Bill Gates is still learning. R U?
Posted by Doug Rice on Tue, Feb 09, 2010 @ 10:48 AM
Bill Gates writes a blog.
Who knew?
It's called the Gates Notes and he covers what he's thinking, learning and doing.
While it might be interesting to some to find out what he is doing to help with Malaria in Africa, education in America, or system development to deal with the next pandemic - I assure you he is doing stellar work in all those areas and more - what it more useful for most of us is insight into how he thinks and acts.
If you had all the money in the world, which he actually does, then what would you do with your time?
Let's see... Work on your golf game? Travel to far away lands? Have lunch on your private yacht while playing cribbage at $1 million a point? Go to glamorous events cloaked in charities to reduce the guilt from your gluttony?
Maybe.
What most people wouldn't do is study economics.
After all, once you have all the money you could ever need, haven't you actually conquered economics?
In a recent post in his blog, thegatesnotes.com, Bill Gates says that he has been learning from the Great Lectures from the Teaching Company. He started with the sciences; biology, geology, medicine. The moved to history and then economics.
Why this matters to you
Learning isn't something you do in school and forget.
Some of us have forgotten that.
We live in a complicated world bulging with information. At no time in history has it been so easy to learn something new. But with all the opportunity available to us comes another problem.
How do we choose what we spend our limited time on learning?
Do we learn software to do our taxes? Do we learn how to manage our investments? Do we learn new skills so we can progress in our job? Do we learn about our health, our wealth, or our military stealth?
(Sorry, I couldn't find anything else that rhymed with wealth and health and the rhythm seemed to need three terms.)
The point is that time is limited, energy is limited, but the amount you are capable of learning is unlimited.
Overwhelming choice often leads to no choice at all and a confused mind typically says no.
So we blow it off, don't bother learning anything, and just keep doing what we are doing, hoping that things will work out.
To overcome this, start slow with a topic you like, that is fairly simple, and are interested in. Then start learning more about it. No midterms. No cramming. Just learning. Scan the web, watch some pod casts, read a book.
There's something I bet most haven't done lately. READ a BOOK.
Just narrow it down to one thing and start somewhere.
Once in the habit of continually learning, it's highly likely your life will change - for the better.
Try it and see.
If the richest guy in the world spends his time doing it, then shouldn't you give it a try?