The Badass Learning Syllabus – What to Learn and Why
If you’re reading this, you’re probably on your way towards becoming a badass. You’re grinding away, reading books, and trying to level up.
But are you going about it the right way?
Anyone who is on the grind towards badassery knows that it really all comes down to self-improvement. They know that they need to be capable and that being capable requires an impressive skill set.
They also know that this skill set is only built through effective learning.
The complicated part for most people is knowing what to learn and where to start. Going on a self-improvement journey or a grindset or whatever the fuck kids are calling it these days can sound super enticing. But starting is a whole different matter.
If you want to become a badass, you need to get self-improvement right. And that means learning the things that will actually help, instead of Googling the best self-improvement books of the past decade…
I never did that, I swear… ahem, moving on.
The point I’m making is that the world is full of distractions. There are millions of topics to learn about, thousands of skills to learn, and hundreds of new habits to develop.
Worrying about them all would take a lifetime. If you want to become a badass before you’re in a nursing home, you’ll have to prioritise. You need to be clear. You need to understand what to learn and why. And the best way to do that is by constructing your own personal learning syllabus. Let me explain.
The Learning Syllabus
When you hear the word ‘syllabus’, you probably think of school or university, right? Did you start daydreaming about sitting in a classroom trying to mindlessly download a 2-hour lecture’s worth of information? Yeah… me neither.
In any case, this is a helpful example. The syllabus for a course will list out all of the different topics that a student would need to learn in order to be successful. That’s exactly what we’ll be going for here too but it’ll be applied to your badass education instead.
But before I dive into the details, I want to talk about the inspiration for this idea – The Count of Monte Cristo.
For those who aren’t familiar with the story, it’s about a young, potential-filled man named Edmond. He’s charismatic, engaged to a beautiful woman, and appears destined for a successful, happy life. However, unfortunately for Edmond, some god-damn haters become so jealous of him that they decide to frame him for a crime he didn’t commit. As a result, he gets locked away in the deepest darkest dungeon they could find and is given almost no hope of escape.
After many years in prison and multiple attempted suicides, a fellow prisoner breaks into Edmond’s cell. The prisoner ends up being a wise old man, not to mention a total fucking gangster. He asks Edmond to help him dig a tunnel underneath the prison and in exchange, offers to teach him everything he knows about the world.
“That evening the two prisoners drew up an educational syllabus which they began to carry out the following day.”
Ultimately, they spend many more years together in prison, grinding and hustling away. They dig, and Edmond learns everything on the syllabus – philosophy, mathematics, economics, multiple languages, chemistry, and even how to fight with a sword. He was learning everything necessary to become a strong, capable man.
This is only a small portion of the story but I won’t say any more as I highly recommend all aspiring badasses go and watch the movie. The book is great too but it’s a long, difficult read and won’t be for everybody.
Now, let’s move back to the idea of the learning syllabus. Most of us aren’t going to be locked in a dungeon with the perfect teacher… and thank god for that. But it doesn’t mean there isn’t something here for us to take away.
I think the idea of the learning syllabus as it was presented in The Count of Monte Cristo is perfect. The old man defined for Edmond exactly what to learn to become a better man, and then methodically taught him each topic.
Let’s jump into what that might look like for you.
Step 1 – Define who you want to be
Before you start listing out all the cool topics you want to master, you’ll need to tackle step 1 – defining your destination.
There’s no point listing skills if they don’t actually get you closer to where you want to be. While in prison, Edmond was learning the skills necessary to transform him into a great man. Can you imagine if he’d spent the time learning to knit or memorising the names of the Kardashians instead? I assure you, the rest of the story would have been much less badass.
To make this feel more relevant, let’s use a modern example. Becoming a professional athlete will require a different skill set to becoming a billion-dollar entrepreneur. One will require lots of time in the gym and a theoretical understanding of a specific sport, while the other one will demand business knowledge and effective decision making.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you don’t necessarily need to define who you want to be by a career title or a role within society. Perhaps your definition is more about character and how you make the people around you feel. That’s fine too.
As long as it gives you a target to aim for. This is what’ll help you define which skills are important to learn and which aren’t.
Step 2 – Construct a list of necessary skills
Once you’ve defined who you want to become, you can start listing out the things you’ll need to learn or work on to get there.
To do this, you’ll need to ask yourself a bunch of questions and pay attention to the answers that pop up:
What will I need to be good at to become this ideal version of me?
What skills will I need?
How will I need to spend my time?
What topics will I need to understand?
Will I need qualifications? (i.e - doctors and lawyers will need these)
Will I need to be mentally strong? How much?
What barriers might get in my way?
How will I overcome them?
By answering these questions, you should be able to start constructing a list of skills you’ll need to learn, knowledge you’ll need to have, and habits you’ll need to develop. It can be as long or as short as you want but I’d recommend starting with between 5-10 things. You can always add more later as you learn and develop.
Once you’ve got a solid list, you’ll need to order them based on priority. Again, I’ve provided some questions to help you think this through:
Are some of these more important than others?
Which will be easiest or take the least time to learn?
Which will be hardest or take the most time to learn?
Which will provide the most benefit once learnt?
Which will provide the least benefit once learnt? Is it still worth keeping this on my list?
Step 3 – Start.
Once you’ve got your list sorted and prioritised, it’s time for the most important part – starting.
Don’t get caught in the perfection trap and waste weeks overthinking it. Start working on the highest priority skill straight away.
Aren’t sure where to start?
No problem – Google it. The best part about living in the internet age is there’s practically guaranteed to be resources available to help you out.
Look for books, articles, and YouTube videos and keep in mind that when it comes to skills, there’s no substitute for doing the thing itself. You can read as many books on boxing as you want, but the real progress comes from getting in a boxing gym and hitting the bag.
One final note before you go – remember to keep the bar low. Learning can be a slow process and getting through your list will realistically take years. Remember, as appealing as 2-minute training montages are, Edmond was in prison for over a decade before he finally made it out a changed man.
Focusing too much on the size of the journey can deter you from taking any steps at all. Just worry about what’s immediately in front of you. Think about that next class or that next writing session. Reward yourself for showing up and try to avoid punishing yourself if you don’t become an overnight prodigy.
As an aspiring badass, you’ll need to respect the fact that improving takes time. In fact, letting that sink in will actually speed up progress because it makes it easier to show up each day. And ultimately, showing up each day is exactly how you’ll become a badass.