kimo Williams when I was 17 - the summer after I graduated high school in Chicago, a few months before I was starting Berklee College of Music.

I called an ad in the paper by a recording studio, with a random question about music typesetting.

When the studio owner heard I was going to Berklee, he said, "I graduated from Berklee, and taught there for a few years, too. I'll bet I can teach you two years' of theory and arranging in only a few lessons. I suspect you can graduate in two years if you understand there's no speed limit. Come by my studio at 9:00 tomorrow for your first lesson, if you're interested. No charge."

Graduate college in two years? Awesome! I liked his style. That was Kimo Williams.

Excited as hell, I showed up to his studio at 8:40 the next morning, though I waited outside until 8:59 before ringing his bell.

(Recently I heard him tell this same story from his perspective and said, "My doorbell rang at 8:59 one morning and I had no idea why. I run across kids all the time who say they want to be a great musician. I tell them I can help, and tell them to show up at my studio at 9am if they're serious. Almost nobody ever does. It's how I weed out the really serious ones from the kids who are just talk. But there he was, ready to go.")

He opened the door. A tall black man in a Hawaiian shirt and big hat, a square scar on his nose, a laid-back demeanor, and a huge smile, sizing me up, nodding.

After a one-minute welcome, we were sitting at the piano, analyzing the sheet music for a jazz standard. He was quickly explaining the chords based on the diatonic scale. How the dissonance of the tri-tone in the 5-chord with the flat-7 is what makes it want to resolve to the 1. Within a minute, I was already being quizzed, "If the 5-chord with the flat-7 has that tritone, then so does another flat-7 chord. Which one?"

"Uh... the flat-2 chord?"

"Right! So that's a substitute chord. Any flat-7 chord can always be substituted with the other flat-7 that shares the same tritone. So reharmonize all the chords you can in this chart. Go."

The pace was intense, and I loved it. Finally, someone was challenging me - keeping me in over my head - encouraging and expecting me to pull myself up, quickly. I was learning so fast, it had the adrenaline of sports or a video game. A two-way game of catch, he tossed every fact back at me and made me prove I got it.

In our three-hour lesson that morning, he taught me a full semester of Berklee's harmony courses. In our next four lessons, he taught me the next four semesters of harmony and arranging requirements.

When I got to college and took my entrance exams, I tested out of those six semesters of required classes.

Then, as he suggested, I bought the course materials for other required classes and taught myself, doing the homework on my own time, then went to the department head and took the final exam, getting full credit for the course.

Doing this in addition to my full course load, I graduated college in two and a half years - (got my bachelor's degree when I was 20) - squeezing every bit of education out of that place that I could.

But the permanent effect was this:

Kimo's high expectations set a new pace for me. He taught me "the standard pace is for chumps" - that the system is designed so anyone can keep up. If you're more driven than "just anyone" - you can do so much more than anyone expects. And this applies to ALL of life - not just school.

Before I met him, I was just a kid who wanted to be a musician, doing it casually.

Ever since our five lessons, high expectations became my norm, and still are to this day. Whether music, business, or personal - whether I actually achieve my expectations or not - the point is that I owe every great thing that's happened in my life to Kimo's raised expectations. That's all it took. A random meeting and five music lessons to convince me I can do anything more effectively than anyone expects.

(And so can anyone else.)

I wish the same experience for everyone. I have no innate abilities. This article wasn't meant to be about me as much as the life-changing power of a great teacher and raised expectations.

Kimo knows how much he means to me, and we're friends to this day. Read his full biography and buy his CDs at his website kimowilliams.com.

P.S. On a related note, see my talk to incoming first-year Berklee students.

There's no speed limit. (The lessons that changed my life.) | Derek Sivers

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Looking to up your culinary skills? Perhaps you've gotten into a cooking rut and want to spice up your dinners? According to neuroscientist and nutrition and food blogger Dr. Darya Pino, one way to improve your cooking skills is to try new things, and one great way to get inspired to try new cuisines and dishes is to read more fiction—specifically fiction that transports you to different worlds and cultures.

At her blog, Summer Tomato, Pino explains something that those of us who love to read already know: that reading about a place can often inform you about the location and its culture in ways visiting may not, and inspire you to learn more. A good book can stick with you for weeks or months. Take that impact and use it to inspire you in the kitchen. She says:

For instance, it's impossible for me to read Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, which I've done several times, without craving Spanish tapas and red wine for the better part of a month (this is also why Spanish food is one of my absolute favorite cuisines). The Last Chinese Chef had me exploring obscure alleyways in Chinatown in search of the best dumplings and peking duck, and before reading it I would have said Chinese food wasn't really my jam.

Pino makes a few other book recommendations in the full post at the link below. What do you think? Have you ever been inspired to try a new dish or cuisine by a book you read? Let us know in the comments.

How Reading Fiction Can Make You a Better Cook | Summer Tomato

Photo by Zitona.

Not everyone should learn to code, but if it's on your list of priorities you've got a friend in Mozilla. They've just announced a program called Webmaker that aims to teach the average user to create rather than consume. While the lessons are still forthcoming, you can join or create a "code party" to learn with others so you're not going it alone. So what is a code party, exactly? Mozilla explains:

We're inviting everyone to join or volunteer at free local events and teach-ins around the world. With new Webmaker tools, event kits and starter projects designed to make it easy, social and fun. We'll end with a big wrap-up September 23.

While we've seen plenty of other ways to teach yourself to code, and even created our own series of lessons to help, this is the first collective learning initiative we've seen. You can certainly teach yourself from the privacy of your own home, but if you learn better with others you should definitely check this out.

Introducing Mozilla Webmaker: helping the world make the web | Mozilla Blog

When it comes to our brains, black is white and up is down. Any time we try to achieve a desired result, we end up doing the opposite. Such is the case with trying to be smart. We like to come off as intelligent, and so we often act like we know more than we do to achieve that effect. In reality, however, saying "I don't know" can be a whole lot smarter.

Aside from the obvious downside of people finding out that you don't really know as much as your purport, CD Baby founder Derek Sivers explains another advantage of just being honest:

Being stupid means avoiding thinking by jumping to conclusions. Jumping to a conclusion is like quitting a game: you lose by default. That's why saying "I don't know" is usually smart, because it's refusing to jump to a conclusion.

On top of that, not knowing something is rarely a downside. It gives you a chance to learn something new, and people love to share knowledge because it makes them feel important. Even when you think you know the answer, don't be afraid to ask for more information or listen to someone else's opinion. There's always an opportunity to learn.

Smart people don't think others are stupid | Derek Sivers

Photo by Suzanne Tucker (Shutterstock).