How to Teach Yourself Valuable Skills - Ep. 15

Ryan: Aloha guys. And welcome back to the degree free. We are your hosts, Ryan, and Hannah Maruyama. On this podcast, we share fundamentals we've discovered and the mistakes we've made while self-educating, getting work, building businesses and making money. We'll tell you how to make it happen. No degree needed.

Hannah: Welcome back to the podcast, guys. We are happy to have you, if you liked episodes before this, and you want to know how you can make this happen for yourself, please do check out our website, which is degreefreenetwork.com. We have a guide on there that will help you get a job without a college degree. We're very proud of it.

And we do get good reviews and that it's really helpful. So please check that out if you're wondering what to do from here. And then like I said, we're glad to have you and please like, and subscribe so that you do not miss an episode because we don't want that.

Ryan: All right. So let's get into today's episode. Today we are going to be talking about how to teach yourself valuable skills. This is a good supplement to the last episode that we did, which is how to pick valuable skills. So if you're not even sure where to start about the skills, to pick when trying to tool yourself in order to get a job, go back and listen to that episode.

We pretty much go over it all. From dissecting the job description to picking what it is and where to focus your time. But after you've done that, the next biggest question. Well, actually, this is the biggest question is like, how do I teach yourselves the valuable skills? But then people we always have to backtrack first.

We were like, well, first you have to identify them. So that's what the last episode was, and then this one is going to be how to teach yourself the valuable skills. Kind of answering the question that we get the most often about skills, right?

Hannah: There is a lot to unpack here. This might be an episode that's a little bit on the shorter side. And some of it is not really going to be surprising information, but I do find that a lot of people, once they've come to the conclusion that they go. Okay. All right. So I need to, I need to learn something. And then they get over the fear of that, of that reality. And then once they figure out what they're going to do, then they're stuck again.

Because they don't know how to learn independently, which is something that hadn't really occurred to me because I've had to be an independent learner since I dropped out of college. So what I'd like to do is kind of go over some things that I tell people, because usually the questions I get are one, the first one is usually, oh, how do I do this?

And then I say, oh, we'll get a, you know, like pick a skill or pick a certification or pick a license and then learn that in the say, well, how do I do that? Right? And the reason they do that is because they, they don't know where to begin in the lineup. Like, so if someone said to you right now, I need you to learn algebra and you didn't know it.

What would you do?

Ryan: I wouldn't even know where to start. I don't know. That's such a vague thing, right? Like learn algebra. I dunno, I'd probably start at Google, right. I'd probably start at Google. Hi. How to algebra?

Hannah: Yeah, and that as dumb as it sounds as dumb as it sounds, that is the correct answer. So one, one thing that people, I really want people to take away and if they get, I think some people get irritated with this answer, but a lot of the times they say Google it. Because you're going to find that you need to start being able to find the answers to your own questions, because your questions are going to be so specific to you, right?

Because everybody's going to have a different approach to what they're trying to learn. I realize that sounds like a non-answer, but it does matter because you need to be able to learn how to use a Google as a tool to return the information that you're looking for. So learning how to crowdsource information from Reddit and Quora to kind of give yourself direction and tips but then also figuring out what type of learning style works best for you.

So now video is big, which makes sense because it's audio and it's visual, right?

Ryan: So, I think to kind of make this coherent, I think it all needs to be like to kind of rein it back in is like—learning online is what we're talking about. Right?

Hannah: He had to learn something and you can only use a computer, how would you do it?

Ryan: Right. Because so these valuable skills, mostly what we're talking about in this episode is going to be computer skills. We're not really talking about harder, harder skills, like how to build a house, you know, the best way to build the houses, you know? Yes, absolutely. There's gotta be an online component if you don't have somebody to tutor you, if you don't have, if you don't have somebody to take you under their wing. So there's definitely going to be an online component and you're going to have to look it up, but then the best way to build a house is just go and build it. Right? I mean, and you know, maybe it stands up and maybe it doesn't. Well, what we're talking about is mainly skills that can be learned on a computer, but it doesn't necessarily have to be tech, right?

It can be–

Hannah: Real estate licensure or home inspection or insurance adjusting.

Ryan: Well, not only that, but like it, like, it can be like copywriting, but it can be graphic design. It could be, it could be–

Hannah: Licensure.

Ryan: Content management systems. It could be Excel anything, right? JIRA, Tableau. You name it, right?

So this episode is mostly focused on what you can learn on a computer. What you can learn online.

Hannah: How do you use the internet to teach yourself?

Ryan: Exactly. And what you were saying to back up to what you were saying before about the Googling, is that the thing about this whole thing back up even more is this is all very rudimentary.

What you were saying it's like, people are like, really this is it? Like, yeah, pretty much. It's this simple. Right? And if we say it all the time, it's simple, but it's not easy. The meta skill that you have to learn in order to learn all this online is how to find the answer. Right? And in order to find the answer you're going to, you're going to need to learn how to, you're gonna need to know how to do two things, which is learn how to use search engines.

So that's not just Google, right?

It's anything.

It's You can use, you can use Yahoo, you can use Bing and you can use Duckduckgo. Generally speaking, they're gonna give you very similar results, but not always. Right? So if you can't find something on Google, try Duckduckgo. Right? If you can't, if you can't find out on Duckduckgo try Yahoo. Right? Things like that.

Hannah: People would be surprised to how often, if I don't get the result that I'm looking for from Google or I don't get the context I'm looking for. I searched the question again with the word Reddit at the end of it 'cause I can get that people don't realize, like I'm not an active Reddit user and that I don't post on Reddit.

I just use it to point me in the right direction, and not because Reddit is the source of all truth, but rather because Reddit is crowdsource information. And so sometimes people will post things on there that, and all you need to be able to do is read and see and say, oh, I, you know, how can I, how can I find how can I find the answers to x question. And you may find somebody that said, oh, it's this. And then some will say, no, actually it's this. And here's the link. And that'll help you answer the question that you're looking to answer. And so you need to be able to know where to look. If you can't find the answer.

Ryan: Right. That's going to be my, that was going to be my second point, which my second point was going to be knowing how to find the answer or knowing the question that you have to ask in order to get the answer. So on the job description piece, if you listened to the last episode, we're going to tell you to go to the job description, find the skill that you need, and let's say real estate licensure. And you're like, okay, well, there's, I'm going to Google real estate licensure, but there's five different types of real estate licensure.

I'm not sure what, I'm not sure what I need. Do I need just the general or do I need this one or do we need that one? Right? There's a property manager certificate. There's a buying, whatever, you know. Yeah, you name it, right? I mean, it could be like a escrow person in real estate, right?

You can work in escrow. You can work in a mortgage writing, mortgage underwriting, anything. And then, so you have to be able to be able to widdle down from there and you have to be able to ask the questions to the almighty search engines.

Hannah: To get the answer.

Ryan: To get the answer that you need of what you're looking for.

So those are the meta skills that you're going to have to hone in before you do any, before you even start learning the stuff, you have to learn how to do those two things before you start learning the actual skill. Very mellow.

Hannah: And again, it sounds ridiculous, but to the point where I'm going to say it, because I think some people need to hear it, but let's say let's continue on with your real estate or your real estate license example.

If you were looking for how to get a real estate license in Scott county, wherever you live, let's say you live in Scott county, you would say "Real estate license requirements Scott county" and then see what comes up. If that does not give you the information that you need, you would add, Reddit to the end of that sentence and then search it again and see what comes back.

If it doesn't bring back your specific county, then back it up to state and see what happens. It's again, it's trying to narrow down and just get the information that you need in order to point you in the right direction. So you can do what you need.

Ryan: So now you're able to find all this information and it's so, and if that doesn't work, you could always go to a place like Reddit or some other forum, or join Facebook groups. Go on to Twitter.

And you can tweet at people, you can post in Facebook groups, you can post and write it and be like, look, how do I become a realtor in whatever county? How do I become a whatever in whatever place? And then people, people more than likely, they're willing to help you, you know, more than likely, and they'll at least point you in the right direction.

Okay. So now once you're pointing in the right direction, how do we learn it? Now, we're learning things online.

Hannah: All right. So this is a, and we run it and I say this a lot, but YouTube university, baby, you can learn pretty much anything on YouTube. YouTube can teach you to be a mechanic. YouTube can teach you to be an accountant.

YouTube can teach you to be a software developer. YouTube can teach you to be anything that you want under the sun.

Yup.

Ryan: Pretty much. I use YouTube daily to figure out how to do things.

Hannah: I think Reddit, as far away been the most valuable resource that we've used, but YouTube is a close second.

Ryan: It depends what you're doing.

I think that, I think it depends. I think it depends on what you're doing.

Hannah: What would you say Reddit is better for?

Ryan: I think Reddit is better for high-level things. Whereas like I've learned, I've learned a lot from both, right? And I never would have learned how to do any of all this, right?

Like I don't, I, we don't have a team of of anybody, you know what I mean?

Hannah: Well we do.

Ryan: Like yeah. But the people behind this podcast, like there's nobody behind these cameras, like and I started to learn all of that from Reddit. At least the things that I needed to know, I learned the things that I needed to know from Reddit.

And then I went to YouTube to find more granular information. Right. So, and then if you're thinking about seriously thinking about starting an e-commerce store, right? And so you're going to go to subreddit e-commerce or subreddit Shopify, or subreddit, WooCommerce, whatever.

What's the subreddit Ryan, right? Well, it's just a forum, it's a forum on Reddit. And so you go into these, you go into these things and they're they going to tell you everything that you need in order to set it up, you know, for WooCommerce, they're going to tell you that you need a shared hosting at least, right?

You're going to need a domain. You're going to need a domain that you have to buy. You're going to have to install WordPress, install WooCommerce you know, whatever security, plugins, whatever optimization, plugins, so on and so forth. So on and so forth. They're going to list it all down for you.

But then there's only so much that can be said in written word, right? There's only so much you can be said in written word, if you, if you're starting from scratch, which is what I did, right? With pretty much everything that I know, but almost everything that I've learned that is of use. I've had to use YouTube university, the combination with Reddit.

And hours of blog posts reading, and then going to YouTube and figuring it out so that after you do that, you're like, okay, well, how do I get shared hosting? You could go to YouTube and you can search it right there. And then it's going to be a host of different people selling you, and recommending which shared hosting is the best and how to set it up.

Hannah: And I think that's actually, that brings up a good point, which is a price of those things. All right. So let me, let me explain something really quick because I see this a lot on, I see this a lot on TikTok where people are like, "oh, you know, there's just so many courses and everybody's selling a thing".

I'm like, that's because things are becoming more highly specialized. Truthfully, the more niche things get, the more people come up with different courses to teach really, really specific goals. So, it's hard to pick a bad course, if you pick specifically enough. So if you're picking you really just need to constrain yourself by price.

Like don't spend more than you can afford on a course. Right? So if you can only afford to spend 60 bucks on a course, don't spend more than 60 bucks. Look within that price range. I think we're a lot of people get into trouble is where they get upsold into a $500 course when they only have 60 bucks to spend.

So for you buying a $500 course, if you only have 60 bucks to spend is a bad idea because that's a lot of money, and if you don't have it. That's not super wise. So I think that that's a good point to bring up because a lot of people are overwhelmed. Like, "oh, well I saw this course, but it's 1200 bucks" and they feel like that's their only option for some reason.

I'm like, well, if you can't afford that, then don't buy it.

Ryan: So that's kind of a good segue into the next thing. If you can't find it on YouTube. If you can't find it on YouTube, maybe you can find it on a course. So places that you could go for courses Udemy or whatever, how you say it.

Hannah: Coursera.

Ryan: Coursera.

Hannah: Masterclass.

Ryan: Masterclass, kind of.

Hannah: That's more of a, that's more like a luxury Masterclass is more like a luxury to kind of fun, I feel, a thing it's not, I don't think Masterclass is actually, well.

Ryan: There's all sorts of places like LinkedIn learning. But there's a bunch of places where you can go and find courses.

Exactly what you said. People are like, well. People get paralyzed because there's so many options. Right?

Hannah: Understandably so.

Ryan: Obviously , and unfortunately at a certain point you can read as many reviews as there are, but, you know how honest are reviews, right?

I mean, it's difficult to say, right? And so I think at the end of the day, if you want it, just take the leap, right? I mean, you're just gonna, you're just gonna have to take the leap. One of the things that people get caught up on is spending money at all, right? Like spending money at all.

And I, I get this.

Hannah: No, you know what, the only course I've only ever bought. The first online course I bought actually was was Noah Kagan, the, the AppSumo guy, he had a $7 course on how to test a business idea. And I remember at the time I remember telling you this, I was like, man, that was a big step for me because I had such a distrust and this was recent guys.

This wasn't like a couple of years ago. This wasn't even that long ago. And I bought this course and I remember thinking, like, I felt like I got taken in. It was a good course though. And that was the thing is I got so much out of that course. It was crazy. Like, it helped me learn how to test a business idea before I spent money on it.

And I had been so hesitant to ever buy anything because I just didn't want to feel like I'd been had, or like I'd been taken in, you know, like I had to buy something. I couldn't figure it out for myself, but,

Ryan: Well, not only that, but then you, you also think that you're getting ripped off.

Yeah.

Not that you can't learn it yourself, but you just don't want to be ripped off and it's difficult to— the way that people think about it a lot is it like, they just, they don't know if there's value here to be had, and they don't want to spend the money. And a lot of times money's tight, but not only that though, it's just the stigma around spending money for something that they think they should be free.

Hannah: What's crazy about. Is that I paid for college with less skepticism than I paid for that $7 course, right? It took me months to decide, to spend $7 on that course. That course taught me so much. It was so useful. And you know, you saw that play out in our business. It was an extremely useful thing that taught me how to do something that I needed to know how to do.

And it was absolutely— full price I think it was like a hundred bucks and it was definitely, it was worth that if I had paid full price for it, it still would have been worth it, but I didn't know. And it's interesting cause it's just like it's social conditioning, right?

Because how did I pay way more for a college course where I learned nothing. You know what I mean? I literally didn't learn anything, and it's crazy.

Ryan: Yeah. So that's gonna be, the second thing is going to be checking on Udemy, Coursera whatever other places have courses, looking it up. And it could be as simple as Salesforce courses, whatever Salesforce certification, developer courses, whatever, and then now worst comes to worst, and I'll say that you're in an esoteric field, and you can't find it on YouTube and you can't find it in a course. The next thing that you're probably going to want to do is you're going to try to find a tutor.

Hannah: Yeah.

Ryan: Like you're going to want to try to find somebody.

Hannah: Coaching, help.

Ryan: Tutor, coaching, and it could be. Yeah.

Hannah: That's a good example for language, like the JLPT, the Japanese language proficiency test. So like, if you're trying to pass that test, right? And you've used Rosetta stone, you've used Babel, you've used all these things.

You've taken courses. You've tried to practice on your own. You've used Pimsleur and you're like, man, I'm out and you need help. Hire a tutor.

Ryan: Right.

Hannah: It's going to be worth it. Hire Japanese coach, because that is what you need. That's what you need. You need somebody to help you practice so you can pass that test.

Ryan: But it's not, not just language, so it could be anything, it could be anything. And then, and then also you could do a tutor after you've done the courses. Right? So say something esoteric, like coding, right? And then you're like, man, I took this, I took this coding course and I don't know. I'm still not proficient in it.

I need to ask questions. And then that's where you, and then that's where you get a tutor.

Hannah: You know what? It's not a tutor guys. It's a private professor. That's what it is.

Ryan: Yeah. Tutor, a private professor. Coach. However you have to think about it. And yeah, you're gonna have to spend a little money probably. Sometimes you might be able to find a coach that's willing, depending on how much coaching you need.

That's willing to be gracious and give up some time you know, for free. That happens a lot. You have to ask, right? You have to be able to find them on LinkedIn or find them on Twitter tweet out or DM, whatever. Just ask, right? The worst thing you say is no, I mean, don't be irritating, you know, but.

Hannah: You can be persistent without being irritating.

Ryan: Right? Yeah.

Hannah: That's probably irritating.

Ryan: Yeah. But yeah, this isn't rocket surgery, you know, like it's not.

Hannah: It's not.

Ryan: Like you don't have to be brilliant to think of these things, but this is how, but this is the type of questions that we get. We really do get these, we get these questions all the time.

Hannah: Also. I'd like to point out too, the tutor thing. It sounds extreme. And I think for people that don't like to learn by being told things. I think sometimes that's a hard barrier to come across. I have not yet hired a tutor for anything or a coach for anything. I think that at some point I will to learn or targeted to learn things that I want to learn, but I haven't crossed that barrier for my own self-education yet.

And so I think that, that you should really try to probably, unless you really only learn by somebody else, like hands-on teaching you, it's probably a good idea to try to exhaust as much self-education as you can without involving other human cause then it's scheduling and it's a little more costly and it can just be kind of complicated.

Ryan: Yeah and then, this is also say, too, that you have to remember the goals here. You have to remember the goal of learning this skill, the goal of learning the skill in many cases in the context of which we're speaking about it right now, it's usually to fulfill a job requirement on a job listing. Most job listings, you don't really have to have it down. You have to, you're going to learn all that on the job, right? If they need you, if they need you to be a master at whatever. They probably really just need you to be advanced, right? You just at least know what the tabs are in the software, at least know what the buttons do.

Right? And then whatever, whatever custom coding that they need or whatever custom architecture they need built, you can learn. You're gonna learn that. Right? You're going to do it. There's training, you know, they'll train you to do that. So that's all to say that, so from last episode, if you've identified five skills that you think that you need to learn and you've chosen five skills, and then you're still on skill one, you don't have to be a professor. You don't like, you know, you don't have to get a PhD in whatever it is. If the first one is Excel, you don't have to have a PhD in Excel before—

Hannah: Professor Excel.

Ryan: Before you go down to the second one.

Hannah: Minimum effect to those people, if you can, if you can use it. You're good.

Ryan: Yeah. So then go down to the second one, the third one go on to the fourth one, right? And all the while you keep applying to these jobs after you've completed each one of these things. Now moving on. I think the biggest thing is if you're not going to get a tutor, which I don't think a lot of people can afford to get a tutor, I don't think people, a lot of people when they're first jumping into it, they don't want to make that big of a commitment.

Yeah.

Hannah: Plus you should really should kind of wander around in there on your own for a while and figure out what you're trying to do.

Ryan: I think that the factor here is if when you're teaching yourself, the key is to give yourself a deadline, also help to give yourself a routine, right? I would add to that, you kind of want to give yourself a goal. Right? And we talked about it a little bit in the last episode, but I always find that I learn much more effectively when I have a goal. So if I'm learning, if the goal is to learn HTML and CSS, well, instead of just taking, like, instead of just making like a dummy site that like the Mozilla developers have made, because there are plenty of free resources to learn HTML and CSS, and you can, they'll give you the instructionals to follow along and do everything.

At the beginning, your web page is going to look like this at the end, it's going to look like this, and then they'll walk you through the stages. I've done those before. They're okay. But it never really stuck for me until I built my own website. Right? When I was like, okay, I'm building a website because I need to, I want to make money.

Right. I want to try to sell things online. And then I was like, oh, okay, got it. Now this thing makes much more sense.

Hannah: Yeah I remember, you're like, "oh, how do I get the shopping cart to work? How do I load these things and how do I get them to display suggested things underneath?".

Ryan: Right, and, and what that did, I will say, is that. "Okay. Did it make me an expert at HTML and CSS?" No, that definitely not.

Hannah: Did it make you effective though?

Ryan: It made me effective in that I'm now proficient enough to know what I don't know. And I know where to find the answer for what I don't know. Right? Like, so yes, it would probably be quicker if I had, if I just, if I had to learn it and know it by heart, and if you're going to build websites for a living, then, you know, you should probably know.

But if you're just learning it as a means to an end, kind of how we're doing here, you know, that's probably good enough, and then when you get the job, then you'll, you can learn it. You're like, yeah, you need to know that by heart. Oh, okay. Well then learn it by heart.

Hannah: The other day, LinkedIn. If people aren't on LinkedIn, LinkedIn is like professional Facebook, and it is very cringe.

Like the posts on there, sometimes it's just, it's a very unique LinkedIn flavor, and I there's a lot of good aspects to it, but the way that people post on there is just it's obnoxious. But the other day I did see a post that I thought was funny, which is where somebody had posted that somebody had applied for one of their jobs.

And one of the skills he'd listed, he listed was Googling and they hired him. And that, to me, I don't know if that's true or not, because these posts are just like the most, oh, we should read a couple of sometime they're super funny. But the point of it was that these people realize that the skill that people need now is knowing how to find the answer. That is a skill, by the way, if you can figure out if, if there's a problem and you can figure out the answer to it, even if you don't know the answer, that's a skill.

It's a huge skill. It's called problem solving and we all need it.

Ryan: Once you have a goal that if you can get one, that's going to help you to learn much more effectively, and at least there's like a reason. There's like a why to it all. It's not some material thing that you're trying to figure out. You're oh, I'm learning this to get a job.

Well, I'm learning this to build a website, right.

Hannah: So that I can get a job.

Ryan: Yeah. Okay. After that, I think it's the next thing that you need is you need a deadline. You got to give yourself a deadline, right?

Hannah: Yeah. Once when I was studying for my Salesforce exam for my admin cert I found that as soon as I scheduled the exam, I have much more sense of urgency and I was much more focused because I had to know it by a certain date.

I had, I was like, oh shoot, I better figure this out. Cause I have seven more days.

Ryan: Yeah. Exactly. Like, what is it? What is that? Parkinson's law or something like that. It's like a, it's not an actual law, but it's like the amount of work inflates to meet the time constraint, basically. So like, if you have something that isn't, it has an infinite time restraint, the thing is also always going to inflate. Right? And so it was basically that's all to say that most people are procrastinators. Right? So if it's like I have in a college setting, let's say, I have, this is where you see it a lot, or in a work setting even too.

Hannah: Anywhere that people are allowed to do it.

Ryan: Yeah. Give it a deadline.

You're like, oh man, I gotta get it done. I'll have a week. I have a week, whatever. I get six days, five days. And then you're like the night before, you're like, oh my God, it's gotta be in by tomorrow.

Hannah: Man. I'm like that. I hate that.

Ryan: And so that's what it means. Like the amount of work inflates to meet the time restraint.

And so I think that giving yourself a deadline is huge and it can be, I suggest that if it's a tight deadline or even any deadline, you know, putting somewhere that's obvious, right? If you're always on your computer screen, writing it on a post-it note and put it on your computer.

I do that.

If you look at a calendar every day, you know, put a countdown on your calendar, put a countdown on your calendar every day, just boom, four days till three days till, and cross it out, circle it. Do whatever you have to do. There are more extreme ways that you could do it too. There's like you can bet with your friends.

You know what I mean? I find that telling people your goals and obviously it's gotta be a trusted person, but I find that like telling people your goals.

Hannah: That's interesting cause I think, I think I disagree with you because I find that if I actually don't, I think it's for different types of people though.

I think for you, if you say it out loud, but for me, if I say it out loud, I feel like almost already did it.

Ryan: You and I are very different.

Hannah: Right. So like, you know, like I just see things that I think, right. So if I say it, I'm like, oh, I kind of feel like I did it already, but I didn't.

So it's better for me to actually keep it inside.

Ryan: It's interesting because also if for people listening, like.

Hannah: So if you're a talker, shut up.

Ryan: Hannah's a talker. I'm a doer. Not that I don't talk and not that she doesn't do things.

Hannah: This is not connotative. It's not bad.

Ryan: There's nothing bad or nothing good about it.

Hannah: It's probably more introvert and extrovert actually is what I think it is.

Ryan: Yeah, it could be. But we've always had this. So, I mean, I don't have to sugar coat it for anybody. You know what I mean? This is how we talk about it. Like, you're a talker I'm a doer.

There's nothing wrong with that.

Just is.

So for me, it's a big deal for me to open my mouth. And for me, when I tell somebody, Hey, I'm thinking about doing this, like I'm pretty much 99% there. I think I'm probably going to do it. At the point where I tell you, Hey, I'm going to do this. Like, you can, you can take it to the bank.

It's going to get done, you know?

Hannah: No that's accurate.

Ryan: On deadlines, you know? And that's why for me telling somebody I'm going to do it by this date is huge because it's like.

Hannah: Now, you have to do it.

Ryan: Yeah. I told this person, I'd get it done by this date.

You know what I mean? That's huge to me. It's like, okay, got to get done, then get it done. Whatever it is I have to do. Get it done. So depending on who you are. Different strokes for different folks.

Hannah: Cause I read this the other day. I read you know, those little suggested articles, those little clickbait articles that come up when you open your internet browser.

I read one the other day and it was like, oh, it's pretty much just said, you know, don't tell people your goals because then you're less likely to do them. And I read it and I, and I realized I was like whoever that is, is like me.

Yeah.

Cause I think for some people genuinely like something about saying that you're going to do something, it makes you feel the gratification that you would feel if you'd already done it.

And so for me, I've discovered that as a superpower, if I want to, if I actually want to get something done, I should shut up. I should not say a word and I get more satisfaction too, out of telling you I've completed something now because it's like, no, I just did. I just did it. And I think that that's very individual and there's no right or wrong way to do it.

It's just something that I've learned for myself. And I think that you've learned for yourself. And so take that into account. If you find that telling people your goals before you've accomplished them, takes away your motivation, then shut up.

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. I'm just using it as a motivational tool and it's not like necessarily to get a, it's not necessarily to be like a emotion adjuster.

It's not to get like an atta boy, atta girl. You know what I mean? It's literally just to, so for me, the reason why I tell people, or if it's important enough, because I don't talk like, you know me, like, I don't tell people, majority of my life I do exactly what you just said. I did this.

I do this, you know what I mean? Like, but if I need something, that's like, man, I gotta learn this stupid thing and I don't really want to do it, you know, and just say, okay, well I better tell somebody. And that way I can hold myself accountable.

Hannah: So it gets done.

Ryan: To it. So, you know, it gets done.

Hannah: Interesting how people are different.

Ryan: Yeah. Very, very interesting. And then the last thing is going to be routine.

Hannah: Now this one, I am— as a human being, I'm very easily distracted. I get bored extremely easily and I definitely struggle with focus. And so for me, when I was studying, getting up every day at the same time, eating the same thing, literally eating the same food, taking the same vitamins, drinking the same type of coffee every day, doing, you know, doing whatever your morning routine is the same exact way so that you can condition yourself to get into study mode.

Then I find that, especially for people like, I was only in college for a brief amount of time. So I'm not used to being a student. Right? I'm used to self-educating, but I'm not used to being a student and studying for the goal of taking an exam of some kind to get a certification of a skill.

And so I had to relearn how to do that. And I think though, because I'm an adult now, I actually think that it was really effective in a really short amount of time.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. I think a routine is.

Hannah: Yeah, cause you saw it, you saw it up close where I did this. I did the same thing every day.

Ryan: I think a routine is very important, it just helps too, when you're learning, when you're learning something, especially if it's something that you're not very good at. Especially with something that takes a lot of brain power, there's only so much brain power that you have for the day and only so many decisions that you can make in a day or so much like mental energy that you have for the day, and what the routine does is it helps you to stick to it and, and save all of that energy for whatever it is that you're learning and whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish.

So if you're trying to learn, I don't know, whatever we're trying to learn graphic design or certain type of graphic design, or you're trying to learn after effects or whatever. And it's like, what the heck are we talking about? You know what I mean? And it's like super difficult. You're going to need all the brain power for that task.

So instead of worrying about what you're going to eat at the, you know, the coffee shop down the street, you know what I mean? Like. Yeah, go there. Don't go there. Make yourself coffee, buy the same coffee.

Hannah: Pre-order the same thing. So it's automatically ordered the same thing for you every day.

Ryan: Buy the same croissant or fricking go into your, you know, whatever.

Hannah: If you're working, especially if you're working multiple jobs while you're trying to attempt this, or you have small children, come up with a schedule just for a temporary time, get a friend, pay a babysitter, you know, call your family, get somebody to help you watch the kids at the same time every day.

If you have shift work and your schedule varies, just ask your manager to just schedule you consistently for a month, you know, just so you can schedule your life around studying to get done what you're going to get done. And you'll find that when you ask people for help in that way, and you say, I'm trying to do this, can you help me? A lot of people are going to be supportive of you.

Ryan: And that if not, if they're not. If they can't give you a solid schedule, then you have to, then you have to commit that on my days off. The routine can look, however it is right?

So if you're like today I'm working the swing shift, and then tomorrow I work the open shift, or then to then the next day I worked the graveyard shift. And you're saying after every, after every shift, if it's a graveyard shift, I'm going to, I'm going to study for two hours, right. Before, every opening shift, I'm going to study for two hours, right.

It can be as simple as it can be as quote unquote routine as that.

Hannah: And it's not killing yourself either if you're not trying to do it in that way. You know, if it's I close, I sleep, you know, I sleep till 11. I get up, I study for 45 minutes and then I work out and then I go to work. And then the next day I do the same thing.

That's fine. That's fine. It's the consistency in their routine. That's going to help you get where you're trying to go.

Ryan: Yeah. And then I think honestly for this one, I think that that's pretty much it. I think that this is going to be, this is one that's definitely paired best with the last episode that we did is how to pick a valuable skill.

But this is actually the question that we get asked the most, as far as the skills when looking at a job description, you're like, I don't fit that job description. How do I fit that job description? Like, what are the skills, like, how do I learn these skills? But first we always have to tell them, well, how do you pick, how do you pick the skills?

How do you identify the skills? So go back and listen to that episode, identify the skills. However it is, whether that's using a spreadsheet or whether that's writing it down, whatever then come here. Two things you got to learn, right off the bat. Before you do any of this is you have to learn how to use search engines, right?

And then Google, Duckduckgo, you have to learn which search engines are out there. And we'll try to link to a bunch of search engines in the show notes. And then the second thing is you're going to have to find out how to find what it is you're looking for, like how to find the answer or how to find what skills to learn.

You know what I mean? Like how to learn those skills. So once you learn those things, and once you're able to identify the things that you need to learn, And the way that you're going to learn them, you're going to learn them online. You're going to use YouTube as much as possible. You're going to read blog posts as much as possible.

You're going to utilize Reddit as much as possible. Facebook groups. Just join Facebook groups. You know what I mean? Just join, join, join.

Hannah: Facebook is dead people, but the groups are not. The groups are not. Facebook groups are invaluable, I have found. That is the only sign of life other than Facebook marketplace on Facebook.

Ryan: And then, if you can't find it, if you've exhausted your free options, now you're looking at courses, right? And there are some free courses. There are. But you're looking at places like Udemy, Coursera, even like apps, you won't have some courses on there as well.

They do.

Masterclass has courses, LinkedIn learning has courses.

Hannah: Skillshare.

Ryan: Skillshare has courses. There's a couple of other places and we'll link to them in the show notes so that people can find them. Okay. So you'll go and you take those courses, and at this point, we have to get over the fact that like, at this point, if you've exhausted your free options, we're probably going to spend some money.

Right? And now how much money you have to spend,

Hannah: That really depends on you.

Ryan: That is completely up to you. And that is completely out of the scope of this episode.

Hannah: That's it. Don't get pulled into the colleges worth more than these things, because if you need the thing to get a job, it's not.

Ryan: Yeah.

And then, also on the flip side of that is you don't have to—price isn't always indication of quality. Oftentimes, it's pretty okay. It's okay. But there have been, I mean, we've all bought something that's been a hundred dollars plus, and it just turns out to be a POS.

You know what I mean? And that we've also bought something that's been like $7, and then we've literally like, I have a fricking belt that I bought literally 15 years ago for like less than $10. And I still wear it to this day. You know what I mean?

Hannah: He loves that though.

Ryan: Yeah. You know what, it's probably one of the best purchases that I ever made in my life.

Right? I mean, I wear it every day and so price, isn't always an indication of quality. So don't think that you have to go out and

Hannah: Spend the most.

Ryan: Spend the most, right? If it's a $12 course, hey, maybe you start there. Maybe you start on a $12 course. See if you can do it for the least amount of money possible.

Hannah: That's a good tactic.

Ryan: And then you're like, man, okay. Now I got to spring, maybe, maybe that $12 course gets you 90% there, but you're still missing that 10%. But now that you've identified where that 10% is. You didn't have to buy that a hundred dollar course that necessarily had all of it in there, but then maybe were able to identify another $12 course that has that 10%.

Hannah: That's what I did. I bought that $7 course. And then when I started studying for the admin, I bought a $12 course. And then when I had exhausted the course, I was like, I still need more than I bought a $50 course, and that was, that was all I bought. That's all I needed. That's enough.

Ryan: And so all I'm saying is you don't have to, you don't have to throw the kitchen sink at it.

You don't have to mortgage your house in order to learn these skills.

Hannah: The last thing too, I'm sorry. Before I forget one tip one, tip that if you're going to take away from this, if you were getting into an industry that you were new in, something that I really advise everybody to do.

And this is really boring. Make flashcards of the terms and vocabulary that are used in that industry and drill those flashcards until, you know what they mean, because if you go in an interview and somebody uses a buzzword in that industry and you know what it means when you're new to the field, it's going to help you.

And that helped me a lot. When I was interviewing for Salesforce jobs, when I only had 31 days of experience, I had drilled all of the technical terms. So, when somebody ask me a question, even if I didn't know what the answer to the question was, at least I knew what they were talking about. And that's huge because knowing the vocabulary is half the battle.

Yep.

Ryan: Absolutely. It sounds like, you know, what's going on. Yeah, that's definitely a good one. And then after, after you'd done that, finding a tutor, if you're finally exhausted. Biggest things after that, you're going to want to give yourself a goal if you can.

Right? Why are you learning this? Obviously to get the job, but if you have to learn how to edit photos or something like that, you know, why don't you edit your own photos instead of editing some other people's photos or whatever, right? And trying to build a portfolio for your own photography portfolio. Give yourself a deadline, right?

Because if you just keep procrastinating and keep procrastinating. That's not, that's not good. So if it's like, if it's an exam, if it's an exam that you have to take, you know, book it in.

Hannah: Give yourself a date.

Ryan: If you're not sure how long, go on Reddit, figure out what they say. And if you're like, well, I did it in three months. I did it in six months or whatever.

Hannah: And then gauge for yourself.

Ryan: Gauge for yourself. Yeah, exactly. If you, if you want to do it, oh, if you want to bang it out, schedule it a month.

Hannah: Also, do you take advantage of practice tests, practice exams? I find those are really helpful. Especially for the tech certifications. If they offer a practice exam, take use of it because it's going to help you.

Ryan: After that. Just get a routine, you know, help yourself out, help your brain out. Your brain doesn't have to think about it, right? Like you wake up and you're just a robot. Every day.

Hannah: Do the same thing.

Ryan: Yep.

Hannah: It's temporary.

Ryan: Yep. It's some temporary pain for achieving these goals. And hopefully,

Hannah: You're going to say for your, for better gain, you're going to make a rhyme.

Ryan: No.

Hannah: Next time.

Ryan: Alright.

Hannah: Alright. Thanks guys so much for watching and hanging out with us today, please like, and subscribe, write a review. If you have questions, comments, thoughts, or ideas, we'd love to hear them. And as we've mentioned before, we do have a guide on our website. If you're looking for something that's going to help you go step by step and figure out how to use the lessons that we're teaching in these podcasts, check it out.

And that may be something that's really going to help you along.

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. If you guys have any questions, comments, concerns, drop us an email [email protected]. We always like to hear you guys. If you can leave us a review, it really helps how other people find us, give us just as simple as a thumbs up on YouTube, or if you can give us a five stars on apple podcasts or wherever it is, you get your podcasts.

It really helps to get the message out. All right, until next time guys. Aloha.