The Wandering Pro | Career Podcast By SK NEXUS
The only Podcast in Pakistan diving deep into Career and Business "for you". Get real experience based mindset unlock content, helping you upskill your career or upscale your business.
Hosted by Saqib Tahir: https://bio.saqibtahir.com/
Site link: https://sknexus.com/twp
Support the show: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sknexuspk
The Wandering Pro | Career Podcast By SK NEXUS
TWP 005 - Learning How To Learn - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Failing to teach people how to learn is probably the biggest failure of our ecosystem. In today’s episode I want to talk about three ways you can keep on learning, and keep on growing.
Covering areas like:
- What is Learning how to Learn
- The 3 ways I have used to learn
- What is an educational content creator
- How to gather useful knowledge
- What is Project Based Learning
- What is wrong with Ad boosted courses
- What to keep an eye out on in future
Hosted by Saqib Tahir
Read companion summary article: https://sknexus.com/twp005/
Further learning and references
https://jamesclear.com/how-to-stop-procrastinating
https://sknexus.com/attempt-vs-try/
https://sknexus.com/keep-learning-as-a-professional/
https://sknexus.com/solving-the-struggle-with-inspiration/
https://sknexus.com/why-professionals-fail/
As always -
Thank you for listening, please send any questions or feedback to podcast@sknexus.com
See you next time.
Check out our free Career & Business Resources: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sknexuspk/extras
If you're looking to upskill - check out our Discord server: https://discord.sknexus.com/
Keep the show running: https://buymeacoffee.com/sknexuspk
Welcome to another episode of The Wandering Pro. So in today's episode, there is a very near and dear to my heart topic. And a very special topic, I guess, for a lot of people. So when we talk about upskilling, especially in a professional context, that people who are doing jobs or freelancing or doing their own small business, whenever we talk about upskilling for those people, the number one concept that I have seen, people struggle with is basically how to learn new things. And as you know, the previous episode, Escaping 9-5, the whole focus was on how to manage your main gig. with our side gig. What is a good main gig? And then how to make time for the side gig? And then what should be the requirements of the side gig? We discussed all this in the last episode. You can go and listen to it. But in today's episode, now the question naturally came that okay, I did all that time management. I took out time for myself. I am ready to dedicate. I am learning new things. So what should I learn? Right? And that's, I think, the biggest struggle for a lot of professionals out there who are in Pakistan. And the reason, like I don't like to blame things or environment, as you might have already known in the previous episodes, but if we have to condense it or distill it, it's all about education. I think the whole issue comes with our education system. And not to say that our education system is good or bad or whatever, like there are good universities, good schools out there, which teach as much as a person should learn, so on and so forth. But if we take an overall journalistic view, as much as I have talked to people, the biggest failure of our education system is that it is Basic concept which is the purpose of pursuing education, they don't teach anyone. And what is that concept? Learning how to learn. Okay? Here when our people go to university, their expectation is set from the first day that I will do this university, then I will get a job, then I will earn money, so on and so forth, which we talked about in the second episode. But that should not be the goal of obtaining a degree in university education or even high school education. The goal of high school education, university and even job to some extent, that you have to put in a routine. where you can understand how to learn new things, how to develop curiosity. If I want to bring a new skill set to myself, then what actionable steps should I take to gather it? Or just the basic thing, how to make discipline. Okay, making discipline of something, means if I set a goal, let's say I have to go to the gym, then how do I go to the gym every day? What can I do in order to pursue that mission of mine? Right? So learning is very similar to that. For the last year or so, I, like, as I said earlier, I have been in freelancing groups, in a few more discord communities and in my friends circle, so on and so forth. I have talked to 200, 300, 400 people about this, about the problem of learning. And the root cause is always the same, as I said, most people who have especially graduated from our local education system, they just don't know how to learn. Right? Their passion dies down here, or they don't know how to start. Or they have passion and the direction is completely wrong. Or they are stuck in a job and they don't have time. So that's like the whole thing. Like you get the idea. This whole podcast is about this. how to figure these key issues that are more prevalent in our local ecosystem compared to the West or other regions. Like the issue is so bad that we are often in Discord communities and servers, so people will come and ask such basic things and the default response people get annoyed that before asking, they had to Google once. Like people here don't bother so much that I can Google. They want to make some halwa, heat it up, put it on the spoon and feed it. They don't put even a little effort. And that's just really painful to see. I think most people don't intend to be lazy, especially those who are pursuing professional excellence. But you know, because of the system they grew up in, because of the current ecosystem they are working in. their mindset has become such that I will go to this place and they will just take things in their hands and I will learn it. I want to learn cyber security, I will join a cyber security group and they will tell me everything. Next week, I will become a cyber security expert or I want to learn freelancing, so I will go and take this course and next week I will earn 10 crore rupees on Upwork. So that false sense of achievement that has been created in our environment, I don't know, to be honest, why it may be requires a little deep retrospection in the future, but I've seen it a lot and I think the basic thing is that people I don't know how to learn something new. So in today's episode, I want to cover three ways that a person can enhance his learning. So just a disclaimer that these are obviously not the only ways you can do it. But in my experience of being a learner for more than a decade and continuing to be a learner, these three ways I think are the best way to learn new things. So let me get some basics aside. My suggestion to everyone is, which I mentioned in the last episode, that if you are a technical person, You should try to learn as much non-technical or soft skills as you can. And if you are a person with soft skills or you are in a non-technical role like sales, marketing, design or creative role like video editing or photo editing, then you should learn skills from the technical side. Because that way you build a complementary skill set which makes you as a whole individual a better professional and makes you more fulfilled. And most important of all, it helps you connect the dots as you grow through your career, right? So, keep this in mind. If you are technical, then pursue non-technical. If you are non-technical, then pursue technical. Simple as that. That should be your starting point. So, the number one way to learn, unfortunately, it's still courses. But that's where I would like to stop before you click away from this podcast. I am not selling a course, but I want to clarify some things. Look, the thing with courses is that course is a very easy to create product. It is. I can work hard for a week and make a course. I did upwork for 2 years, I can easily go to chatgpt, make an outline, turn on the video camera and make 15-20 videos. Then I can package it and run ads on Facebook for 1000 rupees. And then I can promise everyone that you will become a very good freelancer. Trust me, making a course is not such a difficult job at a basic level. And because of that reason, the market is full of courses. Literally, every Alif Bay is sitting to make a course. And you'll see sometimes that there are people who don't know anyone. And they are earning millions of rupees by selling the course, which is kind of sad to see. So here's what I mean when I say that the number one method, number one, not like as in best method, but in the first number, the courses are like this, if you meet some conditions. Yay, conditions are back. So first of all, my favorite two types of courses are the creator led courses and the LinkedIn learning platform. And I'll tell you why. Let's do LinkedIn learning first because it's the easiest way to explain. Look, LinkedIn is a professional network social media. It's a different thing that 90% of people are using it as Facebook. That's fine. But you know, at the root of it, it's still a professional network, right? Jobs are needed, people look for jobs and then they do the job. And if they get a job because of LinkedIn, they get a brand boost or value boost. And because of this brand and value boost, they invest a lot in their LinkedIn learning courses and by far... some of the most easy to access or accessible courses that I have found on LinkedIn Learning. Like when I came to a new product, I had to learn leadership, or team management, or basically learn website development, or SEO. So LinkedIn Learning is also a very good thing, which I really like, because they have made learning paths. You have to learn any skill set, you don't need to do much research. Let's say you want to be a digital marketer, they will have a learning path, in which they will have compiled 20-30 hours of videos and courses. And just go through that, and at the end of the day, you'll... have significant knowledge and exercises at your hand that you can start becoming a digital marketer. The other reason why I like Lingan Learning is I think, as Pakistanis, it's a very affordable option. It's become very expensive because of the dollar, I think it's Rs.6,000 per month right now and it might change down the road. But if you compare it to like all the other course platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and so on and so forth, it is way higher value because you are getting their entire library for one price. So technically speaking, if you remember the last episode, I said you will take 20 hours out of the week, so you will have 80 hours in a month. So if you invest those 80 hours into LinkedIn Living, you will learn as much as you can in 6000 rupees. So in the West, they say that if you want to invest, invest in S&P Global. It's one of the best index funds. So I follow Alex Almouzy, I like his stuff. He says, son, you don't have money yet, first earn money, till then invest in S&ME. If you have money left over, your savings are there, you have a learning budget of 6000 rupees a month, then put it on courses and learning, not in any savings account or funds, where you may get a return of 2 rupees. That's not how return works, right? So, until you reach a certain point in your career where you're successful, the best way to upskill is keep on learning and Lingual learning is a really affordable, call it, really high ROI option out there for you to see. Again, I am not saying that you will become an expert pro max by doing Lingual learning courses. But it's better as a starting point. I've seen that it's a very easy frictionless point. The person who doesn't know anything, doesn't even want to do Google, doesn't want to join communities, doesn't want to talk to people. For him, he just wants to learn these skills. Go to linear learning, there's probably a learning path for that and do that. Now the other type of courses I like, like I said, are creator led courses. What do I mean by that? Now what is creator? First of all, I have to define this. Because nowadays, someone is posting on social media, but does that make you a creator? Not really. So here is a basic definition of a creator from my opinion, or I think most people will agree to it. A creator is someone who creates content for a specific target audience or explores a specific problem, right? Just like you know, I am making the Wandering Pro vodcast, so I am making content for a specific target audience, for people with a career, for people with early stage business, right? And the purpose of this is that whatever I am doing under this wing, the Wandering Pro, it is for you to upskill. or become better at your career or business, so on and so forth. So the first requirement I would say for a creator is that you have specified a niche or you have specified a target problem space and you are making content around it. Okay. And it could be why it's not necessary that the niche is down, but just to give an idea that every person who posts on social media randomly from ABC, suddenly starts calling him a creator. The second thing, creator in my definition is someone who shares knowledge, gives for free, teaches everyone. without any personal interest and genuinely wants to help others, right? They either have experiences, they either have knowledge, and they want other people to learn from it. This doesn't mean that they are running a charity or working in Africa, they might have paid services and stuff on the site. But one of their larger life and mission is to share everything as much as possible, feasibly, sustainably with people. Okay? And the good creators, you know, do a really good job of this. Like some of my favorite creators if I have to shout out, Kristo for design marketing and business negotiation type of things, Alex and Mozi has become Mr. Beast of sales basically. Your Bhavin Yang has become a very good person of communications. My field of product management is Atar Abdul Rauf, who is the ex-product manager of Parkwheels. Akash Gupta, who is another big product manager. Right. And so on and so forth. I follow a lot of creators and they share a lot of knowledge. my career, my job as a product manager and then, you know, other things I like, like tech or generally upskilling and mindset shift content. So yeah, creators, they target a specific audience or problem space and then they share a lot of knowledge and they give away for free. So that is a good sign of a creator if you want to be judgmental with someone. Now what happens is usually when they're doing that, a lot of them will eventually launch a course because see what happens is that after a while, to feed yourself, to make money. So they will give you a good value opportunity that this is my course, I have been making content on this issue for 2-3 years and this is all I've learned. I have got so much feedback and now I am compiling this course and selling the solution to this specific problem. You buy this course and you will know everything about this specific thing. So here, these are the courses I want you to look out for. Number one, if you are following any creator for 5-6 months, first of all, follow for free. Don't even give a rupee because you want to know that the knowledge they're sharing is actually helpful and relevant to you. Right? This is really important because if it is that they are sharing the knowledge, but it's not relevant to you, right? You are relevant to what you want to learn. So, even if you buy their course, you won't get any benefit and then you will be like, Oh, I've lost something or whatever. Right? So, that's the number one rule. Number two thing is that you have to understand that the course, you have an opportunity that you have all the knowledge and experiences of that creator, a consistent concise and comprehensive package. So if you are following a creator for 6 months and he is creating content for 3 years, but you don't have that much time now, obviously, that you go and see his posts 3 years ago and read his articles and listen to his podcast. So the course, it connects all the dots and it's like a condensed version that I taught you everything I learned, I'm giving it to you. And then the last thing I think you should look out for whenever you are buying a course of a creator, never buy based on that you will get more money by buying this course. That's never going to be a good course. All the ethical creators have it written in their FAQs that you won't get money from this. Okay. Most good courses I've seen, they're selling outcomes, not outputs. And what is the outcome? That you do this course and you will learn this niche in digital marketing. Here you do this course and you will be able to write good landing pages. Here you do this course and you will become a WordPress developer. Right? They're selling outcomes. They're selling the skill. They're not selling that you do this course and you will make more money. And that usually at the end you will know that it was a scam, pyramid scheme, blah, blah. So yeah, in summary, follow creators who share knowledge. Then if they sell a course, make sure that it is a package of their knowledge and is relevant to you. Okay. And always buy based on an outcome. Not because you have to make more money. Okay. So if you're looking to learn from creator courses, this is a really good mindset to have. There is one more thing that is just a little extra. Usually the creators are solopreneurs. They don't have big businesses, they don't have big offices, so their cost is very low. Right? The cost of content creation is your mental energy, to be honest. Biggest cost. So their course pricing is usually affordable. I saw 100 to 200 dollars, which is affordable in the sense that it is affordable for the world. It is not affordable for Pakistan either. So here's a good technique. You reach out to that person on LinkedIn or Twitter, and say that I am from Pakistan. Do you have any pricing parity option? I have already done this. You can also do it and 99% of the program through which you are selling your course, usually people use the course platform like Kajabi, Kajabi if you're interested. So there is a pricing parity option, they will give you a code, go and put a code and you get a massive discount of 50% off or 60% off. And the reason they do it is that they genuinely want to help you. The course is just there for them to sustain themselves. They don't have to make all the money from just one person. So this is also a kind of a pro tip, if someone is really an ethical content creator, They're out there to help you and they'll make it really affordable or accessible for you to get that knowledge while also making sure that they are sustainable. If you're following a Western creator, especially, whose course is 100-200 dollars, just DM them, add a connection on LinkedIn and ask them, love your content. I've been following you for 90 days. I really want to buy this course from you or whatever your product is. Do you have pricing parity options for people based in Pakistan as the price is not affordable for me? So here I have given you a small template. You go and usually they have this option. That's why created led courses, I think are a blessing when they are done right. And let me say this at the end, 90% is garbage. It's simple. I'm saying this in a very blunt statement, but it is unfortunately true. Like I said earlier, making a course is very easy. 90% of the people reach 10,000 followers and start making courses. That's why I put those checks in place. Make sure you're following them. Make sure that it's relevant to you. Make sure they're sharing knowledge for free. Make sure their course is ethical. So if all these things are true, then... a creator course could be an excellent opportunity for you to learn. Okay? So these were the courses. And why I put them at number one is because people often say that I have to learn this thing, there is a course for this or that thing, there is a course for this. So my go to recommendation is always this. Go to LinkedIn Learning, if you don't find something good there, then follow a creator, learn from 2-3 minions and then take their course. Right? Cause I feel like when it comes to skill sets, one-to-one interaction with creators or the courses of LinkedIn, they are actually not made by creators. LinkedIn has paid them from their pocket so that they can make a course on their platform. Think of it like YouTube, but for course creators. So it's really good way to learn when you want to actively learn a new skill set, which brings us to the second chapter of this long episode, I guess. Knowledge curation. So I did a workshop a while back and I clicked on one thing. And then it turned out that actually it's a very common concept. I wasn't Steve Jobs, unfortunately. So that was passive learning and passive research. Right. And I've already written a lot of articles on this thing. And basically, if I give you the highlight, that was this. Once there was a post in which I wrote that I have been listening to podcasts for the past five years. Three or four of tech. Vanshow, waveform, ATP.fm and decoder. These are tech related podcasts. I've been listening to them for the last five years. Every week. Bilanaga and this is about 10 hours of audio per week multiplied by 52 per year. So your 10 into 52, 520 hours. I've been listening to it for the last five years. 250 hours. Take out the irrelevant or entertainment thing from it. That is like 1000 to 1500 hours of knowledge that I have gathered passively. Right? Because I was fond of tech anyway. this podcast existed, they were long form, so there was more discussion, more discussion. So that's the benefit of podcasts. Like that's why these podcasts are usually longer. In case, the person talks openly and try to explain it in as much detail as possible. Because if you are listening to podcasts, then chances are that you actually want to learn something from it and want to be entertained a little more. You haven't seen any clickbait title or any face opening image and you haven't clicked on that video. You actually want to listen to the person. So that's why podcast is really sticky medium, which we use terms. So... For me personally, podcast was an excellent source of passive learning. I am not actively learning or my purpose was not to learn about tech, so I will listen to tech podcast for 5 years. Or I still listen to it every week, I don't listen because I want to learn. I primarily listen for entertainment, but along with that, I get to learn something in every episode and this increases my tech knowledge. It has increased so much that when I used to work in software development companies, the developers whose job is to make software, I... I used to out debate them sometimes and they used to get confused that you are not a developer, you are in a non-technical role, in a product role. Why are you in all these things? So I said, bro, I have been growing up in computers since 10 years and I have been doing this for the last 5 years. So that's why you get a significant advantage if your passive learning is good. So you heard this, you said, man, it's okay. I understand the point. Passive learning is really good. It gives long leverage return, which we talked about in the last episode. So how do you do passive learning? So there are some tips here for you. The average. person who wants to learn new things. The number one thing that I have seen, I have not found a brother yet who does this thing. Unfortunately, that curate your feeds. See, all the social media apps you use, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, threads, LinkedIn, we follow others in all of this, subscribe others. But we never bother curating it. That I am watching them or they should see me or I can filter certain information or not. So if you're listening to this, I want you to do this. Whatever platform you are using, as I said, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, threads, LinkedIn, every platform has a curation option. I cover two. There is an option on Twitter called Lists. List, why is it so difficult to say? In the name of Lists, what happens is that you can create a list in which you just put people of a relevant category. So let's say I create a list on Pakistan Economics. Okay. And go inside it and add all the people who tweet on Pakistan Economics in that list. And what will happen is that every now and then I will open that list. And all those tweets will be relevant to Pakistan economics. And maybe after six months, seven months, I'll have really good knowledge on what is happening in Pakistan economics. You can do same for tech. You can do same for any parent category. This works really well if you are opening a parent category and all the creators are aligned in it. So this feature is called Lists on Twitter. The second thing is that this is the biggest problem on LinkedIn. That our people are used to adding connections on LinkedIn. because they think that if they add too many connections, they will get a good job. Maybe. If you get one, write it in the comments. But 99.9% of people don't get a good job like this. So whenever you add connections, LinkedIn automatically follows you. The person who follows you starts following you. And then what happens when you have 500, 600, 700 connections? Every time you open LinkedIn, it's made on Facebook. Okay? People are sharing their sorrows, people are asking for a job, so people... It becomes an annoying mess and people get frustrated. And then they say that LinkedIn is such a dirty place, there is no use in it. And true, it's not for them. But there are very skilled creators sitting on LinkedIn. But in order to see them, you need to curate your feed. So what you have to do on LinkedIn is go straight to your connections. There is an option coming up where you can see which people you follow. You have to hold your mouse, tie a bandage on your hand for the next 3 hours and unfollow everyone. Okay? Everyone has to do it. The fun thing is when I did this, fortunately I googled it, so someone had written a script, you run it and it automatically unfollows all the connections. So I ran that script, I'm not sure if it works or not. But if there is a hack like this on Google, but yeah, if you have 500 connections, if you have 1000 connections, just unfollow them all. The second time you think, like, whatever, nothing happens. If you don't see their posts, it won't make any difference. You weren't seeing all those things anyway. If you were seeing it, it wasn't helping you. So the first step is, you unfollow everyone, regardless of who they are. your brother, your family, I don't care. Because we are curating the feed for knowledge. We don't care about whose child was born in which house because Facebook must have been there for that thing. Right? So on LinkedIn, once you unfollowed everyone, then follow content creators in your respective field or whatever you want to learn in that field. As I told you before, they must be very well educated. But there is a very good recent feature in LinkedIn that the badges system has arrived according to each category. So if you can just search your categories and then you can... top voice badges, you can easily get a lot of creators. So follow creators who create good content. And one piece of advice, personal opinion is to take it or not. Please don't bother following creators who are selling being popular on LinkedIn. Because they are another source of selling the platform. That people have grown up on LinkedIn and now they have started selling on LinkedIn. There are very few people who are actually good at this thing. But usually, as I said, whenever a person promises something like this, that they will make more money, because end goal is that if there are more followers, then there will be more money. So that is usually not a good deal. So follow people who are sharing skillset knowledge. And yes, if your work is digital marketing, then maybe LinkedIn's growing skillset can also be yours. But you know, my personal opinion. The last tip I have in the knowledge curation or passive learning section is that I am making a sound like a 80 year old man by watching this TikTok. But honestly speaking, or by watching TikTok and YouTube shots and reels, our patience has been disturbed. And what I mean by that is that we don't watch anything more than a minute. The attention span has been completely empty. And what happens is that there was a guy, I had a discussion with him once, he said that he watches educational YouTube shots a lot. I said, okay. So I was arguing with him that this short form content is of no use. Because you don't learn anything in the long term. Okay? You can watch half a minute or a minute's video as much as you want. That's not gonna teach you. holistically, any skill set, right? And that guy was like, no, I give a lot of shots, I know a lot. So without going into detail, we had a very long bass on a particular skill set. Then I made him realize that he didn't know 90% of the things. Although he had double time left in the field than me. And he was in the same job role, I was in the same job role. And he didn't have any knowledge. And then I was like, bro, so what about the 50 shots you see in a day? So the problem with short form content is... that it's really good for the dopamine hit, right? If you watch an educational short, you feel good in your brain that you've learned something new, something interesting, it's fun, or you learn something else. Which is good, I'm not hating on it. But if your goal is that I have to learn in the long term, I have to learn a skill set or I have to gather knowledge, then short form content can only go so far. That's why you've seen with trends like tick book, miracles, or talk book and other trends that... Books are back in business, people are going back to book reading. Watch podcasts, because of coronavirus, podcasts, I think double, triple, quadruple, it's a very big number, go and google it, that people have started listening to podcasts because people are tired of click-pity short stuff and they want more detailed conversational style content, right? So the thing I'm getting at is that if you are curating knowledge, right, try to stick to longer format learning and that could be reading books, okay? And reading books doesn't mean that you should read 50 books a year, read one book and read it well. Okay. Listen to podcasts on repeat, your entertainment and education mix in it. Read articles, read newsletters, read such things. Okay. Watch short format content. Do follow educational content creators. It's really good. I'm not saying that it's not there, but keep it in mind and balance it. Okay. If you're watching short form content, then watch the same long form. Or you can commit one more than that. I have to watch one long form thing every week. Or I have to read an article of 1500 words every day. It takes 5 minutes. It doesn't take much time. Okay. In knowledge duration, just remember that the social media and short form content that's good for instantaneous dopamine hit to your knowledge brain cells. In the longer run, you will see that the articles you read and the newsletters you read, the podcasts you listen to or the books you read, your retention will keep building and after 4-5 years, you will be standing on stage quoting quotes from a book because your brain will get used to retention. Because you are focusing on one topic area for a longer time, so the information stays in your brain for a longer time. Whereas in shorts, you are seeing something else every 2 seconds, so even the mind doesn't bother. It keeps throwing everything in the RAM and when you wake up, everything is forgotten. So this is number one and two. Best for last, I guess. Here's the thing. As I said, I don't have any technical background. I am not a software developer. I haven't studied computer science. I still don't know coding to this day. But I'm still working in the software development industry as a product manager and doing a decent job of it, I would say. But how did I get to this point? Right? There is a simple motive of my life. There are three actually. I will cover one in today's episode. is learning by execution. And if a child or a half-aged person tells me that I have to learn something, I say go and execute. If you don't execute, you're not learning. I think if you go and look at my LinkedIn bio, it's written in the second and third line. Because I have an idea that by the end of the month, it should have a dot com. Which means that its website should be made, it should have a presence. That idea needs to become a reality as fast as possible. The pure execution is how I have learned everything. Like, if I give you some examples. And this is not to show off. This is just to give you an understanding that how execution works. I had to learn how to make a website. I started making on Wix. I learned Wix. I got to learn a lot from it. And then eventually I figured out WordPress and I started making websites on WordPress. The SK Nexus website, I made it myself. Although I am not a developer. I didn't write a coding line, but I made 99% myself. I took some help assistance from some people. Very later in the stay. So that just goes to say that. I don't need to be a developer to make a website. This podcast you are listening to, I edit it myself. I record it myself and edit it myself. And that's how I learned editing and learned to use Dacity, which is an editing software. And now I will sit down and edit my 25th or 26th episode today. I wanted to learn project management, so I learned tools like Notion and Basecamp. I got interested in streaming at one point. So I had to stream on Twitch, YouTube, etc. So OBS is a software, I learned all that sitting down. Okay. I was fond of sharing ideas, but I didn't feel like posting on social media. So I started writing articles six years ago. And today it's the day that I write a newsletter and I also do podcast recording. But the list goes on, right? Thing is that project-based learning is a very valuable skill. In my life, I feel like the thing I took the right advantage of, I took it the right way, was that I was a person who got bored of everything. I did something for two or three months and got bored. then I did something new, got bored for 2-3 months. I was constantly bored. But now years later, I understand that I actually successfully earned my boredom. Right? And it sounds very fancy. But I see a lot of people who are getting bored, but watching shots all day. Or watching TikTok all day. What's happening? I'm getting bored. What are you doing? I'm watching TikTok or YouTube or something. I don't know, man. If I'm being blunt, you're wasting your life. Again, entertainment is very important. But not always. So. For me, it was that I was constantly bored in life, especially when I didn't have responsibilities on my head, I didn't have a wife, I didn't have a son, so on and so forth. I was always trying new things. And my friend made a joke that it doesn't last for 3 months, someone starts something new. And when I started my job, I didn't stay on any role for 3-4 months, I switched to another role. I don't want to tell you this as an advice, I'm just telling you that it worked for me. I got bored and I kept trying new things. And eventually I figured out that, okay, what I did... 1200 things were done in Bordom. Now, a very big foundational layer has been made on which I can build my whole career, business and future. And the key part behind that was that everything was project-based learning. So I had recently learned this fancy word and when I read it, it was like, okay, this is what I am doing for my whole life. So what happens is it was very important to give a background, let's come to the execution of it. So the key to good project-based learning is that you always start with a question and the question is to yourself. what skills you want to learn or what you want to learn. What do you want to learn? And then in response to that, you either set an output or deliverable end result. I want to learn how to make a website, I want to learn how to make a video on YouTube, I want to learn how to write articles, I want to learn how to sell sales to developers, I want to learn how to design sales. So on and so forth, the list goes on. You always pick a question and its answer. And it usually is one thing. Let's pick one thing. Okay. When you have picked that thing, I will give you an example. Let's say you have picked that I want to be a writer. And I am taking the writer's example because in future episodes, I will tell you why writing is so important. But let's say in a simplified way, that you want to write articles. That is the output you have concluded on. So now see, what you have to do, the project-based learning, we have set certain expectations with ourselves. But there should be some rules for that. The goal that should be there in project-based learning, why most people fail is that they have made a very complicated mess. They have made a task list of 50 tasks. And then they never commit and they fail midway and they give up, right? But there are only two things you need to care if you're doing project-based learning. When your goal is set, you have to be a good writer. Now keep two things in mind. Number one, the goal is to make progress towards that learning, right? I want constant progress towards becoming a good writer. I do something like this every day, which is bringing me closer to that output. Okay? Do it every day. Consistency over quantity. It's not like you work for 10 hours a day and 5 minutes the next day, and then 1 minute the next day and then 4 days off, and then you go on Eid. No, you work for 10 minutes a day. Consistency is key. If you need help with this, there is a 2-minute rule article called Atomic Habits. I will attach it in the description. Please read it. It's eye-opening for many people. So yes, keep the first thing in mind in project-based learning. Consistency over everything. Okay. Consistent progress is needed. Don't mess up in this and be like, man, not so much work in one day, work in the next day, not like that. You have to ensure consistency. The second thing is when you are doing project-based learning, you have to keep in mind that whatever you are doing daily, if possible, on a daily basis, that is ideal. Otherwise, on at least a weekly basis, you have to document it somewhere. You have the notes app, you have a voice recorder, you are sitting in a group chat, share it there. or my recommendation is that you join our Discord server or B-Sides Cyber Security Community Discord. If you do projects there, then those people support you in your project-based learning and give you a space to share your findings every day. Okay. So you have to document your progress somewhere. So in summary, keep these two things in mind. Number one, be consistent. Number two, document your progress somewhere, either daily or weekly basis. Not monthly, daily or weekly basis. Keep these two things in mind. So now let's come to how to do project-based learning. As I have given an example, I want to become a better writer. So this is the easiest starting point and this will apply to most people. Just go online, write on Google, give me a roadmap to become a better writer. Okay, you will get 10 to 15 links in front of you. And if you are not coming, write in the comments below what you want to do. I will provide you with the links. Okay, so roadmap in my experience is an excellent way to do a project on it. So what usually happens in roadmap, what happens in you, your topic of contents, you do some activity every day. and typically there is some output of that activity. So let's say that if I am on a writer's roadmap, it might have go and watch two videos, you will watch two videos and usually at the end of that video, they give you a task and if they don't give you a task, you can just as I said, document your findings that I learned this from this video. Okay? That's one way to do it. Whatever you want to learn, which you have to do project-based learning, find a roadmap and make that roadmap itself a project that I have to complete this roadmap so that I can learn this skill set. Because people often say that they want to do project-based learning but they are not getting a good project. The purpose of project-based learning is not that you will get a project at the end, or it's not your university's final year project. The purpose of project-based learning is that your outcome is being fulfilled. So if I follow the writer's roadmap and I do their tasks, by the end of it, I will now know how to be a writer better than I did before I started this journey. Okay, that's the goal. The reason why I wanted to mention roadmap first is that most of the people think that what I want to learn is not a good project. So make one, it's not that hard. Okay. So that brings us to step two. You have done step one, you have cleared the roadmap. Or let's say that you don't need a roadmap, you already have a general or foundational idea of that skill set. You have bought a course or you are getting passive knowledge, which was method number one or two. So now you are like no, I really want to do the project. So if you are good at any skill set, you can generate ideas for project. Like we are taking the example of a writer. Now in writing, if I know how to write at a basic foundational level, I have many options. I can go to the medium and make a blog, I can make a newsletter on the sub stack, I can make a social media post, I can make my personal blog. I can write anonymously in Reddit forums and so on and so forth. The options are unlimited. If you have to turn it into a project, then its simple solution is that you define an output. Now I am using the word output, not the word outcome. I know it's confusing, but bear with me. Output means that you define a certain number of quantity. So if I am talking about a writer, I have to write 10 articles of 1500 words. The focus on output is very important. So in this case, if the output quantity is 10 articles, 1500 words, I have output. So on and so forth. Social media posts, same thing. I have to mark 30 social media posts of 200 to 200 words. Once I define that output, repeat the same thing. I have to work on it every day. Okay. If I have outputted 10 articles, it doesn't mean that I have to publish an article every day. No. But some... If I keep a reasonable timeline, let's say in 3 months, 10 articles can be published easily, if they really want to. And then I'm just working on it every day. That is the key thing. If you don't feel like writing it any day, then don't write it. Just sit and keep ideation. If you don't feel like ideation, go and watch relevant content. Okay? If you don't want to, just go for a walk, you'll get ideas in your head. Right? Just do an effort of 5-15 minutes on that thing every day. Right? And if you do that, you'll quickly learn. Project based learning is the best way to learn anything. Even now, if I want to learn something, I just go find a roadmap. If I don't get a roadmap, I make my own roadmap, make a project and start doing it myself. At the end of the day, the purpose of telling you all these things, the purpose of telling you how to learn, is that you have options at your hand. Next time when you are sitting and you can't learn from me, you have a variety of options to pick from. And if you combine The learnings in this episode and in the last episode, we talked about that you are spreading the box of Feed the Future with yourself. In 2-3 years, I'm telling you, you will become a monopoly of one. There will be no one around you who will be against your unique perspective and knowledge and we need more people like you. And just remember, like every episode, it is important to quote, a focused fool can accomplish more than a distracted genius. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Wandering Pro. Today in the car section, which is our after show section, I want to talk about a certain kind of trend with the courses that I'm noticing. See you there. Okay. So I usually don't use social media at all, but because I have resumed this podcast these days, I have to spend a little time on it just to, you know, publish stuff and all that. So in my view, ads are being posted on Mr. Ali Abdaal's ads. Now don't get me wrong. Like I... I said at the beginning of this episode, Ali Abdal is an excellent creator and I'm sure his course has value. But what I don't like is that he is running ads on his courses. And this is something that I personally don't like. And because I am a product creator, I don't like ads. I make products for a living or help people make products for a living. And product has the concept of what is your audience. Problem with ads is that when you put ads like this, especially those who do courses, because they don't know how to optimize ads for Jack, then they put it on a broad audience and put money there. And now that Ali Abdaal's course is literally showing to everyone. Come and become a YouTuber. Right? Again, the point I'm trying to get at is not that Ali Abdaal's course is bad. point I'm trying to get at is, running ads on your course as a content creator is a little cringeworthy. Because here's the issue. So if you remember from the first section in the episode, I said, look, if you are buying a content creator course, follow them for at least 3-4 months or 6 months and make sure that their content, general free content, is relevant with what you want to do. Right? If it is relevant, then you will buy their course, so you'll have a much higher success rate, then if the content wasn't relevant, or you weren't following the creator for the past 5-6 months, you don't understand his biasness, you don't understand his way of teaching. But when... creators like especially the big creators because they set the precedent. Now if Ali Abdaal is running ads on his course, then I'm expecting that more and more creators will start doing it. It's a good way to make money, right? Course is a very scalable product. As I said, make a course once. It's a one-time effort and then sell ads, marketing and networking. Especially if you're a big creator, you can sell a lot of courses. I think his course is$900. Think for yourself. Now the taglines of Ali Abdaal's course are usually, Become a part-time YouTuber. Yeah, like it doesn't just have to be a dream or YouTube pe aaj yo or scale karo and you can quit your job. To ye wali baat aagin hain wapas, ke directly paise banane ka nahi kya hai, lekin he is promising ke agar tum ye course karo, ke tum YouTuber banj ho, usse tum main paise banne ke, tum abhi naukri chod doge. It's not that easy, right? But again, as I said, agar aap Ali Abdul ke audience member ho, you follow him, you'll understand what he's trying to say. You'll understand. the things he is communicating. And you'll understand that taking this course doesn't mean that I will become a zero to hero. I still have to make a lot of effort. But here's the problem. When you're running your ads, it's being shown to your core audience. Not core audience. You're not target audience, anti-target audience. And that's where the issue is. Because what will happen now? Ali's reputation is at a risk, if he was a little smaller creator. Now Ali has a very big 5-6 million subscribers, so it won't make much difference. But let's say Ali had 100,000 subscribers. Then there's a huge reputation risk here. Because yes, his subscribers, they took the course, they got the result, and they did well. But these rando people through ads, who just saw this and said, okay, I can earn money on YouTube. And okay, this guy is a very big creator, so his course must be valuable. They won't understand the concept, they won't be able to understand the target audience, and there is a high risk that those people will most probably fail and lose their money. And then what will happen? You will get a lot of lashback and Ali's Reddit post will be like, Ali's course is a scam and this and that. And trust me, this has happened to a lot of people, that whenever the creators make a course in which money gets involved, or their vocation is involved, people take the course and then it doesn't make any difference in their life. And then they complain and whine on Reddit. Especially in the YouTube ecosystem, I have seen this a lot. I haven't seen this much on LinkedIn. It's very common on YouTube. You go on Reddit, people are often screaming. So I just want to talk about this after show. As I said, making courses... creators has become a very accessible product and everyone is making it nowadays. But I don't understand this system of running ads because I think if this becomes more popularized, I just want to throw a question at you. Do you think if a person is a creator, shares good knowledge, does everything and you are not a core audience member of his or your... your grandfather, your father, your whatever. Like, another person watches the course ad and buys it. Do you think that's fine? Or there is a problem with that, right? And do you think this problem will be bigger or smaller? Because what I feel is... I won't be surprised if Ali Abdal starts showing the ads of the course in the next few days, if you are listening to this episode, all the big creators on your left and right, especially Desi creators, because Ali Abdal listens to a lot of Desi creators and follows them, they will also start launching their course and master class. And trust me, they will come and say that we have been working hard on this course for the last two years. I wrote a 5000 words article on Upwork Mastery, it took me two days. It's not that hard. And I'm not throwing dirt on all courses. But trust me, it's not as difficult to make a course as an actual product. And I'm talking about this just to specify that these are online courses that are scalable and one to many education. If you're selling a course, there's a cohort involved or you're giving it on-site, that is a much different thing. The course is a very broad term. But yeah, I'm talking about content creator courses that are recorded once and then sold to many people over a very long duration of time. I'm specifying this because people take the wrong meaning of everything. So yeah. Let me know what do you think about that people making a course and then running ads on it. Earlier they were doing randos, now apparently well reputed and big content creators will start doing it too. And e-learning business is booming, universities are ending. Now on with the system, I guess. See you next time.
