How do you go about building new skills when you need them but you don’t yet have them?
Maybe you need to learn how to create a blog or podcast. Or maybe you want to get better at design. Maybe you need to do some customer research but you don’t know how. Or maybe you’re trying to write killer articles that get shared and make some serious impact.
I’ve been stuck in that mire before. Too much to learn. Don’t know where to start. Don’t know what to expect.
What I didn’t know then is that there are some stages to learning new skills, and, with a little zooming out and structured question asking, the mire turns to solid ground, next steps and progress.
Whatever you’re trying to get better at, click play on this episode. We’ll help you dissect and discover the next steps by sharing specific stories (Barrett’s coaching story is worth the price of admission) and then a process for learning a new skill starting from ground zero.
It’s better to listen on the go! Subscribe on iTunes
“COMMUNICATE like an enthusiast. EXPLORE like an expert”
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Some Bits In This Episode:
- Let’s talk about skill building and what that looks like, specifically in the context of somebody who needs to get better at something and grow expertise over time.
- It can be so hard because we say to ourselves, “no I just want a business!” Well, you’ve got, like, 3 years of work to get really good at your topic. That may need to happen BEFORE you can put a dent in your business.
- You’re gonna save yourself a whole mess of time and disappointment if you just commit to a couple years to grow expertise.
- Chase thinks ENTHUSIASTS make better bloggers than EXPERTS. But this needs some discussion.
- “The way to succeed in a startup is not to be an expert on startups, but to be an expert on your users and the problem you’re solving for them.” ~ Paul Graham (10 min in)
- Brain pickings, Daring Fireball, Kottke.org and other BIG blogs are curated by curious, enthusiastic people… not necessarily experts (and certainly when they started they weren’t).
- Barrett’s coaching story… price of admission, this lil’ bit right here is worth it. (19 min)
- “I found people who had done what I wanted to do, they shared resources, then I dove into those resources and put the hours in and saw what worked and what didn’t.” ~ Barrett
- Notice how wide your aim is. Go for a smaller niche. A thing that has a beginning, middle and end. Blog about Ewok culture instead of Star Wars. Become an expert in plants indigenous to your area, not ALL plants.
- Chase’s hand lettering and copying Chvrches story. (37 min)
- (lots of great articles and videos in show notes).
“Find the enthusiast in you. What makes you like a 4 year old at an air show? It starts out so bad, but STAY INTERESTED ENOUGH TO KEEP GOING. The Ira Glass quote. You have better TASTE than you’re capable of DOING right now, but stick with it because this is how everyone you admire now got there, by pursuing taste through the delta.” ~ Chase
Show Notes
Deconstructing Expertise: Why You Desperately Need it & How to Get it — “Some of the best advice I’ve ever heard for would-be bloggers and authors is this: have something to say.”
Romance & Revenue: Big Relationship Tips for Entrepreneurs (FS055) — “The way you’re building your business, the passion and hustle and drive and chutzpah, might just scrooge you over.”
How to Build a Sustainable Coaching Business (And Double Your Rates in the Process) — “To be the best in the world, you have to choose your definition of world, which starts with creating a crystal clear picture of your target audience.”
Coaching for Performance by John Whitmore — “…the bible of the industry and very much the definitive work that all coaches stand on.”
Kathy Sierra: Building the minimum Badass User — “A masterclass in thinking about software product development.”
“The way to succeed in a startup is not to be an expert on startups, but to be an expert on your users and the problem you’re solving for them.”
Watch — Everything is a Remix — Watch. These. If. You. Haven’t.
Izzy Video Tutorials Make It Easy to Learn Video — Where corbett learned Final Cut Pro X
Ana White — “Let’s build something!”
Hacking IKEA | 99% Invisible — “IKEA hacking is the practice of buying things from IKEA and reengineering them to become customized, more functional, and often just better designed stuff.”
How to Uncover Your Creative Talent by Using the “Equal Odds Rule” – James Clear — “In 1977, a Harvard-trained psychologist named Keith Simonton, developed a theory that he called the Equal Odds Rule.”
2 Questions to ask Yourself About the “Equal Odds Rule” — The article I wrote to help folks like us digest James’ article a bit.
The First 20 Hours – Josh Kaufman – How to Learn Anything FAST — “The First 20 Hours is a practical guide to learning beyond our mid-20s, when our brains are fully developed.”
The 4-Hour Chef by Timothy Ferriss — “The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life”
Some of Chase’s lettering doodles on Instagram — Here’s one:
“What Am I Gonna Do With A Gun Rack” — “I don’t even have a gun, let alone many…”
Learn how to set goals that actually stick!
The Top 10 Mistakes in Online Business
Every week we talk with entrepreneurs. We talk about what’s working and what isn’t. We talk about successes and failures. We spend time with complete newbies, seasoned veterans, and everything in between.
One topic that comes up over and over again with both groups is mistakes made in starting businesses. Newbies love to learn about mistakes so they can avoid them. Veterans love to talk about what they wish they had known when starting out.
These conversations have been fascinating, so we compiled a list of the 10 mistakes we hear most often into a nifty lil' guide. Get the 10 Most Common Mistakes in Starting an Online Business here »
great one! deym. cool to know you got an illegal copy of photoshop in the beginning Chase. prolly not something to point out but it was that and the tinkering and fooling around and getting friends to dress goth so you can later photo-manipulate them into zombie vampires – just the crazy fun that was had during that learning process was ALSO what solidified my alliance or commitment to learning, exploring this/these tool/tools. so yay! mastery is hard work but can also be fun work. this episode has been a good reminder.
Also liked the “if your a 3 in a scale of 1 to 10, there’ll be 1s or 2s who’ll learn from you” thanks Corbett. no excuses anymore. feel like that was all I needed to hear to shut the critic in my head.
first time also today to attend Fizzle Friday which I now wonder why I never showed up. well done Barrett for sharing your insights, answering my q’s, appreciate the straightforwardness too, lucid and wow, respect to fizzlers. you brave ones. it’s good to hear we’re all trying to make it work. keep on guys and gals :)
HA! Zombie vampires… good combo, Kat :)
Love Wayne’s World! “If it’s a severed head I’m going to be very upset.”
People underestimate the value of “tracing”. Taking courses is important for learning the skills but tracing helps figuring out what the learner enjoys creating.
When I was a kid I wanted to be an artist and was good but I was learning by tracing or drawing by looking at other people’s work… My dad (who was not a well educated man) told me that was copying and would dismiss my art if it wasn’t 100% original. Now as an adult I realize it has caused me problems when learning new art forms because I don’t want to copy others. However, everyone has to base their work off of what has been done in the past.
Getting away from my therapy session, I found this video that does a great job reminding me it is okay to be inspired/influenced by other people’s works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4KF8Mko7Z0
If you like this style of animation. I’ve interviewed the creator last year.
You can listen at http://www.jasonloveslife.com/drew-christie/
He is a really cool guy in Seattle (I hear that city is full of “cool guys”).
Whoa, that’s a great video. Thanks, Jason!
Yea Seth Godin often talks about creating your Art and says it’s not Art if it’s now new (paraphrasing).
While that’s good for challenging yourself to think of something new, sometimes you need to build the skill before you can make the thing (or teach the thing).
Sweet video! We’re all pulling from something. This podcast reminded me of the fun it is to create something in my business!
Chase, for the “racing mind” at night try this. I have the same issue! You can get it at Whole Foods, Natural Grocers, etc…
Coffea Cruda:
http://abchomeopathy.com/r.php/Coff
Thanks, i’ll give it a try Dara!
Nice show! First time I’ve listened (thanks to hearing Chase on Erik Fisher’s podcast) and I really enjoyed hearing one of you (I don’t know who it was) refer to himself as being a generalist. I’ve been a generalist for so long and at this point, I feel like I’m flailing about with no purpose. What if you’re enthusiastic about and really good at a lot of things? I’ve been in business for so long (15 years!) as a web dev and I’m just tired of it and want to move on to something that I enjoy more. I have a few ideas, but also need to keep making money as I transition. I sort of want someone to sit down and look over my life and say “hey, you’re great at this and there’s a market for it because nobody else is doing it well, so go do it now.” Does that make sense?
Hey, you’re great at comments, Tracey! :)
It does make sense. Maybe there’s a few people you already know you could ask what they think you’re great at?
I see what you did there, Chase! :) There are a few folks I run this kind of stuff by, but maybe I need to do it again with a little more precision. Maybe even a question to my FB friends — all folks who who me in many different contexts.
As a kid, I was always shit at video games. They never came easy to me and I was never willing to put in the work to raise my skill level so I pretty much always was horrible to mildly average at any game I played. So after I was done with childhood, which was pretty early, around the age of 18, I had no attachment to video games and kind of looked down on them (all the way to the point of never in my life having even bought a gaming system myself) as many people do with things they aren’t good at – especially the things that are leisure activities.
Well, at the age of 35 things have changed and I’ve recently become enamored by the idea of becoming a world class Madden 15 football player on PS4 which was only purchased less than a year ago.
Let’s just say that I’m embarrassed now at how horrible my play was when I first bought it now that I’ve put in the work to get my skills to the level where I’m ranked in the top 4% of players on Madden’s system.
One of the philosophies that MASSIVELY helped me was what I learned from the hall of fame NCAA basketball player and coach John Wooden in his book, “Wooden: A lifetime of observations on and off the court” . . .
Losing and Winning
Long before any championships were ever won at UCLA, I came to understand that losing is only temporary and not all encompassing. You must simply study it, learn from it, and try hard not to lose the same way again. Then you must have the self-control to forget about it.
I’ve also learned that winning games, titles, and championships isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Please understand that I wanted to win every single game I ever played in or coached. Absolutely. I wanted to win. But, I understood that ultimately the winning or losing may not be under my control. What was under my control was how I prepared myself and our team. I judged my success, my “winning,” on that. It just made more sense.
I felt if we prepared fully we would do just fine. If we won, great; frosting on the cake. But, at no time did I consider winning to be the cake.
END OF EXCERPT
That is the level of thinking that created the greatest championship record in all of sports… 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975.
It is the level of thinking that took my skills with Madden from being garbage to being pretty decent in a less than a years time.
But it is also the level of thinking that helped me take my marketing and copywriting skill sets from being garbage to being profitable. I had to be okay with not being a winner immediately and I had to be okay with doing all the work – studying, practicing success habits, etc. that made it possible for me to have skills that pay the bills when it’s game time – time to write an article, write a sales letter, create a product, coach another person to success, etc.
This post is an absolute gold mine and I’m grateful to have happened upon it as I’m excited about what these resources will do to enhance both my Madden and my marketing skills. Thank you guys for doing such a marvelous job of compiling and breaking down this topic the way you have. I very appreciate this world class effort. :)
Wow, awesome, man! Thanks. That’s a great quote from the ol’ wooden willie.