Hi friends,

Let’s talk about what it means to be a student. If given the opportunity, many people say that they would not want to go back to school. Unfortunately, most of us are forced to sit in a classroom from ages 6-18+ and grow to disdain school. Here’s a quote from the American astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson on school:

School is not only a place to learn, but a place to learn how to learn. And at its best, school should be a place to stimulate a lifetime of curiosity.

But not everyone’s experience in school goes like this. We need to be able to separate school from learning. Even if you’ve graduated from school, it doesn’t mean that you should be done seeking out new knowledge and information.

When I was in high school, I dreaded going to class each day. I thought it just got in the way of playing golf, and there were very few classes that I enjoyed going to. I didn’t like writing. I didn’t put effort into studying for exams. And I put the bare minimum into completing assignments.

Once I got to college and realized I wanted to get into physical therapy school, my relationship with studying needed to change to get the grades necessary to be accepted into grad school. Then a funny thing happened—I found a class that actually got me excited. Anatomy and physiology was the first class that I didn’t mind studying for the exams. This was the first time that I truly enjoyed learning.

Ever since then, I’ve fallen in love with learning and I’m constantly searching for new knowledge and testing my own beliefs.

The best part about being out of formal schooling is that now, you can learn about whatever you’d like. There is no excuse to stop learning with the advent of the internet and Amazon. You can set a rule for yourself that if you see a book you’d like to read, you buy it. No questions asked or second-guessing. The average book is $10-20, and for that cost you get years of information and research compiled into one resource.

The biographer Walter Isaacson has covered some of the greatest innovators of all time including—Benjamin Franklin, Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, and Elon Musk. He summarizes what he’s learned from them as follows, “Being curious about everything not only makes you more creative. It enriches your life.”

You can try to set out a goal to learn one new thing per day—it could be a fun fact, a new word, or how to do something. The world is constantly evolving, and if you’re not adapting and learning, you’ll be left behind.

Until next week,

Kevin