Growing up, I loved learning.
I LOVED getting report cards, feeling accomplished, understanding that I was progressing towards some goal and getting recognized for it.
On year 34 of my life, the only measurement I have of success is my bank account, some public attention and an internal barometer of accomplishment.
Gone are the days of teachers, tests and cool gold star stickers.
Now as you advance in your career, you usually only focus on one subject/field. You ignore everything else around you.
You start to miss all the learnings, beginnings and clear progress you made when you were a student.
So you have to force yourself to be a student…
A month ago I was on a beach in Israel hanging with Roey (who’s a teacher for Ido Portal). He was teaching us how to do “movement.”
I work out a lot, bike and am very active during the week.
But when we did this class, I ate total shit. I fell on my face, scraped my leg, got sweaty and loved every minute of it.
Roey came up to me and said a phrase that has permanently stuck with me: Be the student.
That stuck with me.
A KEY reason we stop growing post school is we stop having teachers.
A KEY reason we stop growing post school is we stop having teachers.
That’s not a typo. I wrote it twice so you’d read it twice and internalize it.
We forget what it’s like to learn from ground 0.
So I forced myself to get teachers and really invest in the things I wanted to learn.
Hebrew teacher: check.
Ping Pong teacher: oh yup.
Biz coach: nods.
Health coach: you know Adam watches my abs.
Books are good, online classes are nice, but what has a real impact for me is being accountable and learning from someone. Get a coach who you can truly learn from. There’s a reason historically that all the great masters of the past were apprentices for a long time.
Coaches and learning cost money.
Each ping pong lesson costs me $60.
But it’s only when you stop using the word COST and start using the word INVEST do you start to recognize the value of growing yourself.
The moment you stop learning, is the moment you stop growing. [click to tweet]
Book I’m reading lately
Replay by Ken Grimwood. This book was one of the best I’ve read this decade and I’m shocked I haven’t heard of this book before. Seriously, go read it if you like good fiction books.
7 responses to “Lifelong Learning — Why I Invested $60/Hr on Table Tennis”
This arrived to me just at the right time. My view is that we stop growing when we get too comfortable (consequently solution to that is building a system pushing us out of that, e.g. public promises). Also curiosity is helpful: value things around and ask questions when something is broken (but I have no clue how to induce that externally 🙂 )
I agree about your point of us stop having teachers. That definitely has me thinking. It sort of reminds me of one of my goals which is to learn Spanish, Portuguese and French all fluently. I will need teachers….Great Content!
Great article.Thank you!
I’m always learning from books, blog, and online courses but you’re right if I want to take it to the next level I need teachers.
The concept of getting a teacher to learn a skill is one of the key differences between practice and DELIBERATE practice that experts utilize outlined by Anders Ericsson in his book PEAK. Haha that sounded like a huge marketing plug but I highly recommend the book if you haven’t read it already.
I love this post. Everybody is suggesting to read books,blogs,listen to podcasts to improve your life. But as you have rightly said having mentor and being accountable is the most effective and fast way to learn the skill. Mostly we skip this because we rely on ourselves too much and the second reason is to save the money.
Noah PLEASE hit me up when you’re next in Israel. would love to meet up!