Access to knowledge is good, but creating it is better

We live in an amazing time, where all of the world’s knowledge is just a few taps away. It’s fantastic! Having access to that kind of information 24/7 would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago.

However, access to knowledge (and even consuming it) pales in value to creating it for yourself. It’s like I mentioned a few months ago related to the “Founders” podcast, where David’s value in creating the show is easily 100x the value I get from listening to it.

I recently watched a video from Ryan Holiday about his process for writing books. I enjoy what he writes, and his process is fascinating. You can watch it here:

Part of what you’ll notice is his immense system of notecards. He has tens (hundreds?) of thousands of cards and it’s a fantastic system.

I was thinking “wow, it’d be great to just have access to those cards to dig around his brain”, and it would be! Spending some time in his office just unpacking his thoughts on various books and readings would be fantastic.

However, it’s like the Founders link above — access to his cards would be great, but the 100x value is in him creating the cards.

I’m constantly looking for more ways to share the things I learn (like this blog, Meetups, podcasts (1,2), etc). I sincerely hope you find value in the things I create, but my main focus is to help clarify my own thoughts so I can slowly become a better leader and a better human.

I’ll still listen to every episode of Founders and read everything that Ryan Holiday produces, but I’ll continue to work to generate content of my own to help get those ideas to stick. You should likely do the same.