While I appreciate the importance of a formal MBA course to land a coveted job and a decent pay check, but not everyone is cut out for this duration of education.
Whether you complete a 2 year MBA program or sign up for executive education to up your learning curve, if you’re not committed to a life long learning journey, you’re in for some stale sense of existence.
We all have some kind of a learning curve. And each one of us is gifted with some talent, so it depends on us on how we manifest it. But many of us just don’t engineer ourselves that well to realise what we’re made of, let alone applying it into our work lives.
Which is why to constantly learn (unlearn and relearn is the realisation of how much we know) is foundational to thrive in our work.
So parked below are 3 ways on how you can prep yourself for a continual learning curve.
  1. Focus on yearly personal MBAs, incrementally. Design your own personal business course by looking out for books, journals and podcasts that are critical to your brand’s growth – whether you’re in job or you’re an entrepreneur. It’s simple: go to your nearest book store and look out for authors who have written books on your subject matter expertise. Chances are, these authors would have been a part of a few podcast interviews or ted talks or conferences – try and see a pattern of ideas and determine what you’re doing differently as a result of that. Seeking inspiration is always welcome, as long as you are strengthening your core competencies and creating something meaningful for your business ecosystem. Every year make a list of your personal 100 books that will shape your learning for the future. With every passing year, your knowledge will compound and will keep you sharp. And you would have completed your own yearly personal MBA courses unique to your learning curve.
  2. Start slow. Ridiculously slow until you understand your own version of speed learning. Learning takes time and can get really exhaustive when you haven’t deliberately planned for some dense books. So take your time and find your pace: and with practice, you’ll know what you know and can go for challenging learning assignments. For example: you could sign for a bootcamp to see how your theoretical knowledge can be applied in business or career through some experts and thought leaders in your industry. Always keep basic and knowledge upgrades in your learning process to understand what works in the practical world. With time, your pace of learning will accelerate and you will become a well-rounded thought leader in your field.
  3. Complement your learning with doing. The purpose of learning is to ensure that your top takeaways help you to get to the bottom of things. Learning and doing should be a parallel, collaborative process where you mind questions the status-quo and finds the answers in you practical wisdom. And then execute fanatically until a new pivot upends your learning curve and asks you to go back to the drawing board for new learning approaches.
That said, keep learning – it will make you meet your vision sooner than you think!