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- Info is free(Stop buying courses)
Info is free(Stop buying courses)
A collection of free learning material 10x more valuable than any paid course
Jaen Carrodine
July 08, 2024
What’s poppin?(really wish jack harlow hadn’t ruined this phrase)
I got a dm last week that made me realize something.
Info marketers are brainwashing people.
They are brainwashing them into thinking buying courses and finding mentors is the first step in building a successful business.
This couldn't be farther from the truth. Searching for a mentor is just straight up procrastination. And I’d even make the case that buying courses hurts your chances of being successful.
This is because by buying a course, you’re attempting to take a shortcut. But there are rarely shortcuts in business. And when there are, they have been arbitraged out of existence before they make it to your favorite gurus course. Thus, you end up paying for surface level information(that you could have easily found for free) while robbing yourself of learning from first principles.
When you buy someone's winning lotto ticket, you shouldn’t be surprised that they already cashed it in.
Does this mean you should never pay to learn things?
Absolutely not.
By selling a course, the creator is signaling that it's higher leverage for them to sell knowledge than to apply it for themselves. In some cases this makes sense. In other it makes it painfully obvious that the seller is a grifter.
A great example of this is any trading course. If these finance course creators really knew how to beat the market, they would be running hedge funds & making 10s of millions per year. Not selling $97 courses and paid groups to morons on the internet.
Yes, if you have ever purchased a trading course you are a CERTIFIED MORON. But don’t worry, all is not lost, there is still time to secure generational wealth for your unborn children
A great counter-example is courses that teach you highly specific technical skills like software development. A great software developer can make upwards of $250K per year. But if they can sell a $100 course to 5,000 people a year they could make more. This math checks out. Selling a course could be higher leverage for them in the right circumstances. Although, most of the time, you can still find the same information they are selling for free.
The only course I’ve ever paid for (besides the money I wasted going to a 4 year university) was Codecademy.com’s pro membership for like $15/mo.
At this point, the knowledge I paid for probably represents less than 1% of what I know. Everything else has come from free information available to anyone with an internet connection.
I decided to create a database of all my favorite learning resources. I’ll continuously update the database here: https://www.ffsr.xyz/FFSR/Info+Is+Free
But here is its current state:
Books
Books can be downloaded for free from library genesis although I do not endorse doing so.
Podcasts + Some of my favorite episodes
How I built this
In The Pit with Cody Schneider
Lenny's podcast
The SaaS podcast
My First Million
The Tim Ferris show
Founders Journal
Naval
Blogs
Wallst Playboys originals (they are now Bowtied Bull and their content isn't as good. Maybe someone bought the brand)
Twitter Accounts
This is clearly not comprehensive - hence why I plan to continue updating the database.
Got links you think I should have included? Send em over. If you send a link to your paid course - I’m gonna drone strike your cousin’s dog.
see ya
-Jaen