Adults, learn selfishly

We create our own syllabus

This is something I say to all my students – those in undergraduate and those in executive education. Whether you’re 19 years old or 59 years old, learning isn’t about someone else. It’s about you.

• What’s in it for me?

• What’s the “SO WHAT?”

• Will I remember this in 5 years?

In life, there is no syllabus. You are the boss of you.

Learn selfishly.

Learn together = school

For those in school, you’re blessed. There’s a syllabus and structure. There’s a cohort of like-minded people, nudging each other (think: team projects, study groups) to grok this stuff. With the right teacher, you are getting good stuff curated to you – key takeaways pointed out. The edges of the puzzle are being revealed. As Yuval Noah Harari explained in Sapiens (affiliate link) – we won because we form communities, communicate, and tell stories.

Yes, we can win together.

Write your own syllabus

When you graduate, you are still learning. But differently.

It’s silly to think that learning is confined to the first 20 years of your life, or a 2 year MBA is a magical portal where all the potions are learned. If you don’t think that GenAI is going to dramatically transform the way we work, you’re not paying attention. Whether you want to or not, we are all going to be “learning” for the long-haul.

Learn how to learn

Perhaps this is the difficult part. We are all different – our backgrounds, thought process, interests, priorities, quantitative wiring, verbal flexibility. We all learn differently. What works for you?

• Do you study best by yourself or with others?

• How can you create a “memory palace” to tuck away all those facts?

• Can you break it down into “buckets” and explain it to your cousin?

• Do you learn best 3-4 hours at a time, or in 25 minute Pomodoro bursts?

• Are you best on an iPad, marking up a pdf, or writing it down with a Lamy pen?

Be intentional

My brain is only 3% of my body weight, but 20% of my energy consumption. Basically, it’s a calorie monster. It also doesn’t want to spend energy learning / thinking / remembering stuff it doesn’t have to. My brain is lazy and so is yours. So our challenge is to train, coax, trick, it into learning the things we want.

“John, is it worth the calories?” – Managing Director, Consulting Firm

Make time

Many of the people I love most are givers. They give time to their kids, their parents, their neighbors, their jobs. That’s fine AND, it’s time to learn selfishly. If I could give you 9 weeks of dedicated time = what would you learn, what craft would you hone, what business would you start, what magic would you create?

Yes, 1 hour a day for a year = 365 hours. Divide that by a 40 hour work week = 9 weeks of learning.

Of course you need to say this in a political correct way, but be selective with your time, relationships, and interests. You can’t be a 100% people-pleaser and a 100% strategic in your life.

Learning takes time. Practice takes time.

Be crafty, Be strategic

It’s anachronistic to think we will buy a textbook, start at the “Introduction” then plod all the way to the glossary.

Be picky what you learn, and why you learn it. Find things that are accretive to your life, your career, your unfair advantage. Can you learn random, unrelated, less helpful things? Sure. Watch Jeopardy endlessly and amass trivia in your brain. Sure, you can, but I don’t recommend it. There’s too much junk in our minds already.

Learn for the long-term

You will forget most of what you learn. As B.F. Skinner famously quipped, “Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.” I guess our brains are like DRAM memory = turn it off, and the data disappears. So if we only get a little flash memory in our heads; if we can only remember a fraction of what we learn, what do you want to put in it? What should focus on.

Reverse-engineer the answer

Who is your audience? What is the purpose of the meeting, presentation, pitch? How do you want them to feel at the end of the experience? Relieved? Informed? Concerned? Excited? Okay, then how do we learn enough to make this happen? How can you achieve that objective? Learn that.

Studying for the exam? What is the teacher mentioning in class, on the practice exams, by email, in person? If they are repeating over and over again = hint: it’s on the exam.

Writing a proposal? If you’re in client services, then wait for it. . . . focus on the client. . .and serve them. What did they say in the last 3 meetings? Re-read your meeting minutes. Listen.

The old consulting quip: “Tell the client what they said to you, and they will think you are a genius.”

Learn frameworks (basic recipes)

In strategy class, we learn a LOT of frameworks. They are simple and useful. It doesn’t take up too much space (in your brain). It’s just the “set up” and you can add the ingredients, data later. Break problems down into buckets:

3C (customer, competitor, company), 4P (product, price, place, promotion), STP (segment, target, position), purchase funnel (awareness, interest, consideration, trial, purchase, repurchase), MR > MC (keep selling in the short term as long as marginal revenue is greater than marginal cost), feed the bottleneck, design the organization to the jobs (not the people), industry lifecycle, technology adoption lifecycle, VRIO (valuable, rare, hard to imitate, owned resources), DCF (discounted cash flow), inputs/outputs, business at the speed of trust

Use ChatGPT

My parents are huge users of ChatGPT; they know the power of this Harry Potter stick. I use it daily. No really, daily. This is an endlessly helpful tutor who explains things in very structured ways. 이상입니다.

Learn from an expert

What’s the best way to learn this? 3 hours in front of the computer, or 15 minutes with an expert? Find the people who know this content, and ask them 10 good questions. You might save yourself an enormous amount of time.

Informational interviews are gold. Reach out to someone you’d like to learn from. Be respectful, available, and worthy of apprenticing. Reach out, be flexible, make it convenient for them. Do 1-2 hours of research BEFORE the call. Be an informed student. Ask thoughtful questions. Get your money’s worth out of the 20 min call.

Use it or lose it

What use is the learning, if you can’t do something with it? As adults, this cannot just be head knowledge. Why are you learning Spanish, if you don’t plan to use it? You better be watching Telenovelas, reading Cien años de soledad by Gabriel García Márquez, or chatting with friends in Spanish. Do something with what you learned.

Build, advise, help, decide, reflect, analyze, correct, teach, simulate, sell, explore. What’s in it for you?

Are you learning it because “I should?” That’s a terrible reason. If you’re in school – sure, do the work, get good grades – but more importantly, how can you find clever ways to use this stuff? Make it relevant to your life?

Journal, write it down

For my healthcare strategy class, I had students journal. Yes, 14 weeks of 3 hour sessions and 40+ preWatch videos + The Long Fix, Dr. Vivian Lee (affiliate link) into a 14 pg journal:

• What is your key takeaway?

• What’s your point of view?

• What questions do you have on this topic?

• If you were to read this 5 years later, would this content make sense to you?

• Could you use this journal to teach the class next semester?

Create a Google Doc; something for yourself, where you can catalog both the important and the frivolous.

For me, this is one of the many reasons I blog: a) to hone my thinking b) share what I know c) learn d) storehouse my thinking. It’s my own journal. Blog post of 600 famous quotes? Yes, this is my personal library.

Make 1 PPT page

Take a topic, and melt it down into a chutney. When there is fewer words, and more insights. That’s bitcoin. That’s what you really mean. Structured thinking. Clear title that says something. Persuading with data.

This takes rigor and is very doable. One PowerPoint a Day.

Teach it to someone

You don’t learn something until you try to teach it. That is the truth. After you’ve made the PPT, use it to explain to a friend or a cousin. Are you making sense? Could they take what you told them, then turn around and explain it to their mother tomorrow? If so = great = you were clear.

Try and fail (cheaply)

Some things you can only learn by trial. No matter of studying about critical conversations will help you to tell your tenants to pay their rent on time. This is awkward, difficult, real, and hard. So you need to practice in a safe environment, and do it. Do it. Do it. Get feedback. Do it. Improve. Do it. Do it.

School is the safest place to experiment. Try things out on your professors and classmates = NOT your manager and clients. Think Toastmasters.

Sell it

You can only sell something that is good. Something that adds value. If it sucks, no one will pay you for it. There is too much free, good stuff out there. Learn something well. Hone your craft. Create a product. As Seth Godin says [paraphrase] “ship art.” This will motivate you to learn, improve, do.

Write 5 proposals. Trust me, you will learn a lot about your content, your clients, and yourself.

Embrace the suck

In the US Marines, there is a saying and ethos around doing things that are un-fun, and yet, necessary. Complaining is often not useful, instead, lean into the hurt, pain, and unpleasantness. Embrace the suck.

I learned this at a crucible called MBA. The discipline, the organization, the culture of inquiry, the practice, the dialectic back/forth and debate. The stress, the exams, the deliverables, the team work, and sometimes shame.

Stay curious, explore

We don’t know ourselves perfectly. As Walt Whitman said [paraphrase], “we contain multitudes.” We are dynamic, changing, interested, and interesting. Life is super non-linear, and we need to learn many things. Areas of our life converge, evolve, shape, shift, grow, atrophy. C’est la vie.

Hubris is a bad look. We can all think of people – in our lives, in political office, in the corner office – who mistakenly think they have all the answers. The heuristics and biases are too numerous to name here – but YO, wake up. There is so much to learn, and the unwillingness to listen to others, sync it up with your own beliefs, and add value can be a bit deafening. A shouting match.

Give yourself grace

I’d love to think that I only watch YouTube videos on GenAI, business, strategy, consulting, and healthcare. Not true. I “doomscroll” YouTube just like everyone else. I look up and three hours have passed.

We are all human. Let’s just make good choices and have fun. Simple things, done with pleasure.