Okay, let me tell you something you probably know about myself; I hate school and degrees and I have some good reasons for that. First, I think school wastes too much time keeping people in the classroom while real education is in the jungle of the world. I also think a degree is a piece of paper and nobody should respect or hire anyone because they have that paper.
In fact, just yesterday I ran an advert on Facebook about a few positions my company wants to hire people for and I added below the ad a statement that went; “Note; your degree doesn’t matter to us”. I believe life is all about knowing who you are and how you can help make the world a better place. Nobody does these two by having a degree and nobody ever gets education because they go to school. People are educated only if they are self-educated so today, I’ll be sharing with you some of my greatest teachers. What makes this even funnier is that you don’t have to pay a dime to learn from these people and they can teach you things that are far more valuable than what any university can.
- Seth Godin
I’ve told people many times in the past; if you truly want to build a successful business in this age, you must read three of Seth Godin’s books; Purple Cow, Idea Virus, and Tribes. The good thing about this is that all these books are free and you can download them even on Seth Godin’s blogs by searching Google.
I read Purple Cow and Idea Virus about three years ago and till today I feel like meeting with Seth Godin to hold him tight to my chest for about five minutes. My business revenue grew by 100% or more just by understanding the concept Seth teaches. I don’t know any school that could have taught me what I learned from Seth and even if you hate reading books, Seth has so many videos here on YouTube which teach the same things that you would find in his books.
- Christopher Voss
The first time I listened to Chris Voss it was via his teaching at the Masterclass which was a paid learning platform. But as God would have it, YouTube started recommending his videos for me. Chris is a former FBI hostage negotiator who is now an entrepreneur and the CEO of The Black Swan Group Ltd.
Chris talks a lot about negotiation and he really knows what he’s talking about, being a former FBI hostage negotiator. You see, negotiation is one of the business skills I advise every entrepreneur to study. While everyone negotiates every day, an entrepreneur negotiates every hour. You would have to meet with a whole lot of people, some are good, some are bad and some are selfish. If you don’t know what to say to get what you want, you’ll be stuck as an entrepreneur.
That’s why I love to learn about negotiation. Knowing how to negotiate with others can double your income and efficiency as an entrepreneur and Chris Voss is probably one of the best people who can really reach you this skill.
- Jordan Peterson
You probably know Jordan Peterson before now but maybe you don’t take him seriously. Please do. I consume Peterson’s content almost every day here on YouTube. He’s one of the smartest humans alive and you don’t have to travel to Canada to meet him or to learn from him. In fact, you don’t have to pay a dime if you don’t have money. Simply search for his name on YouTube and listen to this genius as he teaches you about life.
- Napoleon Hill
Okay, Napoleon is dead. But he’s alive and we’re likely to take his eternal gift for granted. Why do I call Napoleon’s book “eternal gift”? Well, Think & Grow Rich has made more people rich than any other book ever written. I read this book in the year 2007 and it saved my life. The problem however is that most humans think new things are better than old things while in fact, nothing is new under the sun. Yes, we have new words to describe things but we’ll still have to describe the same thing.
If you’re among those people who never read Think & Grow Rich or you read it long ago and don’t respect it as much as you do some new books, I challenge you to go and read that book again. It’s actually a free book now as it’s in the public domain. A simple search here on YouTube gives you access to the world and wisdom of the man who died 50 years ago and that’s fun for me.
- Robert Kiyosaki
Sorry, it’s not everything about Kiyosaki that I like but he’s a messiah of a sort to me. If not for his books, I probably will not be making this video. While I don’t promise that you’ll like everything about Kiyosaki, I promise he has some gifts to give you if you take him a little seriously and do some of the things he suggests.
- Robert Greene
Sometime between the year 2007 and 2008, one of my friends received a text message from his friend which went something like, “If you want to have a meaningful future, you must read ’48 Laws of Power”. We rushed out to look for 48 Laws of Power but when I read it, I hated the book. I suspected such a book must have been written by a devilish human because every book I’ve ever read was telling me how human beings should be, not how they are.
I hated Robert Greene’s books for many years but later when I re-checked and especially when I listened to Robert speaking, I saw a humble man who decided to teach the reality, not necessarily the ideal.
Ideally, people like us but most people won’t. We expect that our boss should appreciate our efforts and commitment but if we appear to be outgrowing them, then, we’re in trouble.
Today, I have in my library the three most popular books by Robert Greene. If at all you won’t read all his books, I beg you to read Mastery because my children must read that book. Fortunately, Robert’s content is freely available on YouTube and you can learn so much from him.
- Garry Vee
Yes, you know this name. He’s everywhere but he also has a good message for you. I like Garry’s message because he focuses on happiness, not materialism. So many people in our world think we need success to acquire loads of things. No, we need progress and success so that we’ll feel human. Others wish success should be achieved by little effort. No, we have to burn the candle and make sacrifices.
If there’s anything I want to achieve with this video, it will be to show some people how blessed we are to be alive today. Just 50 years ago, if you wanted to learn from an expert, you either had to pay a lot of money to go and listen to them or buy their books. Today, we can learn anything from the comfort of our homes and that’s the best gift of God for this generation.
