One item that has been on my list of goals year after year is to read more (super unique, I know). Everyone I know who is super smart is almost inevitably well read. And when I do take the time to read, I get a ton of value out of it.

A couple pertinent quotes here:

There was a time in my life where I didn’t read much, and now I look back on it as the most superficial and bleak point of my existence.
Ryan Holiday

In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time – none, zero.
Charlie Munger

Okay, so reading is important. Cool. But in 2017, I noticed I had a couple obstacles standing between me and unspeakable wisdom:

1. I wasn’t reading enough. I got through books too slowly, and I often got “stuck” in the middle of books, resulting in me avoiding reading altogether.
2. I wasn’t remembering what I was reading. In one ear (eye?) and out the other. Given that, I probably wasn’t much better off reading books than I was, say, staring at a wall for a few hours.

It became clear to me that despite wanting to read, I didn’t know how to read. So, I immediately ran down to my local elementary school to enroll in Grade 1 (or at least audit the reading comprehension classes).

After being escorted off the premises, I discovered Farnam Street’s The Art of Reading. This online course teaches you to read effectively because, as co-creator Shane Parish describes, “…the way that we go about reading has a profound impact on not only our understanding but also the time it takes us to get the relevant information that we want out of reading.”

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Marketing is evolving incredibly fast these days and it’s time we set down old frameworks like the “4 P’s” in favour of some modern ones. In this post I outline 7 modern marketing frameworks that every startup should be using right now to grow their business.

There’s been a lot of debate over whether MOOCs are simply a passing craze or whether they’ll change higher education for good. While I won’t go so far as to say we’re looking at the end of class in the traditional sense, I think we’ve got some exciting stuff to look forward to.

With a deep interest in this industry, and having pretty much become an online learning junkie since grabbing my brick-and-mortar university degree in May, I’ve come to realize that MOOCs have a lot of potential—just maybe not in the way many had predicted.

Capitalism 101: Competition Breeds Quality

As any commerce student will tell you after their first semester: competition is a great thing for consumers. It drives prices down and quality up. It’s why you can get a burger for a buck, and why cell phone rates in Canada suck.

Sure, there’s plenty of competing schools, but once you’ve chosen one, the train has pretty much left the station. You’ll have some great courses and some really bad ones. Some kickass professors and some snore-worthy ones. Powerless, you think, “oh man am I ever gonna give it to them in the post-course evaluation.” Meanwhile, your learning is suffering as you trudge along a low-quality course, unengaged and bored as hell.

Online course platforms have the potential to give the world top-tier courses because competition in the industry demands it. Take Udemy for example. I wanted to expand my technical skills, so I sought out an HTML/CSS course. I simply took one with rave reviews—and guess what—it was awesome. Quality products are rewarded too, which is great. It’s why a talented instructor like Brad Hussey (creator of the aforementioned course) has roughly 50,000 students and counting. If someone wants to take a piece of that pie and compete with Brad, they’d have to make a course that’s even better. Cool.

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It’s hard to describe how challenging the last week was for me—mostly because I can’t talk. I mean this quite literally.

A week ago I was rolled into the operating room for some long overdue orthognathic surgery, otherwise known as corrective jaw surgery, or slicing and dicing up the bottom half of my head.

“It’s just carpentry.”

My surgeon

While this procedure was necessary for me, and I’ll be reaping the benefits for years to come, recovery ain’t a walk in the park. The first week involved me eating food through a syringe, poppin’ plenty of pain meds, communicating via whiteboard, and wearing a jaw bra (ja, brah).

Although I’m sure the worst is behind me, I’m not out of the woods yet. All told, it’ll be 8-ish weeks until I’m back to my old talkative, steak chomping, gotta-be-active self. That’s a pretty scary length of time for me, and the thought of adjusting my lifestyle for that long is a seriously daunting thought.

During some of my toughest moments last week, I reminded myself of a man who’s been through challenges I can’t even begin to imagine:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”  Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

All right, cool, I thought. Just stay positive and push through this thing. It’s just 2 months.

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