Self-improvement of knowledge workers: How to go from offline lecturer to online knowledge influencer? (superior)
Tonight, the “Leap School” organized by Book Fans Alliance (opens in a new tab) invited my friend Yu Shufan (opens in a new tab) to come and share with you, talk about his career development after leaving TutorABC, and his investment in writing books and producing [online courses] during this period (ht tps://www.contenthacker.today/2018/01/7-ways-promote-online-course.html (opens in a new tab)) and Subscription Service.
You Shufan (opens in a new tab) mentioned that although starting a business may not be the end of employment, he himself does not rule out re-entering the workplace in the future. However, as a knowledge worker, whether in different roles such as corporate consultant or professional lecturer, you have to think about sustainable management.
Dulak (opens in a new tab) believes: “Knowledge workers (opens in a new tab) are more likely to change the future of organizations than technology, information or e-commerce.”
Therefore, he encourages friends who are knowledgeable enough to try investing in subscription services. As for online courses and subscription services, what should we do to achieve good results? He took mountaineering as an example. If you hesitate ahead or take too much equipment up the mountain, you will often find it difficult to move forward. After all, if you don’t take the first step forward, you won’t be able to see the future clearly.
Facing uncertainty head-on is always the best way to deal with uncertainty. If you can use the concept of agile, combined with the essence of project management, and be ready to gain insight into industry trends and data at any time, you will naturally be able to travel lightly!
Steve Jobs: “If today was the last day of my life, would I do what I’m going to do?”
If there are three parts to pursuing freedom in life, they must be wealth, time and choice. Shu Fan (opens in a new tab) takes himself as an example to explain to everyone the importance of these three things.
In the past two years after leaving his regular job, Shu Fan (opens in a new tab) became a freelance worker (opens in a new tab).
He invested 55 days in internal and external training, did 88 subscription courses, served as a coach 82 times, and served as a consultant for 21 companies… Each of the numbers above is quite unbelievable to ordinary people, not to mention that these are just daily life, which shows how lean he lives - but it is also because of this choice that Shu Fan (opens in a new tab) can spend 40% more time with his lovely twin daughters at home.
★ Image source: gipi’s business thinking notes (opens in a new tab) - “Two years after becoming a freelance worker (opens in a new tab)》
Facing his lovely daughters, Shu Fan knows very well that those childhood years cannot be bought back with any amount of wealth. It also makes him feel that as a father, it is extremely meaningful and valuable for him to be able to choose his current career development…
Therefore, at the beginning of every Monday, he will arrange his schedule properly and ask himself: “Are these schedules the most important things at the moment?” Hearing this, it suddenly reminded me of Delsveg chain restaurant (opens in a new tab) co-founder Guan Dengyuan (opens in a new tab), several of the views mentioned in this article are quite similar.
★ Image source: gipi’s business thinking notes (opens in a new tab) - “Two years after becoming a freelance worker (opens in a new tab)》 Shu Fan (opens in a new tab) revealed that he is currently planning an audio course with a total length of about 200 lessons, with each unit about five to ten minutes. He not only wants to create a course that is helpful to everyone, but also hopes that the careful planning, execution, and production will establish the future height of the course in a specific field…
He is also known as the CEO of Amazon in the United States Bezos (opens in a new tab)’s famous quote to encourage everyone: “If you are willing to invest in a seven-year plan, your competitors will be much fewer, because few companies are willing to do this.
Being a consultant, coach, lecturer, and writer allows Shu Fan (opens in a new tab) to have a good income through his multiple slash identities, but he feels that what he ultimately pursues in life is happiness.
According to him, happiness is the sum of three things:
- Revenue: Passive, recurring income.
- Influence: Help more people succeed.
- Sense of accomplishment: Doing what you like.
Shu Fan (opens in a new tab) also uses the recently popular Objectives and Key Results (OKR) Management Method (opens in a new tab) as an example:
Happiness is the goal, revenue, impact and fulfillment are the key results.
After talking about the importance of happiness to people, Shu Fan (opens in a new tab) changed the topic and mentioned the three important engines (opens in a new tab) of knowledge workers, which are knowledge, products and influence:
- Knowledge: For your professional abilities and insights, you must first accumulate certain abilities. This is the foundation of the foundation. At the same time, you must constantly improve your own insights. This requires accumulation through experience, and secondly, you have to constantly deal with problems that are more difficult, more challenging, or even problems you have not faced before; in this way, your knowledge will continue to accumulate.
- Product: Output your professional knowledge or abilities in various forms, which may be a product, project results, books, courses, speeches or blog articles, etc. Only through output will your ability be recognized and your knowledge begin to be valuable.
- Influence: Having a product is actually not enough. If you are not exposed on specific occasions to let yourself be seen, or if not enough people know about your products or work results, your influence is insufficient. Influence and reputation are two sides of the same coin. When you lack influence, your reputation cannot be spread; when others know less about your experience, your value will naturally be greatly reduced.
He referred to Liu Run’s “Business Insight 30 Lectures (opens in a new tab)” about the structure of knowledge workers’ path to monetization, and drew his own version (opens in a new tab) for subsequent inventory and planning:
★ Image source: gipi’s Business Thinking Notes (opens in a new tab) - “Business Thinking: Three Engines of Continuous Growth in Life (opens in a new tab)”
Anyone who sees this chart can easily understand Shu Fan’s erudition and ambition. I also noticed that on the one hand, he is creating a “business thinking class”, and on the other hand, he is also actively building sales channels and paving the way for future private board meetings.
It is actually quite difficult to transform from an ordinary office worker to a lecturer standing on the podium. Nowadays, Shu Fan has become an online knowledge-based internet celebrity (opens in a new tab)⋯⋯I know that many people may want to be Luo Zhenyu (opens in a new tab) or Liu Run (opens in a new tab), but this road may be rugged and difficult, and there is no shortcut except pushing yourself to death.
It is great to see Shu Fan using his own actions to help us show the possible path on how to become a successful knowledge worker. In “Self-improvement of knowledge workers: How to go from offline lecturer to online knowledge influencer? (Part 2) (opens in a new tab)”, I will help you sort out the four reasons why Shu Fan is engaged in Subscription Service, as well as the many challenges he faces…
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Further reading
- Self-improvement of knowledge workers: How to go from offline lecturer to online knowledge influencer? (Part 2)
- [“Grasping New Business Opportunities in the Rapidly Growing Subscription Economy: Taiwan’s Practical Combination of World Trend
- What is the “subscription economy”? Create the strongest business model and shift from price competition to experience improvement
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Vista Cheng speaks and runs workshops on AI workflows, writing and content systems for companies, schools and public agencies.
