Our world is changing so fast that if you’re not learning and growing, you and your business are in trouble. Somewhere out there in your industry, someone is learning something new that is giving them a competitive advantage (maybe right now, as you’re reading this).
So my suggestion for you today is that you stop listening to the radio on the way to and from work and begin listening to audio books or podcasts in your car. You can pick them up from the library, buy them on CD from Amazon, or download them to your iPod.
A typical MBA program consists of about 400 hours of lecture time. Consider that a lot of those lectures aren’t really relevant to you, but have to be endured so that you can jump the hoops and pick up your credentials at the end.
If you have a 20 minute commute two times a day, 5 days per week, and you use that time to listen to audio books, you’ll get an MBA every 2 ½ years. You’ll quickly become an expert in whatever field you choose to study, and you’ll give you and your company an incredible competitive advantage.
As Eric Shinseki remarked to his colleagues when he took over as chief of staff of the U.S. Army after 9/11, “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
