With James Longley, a serial entrepreneur, innovator, and lifelong learner who co-founded Learn & Think Better, a company dedicated to the belief that effective lifelong learning is essential to personal and business transformation that leads to positive change in the world.

Together with his wife Sveta, James has empowered service-based business owners to acquire rare and valuable skills that can withstand any changing market, AI, or other technological advancements. By focusing on skill acquisition and self-improvement, Learn & Think Better’s programs equip entrepreneurs with the tools they need to build and sustain successful businesses in today’s rapidly changing world.

James & Sveta’s entrepreneurial journey(s) have resulted in the creation of the GrowthOS System, which now serves as the foundation of their flagship program, The Future-Proof Entrepreneur.

In this insightful conversation, James shares his experience and expertise, exploring current employment and self-employment trends and discussing concepts like work ethic and loyalty. He also provides insights on how certain generations are adapting to or influencing the market and shares practical steps that we can all take to “future-proof” ourselves and our work. By the end of the discussion, you will be equipped with valuable insights and actionable strategies to help you thrive as a service-based business owner in today’s ever-changing market.

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Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• Why are more employees converting to entrepreneurship?
• Who is in the silver generation? The Gen Zs?
• What is “augmenting”?
• The difference between the curse of the asset and the curse of knowledge.
• “And the (value creation) perspective, whether it’s from the skills that you choose to develop, it needs to be around the value that you can uniquely create, and specifically linking it back to the technology.”
• Soft skills vs hard skills in the future.

“…That is the real answer to coping with information overload – you need to identify what is relevant. And with that single act you can immediately eliminate, or mark as not relevant, everything else, right now. “

-James Longley

Check out these highlights:

• 03:10 James shares how he came up with their cohort based program, The Future-Proof Entrepreneur.
• 12:10 How skill development comes into play for the business owners?
• 22:46 What’s a Western Capitalist mindset that we tend to have?
• 26:47 The reason behind the name “Learn and Think Better”.
• 35:01 The 5 C’s in entrepreneurship are…
• 01:14:43 Hear James’ final thought for the listeners.

On social media:

How to get in touch with James:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameslongleyhq/

Learn more about James, by visiting his website here.

Special gift for listeners: Become the indispensable growth partner for your clients and build the future-proof business that’s right for you by joining The Future-Proof Entrepreneur. You’ll identify and develop the valuable skills that will set you and your business apart today and in the long term. Find out more and get started at https://bit.ly/TheFPE

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below:

GGGB Intro  00:00

Here’s what to expect today.

James Longley  00:02

Let me look into buying that template set on how to outsource in my business, because it popped up in my Facebook sidebar. Only 39 dons. Fundamentally it’s about making sure you’re doing the right thing for the stage that you’re in.

GGGB Intro  00:19

The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  00:47

Alrighty, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I’m an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington, serving online information entrepreneurs throughout the US and around the world. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®. I am so excited to welcome my friend James Longley today. Welcome, James.

James Longley  01:14

Thank you for having me, Heather. Super excited.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:16

Oh my gosh, this is way overdue. James and I, gosh, how long have we known each other handful of years now? Feels like six years probably. And our first introduction, was it through the mastermind? Very, very early mastermind. Yes. And so I met James and his wife Sveta, who you will hear a bit about today as well. But James, I’m just so happy to see you. Again. I’m super excited that we are having this conversation. And if you are an entrepreneur really of any kind, this is going to be super relevant for you. So stick around. For those of you that don’t know James. James Longley is a serial entrepreneur, lifelong learner and co-founder of Learn and Think Better, along with his wife and business partner, Sveta Longley. Throughout their 10 year entrepreneurial journey, they’ve both committed to continuously developing their skills, ranging from content strategy and coaching to digital marketing, direct sales, public speaking, website optimization, SEO, content marketing, copywriting, and more. That shared love of learning led them to create and refine the principle-based skill development method that now forms the foundation of their cohort based program, The Future-Proof Entrepreneur. I have to say, I love that name so much. I remember when you shared it with me, I was like, yes. And we’ve talked a little bit about how that came about. But do you want to share a little bit about that story with the listeners? 

James Longley  02:52

Yeah, absolutely. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  02:53

It’s a big story, right? It’s a big story.

James Longley  02:58

And with that said, there’s also a very considerable piece of that whole idea coming together that comes down to the conversations that you and I have had, most recently, but also in the past. So the future proof element of it has just, it’s arisen from something that I’ve been fascinated in for years. And is actually it started when I first became aware of this concept of megatrends, probably five or six years ago, and that was things they’re essentially the forces that are changing the world of business, etc, for generations, or decades to come. And those are things like, one concept that was really resonant was womanomics was the rise of the female driven economy, female leadership, etc. There were things like work life integration. And my wife’s absolute favorite one is new men, these new modern men who do all the things that traditionally have been assigned to women in our culture. So those sort of ideas of megatrends infiltrate all areas of our life. But then the Future-Proof Entrepreneur side of things, is even more linked to all the pandemic driven things like the shift dramatically for traditional employees onto online, online remote work. Also things like how globalization is basically meaning that whether you’re an employee or an entrepreneur, you are competing with everybody. It’s no longer a case of Liz, John, Eric and Dave, and they’re in the running for this position. It’s everybody’s available. So what does that mean? It essentially means you need to have a methodology and a mindset towards cultivating rare, valuable skills that sets you apart. And that all happens in a context of just more rapid change than we’ve ever seen before. And AI automation, all of that sort of stuff that is already having it really transformational effect on business on work, etc. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  05:04

Yeah, it is a really fascinating thing to be observing like, in real time, you and I have been in the online space for some time. Now, some people are new there. I know, it’s which kind of seems shocking, but it’s true. It’s fascinating to watch the impact specifically, of the pandemic, and recent trends, the ones that you’ve spoken up, even on long standing traditional industries, right, so one of my clients right now is in the medical space, and his work. And so many doctors, even the nature of their work has changed. Because there are now companies whose sole job is specifically to bring a doctor from another location into a new location to provide specific services. And whereas I think, historically, most doctors lived very close to where they work, you have all kinds of setups now, just like the traveling nurses, right, where you have doctors that are committing to a year or multi year positions, where three weeks of the month, they might live in Florida and travel to Chicago actually deliver their services, right. And then they’re getting weekends off and a full week with both weekends on either side home with their family. It’s a really interesting model, right. And I’ve talked with him at length about that. But, again, this whole issue of supply and demand and flattening the playing field, and having access to people now from all over really is impacting a lot of industries in very interesting ways.

James Longley  06:41

And I think a key point about that is also we can get scared of the change, and all of those things that are up ending the way the world works. But also, I like to think of it from the perspective of it shifted closer to a meritocracy in the true sense, it’s like, and that gets down to issues of equality, of access to the training the materials, etc, to take advantage of or thrive in a meritocracy. And that’s a very important aspect and conversation to have. But you can also look at it from the perspective that getting closer to a true meritocracy is reducing and removing some of the barriers that have traditionally been in place that have in addition to you don’t have access to the resources, you also had barriers in your way to getting the job getting the business that you wanted. So that’s one hurdle that’s being reduced. Yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell  07:38

What have you noticed most significantly for the types of entrepreneurs that you and I work with? In this recent shift? I hear you talking on both sides, both from the opportunity perspective, as well as the challengers perspective?

James Longley  07:55

I think the way that I really looked at it is, and this is a an element of thinking that’s been quite informed by Brian Clark from the Copyblogger world where he has spoken about the entrepreneurial employment divide, whereas these technologies AI, automation, etc, become more sophisticated and enter the workplace to a greater degree, this binary sort of situation develops where if you’re an employee, you’re going to be impacted by these technologies. And the likelihood is you’re not going to like the way that you’re impacted. Because those elements of technology are either going to replace the things that you do, and then you’re a machine operator, or they are in some way, monitoring and watching what you do. So you become a less valuable asset that an employer is looking at, okay, how can I gradually edge this person out and replace them with technology, that he flip it in the other direction for an entrepreneur, and it just opens up huge opportunity to essentially augment what you’re able to do. So if you’re a writer, for example, you can now have an abundance of AI tools that can help you with the research they can help you with just speeding up the repetitive stuff that happens in the background, and enable you to lean more into your unique human capacities. And one point about the writing side of AI. That again, Brian thought brought up was that the true creativity in a writer’s work rarely happens in the editing stage. But if those technologies are augmenting you speeding up your research process speeding up even the initial draft, it’s the editing where you bring in the magic. So it’s a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs to up their capacity, even up their creativity. And that’s that binary that I see it and that’s why it’s so ought to be thinking, as an existing entrepreneur, how can technology augment me as an employee who, in the mindset of the great resignation, and the statistics of age 59% of employees in the US are considering a shift to freelance work?

Heather Pearce Campbell  10:18

This is going to be my next question, does this mean given the dynamic you’ve just described that we have even more employees converting over to entrepreneurship or running their own little machine or system?

James Longley  10:33

Absolutely. And that links to another element that is fascinating that Svet particular is geared around because with her work as a in the sort of health coaching space, which is an element that she brings into this learning thing, better business, where I’m very detail-oriented, tech-oriented, she brings up nemoannalistic perspective, which is a gift from above, essentially, goodness, have lost my train of thought or what I’m saying there there was complimenting my wife.

Heather Pearce Campbell  11:02

That is a forgivable sin that was completely forgivable, and we hope you do it again.

James Longley  11:09

I will do my best to do it again. So essentially, as we shift, another one of the mega trends basically is called the silver generation. And this is the fact that people are living longer, they are, as much as that’s a benefit. It comes with challenges and omit key challenges you live longer, you need more money, like retiring at 65, and living to 95, you’ve got 30 years that you need to deal with. And that’s not only a lack thing, it’s also the fact that 65 year old people have a lot of value still to add, they have a wealth of experience, gained over a lifetime of work. And to think they no longer have something to contribute all of that they no longer want to is I would argue he just doesn’t really. And so you have this concept of the some people call it the encore career that essentially, as people finish a traditional Korea, they might want to transition into entrepreneurship. If you look at the business success statistics, the most successful small business owners are those older than 40. Yeah. Now, can you attribute that to their experience and things gained over the last perhaps, but at the end of the day, those older people, they want to do something else? They will be transitioning into work? And increasingly, that’s going to be online business. And so there becomes the need for skill development. Really?

Heather Pearce Campbell  12:39

Yeah. I think we are absolutely watching the timelines collapse. Right? Because it used to be I’m basically, whatever the generation is, I’m spacing out before millennials, right? What is it before Generation X? Generation X? Yeah. Where and it’s a shorter. Yeah, it’s a shorter generation, though, right? It’s a kind of sandwiched between two bigger generations. But we’re, for the first time I think we watched and it’s been spoken about quite a bit since it since really years and years ago, when they began to talk about it, how the loyalty was no longer there, where you sign up for a job. And you’re a lifer, you’re going to be doing that it like there was a dramatic shift. And I think, with each subsequent generation, people have their opinions about millennials, there’s so much crap out there that I disagree with. But Millennials presenting this whole group of people who seem to just live by their own rules, and I think how fascinating is this? That’s such a hard pill for other people to swallow. When there’s so much that I actually admire about millennials and their commitment to their values, the way that they shop differently than generations ahead of them. Right, the way that they make decisions based on financial resources, not in spite of right, they’re a much more in my view, a much more thoughtful generation around how what matters and how they’re going to make decisions around what matters, right. And even now, you look at the great resignation, you look at how the expectation now is flexibility, lateral movement, I think we have for the first time in quite some time, and inversion happening in some traditional employment locations where the new people coming in can demand greater salary than people that have been there ages and ages, because it’s so challenging to find those employees and to actually grow certain businesses. And so we just have really interesting dynamics happening right now, which I think have caused a lot of confusion. in the marketplace, it’ll be really interesting to watch how this settles out. But all in all, it’s I think we have some collapse timelines where people, even more than ever before, are moving or making decisions, they might be physically moving. Because they know that they have greater access, right and greater flexibility from a job and employment. It’s just causing a lot of changes quickly, for both traditional and non traditional employers.

James Longley  15:30

100% and an aspect of this whole thinking around the shifts in work, ranging from the much maligned millennials and the avocado toast teacher to fortunately, on that note, actually, it’s this the new generation, what are their Gen Z.

Heather Pearce Campbell  15:46

Yeah, there is an internet Gen. Z. 

James Longley  15:48

Yeah, they get the media’s Brunt now, so as millennials can take a bit of a backseat, because it’s the Gen Z, who are quitting. And all of this narrative around, they don’t have the work ethic that we used to have. And it’s so fascinating that you talk about loyalty, I think a critical mental shift is you have to judge things by the context in which they exist. If you judge behavior of a certain group, by the standards of a previous group, and a set of conditions that no longer exist, that’s fallacious thinking, I would say, that ties in to, to the skill development and learning concept. But I think also, it is just a fascinating shift in the future of work. Thinking that I have been informed by particularly a book by a writer by the name of Taylor Pearson, he wrote a book called The End of jobs. And the key thing that he said was, and it was a few years ago, so this is not a 2022 book. But essentially, he was saying that the central organizing unit of our economy has shifted from the corporation to the individual. Yes. And that whether you want to call it gig economy, that was perhaps the first iteration of it, or just this freelancer or creator economy, the engine of many economies now is becoming the individual value creators.

Heather Pearce Campbell  17:18

Yeah, as I say, it’s all about the value of creation 100%,

James Longley  17:23

And that perspective, whether it’s from the skills that you choose to develop, etc, it needs to be good at around the value that you uniquely can create, and specifically linking it back to the technology. Okay, if technology can do this repetitive process, frankly, better than you can, because technology tends not to get tired, need a tea break, or a holiday, it literally just shows up and does the same thing repetitively. Now we can see that as a negative, they’re taking our jobs, and I absolutely sympathize with people who are in a situation where it is literally taking their jobs, there’s an additional point to that, which is that it frees up the opportunity to bring in the unique to human skills. And that’s where the opportunity lies. I would say.

Heather Pearce Campbell  18:14

First of all, I love the focus on opportunity. It’s like for years, even within the legal world, because people complain about all of these alternatives, like Pac Pac most to him, right? A lot of like the Pac Man chomping mouse right at the edge of industries that for a long time have been protected, whether it’s because of regulation, because of just tradition, right? You look at some of the more traditional industries. And I’m a real proponent for change. And I’m a real proponent for being an early adopter of new methods and different ways of doing things. The whole reason I built my second business was to stand apart from the traditional marketplace and create a different way of serving the same people. And but I think it causes a lot of fear and people that seek I have to change the way that I’ve been doing business for years and years. Right. What does this mean, for me, I think there’s a lot of fear for people that are now waking up and realizing really how rapidly they might have to change. And this is where I feel like this conversation with you is so important because this also will impact the entrepreneurs out there who have been entrepreneurial, who have been doing their best to not only stay at the forefront, but also stay afloat because running a solo. For many people, a solo based or small team based business is not always the easiest thing to do and in an economy and in a marketplace where things are rapidly changing. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  19:52

All right, let’s pause for a moment and hear from today’s sponsor. Are you an entrepreneur who is on track to make a million or more in revenue this year in your business? If so, your business is likely facing a host of legal issues that are right for support. And if you are like so many of my clients at this level, you are likely tired of taking unnecessary risks and a DIY approach to legal support in your business. You’re ready to tackle the mess of legal documents, six legal gaps that you have. You want to take care of your IP, your clients, your business, and avoid unnecessary conflict and risk in the process. If this is you, and beyond just being an entrepreneur, you are a catalyst and are committed to your mission and your impact in the world. I invite you to get in touch. You could be a fit for my catalyst club, a small business legal support program that I designed for my high level clients. Just like you, you can find out more at legalwebsite warrior.com. Just click on the Work with Me tab to learn more about the catalyst club and other ways that I support my clients, a fabulous group of world changing entrepreneurs, I might add, you’ve done the initial legwork in your business. And now you want to soar. And you know that you can only go as high and as far as your legal foundation lets you go. So get in touch today, hop over to legalwebsitewarrior.com, click on the Work with Me tab. And if you have any questions, get in touch through the Contact link on my site, I look forward to connecting it would be a joy to support you on your path.

Heather Pearce Campbell  21:42

This is the challenge that we have is how do we remain competitive? How do we remain at the kind of at the front of the leading edge of the way that we provide services that we that we interact with and support our clients the way that we do the variety of things that we do through our work. So this is where I’d love to hear from you on how people can meet those challenges. How do we do learning and change and innovation in a way that is supportive and not just completely overwhelming, which I know that it can be for so many people?

James Longley  22:19

This is a topic that really yesterday got me to it, there’s so much to it, I do think it’s relevant to look at it from an employment perspective, there are certainly challenges there. And those are things that I think governments and policy have to address. I’m not in any position to speak to what’s needed there. But from an entrepreneurial perspective, as we were talking about earlier, things are changing faster than they ever have before. And I think it’s fundamental that the mindset that we tend to have, perhaps it’s a Western capitalist mindset to a degree, but we tend to have this idea that if I win, you lose that there is a pie and it is limited. And so either I get it, or you get it right now maybe that’s a client, I want this client and therefore you lost it.

Heather Pearce Campbell  23:12

I love that you bring this concept of what I call the zero sum game, right into perspective, because I think for any of us, like, Where does this originate? When you think back, it can be an individual mindset, but I think it is certainly a collective but a corporate, a very much corporate Big Boy mindset.

James Longley  23:35

That’s logical to an extent, if you look at a trial perspective of a corporate going for a tender, one of the companies is gonna get it and the rest aren’t. So in that sense, it makes sense. But that’s not a win win. And the name escapes me right now. But the founder of Whole Foods, was a business owner who very unconventionally brought to the business model, the idea that rather than having a responsibility to shareholders as the primary thing, the organizing principle of a business was The L Word, which rarely must have blown people’s minds like love as the role of business. Now, that’s a completely different perspective, right. And I think what that leads into for me is that the pie is infinite. Let’s be honest, there is more than enough out there for everyone. It’s a distribution question, right? And so, I don’t like to look at this change dynamic from the perspective of I must get ahead so that others don’t have rather than look at it as running in parallel. I need to develop my skills such that my business is uniquely valuable because it’s only me that can do what I do. And that might sound trite to a degree, that I’m a unique, whatever. But I think there’s I think there’s factual, concrete basis to that, which is you have a unique set of skills experiences, biology, bio individuality, like how do you show up.

Heather Pearce Campbell  25:17

That’s such a relevant example like this, this idea of uniqueness like you and I, even before we went live, we’re talking about health, the journeys and the experience in these physical bodies. And like I was sharing my experience about working with one naturopath, trying all of these things to result in some outcome, right, me feeling better. And then working with a functional medicine doctor, also very much a natural approach to medicine. And having completely different approaches. One was primarily we’re going to test your blood, we’re going to do this stuff to actually look at the science, which I very much appreciate. The other one was all about body testing, muscle testing, the body, and then where I’m at now, because we reach dead ends with those approaches, is a woman who, again, also a naturopath lives in the same world of approaching medicine from a more natural standpoint, completely different approach, like each one of these providers lives in comes from basically the same world, from the outside looking in, you could say has a similar approach to medicine, completely different methods, completely different ways that they approach what they do absolutely an example of how unique people can do in providing from the outside looking in the same service?

James Longley  26:42

Absolutely. That kind of brings me to what is the philosophy and the reason we call this company, Learn and Think Better is we came across what is the origin of the word educate or education. And this blew my mind, it was absolutely fascinating. So when we say educate, what did we think of the schooling system, universities, etc. And if you watch a movie, like The Matrix, Trinity needs to know how to fly a helicopter instantly. So they plug in the program, and now she can fly a helicopter. So she had knowledge installed in her brain. And that is the image we have of the brain is a storage mechanism. And we shove the stuff in, right? In reality, when you look at it, education comes from X. So out of and do seri which means leaving out or bringing forth. So tying into the individual and individuality, education to eat, eat do cage is to lead force from the mind of the individual what is unique.

Heather Pearce Campbell  27:52

Creation process.

James Longley  27:55

Yeah, so to educate is not to indoctrinate, it’s to lead out what is unique about the individual. And the foundation of that. And what we built all of this around is and you said in version a little bit earlier, which is a powerful mental model. So mental models, and principles of effective learning, of effective thinking, etc, all where we bring into this entrepreneurial space, and the entrepreneurial educational space. Because and I think you’ve probably familiar with this person and this philosophy. But Krishna Murthy said it’s no measure of wellbeing to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society. So the belief is that we live in a profoundly sick society, in the sense that I don’t think we need to quote the health statistics to say we literally live in a profoundly sick society. But it’s more a matter of we are not educated to think, to the degree for ourselves that is necessary to bring about change in our own lives, but also broader societal change. So the way to handle that is to cultivate things like critical thinking skills. By looking at and installing mental models and principle based thinking we’re not about as we see in business education in particular, I’m gonna teach you this tactic, this method, and then you’re gonna go and do that, and results will follow which a whole different angle on whether education approaches than business actually resulted in the desired business progress. But fundamentally, you’re not teaching people principles that they can then go and apply and I think of this as a teacher, man to fish kind of example. Whereas in traditional education and business education, it’s here’s a seven and that will just stuck with you and like salmon. Doesn’t matter is some salmon I think what’s broken in our educational system that I currently live in the Czech Republic. So I don’t know much about the occasional system here. But I’m originally from South Africa. And we followed a very English traditional model of education. And we were very fortunate that school I went to had the resources had the materials we needed to learn. But I do keep track of the US media. And when I see things like teachers having to buy their own school materials, and things like that, it just demonstrates that people are not being given and equipped with the education that they need, despite the best intentions of the teachers who show up every day and do their best to teach these kids and shape their lives. And so that’s why we’ve stepped back to a point where if you look at the sort of ancient Greek and Roman educational approaches the Stoics and such, not only was it a philosophical and sort of mental models, principals, etc, it even included a physical aspects, like their education was a reason that schools are called gymnasiums. Right? It brought a more holistic approach in and I think holistic is a key word that needs to be brought into the educational space in particular. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  31:17

Yeah, what keeps coming to mind for me, not only around what you said earlier about the emphasis on value creation, but also the word creation. And I think the thing that hasn’t worked for a long time is that as human beings, we are creative, we are here to create, and the school systems don’t necessarily teach you that, well, there are ways that certain people do it better, right? Our school systems, by and large, least here in the US are designed, they were designed in the industrial era, right to create a whole bunch of kids that could grow up and follow rules and go into industries and do a certain thing well, and really just, again, it’s about creating a whole group of people that can follow rules. And it’s not what we need now. It’s just not what we need. And so the advantage in my mind that small businesses and entrepreneurs have had ahead of large businesses is the ability to be creative, and to implement change more quickly. Right, if you’re a smaller leaner model, there are ways that you have tremendous advantages over some of the larger businesses in the marketplace. Now, does that always even now? Not necessarily, you have to look at it as a whole, because there are certainly advantages that some of the big businesses have from a resource perspective. But I keep going back to this feeling of the need for us, especially in light of the current landscape, the shifts that are happening both for employees and entrepreneurs, to reconnect to our creative centers, right, because I think that’s where our unique and individual advantages exist. 

James Longley  33:14

Yeah, absolutely. And there’s two elements to that. It makes me think of number one, we talked a lot now about the creative economy. Yeah. And that ranges everywhere from people with a nine to five who start a side hustle. And they might be using things like no code tools, you’ve got notion and Zapier and all of the automation tools, the different platforms that you can use to start a side hustle, maybe build a digital product, and start to sell that on Gumroad, for example, and that goes all the way through to people who are haven’t fully transitioned into business, this creator economy, that, as you say, It taps into one of the most fundamentally human qualities, which is creativity. And that’s why within our program, what we look at is a set of futuristic or futurism models. One of them is called the Four futures. And that’s sort of a you playing out trends, possible trends for the future, and letting that guide your skill development. But the other one that is particularly relevant here is one called the five C’s. And there it’s basically saying in a context in which technology, etc, is taking care of those wrote things we used to have to do. What human uniquely human qualities are most valued in the future. And neatly they fall into five C’s. No crowbar into that required, I’m sure. You’ve got communication, collaboration. Yeah. Commercial acumen, sort of business acumen. Yep. and critical thinking. Yes, very important. And then creativity.

Heather Pearce Campbell  34:56

Those are the five C’s so much. I know I want you to say them again.

James Longley  35:01

So communication, yep. Collaboration, commercial acumen, creativity and critical thinking.

Heather Pearce Campbell  35:10

The interesting thing is, let’s think about that list just for a moment in the context of historical traditional employment. Right, which of those things mattered? Not most of them. Right? Maybe your…

James Longley  35:23

Creation and collaboration, I guess.

Heather Pearce Campbell  35:28

To me, what I think about is that traditional employers used to, and maybe still do hire for basically, us, yeah, compliance, but IQs, and skills within a certain subset of expertise. So maybe it would be the level of acumen related to a specific thing. But more and more this leaning into the soft skills of collaboration of communication, right, whether applied in a team environment, or an individual entrepreneurial environment, because you have to communicate right to the marketplace, to your clients, etc. You have to collaborate with other vendors, with other people that are helping you build your like, it’s all irrelevant. But I love how clearly your list demonstrates this shift away from this narrow perspective around really specific traits that employers might look for, which really are just a demonstration, for the most part that you learned a certain thing, you went to school, you’re smart, you’re top of the class, whatever, right? To being a much more well rounded human being. Right, that’s what your list tells me is that being a more well rounded human being is what serves the future.

James Longley  36:47

A couple of things that sparked as you were saying, number one, about soft skills. But as we were talking earlier about change, and how inevitable it is, and how you have always embraced it, there’s the tired old jerk about the only things that are guaranteed a death and taxes. Now, as we get into this longevity focus, and people are having creative financial schemes, if you will, in various areas, it’s starting to seem like both death and taxes are less guaranteed. But one thing that is guaranteed is change. Now, that’s not heartening to anybody who’s afraid of change. But I do think that it’s necessary to cultivate, gradually reduce as possible, a shift towards seeing change as an opportunity. And one of those changes that says, and I have discussed at length, as we’ve talked about skill development. And the elements of skilled open is this distinction between soft and hard skills. And it’s my view that to an extent, it’s a somewhat artificial breakdown, that is actually going way. Now, if you want to say, mathematics, science, quantum physics, accounting, legal, any aspect of law, they certainly see how you might refer to that as a hard skill as distinct from a soft skill, like communication, for example. But again, in this context of change, now, think about the accountant or the lawyer, I think you are the perfect example. So you knew right away, that practicing law within the traditional frameworks was not for you. And what that meant was you needed the legal skill, but you also needed the ability to get clients to manage clients, to have rapport with them to collaborate, to do all of those things. And as far as I’m concerned, and all trends seem to indicate that a lawyer or an accountant or an engineer in the future, will need to do what you’re doing. Yeah. And so what does that mean you now? Does it mean soft skills and hard skills as a distinction goes away? Not necessarily. But it does mean that you need to be a more rounded value provider?

Heather Pearce Campbell  39:03

I think that all of those things become more integrated. Right? Absolutely. And for me, I think one of the questions that I have for entrepreneurs is, there’s also this reality, that information is more accessible than ever, right? We’ve got a gazillion places that we can look to, for education of a variety of kinds for information for training, whatever it is, they also know entrepreneurs can regularly get into the trap of over consuming and not implementing right, so how do we distinguish between good and bad information? What is actually relevant to us and create a plan for ourselves that helps us actually achieve that path of continuing our learning in a way that will best support us and support our clients as we move forward?

James Longley  39:54

That’s almost like a perfect layup. That’s yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell  39:59

I think so. People live in the reality of that question, which is that information overload is a thing. And how many of us are constantly having to call our inbox and unsubscribe from newsletters, and even unsubscribe from regular news and other things that used to dominate our information intake?

James Longley  40:20

This is I think, probably there are many issues that are pressing in our modern world, but certainly information overload is a huge one. And I would argue it’s even more relevant to entrepreneurs than to the general public. And the approach that I see people taking to managing information overload is some thing that again, we focus on heavily within the futureproof entrepreneur concept, which is that there’s a mindset shift needed. And you can’t go tool first tool. First is often a mistake. I like to think of that as trying to stop a fire hose with your kitchen sink plug. Not happening, right? Yeah, what do you actually need to do, you need to find a way to reduce the amount of water coming out of that hose reduce the pressure. Yeah. And that is a matter of relevance. If you have ever been in the market for a car, say you decided that the perfect car for me is 100, I took my head, BMW M three, and it’s gonna be white, I absolutely guarantee that you started to see a hell of a long white BMW M threes out on the road, and you’re like wick, oh, my goodness, everyone else is buying one. No, they were always there. That is priming that your brain being primed to see what you’re looking for. And that is the real answer to coping with information overload at least a certain aspect of it, you need to identify what is relevant. And with that single act, you immediately eliminate or mark as not relevant right now. Everything else. And it’s at that point, that you’re able to say, Okay, let me bring in the tools and the processes to manage the remaining information. Obviously, that doesn’t stop the number of emails that are coming into your world or the other form was information. But the newsletter you just received from thought leader X, that’s talking about the new platform, and the new tactic, if you are grounded in okay, what is my stage of business. So the key model that we always refer to, for example, where’s my focus now, or using frameworks like the four futures or the five C’s to identify the skills that are most impactful for you to develop now, if you identified for example, I really need to improve my copywriting skills. And that’s my focus for the next period, however long, that acts as a filter for what you should allow into your life Narrows and eliminates a whole lot of it. And then you put in place the tools that are where do you get your information, I’ve got emails coming at me, they’re articles, I’m doing an online course etc. So you set up your workflows and your processes to cope with that now drastically reduced flow of information.

Heather Pearce Campbell  43:13

What I love about what you’ve just described, is because for a long time, I’ve said and I think part of it is, again, the question of how do we deal with even as entrepreneurs, the amount of information, the amount of experts that we should be listening to out there about how to build our business? And one thing that I’ve gotten really clear on is, and I think from the beginning was pretty clear on it, I tend to be a pretty intuitive person and something is either a clear, yes, or it clear? No, for me, there’s not much in between it’s yep, that’s what I need, or nope, that’s definitely not what I need. And I’m not sure everybody has that. And it’s not our brains just work all differently. I’m not saying that it’s a gift or anything, it’s just how I have always functioned. But what it means is that I’ve always been really clear on, it’s my job to decide what I need, and whether even in hiring an expert to work with, whether it’s the right next step, or like a little bit out of line. And that’s not to say that I haven’t done things out of line, certainly I have. But what has become even more clear over time is that it’s our job to decide what we need, and what is next and what our path as an entrepreneur and as a business builder looks like, and not to outsource that to others, which I think is really easy for some people to do is to just outsource that. And then that can really explode the overwhelm.

James Longley  44:42

Well, this is the dynamic that I would say is most prevalent. And I would say the key to it. I can’t speak to when that first emerged or if it was always the case for you that you had that level of self trust and self reliance to say, You know what, I’m the best person to figure out what I need? And if I would say, What is the reason that these particularly early stage entrepreneurs, but it does go further than that is to fall into that trap of information consumption, learning without implementation. Fundamentally, what’s at play, there is a lack of trust, a lack of trust in yourself to be able to figure out what’s best for you. And that is what shifts your locus of control external, where you’re looking to authorities and you’re trying to sift through from it like you panning for gold, then the problem is how will you know when you’ve found gold is not this shiny, clear object, you don’t really know what you’re looking for. And you only end up undercutting yourself further with every new expedition, you do searching for the answer outside. Because it always shifts, there’s always another email coming into your inbox is always another platform, another tactic, whatever. And I would say, the answer to that is to find ways to cultivate self reliance and self trust, but also to build systems and frameworks that are iterative, that allows you to take an imperfect action, which is the scariest thing for all of us. But I would say again, even more so when you’re in your earliest stages of business, because you don’t have a track record to look back at and say, I tested this and it worked, and it didn’t work. And here’s what I changed. You’re like, oh, my god, please somebody tell me what to do. Because I came into this with one core skill. And then I realized, there were like, 65 others I need to learn as like, I’m a lawyer, I excel at providing legal services. But apparently, I need to acquire clients, I need to invoice I need to manage my financials, etc. And nobody told you that. And so that’s what causes fundamentally but in the info overload, because you’re trying to rapidly and reactively address those skill gaps, if you had the framework to think ahead of time, and make the plan for the skills that you need to develop, but also, again, Todd Herman, five stages of business has been so influential for us in saying, Hey, I’m in startup stage, and my focus should be on validation of my offer. So what should I be doing? What should I be learning only these things, if you’re in that stage, you don’t yet have enough client intake, you don’t have predictable income. And you’re thinking, let me look into buying that template set on how to outsource in my business, because it popped up in my smoke sidebar, only $39 and then say, 17, upsell pages that fallen. But fundamentally, it’s about making sure you’re doing the right thing for the stage that you’re in. And that, again, is another lens you can look through that dramatically narrows down the amount of information you have to deal with. And the number of experts you’d have to listen to that leadership is not right from my state of business right now. Let me save that to my Evernote account. It’s not going anywhere.

Heather Pearce Campbell  48:13

That’s right. The thing being like what the immediately right next thing, and I think so often, the pain that comes in that building journey is doing something out of order, like thinking, oh, yeah, I need that or somebody, oversold it to you, or whatever convinced you that this is going to be the solution to your problem. If you follow James’ advice, I love what you said about developing that relationship of trust with yourself with a little reflection. And certainly we all need resources to call on to help us decide what is the path but with a little reflection, we can easily actually determine I might need that. I just don’t need it right now. So I love that, save it for later and get really clear and continually ask Is this the right next thing? Is this the thing that will bring me an immediate result? And like you say in the early days, it’s about doing the work. It’s about creating something that has been tested. And so many people get focused on marketing and website and blah, blah, blah, I launched the Legal Website Warrior without even having a website. I just started emailing people that I thought I could serve through that new business model and landed some of my top clients before I ever had a website or proof of concept out there in the world. It was just a conversation.

James Longley  49:33

Imperfect action. And there’s a massive element of our culture where and I can speak to this because it’s rarely been a an issue for me I would say is that I don’t know who said it but essentially we end up comparing our behind the scenes to everybody else’s highlights reel. Totally and that is just as prevalent on the full body image, comparing yourself to Mr. Beach abs on Instagram, as it is to business envy. Yes. And it’s so important what you said there about how you started. So mean, I would invite anyone listening to go and have a look at what Facebook’s first iteration look like? Yeah, have a look at Google have a look at YouTube, like you will mark yourself to tears and how bad it was.

Heather Pearce Campbell  50:28

Oh my gosh, I on that soy? Yeah, because I used to be a photographer. And I was telling you I’m scanning and going visit on everything. And so I found all these like, brochures and some things that I had developed in the very first version of my photography business, oh, Clif Bar. Totally. I was like, we have to get rid of this as quickly as possible. I am not scanning it or, you know, anyways, it is hilarious, but also so important that we take those steps, so important that we do those things, even if later looking back, it feels like a fumble, right? Because how else are we going to get to the end result. And I think so many people get stuck in preparing to launch preparing to do the thing. They don’t get to the point of doing the thing. And the only reason I was able to do that imperfect action that early in the launch of my second business is because I was working with a business coach who said, Who can you help? And I named people at the top of the industries that I wanted to work with. And he said, Okay, great. Go help them.

James Longley  51:33

You were like, Hey, you want me to contact that person?

Heather Pearce Campbell  51:36

Todd? And I did. And yeah, I sat around being like, Okay, why shouldn’t it be me helping them? The only reason I was able to do that is because I trusted his advice. And I knew that it was the right next thing, even though it made me uncomfortable to do it did I think there was any way I was going to land some of those clients? No, in my heart of hearts, I’m like, Who am I to be working with this person? But on the other side, I was like, I can help them, I can look at their online business and see that they need the kind of help that I provide.

James Longley  52:08

You might be the best business owner in history to suffer from impostor syndrome.

Heather Pearce Campbell  52:13

Nobody understands what that is. Right.

James Longley  52:17

But yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s all of that made me think of another thing is, there’s quite a number of problems that I see in online education space, two of them are curses. Now, curse of knowledge. I think a lot of people are familiar with that. We’re going back to the example of learning to drive a car when I started learning to drive. Allegedly, I sell but his three times, I don’t remember that. But I love the accused, the curse of knowledge, basically, where when you start anything, whether it’s skill development, like when I was starting to learn copywriting, I was painfully consciously incompetent. Same applies to when I was learning to drive. Like, every time I needed to change gear or manage that interplay between clutch and accelerator, it was a conscious effort. And eventually you get to the point where you can be having a conversation with the person next to you, eyes on the road, obviously, but you’re unconsciously able to execute on that. And so the curse of knowledge in an online or any education space, is when the person doing the teaching is through, even with their best intentions and awareness of that knowledge that they have that the person they’re teaching doesn’t have. It’s extremely difficult to apply the gap and remember, the connections, the dots that you’ve now connected, the people in an earlier stage, don’t know, as you can make these leaps of logic that somebody earlier on might set, but how did you get from here to here? And you like, that’s just how it works? Right? So that’s a problem in online education. But the key one, I would say, that is most prevalent, particularly as we now shift into this world of web three, where everything is new, and that’s a completely wild west out there. Before Mr. Zuckerberg even introduces his legless Metaverse characters, you’ve basically got this curse of the asset. And the curse of the asset is a fascinating thing is where again, I firmly believe that the majority of online education, product creators have the best intentions and are not trying to run a scam on us. However, the curse of the asset is when you have a successful podcast in the top 3% of successful podcasts. And so if you were to create a podcasting program, because your podcast has been a valuable asset in your business. And you say to somebody, well, you guys should start a podcast because it’s hapless result. And this result for me, that doesn’t take into account the fact that you started podcasting a number of years ago, when, in your case, podcasting was already extremely active and busy. But so let’s take it back to somebody who really started in the early early days. Yeah. All Content Marketing. Yep. All social media, organic social media, or even paid ads. That absolutely killed it for them. They got huge results. And the key, here’s why it’s the curse of acid is they continue to get good results. But that is because of the work they did when they started. Yeah. So if you’ve built an authority website that ranks for a whole lot of times, when you put out a new article, your chances of ranking are dramatically higher. Same as you’ve built a huge podcast audience or a massive organic social media following. If somebody were to start with those approaches, now, their likelihood of success is dramatically lower. If, like SEO, could you enter the SEO game now for a competitive term and hope to rank? You better have some serious skills and time to work with. So that’s the other issue that we see. I think that is a key reason why, to a large degree online education has developed a bad name. In some ways. It’s like these business courses don’t work. Well, there’s a lot of sides to that number one course completion rates are atrocious. Now that must come with a with an asterisk, because the statistic is like between 15 and 5% completion rates. But that’s somewhat misleading, because what is completion in a in an online course, referring back to Tom Herman ago, we did the 90-day year program, which is fantastic. The first exercise is to gather the data on your business. And what he said is that many people do that exercise. It opens their mind completely to things they haven’t seen. And they stopped the program. They’re like, yeah, price of entry was well worth it. Now you mark that down, as did not complete. So, course completion rates are not necessarily a totally valid indicator. But do you think there are dark directional indicator, and online courses have their reputation damage because people don’t get the results? Now, part of that is down to curse of knowledge, all of that down because of the asset. But I do think we need a better way. That’s why we’ve seen the rise of things like cohort based courses, yes. Which build in things like accountability, a compressed timeline, obviously, they’re not a panacea, nothing is but I do think it brings to life more of the experience we had at school, or as you see where it was more real time. And fundamentally, accountability, having a running mate, or the people doing what you’re doing in real time. Things like that are incredibly powerful in an educational context.

Heather Pearce Campbell  58:11

Totally. And I think the other thing that the most recent part of this discussion points out is because I think people get overly concerned about technology. And well, it’s certainly a piece and a really important piece of the puzzle around all of our businesses, how we do things more efficiently, how we do things more effectively to achieve certain results, how we access our clients and get access to more people, like all of the ways that we use technology to communicate and run our business are super important. And still, I think, what does not change about human nature? One is our limbic system, right? So this is why cohorts work. This is why programs that still give participants access to the expert, work better than a completely digitized mechanical process. And so in that way, I feel like people can have even more confidence that as an entrepreneur with a unique approach, a unique thing to offer their own special sauce. And it is a little bit like learning to rely more heavily on yourself. It all wraps nicely into this conversation around getting reconnected to our creativity, using tools and technology to bolster what we already do in a way that makes it even better, right, that makes our business more accessible all of these things but to not lose focus on the fact that it’s still in large part about you.

James Longley  59:53

Absolutely. Yeah, it is. And it’s I think augmenting is probably the term that’s most resonant for the Internet is that into connection. I do remember going to an event, just pre pandemic where Sophia the robot was there. And apart from being a little freaky, sentient, human shaped robot, sentient but seemingly intelligent robot who is also a citizen of Saudi Arabia. Totally random. The interviewer was having a live conversation with her and asked her like, what would you say to calm the fears of humans? Who are worried that artificial intelligence is going to take over? And she said, what was probably the most intelligent answer given in the entire event, which was, we, the machines are here to augment you to take away the things you don’t have to do that you don’t want to do? To free up your capacity to do what is human? Now, I won’t comment on whether that was actually from her or whether there was a nice little pre programmed number, but the message I think, is relevant, right? So in the hands of the people out there who make the decisions, who knows if we’re going to approach Skynet Terminator scenario in the future? I certainly hope not, and think we won’t. But in the meantime, using it to augment us to capitalize on opportunities, not in the sense of let me get one over on this dude over here, that how can I augment what’s uniquely me. And one of the terms we had discussed in the past was, there’s a book that was recommended to me, when I first started learning about content marketing, 2014, or so called the trusted advisor. And I think it was actually written for the lawyers as a key is how to work with your clients effectively, to be their trusted adviser. And fundamentally, that’s what we see the role of skill development, and ongoing education ongoing learning as if you’re a service based business, you need to be the trusted adviser, you need to be what we now think of as like a growth agent. Because it’s too common now that service based business owners freelancers, etc, in a way that I hit glorified, TaskRabbit, or bolt on team member, like come into our slack. And we’ll just act like you’re an employee, particularly as competition increases, it becomes more and more important to position yourself as and to actually be the trusted adviser, the growth agent that your clients rely on. For demonstrable results, that in order to do that, you need a unique, rare set of skills, you need a way to continuously be on top of what’s changing what’s relevant, etc, without drowning in information overload. So it’s again about you need to identify what’s relevant, important, impactful, gain that mastery to the degree that you need to and be able to apply it in the context of value delivery. Yeah. And that, I think, is the key challenge that entrepreneurs face. Now.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:03:20

What also comes to mind is that we have a wide range of tools and technology available. And so I think entrepreneurs also face the challenge of how to select what fit. And I know, from personal experience, but also from serving people in this space, how much that can trip people up. I want to be respectful of your time, but I would be so curious to hear your thoughts on how people thoughtfully select the technology that will best support that.

James Longley  1:03:51

I want to stress that throughout everything you’ve spoken about today. This is not in any way an ivory tower perspective. I firmly believe that people who develop a solution for others in a particular area for it to be a good solution. It’s got to be something you’ve struggled with yourself. The reason I have built the learning system, the reason I built a knowledge management system. The reason I’ve thought about information overload is because they are all things I’ve massively suffered with and struggled with in the past, right? So I’ve built these things to help me and then fall Okay, others can benefit from this. And one of the key ones is that there’s 1,000,001 tools out there. Which one do I choose? Yeah. And what are the criteria by which I decide will stay with this one, or will I move to another one? And you just need to peruse the world of note taking apps to see gone read it and he’ll see I’ve recently shifted from Evernote to Rome research to obsidian Anam considering notion and then all I can think is, so this is a tool that’s supposed to make you productive. And you’ve spent the last how long porting your information between different notetaking apps? That’s what we see. Right? So the solution from my perspective, the earliest productivity related learning I did was reading David Allen’s GTD, just, suddenly, to this day, I can go back to it and learn something brand new. And he said, until you can manage your system on paper, you have no business, putting it into any tool. So that’s what it comes down to tool first thinking focuses on the features, what this tool can do that one can’t. Instead, if you’re looking at what am I trying to achieve here, while simultaneously recognizing that there is no tool out there that can do it all. If there was, you wouldn’t want it, because it wouldn’t be very good at it. By definition, it can’t be the best at everything. So you want to keep your tool stack as lean as possible. You want to as I was once told you want to one everything. In other words, one tool for each function. Maximum, like you can’t have two Nate notetaking tools. This just doesn’t work, right. So you may not be able to have your website platform, be your email automation, and also be your CRM, you may need different ones. But create a set of criteria, run the scenario, what must I have? What’s nice to have, make a decision and recognize you can bend tools to your requirements. But rarely think hard before you go. This one’s just introduced this feature. So I’m going to jump because there is what do you call it? It’s opportunity cost immense opportunity cost in spending that time. The important thing I think, particularly as businesses have one to think about is opportunity cost is far more costly for us. Because we don’t have a team, we don’t have other people to do that work for us the porting over the learning curve that comes with every tool. So it’s not just about the time you’re spending, shifting to another tool, what you aren’t doing while you’re while you’re doing that, that’s another thing to factor in.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:07:24

I love you mentioning like, basically to shift away from a tools first mentality is I think so many people get stuck there. They’re told like, yep, this tool is gonna solve all your problems, or this particular software is going to do ABC and XY and Z. And really, it’s about what functions do you need completed in your business, think of them like an employee to deliver a particular kind of experience to your client, or to help you with a certain thing that just has to get done, but to not have your business because the other thing that I think we have all learned at some point in our journey is like those tools can go away in a heartbeat. Oh, yeah. Build your business around a certain social media platform or whatever. Just the other day, LinkedIn and platform that I love. parently yanks people off it without notice in on a regular basis. If they’re posting especially right now. There’s so many discussions on LinkedIn around race, and I think they’re important discussions, I think they need to be there. But the powers that be will sometimes take those accounts down. And this woman with a massive following 40,000 or something just on LinkedIn alone, her account disappeared. And just like that.

James Longley  1:08:39

I didn’t have 40,000 Twitter followers, but my account also got removed. Yeah, I still don’t know why I contacted Twitter about seven months ago, and I still haven’t heard. And to be honest, it was a sort of a push in the right direction that essentially prompted me to get off social media entirely apart from having a LinkedIn profile.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:08:59

And it gets back to how are we designing our businesses. All of us need some kind of machine in our business that is monetizable. But that gives us control and access to our people. And if obviously, you’re building on rented platforms are using tools that you have no control over. I think we all need a backup plan. But to move away from the Tools first model, I think, cannot be overstated. Absolutely, while also recognizing the importance of these tools and being able to rapidly incorporate change into our business. So it’s it really is in the balance. I love when I see everyday examples of that. I’ve been listening to a podcast where they’ve been talking actually about Aristotle and how much he taught about staying away from extremes like in all things that the hopeful place to be is in the balances in moderation, right? And even this conversation around tools and technology I think brings that to light James Who are your favorite people to support? Obviously, you live in the world of entrepreneurship and online information, talk to me specifically about who it is you support, and then also where people can find you.

James Longley  1:10:12

So I’ll focus on I think the people that we are best placed to support and help with what we do is service-based entrepreneurs freelance as solo entrepreneurs, people who conceptualize themselves as companies and one if you’re familiar with Paul Jarvis in his book, it’s like, the mentality of the people that we gel with most is essentially those people who are not looking to get VC fund, and IPO and all that sort of stuff and do an exit. It’s about people who are building a business, both for us specific lifestyle that they want to create, but also the work that they do is meaningful to them. Yes, service-based freelancers, freelance writing is my background. CFO has a background of consultancy and coaching. So people in those fields service base who recognize the need for continuous skill development, can want to put themselves in a position of to rubber turn from Nassim Taleb anti fragility. And in terms of where you can find us, we are on learnandthinkbetter.com. Yeah, that’s everything about us and the future proof entrepreneur program. It’s all at learnandthinkbetter.com

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:11:25

I love it. So if you’re listening, you can find those links all include any social media links that you want to share, or I know you’ve got a beta version of your new program coming up, right? You want to talk about that for a minute.

James Longley  1:11:38

Yeah, so this, we are extremely excited about this, because the way that we see it, this is a co-creation opportunity. Like I’ve been grounded in and fascinated by these elements of futuristic thinking, the implications for the entrepreneur, but also the fundamentals of effective learning. And what you come to realize when you dive into this at all, is that we are not taught to learn, we do not know how to learn. And there is so much impact that you can make, if you do actually take on board and apply the fundamentals of effective learning before about the program, though, is it’s about implementation. Yeah. So you will learn the methods of effective learning, but it’s not a learning program. It’s an implementation program that identify the skill that’s going to make the most impact and then actually go about learning a system by applying it.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:12:36

Yeah. So important, the application piece of it. And what comes to mind is, it sounds like it’s a whole separate conversation, the point you just raised about, we really don’t know how to learn, which I agree. And I think that the more that we understand about the human brain about the way that things work, right, most of us were shoved into a system that really was not designed for us.

James Longley  1:13:00

Yeah, so we can save people a lot of time by just saying don’t bother with speed reading, not worth it.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:13:07

You know what I learned about that? My brain can’t do it. Do you know why? Because I am. So detail oriented. I’m input and like on the strengths finder, and just how my brain orients the things while I can read quickly, I’m a avid reader and I read a lot. I cannot really effectively be a speed reader. Because my brain wants to look at and catalog everything. So skipping parts to me just doesn’t really work. And that’s how it feels to try to speed. Anyways, it took me connecting with an expert on this to realize oh, it’s not for me. Okay, I’ll just continue with my kind of normal, like rapid pace reason. Yeah. The speed reading. Yeah. So that’s, I think, a really good point, James, I so appreciate you. I have loved knowing you for the years that our time has overlapped. And I’m so grateful to have you here to have this super important informative discussion with us today.

James Longley  1:14:09

I really appreciate this. Yeah, it was fantastic to talk to you again.

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:14:12

It’s super fun. Well, and our time we might even split this into two episodes. We’ll have to see what we do with this. But yeah, we’ll keep you posted. If you’re listening pop over, I want you to obviously follow James online, check out his program, The Future-Proof Entrepreneur. We’re going to share all of his links at the show notes page, which can be found at legalwebsitewarrior.com./podcast, James, what final, either you can leave a final thought with this or an action step, that you would like our listeners to take?

James Longley  1:14:43

So one of my favorite things from James Clear, who’s the author of Atomic Habits, is he said imagine you walk into the gym, and you’re just starting a new workout program. And you try to pick up the weight and you find Wow It’s heavy. Do you say to yourself, I think I’m gonna pack this in? I’m not good at weightlifting. No, you don’t you pick up the weight and you recognize it’s going to take a few lifts are going to get progressively stronger. And the same applies to your business, your skill development, etc. So I would just invite people to bring that’s fundamentally a growth mindset, right? Yeah, bring that into your business recognize that he’ll brain is the most incredible buyer computer out there. And don’t sell yourself short on your learning efforts. Because it really can change your brain learn and think better. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  1:15:37

I love it. Love that so much. Thank you so much again, James for your time today. I really appreciate you. 

James Longley  1:15:44

Thank you.

GGGB Outro  1:15:48

Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways, links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.