Carol Dweck, author of Mindset, wrote that when a person has a fixed mindset, they rely on what they already know. Such a person will generally have a tough time accepting that they need any help and almost certainly won’t go searching for new information. A growth mindset, on the other hand, compels a person to seek out ways to fill any and every gap in their life. It’s not an obsession, it’s a desire to be a lifelong learner.

Engaging with books, online courses, coaches, consultants, and even psychologists has a great return on investment. Darren Hardy, author of The Compound Effect, said he invests 10% of his income in education. He started by buying books, but his success with this tactic got to a point where his income was high enough that he could afford access to high-end life coaches. Imagine the return on that! If done right, investing in knowledge can compound faster than even the best bank accounts or S&P500 stocks.

 However, there must always be a goal behind your learning. That purpose should be 100% your own. Borrowing someone else’s purpose will never create the unquenchable fire your belly needs to achieve wild success. That’s why I advise building your own curriculum for learning and not using someone else’s. Don’t just identify the skills you lack. A far higher return on investment is to uncover what you’re already good at and perfect those first. The weaknesses can be improved later. You’ll know what those strengths are, so go and find ways to sharpen them. No one else is quite like you.

 This brings me to another point. All information is useful, but not all information is equal. What does this mean? The car manual in your garage probably isn’t useful right now. But when your car starts making funny noises, you’ll no doubt need that little booklet. You’ll kick yourself if it was thrown away, but also if you’d spent precious hours reading it before the time was ripe. There are all kinds of information that might one day improve your life, like that car manual. However, information never arrives at the time you need it. Part of being a lifelong learner is knowing how to track down new information promptly.

 Information comes in many forms. It is presented by the media or blogs, books, conferences, conversations, and all the rest. The problem is that humans tend to interpret information partly through the lens of their own experiences and worldviews. As such, they often miss crucial knowledge. On top of this, many pieces of information arrive as facts when they are just opinions. That’s why you need a set of thinking tools that help parse information that matches your goals. It must resonate with you and get you excited. Anything else can go on the shelf in the garage.

Generalist To Specialist

Just like the rest of your body, your brain can get fat, too. But an “overweight” brain doesn’t pack on love handles, it just gets confused. A growth mindset doesn’t mean you consume every morsel of information you find. You wouldn’t do that with food, so why do the same with knowledge? It’s important to have a diet of knowledge and a process that aligns with your goals.

Learning depends on filtering out irrelevant information. For the same reason you eat healthily, you should also aim to read healthily. For years I studied marketing author Brenden Burchard along with the team at Digital Marketer. They all taught me a lot. However, when I started working closely with marketing expert Afton Negrea, I had to filter out their information and follow her advice instead. Sometimes it’s important to follow one recipe.

Gaining Perspective

Putting all the marketing lessons I’ve learned over the years together gives me a unique perspective on the topic. No one else on the planet has tracked the same educational path as I have. The same will be true for you. Every bit of knowledge I gain is a puzzle piece that only fits into my picture. Because I’m aware of what the overall picture looks like, I am perfectly happy to have any of my previous lessons challenged or updated. My puzzle picture never stops morphing and this is a good thing.

As an avid sports fan, I listen to an exorbitant amount of sports talk. I have learned that there is a difference between watching a game, forming my own opinions, and then listening to the analyses from expert commentators. Sometimes they seem to be watching an entirely different game from the one I saw. That’s how good they are. Although most of the time they are expressing their opinion, it’s a far more informed opinion than I could ever hope to create myself. Their perspective improves my enjoyment of watching sports.

Absorbing other people’s perspectives is important because nobody gets it right all the time. Financial advisors make mistakes. Sports commentators are not always right. Opinions are based on a combination of assumptions, facts, past experiences, and past beliefs. It’s all useful, so long as the information is molded to fit your goals.