An online course with 16 modules taught by Amit Varma and Ajay Shah. We cover learning, thinking, communicating, finance, math, probablistic thinking, mindsets and more!
Registration for Cohort 2 is now open. The cohort starts on April 12.
The most important lessons that we learn in our lives, we learn by living.
For many years, Ajay Shah and I have been talking about how our education system does not equip us with the set of basic life skills every person should possess. Most of what we learnt, we learnt when life happened to us and we paid attention. How great it would have been, I often wonder, if someone had taught us this stuff 30 years ago. We thought, why don’t we put together a course that aims to package and teach all these basic skills.
So we did. We’re calling it LIFE LESSONS.
We have spent years thinking about what should go into such a course. After designing it, we conducted our first cohort in November 2024. 51 people signed up. Now we’re back with cohort 2, which will consist of 16 webinars over four weekends starting April 12, 2025.
We will begin by talking about Learning How to Learn. This is a module we have put together because we believe that in these rapidly changing times, when AI and technology are upending the order of things, the core skill every human must know is the art of learning. If you master this, you’ll never be out of place.
We also want to talk about Learning How to Think. What mental models and frameworks help us better understand the world? What kind of cognitive fallacies should we avoid? What are the problems logical thinking can solve — and how should we think about the others?
What kind of Mindsets should we adopt? How should we think about Knowledge Management? And even after we sort out our own heads, how do we deal with the world. How do we learn to Communicate with others? How do we learn to Write, which is so important for thinking?
We want this course to be practical, and not just theory. We have modules that will help you figure out Personal Finance and Personal Health, subjects that we often tend to ignore. We will have modules on Math and the World and Probabilistic Thinking — and how you can apply them to the real world.
We will also talk about The History of Thought, where we will offer a gentle introduction to philosophy, ethics, political science and economics. We think of economics as a study of human behaviour — scarcity is all around us, and whether we acknowledge it or not, we respond to incentives. That is why one of our modules will just be The Foundations of Economic Thinking.
Learning any of these subjects is a lifelong journey, and we see this course as a launchpad, where we cover fundamentals, first principles and equip you with the frameworks and resources which can take you the the next level.
In our current design, our course consists of 16 webinars or modules, spread out over four weekends — ie, four Saturdays and four Sundays, with two 90-minute webinars on each of those days. A breakdown of these 16 modules is below.
Our second cohort Starts on April 12 and runs till May 4. We will have two webinars each on the following days: April 12, 13, 19, 20, 26, 27 and May 3 and 4. The webinar timings are 9 am to 10.30 am EST (7.30 pm to 9 pm IST) and 11 am to 12.30 pm EST (9.30 pm to 11 pm IST). We have chosen this timiing to be make it possible for American participants to attend without inconvenience.
The course costs US$ 2000. You can click here to pay.
Everyone who signs up for this second cohort gets one important privilege: you get to attend a future cohort for free.
Everyone who ever does this course also gets to be part of an LLC — no, not that kind of LLC, but the The Life Lessons Community. We’ll organise annual in-person meetups, during which we will conduct workshops, and we anticipate that being part of this community will eventually be as valuable as what you learn in the course. Being around smart learners can kick off a virtuous cycle, and we can’t wait to be part of that.
You will also have permanent access to me and Ajay, and we’ll have many more conversations outside the webinars than inside them!
And now for our course content:
DAY ONE (Saturday, April 12)
Module 1: Learning How to Look: Some Useful Frameworks
Module 2: Learning How to Think
DAY TWO (Sunday, April 13)
Module 3: Learning How to Learn: Basic Fundas
Module 4: Learning How to Learn: Getting it Done
DAY THREE (Saturday, April 19)
Module 5: Writing and Communication: Part 1
Module 6: Writing and Communication: Part 2
DAY FOUR (Sunday, April 20)
Module 7: Personal Finance
Module 8: Personal Health
DAY FIVE (Saturday, April 26)
Module 9: Know Thyself: Understanding Our Hardwiring
Module 10: Know the World: The History of Thought
DAY SIX (Sunday, April 27)
Module 11: Economics and Life
Module 12: Probabilistic Thinking
DAY SEVEN (Saturday, May 3)
Module 13: Quantitative Intuition
Module 14: Relationships
DAY EIGHT (Sunday, May 4)
Module 15: Purpose and Agency
Module 16: A Roadmap For Personal Growth
The above list will continue to evolve with time and feedback. We will offer copious resources and reading lists for further learning. Also, all these webinars will be recorded, and you will have permanent access to them.
Please note that we are not affiliated to anyone, and we don’t offer any kind of certification. We’re only about knowledge and learning. Join our club!
And ah, do read these testimonials from members of Life Lessons Cohort 1.
And in case you haven’t already, check out my podcast, The Seen and the Unseen, and my YouTube show with Ajay, Everything is Everything. The name of that show is also our inspiration for this course: Everything is everything — and we want to help you with the frameworks to connect the dots.
Click here to sign up. You can also write to me at amit[at]seenunseen[dot]in with any questions you may have.