One of the questions I get most often is how I've been able to switch industries so many times in my career while still performing at a high level.
How did I go from design to branding and marketing? Then transition from marketing to consulting? Then consulting to corporate law? And corporate law to technology? How have I had jobs where the job description says you need an MBA, but I don't even have a bachelor's degree?
The answer is surprisingly simple. It goes by many names because I'm bad at naming things. I typically call it 'rapid upskilling', or in other words, aggressive learning.
"The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice." (Brian Herbert, House Harkonnen)
No one exemplified this better than Benjamin Franklin. If Ben Franklin were alive today, he'd probably have the world's most interesting LinkedIn profile. Printer, writer, scientist, diplomat, Founding Father—and he achieved it all without so much as a high school diploma.
His secret was turning learning into a lifestyle. For him, education wasn't something that happened in a classroom—it was a constant, ongoing process woven into the fabric of his daily life.
The learning lie
A lot of people settle into careers either by complete accident or based on some natural aptitude they showed at a young age, which was enough to bamboozle a few gatekeepers and ensure they never needed to push themselves.
Either way, the median person is coasting. This doesn't mean their life is easy—in fact, it's the opposite. It's precisely because they don't put effort into upskilling that their work feels so grating and difficult. They're swimming against the tide. You don't have to.
The common trap is believing that marketable expertise comes from knowing everything. In reality, you just need to know enough of the right things to stand out in the right way, and have the mindset to acquire everything else soon after.
Today we'll focus on one method of rapidly accumulating new knowledge: the textbook technique.
The Textbook Technique
I reckon you're about five books away from being an expert in almost anything.
It sounds too simple to be true, but here's the reality: reading the top five textbooks in any given field will put you ahead of 90% of people in that subject. Why? Because most people never bother to dive that deep.
Now, I mention textbooks for a reason. Textbooks contain expansionary depth: a good one will teach you a lot, but in order to fully master its content, it will lead you to another 10 key resources you might need to read. And so the 5 books could become 50. But you don't need to read everything to have functional knowledge—just the 20% that matters.
This isn't casual reading; you won't just be skimming these books. You'll be dissecting, analysing, and synthesising. You're not looking for a casual overview; you're mining for core principles, key debates, and fundamental techniques. Once you identify, investigate, and interrogate the core ideas that underpin a field, the rest of that world will naturally unfold for you.
And the best part is that you don't need to understand every word. You're not aiming for perfection, you're aiming for critical mass.
Each book builds on the last, reinforcing key concepts and filling in gaps. By the time you finish the fifth textbook, you'll have an overall grasp of the field that rivals many graduate students.
Breadth isn't equal to depth, but that was never the objective.
It's like learning French. You need the grammar and a command of basic vocabulary before you can start arguing with a man in a cab about whether the pain au chocolat should really be called a chocolatine.
This technique won't replace years of practical experience. However, it will give you the foundation to ask intelligent questions, understand complex discussions, and start applying knowledge in practical ways.
Your first five textbooks become your intellectual passport into any new field.
