Learn how to learn

The past years have been a rollercoaster for me and my career— not only that I have been working in some of the toughest jobs in IT, but I also needed to learn extensive and deep-dive knowledge in the shortest time frames ever. In these times, I had several mentors and mentees, and I have learned plenty of advice for myself that I want to share with you.

1. Passion

And I am starting with the most crucial advice that I also needed to learn the hard way. No matter how good you are at a job, if you want to have a fantastic career you should:

Follow your passion.

No matter what it takes.

Everything else will follow.

In many of my several dozens of interviews, where I was sitting at both sides of the table, there was never a word used more frequently than Passion.

Everyone seems to be passionate nowadays, and it feels like it is a requirement for every job. But are there so many people out there who are passionate?

Passion is more than a buzzword!

People will always try to convince you that they are passionate, but usually, they are not. It is essential to challenge the thoughts of the people to understand the motivation and spot a view behind the scenes. And even for yourself, it may be hard to make the difference and being able to find your passion, but I will try to provide you with some thoughts you can think about.

What is actually Passion?

From my experience, you can find three different kinds of honest motivations that can drive you. Either you are interested, ambitious, or - and this is extremely rare - passionate about a topic or role. And - you need to understand that these are totally different things, though they might look and feel very similar.

• The interested people are willing to learn a topic, as long they can keep their interest. This interest can stay for weeks, months, or even years, but it will very likely fly by at some point in time. It is the result of a mood or hype that can keep your motivation up for some time. But people who are driven only by interest will very likely lose their motivation, as soon they are hit by very tough challenges or fallbacks.
• The ambitious people will fight for their goals, even if they are not hugely interested in the topics. They will mobilize all their strength to work for a larger goal they have in mind. And for being able to reach that, they will work very hard. Some severe setbacks can usually hit these people without letting them change their minds quickly. But there is one severe downside of only being ambitious about a topic. In essence, you will need to keep your motivation up and regain motivation continuously, as you don′t have a self-motivating interest regarding the topics. Typically these people work very hard, but they can quickly stop touching anything about it if they don′t need to.
• And then there are passionate people. Passionate people are of a different kind - they combine, in fact, the neverending interest with an ambition that you will very rarely face again. These people are entirely driven by a continuously increasing motivation and colossal fun and satisfaction. Passionate people are willing to fail as much it may be needed, and they will rarely stop to be hungry for learning something new. When you find a passionate talent, it does not mind how much knowledge and seniority he or she has. It will be only a matter of time where you can see the passion overruling everything else.

So, what is your passion?

Passion is the one thing where -

• You are happy to invest all of your spare time.
• You will never stop learning.
• You are happy to learn from errors and others.
• You are pleased to spend almost any amount of money.
• You are so glad to convince anyone about it!

Passion is dedication.

And - dedication is rare.

It is essential that you find your passion very fast, and that being said, it is probably one of the toughest tasks you are facing. But if you have found it, try to work towards your passion!

2. Set your goals

Setting goals correctly is probably the most important thing you have to do. You should have a vision for yourself, a vision where you try to find your passion, or you pursue your passion. A career plan which is, though, never written into stone.

This quote from Henry Ford explains it very well. The most complex and hardest tasks can always be divided into small ones, and this works the same for you and your career. Knowing that you want to become a CTO at some point in time, will not make you one. You have to follow your goals, which you should always divide into short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals. Set up milestones and work towards them. I wrote an article some time ago, diving deep into this topic and explaining how you can accomplish that. For more context, have a read here.

3. Dream. Big.

When setting your long-term goals, there is nothing wrong with dreaming big. You should have a dedicated vision for you, your company, or life in general, which you should continuously pursue.

The biggest leaders had all these kind of dreams where most of the people would probably just say — this is not going to happen.

4. Dedication vs. Distraction

And this is directly followed by the hardest challenge of today. Distraction and the lack of commitment. Social Media, mobile phones, pinging emails all over the day, and much more make it very hard to learn dedicated and not being distracted.

But this is important — today more than ever else, and especially for your short-term goals. If you learn for something dedicatedly like for certification, to finish a book, or to learn something in a particular period, this is THE crucial skill.

Think of Henry Ford′s quote above —

What does it help being able to divide the most complex tasks and career goals into small ones, if you are not capable to complete even these?

5. Use your time wisely

I see many people who got stuck in their careers because they are almost involved in an endless number of meetings, do almost have no spare time or use their time for the most unproductive things.

Instead, block calendar times for your learning — don′t let others decide how all your time is being invested — you know it better!

Shut down your email and chat systems and only turn them only on at dedicated times the day.

Invest your spare time in useful things — in the tasks which you have identified of being essential for you too.

As an example — I am putting online courses, blog articles, and books to that list. These have high priority, and I set my personal goals when I want to have those completed and will continuously add new materials to it. But don′t get yourself trapped into an extensive backlog.

If you are putting more items to that list which you are not able to complete in time at all, then you are prioritising them wrong!

6. Know how you learn best

And how should you learn? You know it! There are different learning types that you probably know. As for me, I try to combine all of these to harden my knowledge and challenge my brain. As a result, I am rotating:

• Hands-on
• Videos / Sessions
• Books / Blog posts
• Online-Trainings
• Audiobooks
• Working in team, alone / requesting feedback
• Speaking on stage / with colleagues

You need to find out how you learn best. It will not only save you plenty of time, but it will also explain to you why you are not learning some things, though you are investing plenty of time.

7. Uncomfortable is good

There is one thing which I learned and proclaim to everyone:

The more uncomfortable the learning / the challenge / task is — the more you are going to learn.

• If someone asks you to present something which you feel not massively comfortable with, then take the challenge! You will see how much you will learn when you are preparing the materials and preparing the session with all the potential questions you might receive.
• If someone asks you to write a blog article about a dedicated topic, do it. You will see that you will heavily invest the time into a detailed and profound investigation.
• If someone asks you to co-work in a project where you are less knowledgeable than the team, take this opportunity. See how much you will be able to learn from your colleagues.

Embrace uncomfortable learning situations and also embrace making some errors at some time.

There is no better and more long-living way to learn, than having done the mistakes on your own.

8. Keep your motivation

But sometimes you will lack motivation. It will be hard, and you will ask yourself how you can keep your dedication and motivation?

Be self-confident! No master has ever fallen from heaven yet.

9. Get mentors — and mentees

And this is where mentors and mentees come into play. Most of the influential leaders had mentors and mentees almost all the time.

You are searching for people who:

• Provide honest feedback and encourage each other.
• Are happy to share knowledge and information and let others grow.
• Motivate each other and kick the others' asses when it′s needed!

A single person will not be able to become the best in a topic without feedback, and also for the hard times, you will need people that help you, and with you can speak.

10. Surround yourself with Motivation and Passion

But not only mentors are essential, but also colleagues who work with you together on the most challenging projects. People who are passionate and willing to run the extra mile if it is useful for each other. Friends at work — with which you can discuss amazing ideas and build up your collective intelligence team.

11. Be humble — Don′t stop learning — Never

At the end of this article, I am just repeating myself, as I see this happening frequently.

Don′t stop! Really — you never finish.

Continuous learning is more important than anything else. I know some of the busiest people who stopped to learn new things and are only involved in their daily wheel of meetings and finally stopped to pursue their goals. At the time you think you have learned enough, is the time where you will fall behind.

And the last thing I want to give you on your path, which is — by far — the less commonly used task nowadays:

12. Read

I cannot say more about this. Reading is essential, and it will provide you with knowledge which you would probably never know about. Read everything you want:

• Books
• Blog articles
• News

It gives you the insight for all “your genius thoughts,” and it will train you to be not only satisfied with a single point of view. It is good to have people with different opinions around you. You should always be very curious about ideas that sound the most stupid or unreal. Because -

Summary

1. Passion - Find your passion
2. Set your goals - and work on them step by step
3. Dream. Big.
4. Dedication vs. Distraction - Overcome the distractions.
5. Use your time wisely - block times and invest it properly.
6. Know how you learn best
7. Uncomfortable is good - take risks and pressure yourself.
8. Keep your motivation
9. Get mentors and mentees
10. Surround yourself with Motivation and Passion - collective intelligence team
11. Be humble — Don′t stop learning — Never
12. Read

And here we reached the end again - Thank you for investing your valuable time and reading it! I hope that you can use some of the mentioned points for your career plan. Feel free to drop me a comment or reach out to me directly, and - please - also share honest feedback with me! ;-)

All the best,

David das Neves

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