The Secret To Learn Anything Faster and Better Than Other People

This post is for people early in their careers. Who want to accelerate their careers, outsmart their Ivy League MBA peers, and become a learning machine.

But first off, why should you bother to listen to me?

I co-founded a company that made >$1 million in annual revenues before my 30th birthday.

Prior to starting Saleswhale (YC S16), I was a self-taught software engineer.

I knew nothing about running a business, sales development, marketing, finance, accounting / payroll, recruiting, customer success, and the dozens of skills you need to run a company. I had to pick up these skills on the fly.

The best part?

I don't even have a college degree.

And I don't mean that I'm a dropout from MIT or Harvard like those Silicon Valley wunderkinds you read about in the news.

I literally, did not even apply to college after high school. (due to my family financial situation, my original plan was to work for a bit before enrolling in college - but life had other plans ??)

I'm just your usual, average Joe, that happened to figure out a secret to get ahead in life, and rise above my circumstances.

I hope this impresses upon you that whatever I'm going to share is very achievable. And you don't need to be superhuman or super-smart to get an edge over your peers.

The secret to getting ahead

From your average Joe, to people with Ivy League degrees, most people kinda stop learning after they get out of school.

This is something I noticed with most people after working for a decade. Once you leave school, learning is done.

If you are young, ambitious, and early in your career... this is something you can exploit, and use as your secret weapon.

When you read about people like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett (I certainly did when I was younger - I idolized them), you get the impression that they are really smart people. And they are, probably.

But here's something a lot of people don't give them enough credit for. Behind the scenes, they are always learning.

Those guys are reading more than anyone else. They are learning machines.

Most people are looking for a shortcut, trick, or hack to get ahead in life.

Well, here's the shortcut: it's continuous learning.

The highest ROI channel when it comes to learning

There are lots of ways to learn - through mentors, peers, or hard-won experience.

But here's what I find the most efficient, and highest ROI way to learn:

Books.

Wait, what? Why?

In 2020, we are drowning in information. Every couple of days, there's a new "hack" or blog post that wants to teach you "how to be successful" (yes, I see the irony here).

Well, there's no hack. There's no 500 word blog post you can read that will magically make you smarter.

The real hack is just to read books. Real books.

Too busy chopping wood to sharpen the axe

The common objection I get from junior members on my team is - "But I don't have time to read books. I'm busy."

Look, I get it.

I'm busy. Everyone is busy.

I have to run a company with 40+ employees, deal with all the operational issues that come with the territory, and spend time with my family. But I still find time to read.

I think that if you are serious about getting ahead, you need to prioritize reading. No excuses.

I know it's tough. But hopefully this helps -

I have a system I use to get more reading done.

Most of my reading happens before bed-time. Most days, I'm reading around 20 minutes. Sometimes, I go longer than that. But so long as I get to read 20 minutes each day, I'm happy.

It doesn't have to be before bed-time for you. You can read in the morning. You can read during lunch.

You just need to carve out some dedicated time each day, consistently, to read.

Also, reading doesn't have to be a marathon. 15 to 20 minutes a day is plenty.

How to read?

I like to read Kindle and physical books.

I typically start off reading a new book on Kindle. These are typically books I'm not too sure about.

For books that have stood the test of time - the classics - or books that I really like, I'll get the physical book. I will usually reread these books multiple times.

The physical book is almost like a trophy to me. If it's good, I want to own the book after I finish reading them. I want to be able to touch and feel them.

"A man's bookcase will tell you everything you'll ever need to know about him," my father had told me more than once. "A businessman has business books and a dream has novels and books of poetry. Most women like reading about love, and a true revolutionary will have books about the minutiae of overthrowing the oppressor. A person with no books is inconsequential in a modern setting, but a peasant that reads is a prince in waiting. -- Walter Mosley, The Long Fall

Most people get hung up on this - "What? You buy a book on Kindle, and then again, in paperback?"

Well, to me, that's besides the point. The cost of a book is really low - $8, $10. But the ROI on books is phenomenal.

Why are books the best way to learn?

Why over-index on books - versus, say, internet articles or blog posts?

For me, I find books to be more considered.

Usually, the books that I read are classics that have been recommended, and stood the test of time.

The same cannot be said of most internet content, which typically have a short shelf-life (e.g. Ice Bucket Challenge anyone?)

There's just something amazing about reading a well-considered book (not all books are well-considered).

That you know the author has spent the better part of a year working on. Years and decades of hard-won knowledge, distilled into a portable format for you to drink from.

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one. -- George R.R Martin

How do I choose what to read?

There's usually a subject or topic that I want to master, at any given point in time.

What I usually do, is to first seek out the classics. And any foundational readings that will give me a good foundation in the area I wish to study.

I achieve this by searching online, and asking industry experts whose taste I trust.

For example, in Marketing, these are the classics that I'm currently reading, and rereading:

• The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries & Jack Trout
• Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy
• Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries & Jack Trout
• The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan S. Kennedy
• Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy and Alan Parker 
• Influence: Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini
• The Copywriter's Handbook by Robert W. Bly

It's important to get the foundation and fundamentals right first.

If you want to pick up digital marketing - before you dive into all the cool, shiny and advanced stuff (like Account Based Marketing, Conversational Marketing etc.), master the fundamentals of copywriting, positioning and consumer psychology first.

Elon Musk summarizes this well in the following quote:

It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang onto. -- Elon Musk

Most people don't have the patience to get the fundamentals right.

They want to skip to the juicy bits, the exciting stuff, the "growth hacks".

Don't do that.

You will only be constraining your growth downstream. Be steadfast, and focus on your mastery over the fundamentals.

This will give you a good grounding in whatever knowledge you want to layer on thereafter.

Give yourself permission to leave a book uncompleted

Also, don't give yourself too much pressure to complete a book.

I used to make this mistake.

When I was younger, buying a book was a big thing.

I was spending all of this money on a book. And I felt that I had to power through all 300 pages, even when it felt like wading through concrete.

I ended up creating this big source of anxiety for myself.

"Oh.. I bought this book. But I am bored after reading 20 pages. I must finish this book. I need to finish all 300 pages."

But I realized that you need to give yourself permission to not finish books. There are certain books that you don't have to waste your time finishing. And you always have the option of revisiting the book down the line.

Remember this, all you need to do to make a book worthwhile, is just to take one lesson out of it.

If you can learn one thing, that you didn't know before, from reading this book, that's already money well spent.

What about note-taking?

I personally use Roam Research as my knowledge management tool to summarize quick notes.

But it doesn't really matter. Use a highlighter, notebook, post-it notes, pencil. Focus on the actionable learnings, not on digesting the entire book.

I want to re-iterate this -

You don't have to read all 300 pages, have 20 takeaways, and write a 6-page summary of it.

If you can pull just one thing out of the book that you can use, it's already worth the $15 you spent on it.

It also helps you read faster, because you don't have to stress out over every single detail.

Reading a book is not about memorizing it. This is not college (well, I guess - I've never been to college).

Rereading books

The books that really matter, I've read them four, five, six times.

You have to be in the right context - be it stage of life or career, to get the most out of a book.

The first time you read a book, you might learn a couple of things.

A few months later, you might come back to it and learn totally different things.

This is pretty much the case with all great books. You need to reread them.

I must have read and reread Ben Horowitz's The Hard Thing About Hard Things over a dozen times by now.

• When first starting Saleswhale
• Building my first executive team
• Having to part ways with one of my executives
• Learning how to build a strong culture
• When we had a cultural crisis
• When I first raised institutional money
• When we were running out of money
• When we had to scale and hire rapidly
• When we had to lay-off people

Each time, and at each phase of my life, when I revisited the book, I learnt something new.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. -- fake Buddha quote

Learning from other people

Once you have read up on all the foundational stuff, what's next?

I am a big believer in learning from other people.

But, not in the way you probably think I mean.

Forget your formal “mentorship” structure. Don't expect to learn much from your line managers.

It's what everyone else is doing. This won't give you an edge.

Here's what I would do instead:

Seek out leading industry / domain experts. Go straight to the source.

You have to be shameless about learning.

Be direct and shameless about reaching out to people. People you admire. People who wrote the books you read about (if they are still alive). Message them on LinkedIn, cold email them, ask for referrals to them.

You will be surprised on how much help you will get if you just ask.

Here's an email I sent to a startup founder when we were raising our first round of funding for Saleswhale:

I send hundreds of emails like the above every year.

Most people will help you if you ask them a question. You need to develop the courage and resourcefulness to ask people and seek out knowledge.

You have to learn to put your ego aside, and be a kid at heart again - curious, open-minded, and not a know-it-all.

Not everything has to be a formal process.

You can learn a lot just by being shameless and proactive.

I've used the word shameless 3 times in the last few paragraphs. If there's just one takeaway you get from this article about learning, let it be this.

You have to be shameless about learning.

If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters – don’t wish to seem knowledgeable. And if some regard you as important, distrust yourself."– Epictetus