If you are a regularly listen of this podcast, you know self-directed learning is a crucial life skill people use to become self-employed.
Why? Because as change in our economy accelerates, you need to be constantly refining your existing skills, as well as acquiring new ones to maintain your value.
Our guest in this episode has made designing self-directed learning experiences his life’s work. Robin Petterd is the founder of Sprout Labs based in Tasmania, Austrailia.
He and his team create custom interactive learning experiences for government agencies and business who need to teach their employees new skills and fast.
He shares how he wove his love of painting (he actually left university with a degree in fine arts), learning and design together to form his latest business.
We talk quite a bit about how to become a more effective self-directed learner, and to become one, Robin recommends asking yourself these two important questions every day:
1) What worked today?
2) What would I do differently?
He also believes your self-directed learning can be enhanced by regularly quizzing yourself on the material you want to learn and by surrounding yourself with peers interested in the same subject.
Life Skills That Matter In This Episode
- Self-directed learning.
- Building community.
- Self-awareness.
How Robin Works and Thinks
- Wake up time: 5:30 am
- Core work habits: 1) Running webinars to engage potential clients 2) Outreach and outbound sales 3) Making sure team is on the same page.
- Definition of success: How much work is in his pipeline.
- Ideal work environment: When he’s moving, jumping on and off planes, running in and out of meetings, etc.
- Superpower: Understands different areas of knowledge quickly to design a learning process based on that unique knowledge.
- Book recommendation: Flying Solo
- 90-day goal: Developing a subscription-based content learning management system.
Inspirational Quotes
“Learning is really about changing your behavior.”
“Self-directed learning is articulating what you want to learn, then reflecting on what you’ve learned and finally thinking about what’s next.”
“Every time I’ve worked for myself, it’s always been out of necessity.”
“I was achieving more when I was helping other people grow.”
“A business’s profitability is relative to the amount of tolerance the business owner has to risk.”
Coaching Advice
Robin offers this advice on how to begin a habit of self-directed learning:
1) Choose something you are curious about and explore it. Asking questions, and don’t take anything as given.
2) Schedule time to put yourself in a learning mode, where you are thinking about your work, not doing your work.
He also defines being curious as constantly asking questions, and not taking anything as a given.
Resources + Bonus Materials
Robin’s interview with Anna Sabramowicz, Co-Founder of Elearner Engaged.
Here’s my past interview with Anna about self-directed learning: