5-Hour Rule: Why you Should Spend Time Learning

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Photo credit from left to right: Pete Souza, gatesnotes.com, Wikipedia Commons

Michael Simmons wrote a great article about the importance of intellectual capital. We fully agree on his opinion and added our comments to the original article related to the blockchain space.

Why did the busiest person in the world, former president Barack Obama, read an hour a day while in office?

Why has the best investor in history, Warren Buffett, invested 80% of his time in reading and thinking throughout his career?

Why has the world’s richest person, Bill Gates, read a book a week during his career? And why has he taken a yearly two-week reading vacation throughout his entire career?

Why should we spend time on learning?

The answer is simple: Learning is the single best investment of our time that we can make. Or as Benjamin Franklin said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

Knowledge is the new money

Michael Simmons explained that as we spend our lives collecting, spending, lusting after, and worrying about money. In fact, when we say we “don’t have time” to learn something new, it’s often because we are feverishly devoting our time to earning money. However, something is happening right now that’s changing the relationship between money and knowledge.

We are at the beginning of a period of what renowned futurist Peter Diamandis calls rapid demonetization, in which technology is rendering previously expensive products or services much cheaper — or even free.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the driving force behind this revolution. Low-paying jobs can be replaced by technological solutions in many cases. These kind of jobs often involve repeatable tasks, which makes them vulnerable for technological automation solutions.

Intellectual capital will always trump financial capital. — Paul Tudor Jones

Intellectual Capital & Blockchain

It is key to not get stuck in what you do; invest some free time weekly to learn about new things. It’s a good idea to explore different niches and pick some which have your interest. To give you an example, as a marketeer active in some kind of niche, earning proper money, the market becomes oversaturated and you have trouble finding new opportunities. At this point, it is crucial to not get stuck in a profession without employment opportunity. So, you start exploring the blockchain space as it’s a new and fast-growing space. We all started with just reading about ‘what is blockchain?’ and ‘how does blockchain work?’

After some time, you feel confident enough to start marketing yourself as a ‘blockchain marketeer’. After some attempts, you land your first job and you get the chance to grow your knowledge even further. This is an excellent example of how intellectual capital can help you to move quickly to another niche and apply your existing skills.

If you have a lot of persistence, you can even learn to code. Learning a new skill helps you improve your position on the market. You can narrow things down till product level. Become an expert in using a product. You can for example learn about iOlite, a product which helps you to easily create a smart contract with just natural language or code input. There is a huge demand for smart contract developers, so it’s a good gamble. Of course, it requires time to get to this point of calling yourself an ‘expert’. Take your time: don’t rush, just read.

Don’t be lazy. Don’t make excuses. Just get it done.

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