Hoarding vs. Consuming

Before we get started…take a look at this AI-generated image and tell me what’s wrong…

Do you see it?

It looks great from first glance, but it’s not quite what I wanted.

I wouldn’t put raw meat with fruit and vegetables.

Bad idea.

I know. Chalk it up to my lack of prompting skills.

I will be the first to admit that I am not an expert at AI prompt engineering yet.

And that brings me to what I want to remind you of when it comes to skill stacking…

If you’ve been out of the education system that so many love to criticize (with good reason) for any length of time like me, then you’ve probably lapsed on your own lifelong learning commitment somewhat.

It’s not your fault either.

• bills

• taxes

• insurance

• mortgage

• family obligations

It all slowly fills up your time, and next thing you know, you’re desperately scraping together minutes here and there to read that book you promised a million times to your best friend (who is single and rich and successful in their career) that you’d read and be ready to discuss over mimosas at the next brunch event.

Ahem.

I rather wish I had a friend like that, but all mine are in the same boat.

They’re not writing a newsletter, though.

What I’m trying to confess to is that I’m incredibly guilty of falling out of the cycle of collecting knowledge and then consuming it before moving to the next thing.

Yes, I vaguely remember about writing here about it once…maybe twice…and posting about it as well.

Here’s the proof:

I have only about 1,258,352,653 courses and giveaways that I’ve accumulated in the first 9 months of being on X.

I’ve most recently completed one:

Kieran Drew’s “High Impact Writing” course.

I’ve realized something so astoundingly obvious by going through it.

We are wired to consume self-help books without taking action on them.

In truth, you really only need to apply concepts from a few to see significant improvement.

…and it’s not true just for self-help.

It’s true for learning just about everything.

The only thing you need to do is to commit to the act of consuming and applying the knowledge…and I haven’t been doing that nearly enough this year.

On to the next one.

The Takeaway

So to recap…

• 3 months left in 2023

• first 90-day spring is focused on course and giveaway consumption

• Kieran Drew’s course was well-worth the money and the four months it took me to finish it

I promised that starting this week, I’d be writing on topics to help you make your content.

Whether you are using text, visuals, or video, this is my commitment to you for the remainder of this year.

Why?

Because even though this is the fourth, and last quarter of the year, and it’s the first 90-day sprint that I’m using to focus on this theme.

Here’s this week’s actionable exercise:

Do you have a book or a program or a course that you swore up and down that you would complete by the end of this year?

Do you still have it somewhere tending to its (rapidly growing) collection of dust bunnies?

Time to look for it and put together a plan of action starting this week…or soon…or maybe later.

No. No. No…no.

Now.

Get started!

This is an exercise in making a commitment.

Thought of the week:

An Inspirator makes commitments to taking action to consume knowledge as well as collecting it.

Next week, I’ll share some of the best highlights of Kieran’s course that I found incredibly helpful…and I hope it’ll help you!

Vince

P.S. I’m slowly beginning to realize just how much and how long I’ve been “spinning the wheels” in an effort to spend time…and avoiding effort.

P.P.S. There’s a lot more to mind-mining than I first thought…who would’ve thought I’d still be doing this! I certainly didn’t.