🔏 Unchained Program

The Unchained program is designed for individuals with lower mindset scores. Students in the
Unchained program often have characteristics and personality attributes that strongly drive success,
but are limited by competing beliefs or perspectives that prevent these attributes from flourishing.

As the name implies, this program is designed to remove the restrictions for these students so that
they can truly thrive. Of all the student types, those in the Unchained program tend to experience the
greatest challenge, but also the most dramatic transformation.

TYPICAL PROGRESS FOR UNCHAINED

Unchained students are restricted by mindset. This can often be traced back to childhood
experiences where grades or results were heavily prioritised. In some cases, self-worth or parental
approval is linked to performance outcomes. The internalised pressure to “not fail” can create
visceral fear avoidance, shying away from challenges, personal insecurity, and an unwillingness to
experiment. As experimentation is necessary for growth, this means that until certain perspectives
are unlocked, all new techniques will inevitably fail. Over years of working with students with limiting
mindsets, we were surprised to learn that when these students are able to persevere through the
early stages and learn to think in new ways, their results can sometimes surpass that of any other
student. This “trial by fire” phenomenon seems to be unavoidable.
Unchained Program Overview
We now recognise that Unchained students have massive potential. They have often exerted more
effort, suffered more stress, more uncertainty and more anxiety than other students. These create
the fire. The missing component is a method of converting all of these experiences and emotions
into fuel for growth and transformation. On review of the research, as well as our own extensive
experience, we have identified the following components as critical for success:

1. Clear and explicit safety nets

2. Inclusive and empowering community (and engagement in this community)
3. Counterintuitively, early struggle and difficulty is correlated to higher success, while highly
specific direction and instruction creates worse outcomes (making the early stages overly
guided has been shown to create a higher risk of failure medium to long-term as students do
not learn to manage the difficulties when it is relatively easy)
4. Accessible and reliable support

Fortunately, we have found that when all of these guidelines are followed, the chance of success is
very high.

Characteristic Unchained Features

AVERSION TO EXPERIMENTATION

One of the core, unescapable requirements for success is to accept and expect failure. It is logically
impossible to improve any meaningful skill without experiencing failure. When we are engaging in
rapid growth, it is necessary to experiment at a high frequency (potentially multiple times per day),
which means lots of failures, very often. Accepting that every experiment is more likely to fail than
succeed is crucial to learning and growing. When failure is avoided, growth is avoided.

This is an incredibly hard pill to swallow, emotionally and mentally. For this reason, we will do our
best to support and guide you through this process, helping you transform your skills and free
yourself from the never-ending spiral of “what if”. Remember, we’re right by your side.

ADVANTAGES

• Massive growth potential once mindsets are changed.

• Dramatic improvements in mental health and learning skill (proportionately greater than any
other student type, by far)

DISADVANTAGES

• Emotionally difficult to commit to change.

• Time and energy consuming to create the change.
Recommended Strategy Guidelines
These guidelines have been developed to help you transition to our techniques as smoothly as
possible, avoiding the common mistakes that similar students often face.

Focus on the process

Not every attempt will result in success. And almost every attempt The worst thing you can do is
will feel rather uncomfortable! These are all normal parts of the not give something a go
growth process. Even if you aren’t able to see yourself improving, because you’re afraid you
you can rely on others (peers and experts) to give you feedback to won’t be able to do it right. In
help you see how you can optimise your process. It might take 100 this situation, you won’t learn
failures for your first win. After that, you might win 99% of the time, anything new (such as how
but if you focus too much on each failure, instead of what you not to do it), nor will you have
learned from it and how you can adapt your process to get 1% actually succeeded at it. No
better each time, it will take longer and longer to tick off the 100 matter what happens, you’ll
failures you need before you succeed. never know until you try!

Celebrate the wins

It’s easy to get bogged down in all the mistakes you’re making. But Some of our best students
for anyone learning a new skill, there will always be more things were Unchained. They
that were done wrong than were done right. Even the generation’s belittled their wins until they
greatest genius will be nothing in their first month compared to a realised that they had long
master. Everyone has their own journey and their own timeline. It’s surpassed their peers.
important to stop and smell the roses, but you can’t enjoy the smell Celebrating your wins keeps
if you’re too occupied comparing your roses to your neighbours! you motivated, and who
doesn’t want that?
Fail fast and fail often
As we’ve mentioned, failing is going to be your new favourite This is a method called
activity! Get used to failing often on things that don’t matter. This graduated exposure therapy
helps retrain the psychological barrier to experimentation. It could which is a standard form of
be as simple as being more decisive when looking at a menu, not brain retraining used by
worrying so much about how to greet someone, or changing the clinical psychologists.
way you write notes in a small way. Even if you don’t jump into the
deep end of the fear zone, dip your toes every day.

After the 30-day program, stay at the Technique Training stage until reliable feedback
consistently validates your technique. Focus on lots of practice and frequent application of Kolb’s
cycle during this time.
30-Day Program (Standard, Additional 6 Hours/Week)
Week 1 Create a schedule for spacing, interleaving and retrieval, following the guidelines
on prioritisation, task management and scheduling – Apply everything you’ve
learned from the Rapid Start Modules and the first few lessons to create a well-
prioritised plan for spacing, interleaving and retrieval. We want this to be locked in
for every week moving forward.
Complete all of the Fundamentals Mini-Lessons (3 hours) and practice them for
at least 3 hours – Replace your existing techniques or add these techniques on to
your current system. “In-class technique” and “note-taking” are recommended for
most students.
Give yourself feedback on at least 3 occasions – What went well and what do you
think you can improve for next time? Submit some of your feedback on Discord for
feedback from experienced peers. You’ll find this very useful.

Week 2 Complete the Briefing Stage to the end of “Common Traps” (3 hours)
Practice everything learned so far for at least 10 hours
Replace your normal feedback with strict application of Kolb’s experiential cycle
as per the worksheet on at least 3 occasions

Week 3 Practice everything learned so far for at least 10 hours. Remember to push the
boundaries a little and keep up that frequent failure experimentation!
Complete at least 5 cycles of strict Kolb’s, as per the worksheet

Week 4 Complete Briefing stage (2 hours).

Practice everything you have learned so far for at least 10 hours.
Complete at least 4 cycles of strict Kolb’s, as per the worksheet

MAXIMUM LIMIT: DO NOT PROCEED INTO ASCENT 1.

Any Attend one Live Clinic and submit work for dissection
week
Submit work on Discord for peer feedback at least once
(Optional) Submit work for Expert Feedback (Recommended end of week 2)
30-Day Program (Time-Limited, Additional 3 Hours/Week)
Week 1 Create a schedule for spacing, interleaving and retrieval, following the guidelines
on prioritisation, task management and scheduling – Apply everything you’ve
learned from the Rapid Start Modules and the first few lessons to create a well-
prioritised plan for spacing, interleaving and retrieval. We want this to be locked in
for every week moving forward.
Complete all of the Fundamentals Mini-Lessons (3 hours) and practice them for
at least 3 hours – Replace your existing techniques or add these techniques on to
your current system. “In-class technique” and “note-taking” are recommended for
most students.
Give yourself feedback on at least 3 occasions – What went well and what do you
think you can improve for next time? Submit some of your feedback on Discord for
feedback from experienced peers. You’ll find this very useful.

Week 2 Complete the Briefing Stage to the end of “Right vs Wrong Way to Practice” (2
hours)
Practice everything learned so far for at least 5 hours
Replace your normal feedback with strict application of Kolb’s experiential cycle
as per the worksheet on at least 3 occasions

Week 3 Complete Briefing stage to the end of “Mid-Briefing Quiz” (2 hours)

Practice everything learned so far for at least 6 hours. Remember to push the
boundaries a little and keep up that frequent failure experimentation!
Complete at least 4 cycles of strict Kolb’s, as per the worksheet

Week 4 Complete Briefing stage (2 hours).

Practice everything you have learned so far for at least 5 hours.
Complete at least 4 cycles of strict Kolb’s, as per the worksheet

MAXIMUM LIMIT: DO NOT PROCEED INTO ASCENT 1.

Any Attend one Live Clinic and submit work for dissection
week
Submit work on Discord for peer feedback at least once
(Optional) Submit work for Expert Feedback (Recommended end of week 2)