Morning all (just about),
I wanted to talk about the power of contextually relevant learning and how it’s (in my opinion) the most effective way to learn.
Right now – one of the big drives for me – is to learn more about management and leadership.
This is the space I’m stepping into right now and so that’s what I’m reading.
Sounds simple doesn’t it?
It is.
But I’m not sure how many people do it.
Let’s elaborate.
About 3 months ago I was at a place where I really needed to work on the sales side of the business because that’s where we were having the most problems….
So what did I do?
I studied 9+ sales books.
I read, I made notes and I did my hardest to try and train the team (127+ videos recorded).
Now…..that team is somewhat up and running.
The next problem I’m facing now is management…
So what am I doing?
I’m about 11 hours into the study of management books (and I’ve got a third one I’m going to read after).
I’m also doing 1-to-1 training with all of my team leaders and have also set them up with 1-month of accountability coaching with my coach Valentina so they can grow and improve.
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This is how people (in my view) can effectively learn – make it contextually relevant to the challenges of your everyday life and that’s how you’ll be able to see instant returns.
Our ‘sales problem’ has massively improved from where we were 6 months ago – and this has ultimately come from extreme focus upon the ‘problem’ of the sales team.
Now management upskilling of myself as well as my team is what I’m trying to work upon and instill – which will again lead to strong growth for the company by way of more cohesion within the team.
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Don’t read general books about entrepreneurship – read books tactically to help you solve a ‘present problem’ that you’re experiencing.
Again this doesn’t even need to be ‘books’ – the medium doesn’t matter. Aggressively attacking it is what matters.
So whether it’s relentless YouTube videos or blog posts – as long as you STUDY, the issue you will improve.
Another component of how you ‘learn effectively and get big results immediately’ is making sure that this practice involves INTENTIONAL practice. That you look at where your weak/challenging areas are – and then specifically work to solve that issue.
That is the challenging part for many people – working on that issue specifically is challenging to say the least.
But this is how you can make incredible gains in a short period of time.
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I got this inspiration from hearing a little bit about Drew Houston’s story of how he learnt to ‘grow Dropbox’ and he said he spent a summer reading sales/marketing/management books because he thought these foundational skills would be important to building a business.
And to further that narrative – it’s also what Elon Musk said he did when learning about how to send a rocket into space – he said he read about it and figured it out.
All of the information is there at your fingertips just waiting to be consumed.
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Right, that’s it for today. Catch you on the next one!