Learn Every Day

“Learn every day” is cliché advice, I know, but people always ask me about learning – what I’m reading, what podcasts I like, what documentaries I watch – so I thought I’d post a quick article on it.

Firstly, I don’t read. I’m ADD as fuck – I don’t have the patience or attention span to sit and read. But anyone that knows me well, or has seen any of my videos, knows that I am a huge advocate of listening-learning. I was once a big advocate of Audible – Amazon’s audiobook hub – but then YouTube Red came along.

YouTube Red allows you to just hit the ‘download’ button on any video that you’d like to watch, anytime you’re in Wi-Fi (i.e. at home), and within seconds it will be on your phone. It also allows you to listen to YouTube while your phone is locked. So unlike normal watching, you’re not ripping through your data, nor your battery.

Every single day before I leave the house, I open YouTube Red, scroll and hit the download button on a few videos that I want to listen to – anything from health, to politics, to entrepreneurship, to my favourite podcast: The Joe Rogan Experience – and then I’m set for the day. They play back to back as I go about my business.

I’m forever listening on my phone. Anyone who has ever bumped into me on the street can confirm this. Nothing gets done without earphones – gym, tram rides, cleaning my apartment, hell even when I’m getting a leg massage after a weekend of coaching, I have earphones in (often to the unhappiness of the masseuse who wants to talk about her day).

I feel that this form of self-education is taking over. I failed High School. And yet I’m one of the most successful people to come out of that High School. Less and less people are attending university (for a variety of reasons – namely that degrees are becoming useless), and I feel that this form of technology assisted, self-education is replacing it. I recently wrote an article for the No Hat Digital blog on this very topic – see here. More and more people are learning by listening, focusing in on the things that they want to learn, and are beneficial to their lives. In fact, out of the gazillion topics covered in the iTunes Podcasting Store, ‘education’ is the second most popular topic (after comedy, which is pretty awesome – comedy is finally getting it’s dues).

It kills me to see people sitting on a tram playing Candy Crush. I sound like a judging wanker, I know, but especially if that person is badly overweight and looks like they’re ready to neck themselves, it really does kill me. I feel bad for them! Because I take this as an indication of how they’re living their lives – giving into immediate gratification and not working on anything for the long-term (I could be wrong on that, it’s just how I interpret it). You have a little box in your pocket with all of the knowledge in the history of the world on it – and you’re spending your hour train ride to the job that you hate, mindlessly playing games. Fuck, even just have some helpful shit sent into your brain, while you’re playing.

Anything that you want to learn about is literally at your fingertips – and if you’re reading this blog, the chances are, you want some help with the ladies, with confidence, with lifestyle, etc. So even if it’s just 10 minutes a day, learn something. Start with my videos haha. But seriously, expand on what you know. What will help your life right now? Do you hate your job? Learn about business. Are you unhealthy? Learn about food. Are you in a shit relationship? Learn about communication. Do you want to travel? Listen to people who have done so. Again, with the little miracle box in your pocket, containing everything that has ever been known, there is no excuse.