entrepreneurial education, deep vs wide

Summary

going wide is easy. 30 second clips, podcast highlights, book summaries from an AI. it feels productive and it does almost nothing for your business.

going deep is what actually changes you. the example I always go back to is The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau. I listened to the audiobook. it hit. I bought the physical copy. then I sat down and worked through it like a textbook, highlighting, taking notes, doing every checklist in the back.

that one book is the reason my first business launched the way it did. not because it was magic, because I went deep instead of skimming the next thing.

pick one book or one course this quarter. study it. apply it. you’ll get further than the entrepreneur consuming 50 things at the surface.

Transcript

introduction to the importance of deep learning in entrepreneurship

The most impactful business is the business that genuinely improves another human, a better human business. And to grow a business like this, you have to continually improve yourself. This podcast is a documentation of that thesis, scaling businesses and also personal growth. My goal is for you to shortcut this journey. So if you’re ready to try hard, subscribe. If you like what you’re hearing, please share and enjoy. When is the last time you just went crazy learning something?

I mean, you took extensive notes, you highlighted, you wrote excerpts from the text, you made flashcards, you did everything, you pulled out every stop to learn the material you wanted to learn. When’s the last time you did that? Honestly, pause right now if you have to think about when is the last time you did that. This is the Better Human Business Podcast. I’m Jerred Moon. And hopefully your answer is not, when I was in college, when I was in school, the last time someone was going to give me a test was the last time I did that.

discussion on the impact of intensive learning from real examples

And I know that probably is the answer for a lot of you. And hey, it’s been the answer for me. It’s not like I’m doing those things all the time. But why do we stop doing that? Some of you are those people. Some of you live by flashcards, highlighting, taking notes. That’s just your personality. But I know for entrepreneurs, we wear a lot of hats and we have to decide what’s an efficient use of our time and what’s an inefficient use of our time.

So would it be inefficient for us to sit and listen to a podcast, for instance? And would it be efficient to sit there and take notes and write things down and then decide if we’re going to act on the information that’s been given, or if we find a really good book, diving into it deep, listening to it on audio while you’re also reading it at the same time to increase your retention rate, highlighting things, taking ideas out of the text and utilizing them?

analysis of the pitfalls of shallow learning through modern media

If we do those things, we learn. That’s one thing that we’ve proven to ourselves. If you’ve been through any higher level education or any professional course, you know that’s how you can retain that information. But for some reason, we don’t carry that over. We don’t think it’s as important when we get into business or life. And I’m afraid that we’re going in a much darker direction, in all honesty. We are going a mile wide, but only an inch deep.

And we’re doing this through TikTok, Instagram, excerpts, and everything in between. We’re just not going very deep on anything. And I want to challenge you to go deeper. I know when I was learning online business, that’s exactly what I did. I went deep. And it was actually at the request of a mentor who basically said, you know, I tear through books and I’ve been tearing through books for a while now. And part of me does that because I know that there are a lot of not so good books, like books I’m not going to take action on.

So I try to go through them quickly because I’m like, yeah, this is useful enough, but it’s not something I want to go deep on. But when I find a book that I want to go deep on, I stop. And my actual framework is I listen to it on audio. If it’s amazing, I love the book, I order it, the physical copy. And then once physical copy comes in, I’ll start going through it at a deeper level, if the book is good enough.

strategies for adopting a rigorous study approach in business

It’s hard to find these types of books. You may have already read some of these books, but they are worth going deep on. So anyway, back to my mentor. He challenged me to go deeper in a particular area. So I had some books on basically internet marketing. And I went deep. I mean, I just did every single thing the book said. And I’ve done this more than once. I did a story on my podcast where the specific book escapes me now, and it wouldn’t be useful to you now.

It’s very outdated. So don’t worry if it doesn’t matter. Oh yeah, it’s called The $100 Startup by Chris Gilbo. I don’t think it’s as helpful these days unless he’s done an updated and expanded version. But when I was launching my online business, at the very start, that’s what I did. I just went over that specific book. And he had every single checklist item that you should do. And I just had the book. I had sticky notes in it.

I was just going through every single thing. And I did it, and I launched my business. The business was off to a good start. I didn’t have this amazing launch, but I had made enough money from my launch to continue to do this thing and to continue to go down this path. It wasn’t a huge failure. And it’s because I went deep on that one specific book on how to do something. And I’ve done this over and over again with books that I’m reading through, and I’m like, this is not a light read.

This is a field manual. I need to dive into it. And once I realize that, or if it’s a topic where I know I have a huge weakness, I just dive into it more. And that’s what I really want to urge you to do. So pick one to two courses. Pick one to two books and study them like there will be a test. Because there is a test. There’s a test every single day in entrepreneurship and in life.

conclusion and encouragement for entrepreneurs to engage deeply with educational materials

And you can pick a book in any category. It doesn’t have to be a marketing book. It could be a self-development, growth-type book where you’re just like, you know what? This book that I read has everything I need in it to get better, to become a better human. And I just need to implement this crap. You might have that book. You might already know what it is, and you’re like, that’s the book I need to become a better human right now.

I am going to read it. I’m going to reread it. I’m going to take notes on it. I’m going to create flashcards. I’m going to highlight. I am going to master. I’m going to own this book. And I will not move on to another book until I fully have mastered this one. And when you start looking at your self-education that way, you will start making progress faster and faster and faster because no one else, and I mean no one else, is doing that.

People don’t do it. They read a couple pages of a book. They don’t finish. They get a couple of Instagram excerpts at 30 seconds or less, and that’s about their education for the day. You will smoke your competition if you start studying like this in entrepreneurship or self-development. Your business will grow if you grow, right? We all know that. That’s the whole premise of this podcast. So if you focus on yourself that much, you have books that you are trying to master that help you master yourself, your business will grow.

If you found a marketing book or a book on operations or sales or whatever, and you know this is a good book, this is a top of the food chain type book for that area, study it, master it, know everything, again, flashcards, notes, everything that you have to, highlight. You need to do all these things, and once you are mastering subjects at that level, you absolutely will crush your competition, but guess what? That’s a whole lot of trying harder.