By: Jason Dizon
“Be a student. Always.” These are the words of Hiten Shah from The Startup Chat. Now you might be thinking to yourself, “Why should I keep being a student? I’ve been done with all that years ago!” In fact, I myself am about to graduate college and finish with my entire education. I have no immediate plans of pursuing further studies so this statement from Hiten really made me confused.
The reason why most of us would feel reluctant about being a student is that it reminds us of our time in school. It makes us reminisce all those hardships, sleepless nights, and countless hours of listening to boring lectures in class. I mean, who would want to relive something they just got themselves out of? Right? We have become so averse to learning because we always think of it in the context of academic institutions. We think that to learn, means that we should be in school. Therefore, a lot of us think that learning stops once we graduate from school.
However, this isn’t what Hiten meant by his statement. He meant that we should be students in the sense that we never stop learning. Even as we graduate and get illustrious careers, we should constantly try to learn new knowledge and skills.
Strive to become a life-long learner. Try to infuse learning into your everyday life.
In learning, we don’t have to confine ourselves to the academic setting. Doing so would only lessen our enthusiasm in learning new things. Learning does not need to be strictly confined to academics. When Hiten says that we should be students, he meant that we should try to learn something new, something that interests us or something that we didn’t know before.
When I was just starting out as a sales person, I found it difficult to close deals. I lacked the confidence and mastery of the product knowledge for our company. Clients at first found it difficult to trust me with their business since I couldn’t answer basic questions. I had to learn and improve on my closing skills. I rigorously read our company materials and asked my colleagues for tips. I even practiced my sales pitch with a colleague. After all these, I became a lot better in closing deals since I got to learn techniques in sales.
Apart from sales, I’ve been trying to learn more about playing chess. I know how to play it but I wouldn’t consider myself an expert. That is why I try to play when I have the time. I constantly learn new moves and strategies from playing with different opponents.
Trying to incorporate learning into our everyday lives can make things seem easier and more pleasant. After all, we aren’t being forced to learn. We are learning for the sake of learning and improving ourselves.
Learning by doing can be the easiest way to understand things better since it can take you to a deeper level.
A desire to learn is good and all but oftentimes, the problem lies in the fact that we don’t know where to start, especially if what we are trying to learn is completely new to us. In this case, Steli Eft & Hiten Shah said that it might be best for us to learn things by doing them. Manuals and tutorial videos can only take you so far. You’d still have to do things yourself.
However, a lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of learning by doing since this implies a lot of trial and error. Mistakes and failures are bound to happen. However, the only true way to learn and succeed is by making these mistakes. As Robert F Kennedy, an American politician puts it, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”
I remember when I applied for my current sales job. I had close no nothing when it came to sales knowledge and background. Yet, the CEO of our company tasked us with cold-calling clients without introducing ourselves as part of the company. Since I had not done any type of cold-calling in my life, I wasn’t familiar with the process. Instead of looking at tutorials and tips online, I just decided to dive in and give a call to one of the clients. Naturally, I didn’t succeed with my first few calls. However, because of those failures, I got to find out what I should be saying to clients and what I should refrain from doing. After some failed calls, I finally got to engage a client in a lengthy conversation. I learned because I kept doing amidst my failures at first.
I’ve also recently tried learning how to surf. I literally knew nothing on surfing and I didn’t know where to start. I’ve seen people surf in videos and movies but I couldn’t quite grasp how to do it. In order to learn, I just simply tried doing it. After countless falls and numerous liters of seawater swallowed, I finally learned the basics of how to surf. Had I not tried surfing I wouldn’t have learned it at all.
Take a look at yourself from a year ago, and see how far you’ve come today.
In order to have that unquenchable thirst for learning, you’d need to look at yourself before and compare it with how you are right now. Is there anything you’ve done in the past year that seemed stupid and wrong, or you found to be really difficult, but now it’s easy? If you can’t answer these questions, chances are that you’re not learning enough.
If I can leave you with one statement to take away, it’s this, “Never stop to learn and never learn to stop.” Continuously strive to learn new things and never be contented with what you know.
The reason why most of us would feel reluctant about being a student is that it reminds us of our time in school. It makes us reminisce all those hardships, sleepless nights, and countless hours of listening to boring lectures in class. I mean, who would want to relive something they just got themselves out of? Right? We have become so averse to learning because we always think of it in the context of academic institutions. We think that to learn, means that we should be in school. Therefore, a lot of us think that learning stops once we graduate from school.
However, this isn’t what Hiten meant by his statement. He meant that we should be students in the sense that we never stop learning. Even as we graduate and get illustrious careers, we should constantly try to learn new knowledge and skills.
Strive to become a life-long learner. Try to infuse learning into your everyday life.
In learning, we don’t have to confine ourselves to the academic setting. Doing so would only lessen our enthusiasm in learning new things. Learning does not need to be strictly confined to academics. When Hiten says that we should be students, he meant that we should try to learn something new, something that interests us or something that we didn’t know before.
When I was just starting out as a sales person, I found it difficult to close deals. I lacked the confidence and mastery of the product knowledge for our company. Clients at first found it difficult to trust me with their business since I couldn’t answer basic questions. I had to learn and improve on my closing skills. I rigorously read our company materials and asked my colleagues for tips. I even practiced my sales pitch with a colleague. After all these, I became a lot better in closing deals since I got to learn techniques in sales.
Apart from sales, I’ve been trying to learn more about playing chess. I know how to play it but I wouldn’t consider myself an expert. That is why I try to play when I have the time. I constantly learn new moves and strategies from playing with different opponents.
Trying to incorporate learning into our everyday lives can make things seem easier and more pleasant. After all, we aren’t being forced to learn. We are learning for the sake of learning and improving ourselves.
Learning by doing can be the easiest way to understand things better since it can take you to a deeper level.
A desire to learn is good and all but oftentimes, the problem lies in the fact that we don’t know where to start, especially if what we are trying to learn is completely new to us. In this case, Steli Eft & Hiten Shah said that it might be best for us to learn things by doing them. Manuals and tutorial videos can only take you so far. You’d still have to do things yourself.
However, a lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of learning by doing since this implies a lot of trial and error. Mistakes and failures are bound to happen. However, the only true way to learn and succeed is by making these mistakes. As Robert F Kennedy, an American politician puts it, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”
I remember when I applied for my current sales job. I had close no nothing when it came to sales knowledge and background. Yet, the CEO of our company tasked us with cold-calling clients without introducing ourselves as part of the company. Since I had not done any type of cold-calling in my life, I wasn’t familiar with the process. Instead of looking at tutorials and tips online, I just decided to dive in and give a call to one of the clients. Naturally, I didn’t succeed with my first few calls. However, because of those failures, I got to find out what I should be saying to clients and what I should refrain from doing. After some failed calls, I finally got to engage a client in a lengthy conversation. I learned because I kept doing amidst my failures at first.
I’ve also recently tried learning how to surf. I literally knew nothing on surfing and I didn’t know where to start. I’ve seen people surf in videos and movies but I couldn’t quite grasp how to do it. In order to learn, I just simply tried doing it. After countless falls and numerous liters of seawater swallowed, I finally learned the basics of how to surf. Had I not tried surfing I wouldn’t have learned it at all.
Take a look at yourself from a year ago, and see how far you’ve come today.
In order to have that unquenchable thirst for learning, you’d need to look at yourself before and compare it with how you are right now. Is there anything you’ve done in the past year that seemed stupid and wrong, or you found to be really difficult, but now it’s easy? If you can’t answer these questions, chances are that you’re not learning enough.
If I can leave you with one statement to take away, it’s this, “Never stop to learn and never learn to stop.” Continuously strive to learn new things and never be contented with what you know.
Jason is currently an Account Executive at Leadfunnel.ph. While he is new to blogging, he is well-versed in news writing and other forms of creative writing.
Curious? Want to know more? You can reach Jason at 0917-569-3371.
The difficulty of sales is what makes it challenging yet exciting all at the same time!
Curious? Want to know more? You can reach Jason at 0917-569-3371.
The difficulty of sales is what makes it challenging yet exciting all at the same time!
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