Welcome to my 70th article for the Happiness, Health, and High Performance newsletter.

This week, whilst playing tennis ball cricket in our front yard, I had a useful conversation with a good friend (the same dude that wrote the foreword to Do Happy).

We both find ourselves fascinated by the path to mastery.

We both find ourselves at the start of this journey.

We both want to really good at something, for the sake of it.

He wants to be really good at magic (cool, right?).

I want to be really good at making money, doing what I love (learning, writing, coaching), working 2-4 hours a day (cool, right?).

For autodidacts (people who likes to teach themselves), this has to be the greatest time to be alive.

-Articles

-Videos

-Courses

-Books

Unlimited amounts of content, from credible sources, teaching the skills that we want to learn (for free or affordable prices).

My friend is learning magic from some of the best in the world, sitting at his dining table with a laptop.

I am learning the art of business and writing from some of the best in the world, and they have no idea that I exist.

For anyone looking to use the internet to get better at something, there is a potential trap though.

Procrastination disguised as productivity.

It’s easy to consume hours of content, and not implement any of it.

Some things take a few minutes to learn (e.g. writing on social media every day for 1 year will make you a better writer), but 30 minutes a day for 1 year to implement.

There is a discrepancy between how quickly we can learn and how long things take to implement it (i.e. actually learn).

So, we fall into a trap.

We consume, a lot.

Because it’s educational, it feels productive.

It feels like learning.

It’s not.

It’s procrastination disguised as productivity.

Learning only becomes so when we implement it.

Knowing and not doing, is not knowing.

HERE ARE 4 APPROACHES TO AVOID THIS SUBTLE FORM OF PROCRASTINATION

1) Once you know enough to implement, stop consuming (randomly).

I have been consuming entrepreneurship content for years.

I started to hear the same concepts over and over.

Work hard.

Apply leverage.

Focus.

Consistency and discipline.

Build an audience.

Write every day.

Marketing. Marketing. Marketing.

Have a bias for sales.

Charge more.

Late last year, I realised something: If I execute everything I have learnt over the next 3-5 years, I will be successful.

I already know enough, I just need to ACTUALLY do the work.

2) Once you have learnt enough to implement, consume to refine.

As you progress through different skills, you will run into roadblocks.

Consume content specifically to address these roadblocks.

Everything you need to know might be in a 5 minute YouTube video. Once you learn what you need to learn, stop consuming again (until you run into your next roadblock).

3) Set an intention for your consumption, BEFORE you consume.

When you set an intention (e.g. learn how to write an effective headline for an article) before consuming, you can filter through the irrelevant stuff (i.e. almost all of it). You may only need to listen to 3 minutes of a 3 hour podcast to get what you need. The other 2 hours and 57 minutes can be spent not listening, but executing.

4) Eventually, it’s worth paying for something.

Free content is great. Most value creators on the internet will give away literally everything for free. The catch? It’s not in order.

There is no shortage of valuable information. The problem is that it is all over the place.

If you want the information organised in a way that can be implemented, step by step, you will usually have to pay.

We don’t pay for information, we pay for organisation and implementation.

My friend paid a few hundred bucks on magic courses, and now he has step by step content that will last him the rest of the year. Theoretically, he doesn’t need to watch a single magic video on YouTube this year.

Disclaimer:  I still procrastinate online. Sadly, I am human. But, the above 4 mental models have helped SIGNIFICANTLY reduce unnecessary content. 

Selfishly, I expect writing this article will create enough positive peer pressure to get even better with using the internet, without letting it use me 😎

If you LOVED this article, FORWARD this email to someone you care about (and tell them to SUBSCRIBE).

Are you trying to get better (or achieve mastery) at something? REPLY to this email and share your passion with me 🙂

Much love to you and of course, myself.

Dr G

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Check out my new book – Do Happy

I have spent nearly two decades figuring out how to be ridiculously happy, and helping others do the same. 

I wrote Do Happy so that instead of it taking decades, you can learn all of this stuff in hours.

I hope you LOVE it.