Chapter 39: Self-Education Will Change Your Life

The door is wide open.

If you have WiFi and can commit 90 days of focused effort, you can put yourself in the top 10% of almost any skill.

The barrier isn’t access.

It’s curiosity and the willingness to trade short-term comfort for long-term freedom.

But here’s the reality: most people never do it.

Not because they aren’t capable.

But because they don’t take ownership over their growth.

Instead, they wait for permission and convince themselves their dreams are “unrealistic.”

This letter is for those who refuse to be like most people.

The Crossroads

Your entire life has led to this moment.

Every skill. Every experience. Every choice.

And right now, you’re standing at a crossroads.

One path is familiar — you keep doing what you’ve always done.

The other paths are unfamiliar and a tad uncomfortable, but full of possibility…

Most people never consider those other paths.

Or if they do — they end up quitting the moment it gets hard.

But the people who change their lives do something different.

They commit to the self-education process.

By getting clear on what they want, reverse engineering the skills required, and designing their own curriculum to get there.

Let’s Look At An Example

David Perell got fired from his agency job for being a bad writer.

He could’ve accepted that label and settled.

Instead, he asked himself an important question…

“How do I become a great writer?”

That decision kicked off the 1st day of the rest of his life.

He started publishing online every day, launched a newsletter, and started interviewing the best writers alive.

Now, years later, he runs a multi-million-dollar education business built entirely on the back of his writing.

That pivot started with one decision: to own his growth through self-education.

The Self-Education Playbook

The hard truth: it’s simple, but not easy.

1. Get clear on what you want.

   Most people never actually ask themselves this.

2. Reverse engineer the skills required.

   Find someone who already did what you want to do. Study how they did it.

3. Design your own curriculum.

   Seek out resources, playbooks, and mentors to accelerate your process.

4. Put in the reps until you can’t be ignored.

   Volume creates mastery.

5. Don’t quit.

   Most people give up right before the compounding kicks in.

That’s it.

Every person you admire has done some version of this.

And you can too.

Wrapping Up

Self-education will change your life.

It’s the way out if you feel stuck. The way up if you want more. The way forward if you want to build a life on your own terms.

For me, that path was short form video — learning to write, script, and package ideas online that make people feel something.

It taught me more about myself than anything else, opened new doors I didn’t know existed, and lead me to building StorySchool — to help others do the same.

If using short form video to grow an audience and business is the path you want to go down — this is the curriculum I wish I had when I started.

Inside, you’ll learn how to:

• Clarify your narrative

• Build a organic social strategy around your unique story

• Create short-form content that grows your audience and business

• & Manage it all without burning out

It’s the exact system I’ve used to add 33K+ followers and the same framework I take 1:1 clients through — which has helped them add 140K+ new followers and drive tens of thousands in real revenue.

Self-education changed my life.

It’ll change yours too.

If you’re ready to take your first step — you can get started here.

Rooting for ya,

—Dodds