This letter is for those who are learning a skill – either just starting out, or have been practicing it for a while.
I think every one of you should be learning some sort of skill.
If you’re not – start today when you are done reading this.
It’s really essential if you want to make money and just live a better life in general.
When learning something new you have to start correctly to set yourself up for the most success later.
To absolutely master a skill you have to start with learning the principles and mindset.
You can then build from there and learn specific processes that are included in that skill.
It’s going to be impossible for you to just start with the specific processes.
For example:
If I were to learn how to build highly converting landing pages by just finding a YouTube video of someone building it – and then just try to learn it all, I’d not really learn it all.
Most importantly – I wouldn’t understand it.
First I have to learn the most basic principles of design and web design to know what to look for when designing, how to use typography, colors and layout etc.
When I go straight into learning specific processes I can memorize the patterns, but I won’t know how each part works and what makes a design good.
So learn the fundamentals first.
Specific processes, such as building one type of landing page depend on the deeper layers of knowledge.
You have to build a strong base so that the top layers have something to stand on.
The layer furthest down is called “Mental Awareness”. This layer is about self awareness and identity etc.
The layer above that is “Mental Cognition”. It is about prioritization, problem solving and more.
Then comes “Business Principles” which are the principles you have set for your business to always follow. It’s important to get these right, because everything above builds on them.
Followed by “Business Disciplines”. These disciplines are stuff like “sales”, “marketing”, “web design”… you get it.
Lastly on the top is the layer of specific processes.
Now, these layers I just mentioned go deeper than just learning the basics of a skill, but I hope you understand now that you have to start with the foundational layers of knowledge, build them strong, and work up from there.
If your deeper layers lack – you will lack in the higher layers too.
If you for example lack in mental cognition and suck at prioritizing, your project will suffer a lot because you work more on the things that don’t matter and ignore the needle moving tasks.
Fix the lower layers, learn the fundamentals.
Go from broad to specific.
I got this idea completely with the different layers from a video by Sam Ovens and I won’t take any credit for it. Of course.
Well, that wraps up this letter.
See ya