Episode 182. Learning as an Adult, Committing to Your Professional & Personal Growth, and Being More Interesting

Continuous learning and development are crucial for the long term success of your online business or personal brand.

Let’s consider this scenario…

When it comes to your choice of books to read, do you find yourself only reading books that are related to business and entrepreneurship in hopes that reading these non-fiction books will help you grow your business or personal brand?

Or are you letting yourself explore topics that you know absolutely nothing about, but you’re giving yourself the time and space to dive into these books because you genuinely want to learn and be a student?

Or how about this: when you read a book, do you find yourself unknowingly trying to rush through the book so you can check it off your list of books to read because you have a goal of the number of books you want to read for the year?

Or do you take the time to write down notes and thoughts that come up while you read, then spend additional time to process and organize those notes and see how you can integrate the takeaways into your daily life or practices?

These are the questions that inspired this episode 👀

In This Episode:

Often we will say that we want to build thought leadership, but how much are we actually embodying what we’re saying?
The discomfort of being a beginner again
Expanding your breadth of perspectives and learning things you know nothing about
Creating your own curriculum and motivating yourself to learn
Document your learnings in real time
It’s okay to learn something for pure joy, not because there will be an ROI

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Learning & development for a successful solopreneur business and personal brand

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Often we will say that we want to build thought leadership, but how much are we actually embodying what we’re saying?

So how does this apply to the context of building thought leadership?

Often we will say that we want to build thought leadership, but how much are we actually embodying what we’re saying?

For example, are you doing things just so you can be seen as someone who has thought leadership, or are you actually embodying the mindset, lifestyle, actions and decisions of someone who truly, genuinely, wants to build thought leadership from the inside out?

Here’s another example: Are you someone who says you like to learn and are curious? Or are you actually doing the things that show how you are someone who genuinely enjoys the learning process?

These are the questions I want us to think about as we dive into the conversation for today, which are:

1) First, being open to creating more opportunities and touch points for us to learn and be in a beginner’s shoes again.

2) Actually integrating such opportunities for learning and growth into our regular lives so we can not only further build upon our existing thought leadership, but also be a more well rounded, interesting human being.

That’s the conversation I want to open up today for all of us to think about.

The discomfort of being a beginner again

Right now, as an adult, I find that two hurdles often come up when I think about why I am not making time for the learning and development activities that I want to pursue, even though I know these learning activities would yield a lot of benefits for me.

First, I tell myself I don’t have the time or energy to do these learning or development activities. Which seems like a fair reason and, just like many of you listening, that’s probably the same thing coming up for you as well.

If you and I were to look at our calendars, it’s probably not that easy to find in the time slots where we could dedicate an hour or two on a regular basis to do these learning or growth activities.

Secondly, and I’m curious whether this second reason is actually the real culprit, I also low key resist the discomfort of learning and growth.

For example, my parents keep telling me to take Chinese language lessons because I cannot read or write Chinese. I can only speak Cantonese at a basic level and I cannot understand Mandarin.

But I would immediately brush off my parent’s suggestion to take up Chinese lessons because it just does not seem fun. It seems really, really hard.

And I think that’s where most of us stop. We think that learning a new language would be nice, or taking up a skill-based class would be fun. But we will use the excuse of not having the time and energy to do it.

Combine this with us unconsciously telling ourselves that doing the class or learning the thing is just too much effort aka it requires us to put ourselves in some level of discomfort. Well, you have a recipe for inaction – zero action, zero learning, and zero growth.

And what about those of you who like your job or feel like things in your career/business are going really well right now?

Maybe you don’t feel an urge to learn or upskill yourself, and instead focus on doing what you’ve been doing and are increasingly getting better at.

The way I see it, while that is sometimes a great season to be in, I do suspect the longer you stay too comfortable and complacent in this state, you’ll unknowingly develop a fear of being bad at something new as well as a fear of having to start over again.

So you end up telling yourself, “What’s the point of even trying to learn something new?”

Why put yourself through the extra work and perhaps self doubt, confusion, and feeling like you’re absolutely trash at this new thing?

Here’s the thing. My personal opinion is that all of this is coming up because frankly, we just don’t want to embarrass ourselves and look bad.

We don’t want to compare ourselves with other people and see that we are behind. But here’s a perspective I want to offer. It may or may not land with some of you right now, but allow me to just plant this seed first:

Being willing to put yourself in a position where you’re mediocre or even below mediocre. Being willing to learn this thing or doing something is intrinsically joyful for you and therefore being willing to allow yourself to pursue something you’re curious about or interested in. That’s SUCH a respectable thing.

It takes courage, if anything, to be at square one at something, especially as a full grown adult.

Seriously I think most reasonable human beings would actually applaud you, celebrate you, and want you to keep going at this learning and development pursuit.

I sincerely hope that all of us can learn to be okay with being a beginner again.

To take it up one more notch, I’d also argue that if anything, putting yourself in situations of discomfort can actually accelerate your growth.

Unlike having an environment where it feels easy to excel and makes you feel like you’re a top student or a big fish in a small pond, when you’re in a learning environment where you’re the small fish, it means you actually have to put in the work to do better and be better.

You can’t just coast anymore. You need to put yourself in a position where you don’t have it all together or know it all. For example, It’s okay to be in a position where you actually need to ask a lot of seemingly basic questions in order to learn.

All that to say, even though we may naturally want to only try something new or commit to something if it feels like it’d be easy for us to do well right away or within a short time span, Is such a situation really the best for your long term and sustained learning and development? I think not.

As we continue forward with the conversation for today, I want us to first recognize that we must not let our ego and resistance to discomfort or the resistance to being a beginner get in the way of our learning and growth.

Expanding your breadth of perspectives and learning things you know nothing about

For a lot of us who are thinking about building thought leadership and creating a body of work that captures that thought leadership and documents our story, unique perspectives, current learnings, and expertise, one thing that I’m sure we’ve all come across is the pressure to niche down to become known for JUST ONE THING.

The more I think about it, the more I’m starting to develop the viewpoint that being able to have a broad range of perspectives is a pretty cool flex.

If anything, having a wide range of knowledge or perspectives is equally as fantastic as having a deep expertise in one thing.

If you were to ask me, “Why, Cheryl? Why do you think it’s important to have a breadth of knowledge and perspectives?”

Well, I think there’s likely way more reasons out there than I could possibly name. But I’ll share three reasons why I’m motivated to expand my own realms of awareness.

Reason 1: The broader our perspectives and range of knowledge, the more angles, metaphors, examples, etc, we can use to help explain our core ideas.

Meaning: we can extrapolate insights or patterns from other industries or fields to support the arguments we’re making as it pertains to our own subject matter.

For example, you can literally draw parallels between different sectors or completely unrelated topics to help paint the picture of why something is at stake.

And if this explanation is better able to help your audience understand the problem, they’re more likely to appreciate the further insights or solutions you share.

Reason 2: The more knowledge and perspectives I am aware of, the more I can use them to support my thought processes and statements.

As someone who is committed to building my own thought leadership, I need to sharpen my skill of being able to back up the claims I make and present a compelling case for why I believe in what I’m saying.

Conversely, it also lets me poke holes in my own ideas. For example, new information might help me realize what I was saying is not necessarily true or it can help me recognize potential counter arguments.

Reason 3: Honestly, I think you just became a more interesting person with an interesting life. And I think that in itself is a very, very compelling reason.

Those are some of my top of mind and arguments for why I’m a fan of learning about even topics that may not have a direct overlap with what you’re currently doing, especially in terms of your career or business or personal brand.

Now this all sounds FANTASTIC in theory, but when we actually have to turn this into practice, we have all sorts of reasons why we can’t make it a regular habit in our lives.

Creating your own curriculum and motivating yourself to learn

For a lot of grown ass adults like myself, it’s honestly so much easier to just react to and receive the information that enters our little bubble, rather than proactively seeking out new ideas, information, skills, perspectives, experiences, and so on.

One thing I’ve heard from people around me is that they feel like the reason why they don’t have much perspectives or knowledge or awareness of a range of topics is because of their limited exposure to certain circumstances or world events.

For example, some of my Signaporean friends feel that because they grew up in Singapore, they have very little understanding of the social, economic or political issues that are more prevalent in, let’s say, North America. As a result, they feel limited in how much they know or understand, compared to their friends overseas.

While I do think we may each have different initial circumstances or the initial access to certain experiences or opportunities, or even a difference in the extent to which we are exposed to certain issues or subject matters. At the same time, I do believe that the onus is still on us to take ownership of our own learning and development and increase our range of perspectives and knowledge.

For example, you can read books (and that includes both books you can buy or books you can check out at your local library), you can listen to podcasts, you can follow blogs, you can subscribe to newsletters such as ones available on Substack, you can read research papers, you can go to meet up events and talk to people.

In this day and age, there is a wealth of free and widely available banks of information that you can access.

This also means that you can go ahead and create your own curriculum. You can create your own learning environment.

But whether or not you actually create your own conditions to learn and grow, it will ultimately depend on your motivation to actually create those conditions where you are learning and therefore growing.

Even if you do feel like you were given the cards you were dealt, whether it be the education you did or did not receive or the certain cultures or experiences that you did or did not get exposure to and so on.

At this current point in time, we have technological advancements, the Internet, and other resources that are arguably accessible to many of us.

Don’t let your own thoughts about yourself obscure your potential to learn and grow.

Document your learnings in real time

This would not be a Thought Leader Club Podcast episode without me encouraging you to not just take in new perspectives and expand your knowledge and awareness.

But also, document what you’re learning, even in real time. Share what you’re learning regularly on a platform like LinkedIn. Commit to building a body of work, even if you are a work in progress. Again, there are many reasons to support the benefits of doing so.

First, there’s ample support for the idea of “learning by teaching”. Meaning, when you share what you’re learning with others, that benefits both you, the person sharing what you’re learning, and your audience, who is reading what you’ve been learning.

If you take a look in the scientific literature, you will find experiments where the researchers found that when a participant is asked to teach the material to someone else before they get tested on that material, they’d perform much better on that test and demonstrate better free recall of that material.

In other words, when you learn with the intention of teaching it later, you learn the information more deeply.

Second, when you make a conscientious effort to write or share about what you are learning, the sheer process of writing out your thoughts can help you identify where your understanding or thinking is unclear.

You can also get feedback on your knowledge gaps simply by putting your work out there in public. In my opinion, being able to acknowledge your gaps or even mistakes is what most experts and thought leaders would probably consider to be critical in building thought leadership.

Finally, in this modern day and age, building thought leadership, building expertise, building authority and credibility, for lack of better word, it is a DIY (do-it-yourself) initiative.

Even if you may not currently have certain credentials or professional work experience, there is an opportunity for you to get your hands dirty, start your learning journey, and actually build a body of work that documents how you are taking initiative to create your own experiences and create your own learning curriculum.

Continue to put in the reps and start building visibility and growing your network of people who are in that line of work or industry and combine that with a beginners mindset, the passion and spirit of someone who’s genuinely curious and committed to learning and growing in this area.

You’ll truly never know what opportunities will come your way, simply because you’re doing, quite frankly, a lot of the hard, gritty, dirty work that a lot of people aren’t willing to do, even if they already have the fancy job title.

With that, I sincerely invite you to practice getting your learnings and new insights and perspectives out there.

Start by creating your own curriculum, find the resources and/or teachers available to you, and share what you’re learning in real time so you can get feedback and assess your own learning and growth.

It’s okay to learn something for pure joy, not because there will be an ROI

Now I’m curious, up to this point in the conversation so far, what are you interested to learn more about? Are you curious to learn more about a subject matter related to your scope of work or what you do in your business? Or is it something that literally has nothing to do with work?

If you’re keen, do feel free to send me a message on either Instagram or LinkedIn to share with me. I’d love to hear more about how you’re taking ownership of your own learning and development.

Anyway, I’ve been having conversations recently with folks around how to keep up to date with your industry.

For example, for a lot of us, we are in a field or industry where a lot of stuff is happening and changing, so it becomes relevant to think about how to set yourself up so that you don’t become stagnant, static, and hence irrelevant.

For example, one person I was speaking to shared with me that he’s proactively trying to get out of his industry, which is marketing. All of his clients and colleagues are in marketing, so he’s been experiencing topic fatigue.

What he’s been trying to do more of is literally expose himself to other topics besides marketing.

For example, he shared with me that he’s been reading up on the intersection between consumerism and sustainability, which has no immediate correlation to his work in marketing.

But this is a genuine interest of his and it was important for him to actively spend time learning about subjects that matter to him and to share what he’s learning in real time, even if it’s not directly related to his niche.

Another friend I spoke to is currently spending time learning about the concept of creative living and how to be a more creative person, which doesn’t directly overlap into her current scope of work.

But she shared with me that this has helped her keep things interesting and she actually feels more enriched in her overall life and work as a result.

She acknowledges that learning about creative living and having a more creative lifestyle isn’t going to help her make more money in her specific line of work. But what mattered to her was that the learning enriches her, helps her tap into creativity, and as a result, she is showing up better for her actual work.

While it’s amazing to spend time learning about topics or skills that could benefit your professional life, I also want to invite you to think about how you can integrate learning opportunities purely for the sake of enjoying the learning process or for the joy of trying something new or completely unrelated to your work.

The thing is, learning for learning’s sake, meaning learning not because of career advancement or trying to get any more remuneration, but simply because it delights our brains to learn – THAT IS SOOOO FREAKING BADASS. Seriously!

This is also going to add so much more variety and novelty into your life and therefore make you an even more interesting person with an even more interesting life and outlook on life.

SO. FRICKING. COOL.

As we start to round out the episode for today, it is my sincere hope that this conversation was able to offer you something to think about, and it fueled something within you.

Right now, as we are all busily working at our jobs or growing our businesses and taking care of all the other responsibilities in our personal lives, it’s really, really, really easy to let our own learning and development slide.

But, I know that if you come up to this point, then there’s something innate within you that really wants to stretch yourself and develop the character and skills to 1) truly build thought leadership, 2) expand your horizons both in terms of knowledge, perspectives, skills, and experience and 3) to become an interesting person who has interesting perspectives and an interesting life.

So the next time you pick up a book, please take your time to really marinate in what you’re learning. Take notes. Annotate the book. Write down your questions to follow up on. Organize and sort out all the notes you wrote down.

Think of how you can integrate the insights and lessons from the book into your day to day. Really EMBODY the mindset of not just a thought leader, but also embrace the heart and spirit of a student who’s passionate about learning and development.

Sounds good? Awesome. Let’s get to work.