Wise Owl Wednesday #27 - Continuous Learning

Jul 29, 2020 6:53 pm

Happy Wednesday, Wise Owl Nation.


This week we're discussing one of my favorite topics ever-- continuous learning.

Why is this such an important topic to me? It's been the one principle I have stuck with for my adult life and has dramatically improved the opportunities, investments, friendships and relationships I've been able to create.


Basically - if you want your life to get better, you have to better yourself. To better yourself you have to constantly be learning. That is the entire point of the Wise Healthy Wealthy brand and is the fuel behind the Wise Owl Wednesday newsletter.


My personal mantra for life is "Acquire knowledge and Improve."

So in today's email I'd like to talk through some of the resources, strategies, and general knowledge I've accumulated over the years of continuous learning.


Let's get into it.


You can find all past issues (including this one) here.


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Quote of the week:

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Wisdom Tip of the Week: Your Mind, Your Habits, and Your Books

I could write an entire book on the cool stuff I have learned about improving your mind, so this section will focus on the most impactful concepts for continuously improving your mind.


The first concept is that your mind is insanely powerful. The placebo effect is a scientifically verified phenomenon where our minds positive thinking will actually heal our bodies to a degree.

Depression and anxiety are also caused by the brain creating negative feedback loops due to bad habits, trauma, or an imbalance of hormones.


For good or for bad, our mind is usually the source. You can take ownership of its maturity and progression.


Wisdom to me, is the following formula:


Wisdom = Knowledge * Experience

You need both knowledge and experience to draw the connections and conclusions needed to grow wisdom.


This means learning and doing. Knowledge is not power. Knowledge is potential power. You still have to take action and grow experience for wisdom to grow.


Books are the best mentors - Books are fascinating for a few reasons

  1. If you have a problem, someone has likely solved it and written a book about it
  2. They are often entire lifetimes worth of research and knowledge compressed into several hundred pages
  3. You can reread books and get new and completely different insights depending on where you are in life

This is why I love reading books over other forms of knowledge gathering. Some of the best books were written long ago and are the base principles for more modern concepts.


Test, Experiment, and build good habits - As I wrote above wisdom comes from the pairing of knowledge and experience. You have to apply action to what you learn. Of course, our minds are powerful and don't like to change, so applying routines and habits is an effective way to force your brain to change quickly for its own benefit.


Your goal here isn't to just learn general concepts, you are also working to learn more about yourself. Concepts you learn in books may not perfectly apply to you. When you test these concepts in your world, you may find that you need to change or tweak them to work best for you.


Resources for continuous learning


Health Tip of the Week: Health advice will always change

Oh health advice, the most inconsistent area of study.

In the last 30 years all three of the Macro-nutrients have been both the worst and best thing for you.

Hell quite a few people I know still think that Fat the macro-nutrient is the same thing as body fat (hint: they are not the same thing).


What it looks like it is coming down to, is that the truth varies from person to person based on their genetics, ancestry, and their lifestyle.


In the end though, there are a few truths that are becoming universal.

  1. Sleep is the most important thing for your overall health.
  2. Your weight is determined by calories. To lose weight you need to be eating a caloric deficit (burning more calories than consuming). This is a non-negotiable.
  3. Maintaining a strong body throughout life is the best way to sustain a quality of life into old age.
  4. Meditation is really fucking good for you. It's had terrible marketing the last thousand years or so.

Quick tip for improving your minds ability to learn and grasp new habits more quickly -

A supplement called Lion's Mane. This is a gourmet mushroom that also happens to stimulate your brain in a very helpful way. Lions Mane helps your brain produce a mixture of proteins called Myelin. Habits are formed when a neural pathway in your mind is used so much it produces Myelin. Myelin turns neural pathways into super highways, making them fire faster.


So, Lion's Mane can help you speed up your habit formation and improve your brains ability to form new neural pathways. My fiance, Megan, has been taking Lion's Mane for the last two years to try to replace the neural pathways that were damaged from her brain stem stroke.


Coincidentally, I have also watched both doctors and therapists be amazed by how effective "repetition" in her therapy helps her dramatically improve. Some have called it miraculous. Megan and I have other theories.


Just some food for thought. Lion's Mane is starting to gain in popularity, so you may have heard of it before. The science is there as well. Check it out.


Megan and I get our Lion's Mane here.


Resources for continuous learning on health:


Wealth Tip of the Week: Your Parents Financial Advice is Outdated

This is one of my absolute favorite topics. The dramatic lack of societal knowledge around personal finance. if you can learn this stuff you will not have to worry about money. If you teach your kids this stuff you will create generational wealth.


There is so much bad information out there about wealth, and the only trick I have learned on how to filter through the bullshit is to read a lot, compare the thoughts and strategies of the top minds in the world on the subject, and then experiment yourself.


The best place to start is to memorize and internalize the following.

There are only 4 ways to build wealth:

  • Reduce your expenses
  • Increase your income
  • Pay off debt
  • Invest


Your income NEEDS to be more than your expenses or you will be poor forever.


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When you are young you need to take more risks to accumulate wealth.

The older you get you need to take less risks and work to preserve your wealth.

Be very wary of investing advice that comes from a time before the internet.

Learn as much as you can about Cryptocurrency.


Starter resources for continuous learning on wealth:



Book Of The Month - Serial Winner

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Chapter Reviews:



Grab a copy of Serial Winner



** The links above are affiliate links. If you purchase the books with the links above, I receive a super tiny commission, which helps support this newsletter. Thank you! **


Resources

I will be adding to this section over time as we find resources that will help you all.


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