I started my career in Marketing and switched to IT (consulting). The pay was 2X and the stress was half of that. I had also come to the realization that I did not enjoy sales/marketing. Reading and learning was the thing I loved, and IT provided a great opportunity for that. Investing was the other area where I could the same and earn at the same time
I joined one of the Large IT services companies and was deployed on an ERP project. I had no clue about the technology. I tackled the problem the same way I had handled it as an investor
I went online, downloaded the implementation guides, manuals, notes ā whatever I could find and started reading them. At first, they made no sense. However, by the third reading (cover to cover), I started getting a hang of it
The next step was to get into the software and practice. I became good at it within a year.
On the next project, I had some juniors working with me who were in the same place, I was a year back. To my surprise, when I asked them to read all the material, cover to cover, they balked at it. Till the end of the project, they kept reaching out to me for help and just coasted along
Most people avoid lifelong learning
At the end of this episode and a few years later, I realized a couple of things
- These colleagues did reasonably well in other companies and moved into managerial roles. It just showed that learning was not key in moving up the ladder and most companies did not care for it.
- There is a perverse system where a lot of IT service companies do not reward for deep expertise. As a result, they end up with a layer of management who have outdated technology skills. It is not their loss though as they tend to fire such resources when they get bloated
- Curiosity and drive to learn is not as common as I thought. Most of the people I know would rather coast along without pushing themselves
Why people avoid learning
Initially I was puzzled why people avoided learning when it was fun, and you were better off in the end
I realized that the process of learning makes you feel stupid. I recently went through this phase when I was learning technical analysis and poker a few years back. Even now, I get the same feeling on a regular basis. This is not a question of intelligence. No one likes to feel dumb and as a result people avoid learning new things
This will be a major hurdle in the future for a lot of people as new AI based technologies go mainstream. I have gone down that rabbit hole in the last 2 years and can see massive changes on the horizon.
Unfortunately, a lot of people will complain and find reasons to avoid the discomfort of learning. I am lucky that I am comfortable with feeling lost and stupid most of the time. I have 25 years of practice in it
