Main Topics
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Empowerment Through Learning
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Practical Applications of Knowledge
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The Journey of Continuous Learning
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Encouraging Curiosity and Collaboration
Transcript:
The topic of learning has come up in a few different places in life recently and I feel like all the signs are pointing to “Do a Podcast About This!” So here it is. Go learn something. Done.
Just kidding, I have a lot more to say on the topic.
Today’s sign that I needed to make a podcast came from another podcast which talked about creating online courses. This lady had created a business helping others create gardens to grow food but she got so busy doing all the day to day stuff and the stress and the job of actually helping people grow their gardens that she just couldn’t do it anymore. Instead she took what she had learned from common questions and problems and started creating online gardening courses for home gardeners.
This reminded me of a conversation I had with a teacher at preschool last week about how she helped her mom fix her washer with a few TikTok videos, $20, and a half hour of time. Paying someone to come do the same job probably would have been an easy $100.
All of this to say, you live in an age where the world is at your fingertips. You have access to experts 24/7. You have access to a variety of ways to learn anything you could ever want to know.
Anyone who knows me knows that I know a lot about a lot of things. And a little about even more things. I don’t know why I know all the things I do, but yeah. This is one of the reasons I started this podcast! To share what I know with others and because you never know what you need to know. But there have been points in my life where I have needed to know something and the best piece of knowledge I have? How to search for an answer.
Story time. Long ago, but also feels like last year, I purchased a house. It is a cute little 900 square foot townhouse that I am still not sure how I afforded it, but I did. And it was less expensive each month than an apartment so I went for it! Now, part of being able to afford it was because it needed some work. It had been a rental for a long time before I came along. When the guy got ready to sell it he paid a friend to go in with a paint sprayer and paint everything. I mean everything. I scrubbed paint off the floors, the inside of cabinets had been painted without anything in them, except the one or two you could tell had paper laying in them. The back window was painted half way. It was a mess. Things needed to be cleaned up and brightened up. I had two months between when I took possession and when I had to be out of my apartment so I set to work.
Now, I had painted a room or two before so painting was going to be easy. But, the kitchen cabinets made the place feel so much smaller so I got the idea to take the uppers off the wall, move them up, and remount them. Add a shelf and cuteness! I purchased my first power tool, a drill, and went to work! I figured it out as I went and when I found a light under one of the cabinets I started taking it off only to discover it was hard wired in. So I had a wire sticking out of the wall and had to do something with it. Google told me I could easily turn it into an outlet. There was another outlet just below it. Put two right next to each other sounded good. So that became the plan.
Through a lot of google and a post on Facebook, I learned how to cut a hole in the drywall, move the wire down, expand the outlet box, install an outlet with a switch combo thing, and make it all look pretty. That was my first experience with drywall repair. But that came in handy when I got angry with the bathroom light fixture surround thing and ended up with a giant hole in the wall where I pried with a crowbar to free a board from the 2000 nails that were holding it in. And from there it helped when I had to do some touchups after scraping the popcorn ceilings.
Do you know how to scrape a popcorn ceiling? Yeah, neither did I. But Google does. Youtube too. I’m sure even TikTok knows by now. My mom once made the comment on a visit that she doesn’t know how I had learned all of this and it was literally google and youtube.
How I learned home maintenance was from a matter of necessity. Well, maybe desire not necessity. The place was livable but I wanted to make it my own. I was a single teacher with not a lot of extra money and paying someone wasn’t an option. Either I figured it out or it didn’t happen. And MANY projects I had figured out but they decided to throw a few curve balls… learning curve balls if you will. I used to tell people that the most important thing I learned from all of this was to marry rich so I could pay someone to do it instead.
That didn’t happen and instead I now have the mindset of “Eh… I could do that!”
That townhouse is now a long term rental which led to some interesting questions about taxes. That led me to taking an online tax preparer’s course. From there I started digging into how others handle taxes on rental properties, especially when they sell the property. What if we don’t sell it, how do people make money on the property? I have learned a lot from podcasts, books, courses, websites, and other landlords about rental real estate investments. Had I known about 10 years ago what I know now, I would have made some different choices. But, it also led us to make choices differently along the way as we were learning.
So, go learn something! What is something you have wondered about? Something that could change how you do what you do? Is there a skill you could use to expand your job opportunities? Is there a craft or hobby you’ve always wanted to learn how to do? What is it you’re wanting to know?
And then go send me an email buzzgoesb@gmail.com or leave a question on the website or reach out on the Insta. Let me know so I can learn with you! Maybe I’ll make a podcast about it.
Additional Resources
- Google. Start there.
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