Lerning from the Right Book, Blog or Course

A quote from Mark 1 9-11: (even the "good book" may not be the "right" book for HTML or AdWords or even Buddha :-) "And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." In Hebrew and Greek. Taken at the Christian baptism site, Jordan river, Israel.

Have you heard about the "best book to learn...."? Or the course the will change your life (make you rich, happy and sexy in three months)? There are countless offers for "the best, fastest, for-sure-way, easiest, completely proven"... you get the point. Yet in reality, each book, method or technique works only for very few people. Even if it is proven by experience and the guru (master, expert) has been teaching it and using it with hundreds of people. What makes a book "good" for you? How will a blog move you along, day by day, so you can benefit? Even if you are skeptical, there are videos and courses which have changed people's lives. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many good resources, comprehensive useful sites and successful new product marketers (supporters, advisors, trainers). Most of new internet's new professions are populated by self taught workers. There are many factors which will make a training book useful to each person. Some factors are easy to determine: technical level, amount of involvement required, writing style, end goal or result (does it fit the reader's need?), difficult or even impossible demands, prerequisites, physical or mental requirements... the list goes on and on. The simple fact is, most techniques do not work for simple reasons. Sometimes if you buy the book and try to make it work, you realize why you are not successful. Sometimes you can't achieve what is promised and you give up. Usually not knowing what went wrong. 

Learning from "The First 20 Hours" a Book About Starting

Can you learn a complicated (or simple) programming language in 20 hours? Josh Kaufman says YOU CAN

It may sound a little ridiculous, but we have seen these claims from all kind of books and "guru" trainers: "buy the book: 'Learn [fill in the blank] in 24 Hours', and you will be wealthy, healty, and SMART!" A quick search on Amazon for "learn 24 hours" gives the result: 

1,389 results for "learn 24 hours"

 It starts out with "the Bible" (yes you can learn this classic tomb), to programming a dozen languages and many more technology topics (SAP, SQL, Microsoft Excel and Office, etc.), all the way to piano and guitar, and finally, French, Spanish, and Chinese. So what's the problem with internet or content marketing? or copywriting and graphic design for the web? You could learn anything in 24 hours, do it in a week or two, get a blog or site up and going in a few more weeks, and be happy, healthy, and wealthy. 

Learning From General Business Books (2nd installment)

In the last article about learning and practicing new skills, I wrote about Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers book. He tells a story about how people in remote locations, away from the (accepted) mainstream centers, become accomplished experts and seem to suddenly show up as if discovered by a reality pop music show. Gladwell's is one of the many general business, social science and psychology books describing idea or trend. Many similar books from Seth Godin, Jim Collins, Michael Lewis and others, also tell stories useful to navigate today's changes in media use (especially the internet.) How do we turn a story of the financial failure in the US to something we can use? (see Michael Lewis's The Big Short) We can even go one step further and ask how do turn it into a new skill? If Gladwell explains the phenomena of expertise away from centers of knowledge, can we turn this idea into something we can use? That part is even harder, some general business ideas do not seem relevant to most businesses. Yet, they are and they can make or break a company, your career and maybe even your everyday work satisfaction. Look at these trend and idea books as today's version of the 1970's self-help books.