One Minute Blog: 2 Traits that Define World's Greatest Founders

Further to my last blog and continuing my quest to decipher the learning habits of most influential leaders, I stumbled upon this extraordinary article by Michael Simmons (Titled: 5-Hour Rule: If you’re not spending 5 hours per week learning, you’re being irresponsible.)

While i provide a brief summary below of what i learned from this as below in a few points, I would highly recommend reading through this article 

1. The founders of the five largest companies in the world—Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Larry Page, and Jeff Bezos— All have two uncommon traits.

• a. Each of them is a voracious learner.
• b. Each of them is a polymath.

2. A voracious learner as someone who follows the 5-hour rule—dedicating at least five hours per week to deliberate learning. When you become a voracious learner, you compound the value of everything you’ve learned in the past.

3. A polymath is someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a skill set that puts them in the top 1% of their field. When you become a polymath, you develop the ability to combine skills, and you develop a unique skill set, which helps you develop a competitive advantage.

4. Three strong (and wrong) messages we've all been in taught in school, in college:

Lie #1: Disciplines are the best way to categorize knowledge.

Lie #2: Most learning happens in school/college.

Lie #3: You must pick one field and specialize in it.

"It’s important to teach to the problem, not to the tools. Let’s say you’re trying to teach people about how engines work. A more traditional approach would be to say, ‘We’re going to teach all about screwdrivers and wrenches, and you’re going to have a course on screwdrivers and a course on wrenches …. That’s a very difficult way to do it.A much better way would be to say, ‘Here’s the engine. Let’s take it apart. How are we going to take it apart. Oh. We need a screwdriver. That’s what the screwdriver is for. We need a wrench. That’s what the wrench is for.And then a very important thing happens. The relevance becomes apparent.": Elon Musk

Do catch my sketchnote on this article below: