Five of us asked that very important question late one night in South Carolina. It was me, two other paramedics, a police officer, and our patient. We were getting ready to load a stretcher into the ambulance for a quick ride to the hospital when the tail light beside my head exploded.
Time slowed to a crawl as we all looked dumbfounded at each other for a second.
Each of us said these words in our own way (a couple of us more colorfully than the others).
“Did someone just shoot at us?”
SPOILER- Yeah, they did.
We slammed the stretcher in the ambulance. One of the other medics ran to the driver side door while myself and the other one dove into the back with the patient. The cop ran to cover behind his car while screaming for back-up on the radio.
That’s what it’s like sometimes when you want to LEARN something new, but you do not even know where to start.
It could be-
- A new job
- A hobby you have been dying to learn
- A body of knowledge to impress someone
- Skills for a promotion
- THAT EXTRA STREAM OF INCOME LIKE I’M ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT
Sorry that last one was in allcaps, but I’m really passionate about it.
No matter what it is, there is probably way too much info out there to find a good starting point, and everyone has different advice. It’s the old adage of being thrown into the deep end of the pool before you can swim.
Because of personal experience, I prefer to think of it as getting shot at on an ambulance while I’m trying to work on a patient who might have just overdosed on cocaine.
No matter what new thing you are doing, so-called experts will come out of the woodwork with lots of advice for you. I DO NOT want them to mess you up. I want you to stay excited about learning this new thing and not get bogged down wasting time.
Let me tell you the rest of my ambulance story and see if it illustrates what experts have done to you in the past.
So, we get loaded up in the ambulance, and our driver floors it down the street to get away from the gunfire. That is when we realize that we are headed the wrong way on a dead-end street and that we will need to execute a big fat three point turn in this huge rig and drive back through the shootout to get out.
Boy, was that fun.
Long story short, we made it out and none of us were hurt, at least from the bullets. However, there were several scrapes and bruises from being launched into the ceiling of the ambulance as we caught air on the speed bumps.
That is what experts will often do when you mention you are learning something new- speed bumps and misdirection!
- They will send you in the wrong direction.
- They will waste your time.
- They will take you down a road where you will have to stop and turn around to get anywhere.
- They will tell you it takes 10,000 hours to do something worthwhile.
I do not want that to happen to you.
Through tons of research, application, and personal experience, I have created a process you can apply to anything and everything. As a matter fact, my occupation as a paramedic was an experiment in creating my research.
Email me at drdave@redteamgoals.com if you want a free copy.
Thanks,
Dr. Redbeard