It’s easy, when you finally find yourself in a good job, to stop pursuing mental development. Have you heard about the accelerated learning curve? From birth up until the time we are about eighteen, our learning curve is dramatic, and our capacity to learn during this period is just staggering. We learn a tremendous amount very fast. We learn language, culture, history, science, mathematics… everything!
For some people, the accelerated learning process will continue on. But for most, it levels off when they get their first job. If there are no more exams to take, if there’s no demand to get out paper and pencil, why read any more books? Of course, you will learn some things by experience. Just getting out there–sometimes doing it wrong and sometimes doing it right–you will learn. But can you imagine what would happen if you kept up an accelerated learning curve all the rest of your life? Can you imagine what you could learn to do, the skills you could develop, the capacities you could have? So here’s what I (Jim Rohn) am asking you to do: be that unusual person who keeps up his learning curve.
Making the most of your life is not usual. It’s unusual. You need to develop some unusual habits to earn the outstanding rewards. A friend of mine said, “A standard education will get you standard results.” You want t lot more than standard results; you need to become a lot more than a standard person.
Become a student of good ideas, wherever they can be found. Always be on the lookout for a good idea–a business idea, a product idea, a service idea, an idea for personal improvement. Every new idea will help to refine your philosophy. Your philosophy will guide your life, and your life will unfold with distinction and pleasure.
* Source: Leading an Inspired Life by Jim Rohn