3 Things You Cannot Be Taught

‘You can always learn it’

‘Someone can teach you’

Both of the above are true, for most things.

I’ve said the following so many times I’ve lost count but it’s something I’ve, ironically, learnt myself.

The following 3 things are things which cannot be taught.

They are innate.

You have them or you don’t.

Some may argue its possible to acquire them, even then, its on you to acquire them.

You can be inspired by someone, something to get these things but again, they cannot be taught.

Drive

Yes, I know you can learn to drive, so keep your legoland licence and your jokes.

The drive I’m referring to is the drive for you to get what you want.

• A drive to win

• A drive to success

• A drive to be free

• A drive to achieve

Throw in whatever sentence ender you like, you get my point.

This was the first of the 3 which came to me because I remember someone saying ‘Bro how are you so driven?’.

Probably paraphrasing my response but it was something along the lines of ‘it’s on me to do it, I have to do it, no-one can help, so I have to be driven’.

Drive can come from a myriad of places.

For me, it was being broke. (There’s a difference between being poor vs being broke but maybe I’ll write about it sometime).

I had 0 income, 0 skills, no motion, nothing.

The drive came from understanding me being at 0 meant others were, so, I got to it.

1:40am Sunday, now Monday morning and I applied for so many jobs on Indeed that I maxed out, which I didn’t know was possible.

Got a temporary warehouse job in the depths of British winter.

5 weeks in, friend offers an extra job digitising documents for an education company.

• 4am wakeup

• 5am-4pm warehouse work

• 4pm-4:30pm travel to education job

• 4:30pm-9pm education work

• 10:30pm Home

I repeated this for a good 3 months.

No social life, no gym, no nothing.

Showering in the dark, waking up and going to sleep in the dark and minimal sunlight had me questioning ‘Why’ so often.

So, why?

The drive.

• The drive to get myself out of this.

• The drive to not let those relying on me down.

• The drive to not have this position as a future.

Nobody taught me to have drive, it is an innate thing.

You’re driven or you’re not.

You have to want it as bad as you’ve wanted anything.

You have to be driven.

Outsiders will call you obsessed, fixated, whatever.

Your drive to complete whatever it is outweighs all of that.

Do you have drive?

Are you driven?

Hunger

But why was I so driven?

Most of it I explained above but it was a 2-parter.

I was driven because I was hungry.

Physically, at times, we’ve all been there.

Everyones got a struggle meal.

In this case it was a hunger for more.

I didn’t know what more was, I just knew it wasn’t this.

Hunger for me right now revolves around more + freedom (again, I’ll write about freedom later).

Not more in a greed sense, more as in I know I have more in me.

I’m hungry to lift more weight.

To lift more weight, I have to lift more weight, more often.

Go to the limit.

Do 1 extra rep, rest 1 second less, get incrementally better.

No-one is telling me to do this.

Its the hunger I have because I know I can lift [insert number here] weight but I’m not there yet.

The hunger is me being hungry to achieve that.

Can’t stop, won’t stop.

I need to do this.

I will feel empty and incomplete if I stop striving towards the goal.

Apply it to music and its the same.

No-one told me to learn the business side of things.

Nobody said make this type of sound.

Its the want in me, the hunger to want to do it, to express in this way.

My team is me, the captain, the mandem.

Ask any of them.

I often think I drive them insane sometimes when I’m on about this trend, that music news, this thesis I have.

(They don’t say it but I feel it sometimes)

That’s the point though, I’m hungry.

They can’t want what I want for me MORE than me.

If they do, I might aswell just quit now.

Stop wasting everyones time and call it a day.

Are you hungry?

Do you have hunger?

Passion

Passion is the fuel.

Passion is why you get up in the morning.

Passion is why you started a youtube channel, picked up jogging, became an AirBNB host.

Whatever your passion is, its yours!

No-one can take it from you.

In the same vein, no-one can teach you to be passionate.

You can become passionate about things, yes.

But when its something you want, a desire you have, an outcome you seek, you cannot be taught to be passionate about it.

You either want it or you don’t.

This is the shortest section because the previous 2 overlap a lot of the things which I’d say about passion.

Whatever you’re passionate about, pursue.

Are you passionate?

Do you have passion?

Is there anything else you’d add to this list?

Let me know here

See you next week!