0 to 60 with Idiot's Guide

If business is a highway, there is a slow lane and a passing lane. In order to get in the passing lane and maintain a speed that leaves the competition in the dust, we need significant skill and expertise in our field - the kind of expertise that can only be achieved through experience.

(Think for a minute about who runs most companies. It is usually people in their 50s or 60s. They have been around the block and built a significant amount of experiential expertise. I am ignoring the young guns who occasionally come along and shake things up. They are the exception and not the rule.)

There is always the problem of how to even get on the road. Most jobs require knowledge and experience but there is no way to build either without the job. We need a way to obtain the functional knowledge necessary to play with the big boys. This is why our parents were so adamant about schooling - it provides functional knowledge so that we can get up enough speed to begin building our own experiences.

For a crash course in Functional Knowledge on just about any topic, I highly recommend the "Idiot's Guide" books or the "For Dummies" books. Never have I seen such a wealth of Functional Knowledge so well organized. It won't get you into the passing lane - you'll need your own experience for that. But it will get you from 0 - 60mph so that you can at least drive on the road.