What’s the Best Training You’ve Ever Taken

The best? How do you even begin to define that? The most impactful? The one that taught me the most? The one I was most able to put to use in the most practical ways?

One thing I’ve learned recently is that everyone has different value systems. What’s important to me may not mean anything to you and vice versa. Which means that just because a training I’ve taken is “the best I’ve ever taken” however I may define that, definitely doesn’t mean it will be the best you’ve ever taken, even once you’ve taken it!

Oftentimes the best way to answer a question is to start with a whole bunch of questions.?

Clarify

What does this mean to me? The BEST training I’ve ever taken?! Let’s go with the most impactful. Now what does THAT even mean? I am going to define this as the one where I remembered the most things I learned because these were the things I’ve most put to use.?

The truth is that maybe almost ironically as someone who has produced a ton of training materials, I’ve taken very few courses and continuing education type classes.?

Value Systems

I prefer to figure things out myself. For one thing and for me learning this way is most impactful.?

For many of you this would only lead you to frustration. For another thing, my brain works differently from most people (I think). If I am taking a class and the instructor is going really slow, which I understand they need to in most cases, I get very anxious. Then I have a hard time paying attention. I start looking out the window, or looking for something to distract me, and when my attention does turn back to the training my mind says something like, “come on get to the point already!”?

My Out of the Box Answer

On this basis it would probably be fair to say that the best training I’ve ever taken would be based on anything that I’ve taken the time to learn on my own. I will reference things to help me in the process, but that’s about it. In fact, just yesterday (as of this writing) I wanted to figure out how to combine two strings of text in a Notion Database. They don’t have a concatenate formula like Excel or Google Sheets does. I don’t have a course for this, but there’s a guy named Thomas Frank who has amazing Notion resources. I found something on his website that gave me the answer I needed. He didn’t explain it “perfectly” for me, but it got me close enough to figure out the rest. There was one dumb and subtle little detail that I needed to figure out on my own that got me from the formula not working to one that worked.?

Evolution

The best training I’ve ever taken is probably a collection of resources that I have documented in Notion which act as reference tools for me to research what I need when I need it.?

Not any one course.?

Do Books Count?

If books count, then perhaps my answer is Time's Up!: The Subscription Business Model for Professional Firms. I think the way that I go through a book like this is what makes this count, and the reason this is most impactful for me is that of everything I’ve ever ready, this is the one that is going to transform me the most, first because of the way I’ve studied it, and second, because I plan to use this along with a few other influences of mine to develop a very in depth coaching program. I’m using this as the primary blueprint for how I am going to teach this material to others.?

I like books so much better than courses, for me, because I can go through them very slowly, make notes, go down all kinds of rabbit holes, and get SO MUCH out of a resource like this.?

Most people just read a book like this, have a good experience, but implement very few of the ideas. I intended to implement substantially all of them.?

The second most influential book I’ve ever read that also now informs almost everything I do is Getting Things Done by David Allen.?

In the end the answer for me is books, books, and more books. I love to read. I love that I can pull these off my digital shelf (and some off the hard one) and reference exactly what I need when I need it.?

Why do I produce courses then?

The simple answer is that I learned years ago and quite by accident that many of you like to learn from my videos, and I love producing them. I love creating an experience that I know is going to help you learn even if it is not my preferred way to learn. As I said above, I am aware that my brain is different. To be clear, NOT better. Not smarter. Just different. I think very fast, and this is not always a good thing. I have no patience - definitely not a good thing, but somehow when I am teaching others, I have found that I have a ton of patience. I can’t explain it. I don’t need to. I just know that “it is.”

I have worked with many app developers over the years consulting with them to help them better cultivate relationships with their accountant and bookkeeper audiences. One of the themes of each of these relationships I’ve had is that when looking for answers on how to best appeal to accountants and bookkeepers, I can’t answer things based on how I think. I’m different. I like to figure things out for myself.?

Most accountants and bookkeepers who seek training are doing so because you don’t have time to figure this stuff out. You need someone to lead you to the answers so you can learn it and get back to work.?

I do understand this, even though it is most definitely not how I am wired.

This to me is the very definition of what makes a “Training” really good. It’s always the teacher behind the training.?

From that perspective I know that it’s my job to first recognize that the reason you are here is because you don’t yet know what I know. That gets the “judgement” part out of the way.?

The second thing I need to know as the trainer is that I need to see what you can’t yet see, so I know exactly what to show you.

One more thing…

I had better be excited as hell about what I am teaching you or it doesn’t matter how good the training is in concept. The presentation is going to be boring as hell if I am not excited about it.?

For this reason, I don’t dare teach something just because it's what people are searching for on the internet. I choose what I teach based 100% on passion.?

So, tell me in the comments!

What’s the best training you’ve ever taken?

And why?