In this episode, we discuss how you should live life like you’re going to die tomorrow but how you should learn as if you were to live forever. Doing this will help you keep up with the times.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista. In this podcast, my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones. I’m also the founder of Grow With Joe, where I combine self-development coaching and financial planning for Latino Professionals.
In today’s episode, we’re are going to talk about the Mahatma Gandhi quote, “Live as you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” I’m just going to focus on the learning part because I think that is more important for today’s episode. I heard a stat that 60% of college graduates never read another book again and I feel once you leave school, you should continue to learn in one way or another. Reading books, listening to podcasts, going to conferences, taking online courses, and hiring coaches are all great ways to continue learning.
You don’t want to go to the doctor that has 1980s skills when we are living in 2019. A lot has changed in medicine over that time period and a doctor can cause a lot of harm to patients if they don’t upgrade their skills. Whatever age you’re right now, you’re probably going to be living for a while longer and the world is going to be constantly changing. It is not going to stay the same and this is going to require you to be a life long student.
Education is about learning how to make better decisions with your life, it’s not about acquiring information to win a trivia night. You can do a trivia night if you want but don’t just acquire information just to acquire information. If you’re going to watch a television show or movie, you can take an opportunity to make that a learning opportunity as well. I recently went to go watch Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, which was directed by Quentin Tarantino. When I first watched the movie, I was very confused about what just happened at the end and then I went on Reddit to research what other people thought about the movie and once I read this one person’s analysis on the film, things made a lot more sense.
I had the wrong lens on when I was watching the movie, which I thought was going to be more of a history movie about the murder of Sharon Tate by the Manson Family but I should have looked at the film through the lens of the complicated relationship between fantasy and reality. Now I’m like everything makes more sense. So now that I think about the film, it was a really good film that showed the complicated relationship between fantasy and reality. The film makes you realize that fantasy might not be what it really is because, in Hollywood, everything is scripted. And that the reality might be worse than you think it is.
I know one big thing with social media today is that you only see people’s highlight reel or fantasy and the reality of the situation is most likely very different. So when I see someone living their fantasy, I can’t be jealous because the reality of the situation might be very different. Being a financial planner made me realize how much fantasy people are putting up around them and once I get to see the numbers and ask some questions, I get to see that things are not all that it cracks up to be for some people. So by learning from my job and from a film like Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, it makes me emotionally stronger so that I don’t get upset when my fantasy is not living to my expectations.
You can learn from watching a movie on how to tell a story and grabs emotion from the audience. Then you can apply those same themes to your life. If you watch Game Of Thrones, there are lots of reasons why characters are acting the way they are and you can see similar themes in the real world in terms of people reaching for power. So then when someone is trying to use a power technique on you, you can be better prepared for it. Or you can show more empathy because you know the backstory for why some are the way they are now.
You don’t just need to learn about your job but you also need to learn about people and you don’t need to take four years of psychology classes to understand people. Read biographies about people and read other books that focus on emotional intelligence. Once you Read 8 books on a subject, you pretty much a subject matter expert on the area or you at least know enough to be dangerous.
That is the goal with your learning, you want to know enough about your environment to be dangerous so that you don’t end up being taken advantage of. You don’t want to go on a vacation and come back with a timeshare. You don’t want to go into a salary or job negotiation and being taken advantage of. You want to make sure your decision is giving you the most value and you’re not being forced into something you don’t want to do just because you didn’t know any better. The would is constantly changing and if you stop learning, then you’re just going to be taken advantage of. Having an education is a great equalizer. There is a reason why they don’t want people to learn in North Korea, because then they will start to ask questions and if they get the right answers to their questions, then they might want to change things, which is not going to be good for the establishment.
If I would have to know everything that I could have to know about becoming a financial planner, I would have taken a much different path than how I got to where I am today but I also didn’t know what I didn’t know but as I got to learn how to do financial planning and the different structures there are between broker-dealer, Registered Investment Advisor, and Hybrid, I realized I should of choosing then Registered Investment Advisor first and avoided being a broker-dealer. It’s more suitable for my personality. Now I’m in the right position though because I went out and continued to learn about my field.
I know I wouldn’t be as happy as I am now doing my own thing than when I was with my previous firm for financial planning. So once you start to learn new things then you can find something that actually intrigues you. I didn’t realize that I could do economics as a degree until my advisor in college said to take an economics class. I fell in love with economics but I’m also glad I got a public health degree as well because I can use the education from both fields to help me with Grow With Joe.
If you continue to learn the right things, then you’ll just be happier and you’re less likely to be stuck in life. When you have an education, you’ll have more options to choose from. Right now with my skill set, I can go into a bunch of different fields and I think I would be fine and it’s because I got a wide range of skills to help me in any environment. I don’t want to be taken advantage of and I want to make sure I’m not being wasteful with my time and spending time every day will help me avoid these things. Then I’ll just be a happier person that is more satisfied with life and who doesn’t want that?
That’s it for today’s episode, to summarize it, it is important to learn as if you were to live forever. Don’t assume that once you leave a formal school that your need for obtaining an education has ended, it really is just the beginning. So make sure you continue to learn through books, podcasts, YouTube videos, online courses, and coaches so that you can have more options in life and not get stuck or be taken advantage of. Don’t be a sucker in this world and an education will help you avoid this fate.
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
I have a quiz on my website that grades your inner circle, so if you want to find out if your inner circle is an A, B, C, D, or F, you can take that quiz at growwithjoe.me/quiz
I’m also trying to do a feedback Friday episode, so if you have a question that you would like to have my answer on the air, just e-mail me at [email protected]
I’m also on Instagram at Grow With Joe and Facebook just look up Grow With Joe
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe to know Dough.
*Music outro
