For Long-Term Success, Value Learning Over Money

Long-term success requires a firm foundation. Instead of looking for shortcuts to success that will probably not last, focus on laying a strong and firm foundation for financial growth.

Learn better or indispensable skills that will still be valuable in the next 5 or 10 years, embrace lifelong learning and build better routines and habits that can advance your goals.

The power of exponential learning

Optimizing learning over money sets you up for massive results in the future especially if you plan on earning for decades before you retire. If your learning curve is flat right now, you are setting yourself up for a massive dip in the future.

You may be earning enough to support yourself now, but if you don’t have a plan to improve yourself, upgrade your skills or become a better version of yourself, you will soon become obsolete. Don’t make that mistake. You will miss almost all the opportunities in life if you are not ready to disrupt yourself.

“Disrupting yourself is critical to avoiding stagnation, being overtaken by low-end entrants (i.e., younger, smarter, faster workers), and fast-tracking your personal and career growth,” writes Whitney Johnson in her book Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work.

One of the best ways to reinvent yourself is to prioritise learning over short-term financial gains. Make learning a daily routine. It’s a better approach to success in all areas of your life.

Money has always been important in life, but if you value money over learning, you will become addicted to paychecks and it will determine where you go, how you think, and what you do.

In the long-term, prioritising money over skills can easily make you irrelevant in the future. Money is a by-product of providing value. Learn skills that can help you provide the best value for your audience, employer or your subscribers.

When you value learning above everything else, it will lead you to all of the right choices you need to make to prepare yourself for the future. Every new skill you acquire now or in the future will give you the ability to create more value and improve your odds of success.

“The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways,” says Robert Greene in his book, Mastery.

“In the future, the great division will be between those who have trained themselves to handle these complexities and those who are overwhelmed by them — those who can acquire skills and discipline their minds and those who are irrevocably distracted by all the media around them,” Greene writes.

Are you prepared for the future? Become who want to be by investing in yourself. In the end, by valuing learning above all else, you will set the stage for your creative expression, and the money will soon come to you.

A solid foundation will never fail you. It lasts for ages. When you are driven by a learning mindset, you become unstoppable.

“For the best return on your money, pour your purse into your head,” says Benjamin Franklin. Don’t be excited about negotiating a good salary. You are still dispensable if you are not growing or improving your skills. Aim to become so good at what you do that you can’t be ignored.

Aim to be in control of your financial future. That can only happen if you choose lifelong learning over “good money” in the short-term. The real-world reward those who provide consistent value.

Most people don’t have the patience to seek better knowledge that puts them in positions of control. They become slaves to money — and grow weaker, less capable and trapped in careers that become obsolete with time.

They become too busy to realise that doing nothing puts their careers at risk. They are in a hurry to see temporary results. They think in sprints, and forget that life is a marathon.

Aristotle was right, “Learning is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, and a provision in old age.” Life is a balanced system of learning and evolution, argues Steve Maraboli. Exceptional results require a rare combination of extreme patience and accelerated learning.

Do what you have to do to pay the bills but don’t forget to upgrade your skills and embrace the journey of constant discovery in your career. A discovery-driven career can help you become the best version of yourself and attract long-term success.

Books: Rapid Learning, Career Rules, Deep Thinking, Principles for Living Your Best Life, Productive by Design, Rules For a Better Life, Kaizen Habits, Habits That Determine 80% of Your Success and Good, Better, Best.