Increasingly it seems to me there are really only three essential questions that drive a successful, fulfilling career: What do I really want to be great at? How can I be great at it? What am I willing to sacrifice? So much of lifelong learning involves figuring out the first question. Then figuring out how to do it. Then learning - usually along the way - the price you have to pay to get there. Of course, all of that flows from asking - and honestly answering - the questions in the first place. Jeff [tweetmeme] Related posts:Self Education: Five Essential Sites

A while back I was on the phone with a former client to whom I had not talked since my son was born. "I know you probably wouldn’t want to think about it this way," she said, "but it must be like having a little learning laboratory in your home." True - that’s not really how I tend to think about it, but on the other hand, it does feel like there is a mad scientist running around my house at times, and it’s fascinating to watch. I’m sure I could cite at least 50 lessons I have learned from watching, but here are seven big ones for starters: Ask why Regular readers here already know I am a big fan of asking why, but boy am I getting a dose of my own medicine these days.  "Why" is the fuel that powers a toddler’s learning engine as far as I can tell. And there is nothing like being asked "Why" several times in a row and dozens of times a day to make you examine your own assumptions, definitions, and established beliefs about the world. Lesson: Keep asking others why, and be sure also to ask yourself why on a regular basis. Imitate (It’s the sincerest form of learning) Every parent knows you hit a stage where you have to be careful what you say because it is likely to be repeated right back at you - and then to relatives, neighbors, and teachers. The toddler brain is a sponge that is amazing to watch in action. Lesson: Never stop looking for good examples to imitate - it is often the best way to pick up new knowledge and skills. Bang your head If I had a dollar for every time my son has bumped his head attempting something that a more cautious (i.e., older) human being would never attempt we’d be well on our way to paying for college tuition. Lots of crying results, but eventually the activity that caused the fall is either mastered or abandoned. Lesson: Take some risks - you won’t learn much otherwise. Do it now It doesn’t matter if you’ve got dinner dishes in your hands and a basket of laundry balanced on your head - now is the time the new train tracks in the hallway need to be inspected. Or to see how tall a tower can be built with wooden blocks. The trivial details of day-to-day existence don’t matter. Lesson: Don’t let get bogged down in the details or put things off. If you want to learn, start now. Imagine (It’s easy if you try) From cooking up a variety of delectable dishes in the bathtub for imaginary dinner guests to deciding to eat up all the porridge before Goldilocks arrives, my son rarely let’s reality stand in his way.  In the process, he takes his mind into new, undiscovered places all the time. Lesson: You don’t necessarily need books, classrooms, or any of the other traditional trappings of learning. You’ve got whole worlds of learning with you all the time. Persist (Even to the point of seeming irrational) Some things are just too thick to be stuck to the refrigerator with magnets, but if you try 20 or 30 times, you just might figure out a way to make it work. (Which, in fact, he did.)  As adults, of course, we are much more inclined to give up - or turn on the TV - at the first sign that learning something new is going to take a great deal of effort.  Lesson: Stick to it. Only 9,000 hours left to go. Laugh. Often. One of the introductory questions I was asked recently when speaking on a panel was "What’s the funniest thing you have ever done with e-learning." Forget the "e" - I couldn’t recall much funny in learning at all.  My son, on the other hand, laughs hysterically when he discovers that there are outdoor vacuum cleaners at gas stations or when he decides to change "please" to "pleak" for no other reason than to see how it sounds. (Entire avant garde movements have been founded on less.) Lesson: Learning really can be fun - and even funny. *** Like I said, these are just for starters. I’m sure I’ll point out others at some point. In the meantime, if you have or had toddlers in your life, what are some lessons you learned from them? Please comment and share the learning. Jeff [tweetmeme] P.S. - If you like this post, I’d be truly grateful if you would give it a Tweet or bookmark it using one of the links below. Related posts:When’s the last time you asked why? Two Brief Lessons from the Mile High Learning Club

That giant sucking sound you hear is your time going down the Internet drain as you check your e-mail for the twentieth time today.  (Round about noon or so.) Sure, there’s Twitter. There’s Facebook. There’s all the general Web grazin’ you can do on any given day. But for me - and I’m betting for you too - the biggest suck of all is still good ol’ e-mail. I’ve read and heard what Tim Ferris has to say about it. I know it is the enemy of "getting things done." I even noted that e-mail remains a target in Seth Godin’s latest book, Linchpin. But I have yet to really act on the obvious and do something about my e-mail addiction. So, this week I am taking a stand, and I invite you to join me. At least for this week, I am dropping down to checking only three times a day - once in the early morning, once at around noon, and once at around 3:00. Depending on how that goes, I may adjust up or down next week. I don’t expect to kick the habit over night. I’m declaring my goal here because I believe Mary is right about "shouting it from the roof tops" and "finding buddies" (that would be you). For me, this is one of the most obvious ways to free up more time for learning, which is incredibly important not only to my sense of personal fulfillment, but also to my professional success. Maybe I’ll read something new or re-read something old. Maybe I’ll review notes or reflect or bone up on some Spanish. Mostly, though, I think I will concentrate on writing. What about you? Are you ready to finally tame the e-mail monster? And what will it give you more time to do (aside, of course, from commenting on this blog post ) Jeff [tweetmeme] P.S. If you enjoy what you read here on Mission to Learn, I’d be truly grateful if you would subscribe by RSS feed or e-mail. No related posts.

Want to know how to change your life, achieve pretty much anything, and make yourself rich to boot? There is a huge "self help" industry out there eager to help you do it. I bump up against this world frequently when researching and writing about lifelong learning, and I have to admit a bit of a love-hate relationship with it. On the one hand, so much of the advice that gets peddled seems hackneyed, poorly written, and derivative of concepts already established hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. On the other hand, there is obviously a deep human need to return again and again to the issues and concepts that pervade self-help literature. Some current writers do a very good job of returning to these issues and examining them in a fresh way. And I have to assume that many people do learn and grow from it - or at least try. Repetition, as they say, is the mother of learning. So, I started thinking about the key themes and lessons that seem to show up in the self-help literature with which I am familiar. Knowledge of them can certainly be of use to the average lifelong learner. Here are the seven that strike me as most fundamental. It seems to me that most other themes or habits fall into one of these seven buckets. Desire This is almost always #1 in the standard self-help literature. If you want to achieve "it," you have to really want it. More importantly, with very few exceptions you must be conscious of the fact that you want it and you must be very clear about what it is.  When it will happen, what it will look like…you get the picture. Authenticity While most self-help literature is about change - changing your life, becoming a different person - it is almost always rooted in the notion that you have to "know yourself" (or know thy self, depending on how far back you go) and be yourself if you want to succeed and be happy in your success. Make sure the "it" that you desire aligns with who you truly are. Drive As the old saying goes, "If wishes were horses, beggars could ride." It is one thing to want something; it is another thing entirely to have the will to get it. Motivation plays a starring role in self-help literature, and for good reason: very few of us come equipped with self-sustaining will power.  Closely related concepts like being "pro-active" and persistent come into play here. Discipline You can want it and have the will to pursue it, but you still need to cultivate and practice appropriate, consistent habits if you expect to succeed. It is important to remember that "discipline" derives from the Latin "disciplina," meaning teaching or learning. Desire and drive alone do not add up to discipline. It must be learned. Reflection Reflection is arguably one of the key habits of discipline, but it also serves to counteract mindless discipline. In short, it is an important enough concept in self-help literature to stand on its own. Achieving your goals requires being conscious and thoughtful about how you are performing along the way. Doing so enables you to appreciate your progress and also to adjust as needed Connections While self-help literature by its nature tends to be very focused on the individual, I can’t think of a single example I have come across that doesn’t also emphasize the importance of our connection to others. Among other things, connections may help you enhance your own abilities - as in the concept of the "master mind" pioneered by Napoleon Hill (and represented earlier in Ben Franklin’s "junto"). They may help keep you accountable - as is common in 12-step groups. Or, they may help you reconcile yourself with the past - by saying thank you to those who have had a positive impact on your life, for example, as is so common in "happiness" literature. Faith I don’t necessarily mean "faith" in a religious sense - thought certainly there is a great deal of self-help literature with a religious orientation.  All of the self-help literature I have encountered posits a "higher power," whether that is a "God" in a religious sense or something more ethereal. I also place concepts like "making your own luck," "attitude," and "resilience" in this bucket because each is rooted in the notion that things somehow work out if you simply believe they will. *** Think what you will of the self-help industry, it’s hard to argue that these are not useful concepts - ones that apply in so many walks of life, including our efforts to continue learning. Here’s a challenge to readers: Where have you found any or all of these concepts expressed most meaningfully for you? And what am I missing? Please comment and share your sources! Jeff [tweetmeme] P.S. - P.S. If you enjoy what you read here on Mission to Learn, I’d be truly grateful if you would subscribe by RSS feed or e-mail. Related posts:Where Leaders Go to Learn (This I Believe) Discipline 7 Small "Mind Shifts" for When You Lack Discipline

Earlier this week I pushed "Send" on a new edition of the Learning Monitor, my twice-quarterly round-up of learning links, news and insights. To get this most recent edition, simply subscribe, confirm, and it will be automatically sent to your inbox. Here’s what one reader wrote in after reading the latest edition: I’m just writing to tell you how much I enjoy your newsletters! I don’t even remember how I found your site, but I’m certainly glad that I did.  … thank you for all the time and effort you obviously put into your newsletters. … It’s a perfect example of the benefits of the "information age." I thought I’d share the above comment mostly to emphasis that the Learning Monitor is not simply a piece of fluff to pollute your inbox. I put quite a bit of time into filtering through potential online learning opportunities (nearly all free) and also gathering links to interesting blog posts and other insights about learning in our hyper-connected, information overloaded world. You can get a feel for some of the recent editions by visiting the archives. (I am still rebuilding these, but there are several editions there.) Aside from the various links I provide in the Monitor, I’ve also started beefing up the editor’s note in recent editions. This is where I provide some of my own perspective on news or trends that I feel may be of interest to lifelong learners. Since this aspect of the newsletter may not be quite as clear as other parts of it in the archives, I thought I’d share this month’s note here, as well as the quote of the month, from which I drew inspiration. —————————————— 1. Quote of the Month —————————————— "No one expects anyone to sell a house," said Hannah, now a high school junior who hopes to become a nurse. "That’s kind of a ridiculous thing to do. For us, the house was just something we could live without. It was too big for us. Everyone has too much of something, whether it’s time, talent or treasure. Everyone does have their own half, you just have to find it." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/opinion/24kristof.html?th&emc=th —————————————————————————————————- 3. A Note from the Editor: Thinking, Acting, and Learning at the Edge —————————————————————————————————- Since the last issue of the Learning Monitor, the Edge has published responses to its annual question, which this year is: How is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? http://www.edge.org/q2010/q10_index.html For any readers not familiar with the Edge or its annual question, the short of it is that the organization seems to exist to curate deep thinking about "intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues." (Perhaps true to intellectual form, the Web site does not actually make the organization’s value proposition all that clear, so I am making it up as best as I can.) The annual question is a way to get input from hundreds of thinkers on one big topic. I won’t pretend to have my thoughts fully together yet on this year’s question - I am a bit too slow a thinker. But I did want to make sure to point it out since I think it is so relevant to the topic of learning. And I’d also like to point out what I think is a related trend - one suggested by this month’s quote (above). The quote, is from Hannah Salwen, a teenager who convinced her family to sell it’s high-priced home and donate half the proceeds to charity. What resulted was, to say the least, a learning experience - one that resulted in a recently published book called The Power of Half. I contrast this act and the resulting learning, so deeply infused with passion, with a strain of thinking that seems to run through quite a few of the responses to the Edge question. Namely, that we are becoming a society of people who no longer read long or think deeply. That we are living increasingly shallow lives. I think the jury will be out for a very long time on whether the Internet is changing the way we think for the worse (or at all), but I feel like I do see a growing number of cases where people are grasping for depth, for opportunities to move beyond the ephemeral flow of information and "suck out all the marrow of life," as Thoreau put it. I see it in the Salwen’s decision. I see it any number of blogger/entrepreneurs that I encounter trying to follow their passion and live life on their own terms. I see it in the apparent "spiritual thirst" of the younger generation. My vision, I am sure, is distorted by the ways in which my own life has been changed by the Internet and the myriad influences it has brought. (To follow Thoreau’s lead and abandon it all seems awfully attractive at times!) Still, I have little doubt that there is a connection between the drive to act meaningfully and the challenges to our thinking that the Internet represents. But enough - who needs a lengthy editor’s note that attempts to ponder big questions? Scroll on (or subscribe) for this month’s links, and as always, I look forward to any feedback you may wish to send my way. (For blog readers, this would mean commenting below ) Jeff P.S. - Just use the form below or click subscribe if you would like to sign up to receive the Learning Monitor twice a quarter. I won’t use your e-mail address for any other reason. Period. And you can unsubscribe easily at any time. Related posts:35+ Delicious Learning Links - a new Monitor is out! Great Learning Resources for 2010 - A New Learning Monitor is Out!

[tweetmeme] I had already planned to write a post about "curators" today when I noticed that Jeff De Cagna has posted about the "content challenge" over on SmartBlog. He sees "content curation" as one of the most significant innovation opportunities available to organizations. We’re in agreement on that and have spoken together about it before. Here on Mission to Learn, though, I’d like to focus on it as one of the most significant innovation opportunities for individual lifelong learners. —- First things first: What is a Curator? The idea behind curators and content curation is that there is such a flood of new content pouring through the Internet pipes these days that being aware of all of it and sorting it out in meaningful ways is simply not possible. Curators are people or organizations that do the hard work of sifting through the content within a particular topic area or "meme" and pulling out the things that seem to make most sense. This effort involves significantly more than finding and regurgitating links, though. A good curator must be skilled at: locating and evaluating valuable content organizing and connecting content so that it is as accessible as possible creating and re-purposing content when it adds to the underlying value capitalizing on the Social Web to build connections and context building trusted relationships with learners and other curators design learning experiences (in a much broader sense than traditional approaches) Bottom line: A curator is an individual or organization who excels at helping others make sense. For the individual lifelong learner, I see (at least) two powerful opportunities here. The first is to find great curators. If you want to combat information overload, I see this as one of the surest ways - find people who are already doing a great job making sense of the areas you care about. Follow them. Engage with them. Encourage them. And don’t just pick ones who seem to always be towing the same old line, that "simply pick and choose information that fits with their existing worldview," as Jeff puts it. Find ones that are willing to mix it up some and fight off homophily. Do this well and I can guarantee you will transform your learning efforts and open up new vistas. This, by the way, is an area to which the curators themselves - whether associations, other nonprofits, companies, or individuals - need to pay careful attention. I think most stakeholders are still a long ways from understanding how to find and use good curators. (Yes, I will definitely be writing more on that.) The second is to be a curator. If you really want to learn a body of knowledge or skills (or whatever other learning area you define), it is really hard to beat becoming a curator for that area. In a sense, this is what academics have always done. They focus in on a particular discipline and spend their lives researching, writing about, and (less and less) teaching it. The good curator does much the same, though typically in a less formal way and with no promise of tenure. (The only "job security" for a curator is in continually providing high value to the learning community.) It’s not an exaggeration to say that people have reinvented their lives through this sort of effort. I say my colleague David Houle do this with his focus on becoming a futurist. (Notably, David is the son of Cy Houle, one of the pioneers of lifelong learning.) Certainly Leo has done this over at Zen Habits. The Web/World is packed with examples. So what about you? Who are your curators and/or what are you curating? Please comment and share. Jeff P.S. - Many people have written about the concept of the "content curator" or "digital curator" over the past few years, but I am pretty certain I first came across it in George Siemens thoughts on curatorial  teaching. Just want to give credit where credit is due. Also, be sure to vote for Jeff De Cagna’s content challenge post on Wild Apricot. No related posts.

A while back Karen Schweitzer did a guest post here titled 15 Free Online Collaboration Tools and Apps. Karen is skilled at writing popular posts, but even so, I have been surprised at how much traffic this one has attracted. Apparently people are hungry for free online collaboration tools. Meanwhile, on other fronts, an attendee at a recent Webinar I was part of noted that collaborative learning … …should be a particular strength of e-learning from the perspective of technological capabilities. Yet I feel we are still in the early stages of discovering how to move from "broadcasting" knowledge to collaborating in learning. Where are the collaborative learning successes in e-learning? What can we do to accelerate this shift? The question got me thinking about Karen’s post. My suspicion is that most of the people searching for and finding that post are not thinking in terms of collaborative learning. Or, perhaps more accurately, they are not necessarily thinking of what they will do with the tools as "learning," even if it is. But in reality, I’m thinking there is a huge amount of collaborative learning going on out there. Whether you see it or not depends on your definition of learning. So, I’d be really interested to find out how readers here are using collaboration tools and how they see them feeding into their learning, whether in a formal, traditional sense (e.g., as part of working on a class assignment, participating in class discussion) or in an informal sense (e.g., building knowledge as a project team, sharing experiences across social networks, etc.). If you have an example of how you or others are using online collaboration tools with a learning twist, please comment and share. Is it working well? How or how not?  (And in case you hadn’t thought of it in these terms yet, this post is itself an attempt at collaborative learning!) Jeff [tweetmeme] P.S. - Please join me on the ongoing Mission to Learn. Subscribe to the RSS feed or use the e-mail subscription form at the top left side of this page. Related posts:15 Free Online Collaboration Tools and Apps Collaborative Learning with Grockit - Podcast

[tweetmeme] Big lists of free online courses, Web tools, learning games, and other resources for lifelong learners are relatively easy to find, but sites with a serious focus on helping people along the journey of self-education are fewer and farther between. Here are five you may want to bookmark or add to your feed reader. 1. Autodidact Press I mentioned the Autodidact Press in a post I did a while back on the famous self-educated. Its founder, Charles D. Hayes, is one of the Web’s longest standing proponents of lifelong learning and self-education.  The resources on the Web site itself are relatively limited, but it is worth signing up for the Self-University Newsletter. Also, check out the list of 52 ways to celebrate Self University Week (Sept. 1- 7). As the number 52 (i.e., the number of weeks in a year) suggests, lifelong learners can benefit from these activities throughout the year. 2. Self Made Scholar I’ve mentioned Jamie Littlefield’s Self Made Scholar at least a couple of times in the Learning Monitor newsletter, and deservedly so.  Perhaps more than any other blogger I have come across, she focuses on the mindset and habits required for being a successful self-educator. Check out her How to Learn on Your Own: Creating an Independent Scholar Resource Plan and, as far as big lists go, her Self Education Resource List is among the best. 3. Wide Awake Minds I only recently came across Wide Awake Minds, which blogger Ryan McCarl describes as a "resource for educators, self-educators, polymaths, and all who love to teach, read, think, and learn." One of the features of the site I particularly like is the series of interviews with self-educators. These are text-based, but are somewhat along the lines of what I do here with the Radio Free Learning podcast (though much more focused on self-education). I think one of the most helpful guides each of us can have in our lifelong learning efforts is the experience of other lifelong learners. Here are links to the interviews McCarl has done so far. #1: Self-educator Race Bannon #2: Self-educator Margaret Viola #3: University of Chicago Professor Charles Lipson #4: Author and Iraq War Veteran Wesley Gray #5: Self-educator Deven Black #6: Self-educator Peter Behr #7: Texas A&M Neuroscientist Dr. Bill Klemm #8: Self-educator Hoossam Malek 4. The Art of Self Education Race Bannon is one of the people that Ryan McCarl has interviewed for his self-educator series, and Bannon’s blog The Art of Self Education, is certainly a fit for this list. I recommend  his recent Self Education Checklist post to readers here on Mission to Learn. 5. The Personal MBA Josh Kaufman’s The Personal MBA site is by far the most popular out of this list, and it is also the most narrowly focused. As the site title suggests, Kaufman is concerned primarily with business, but the site offers a great example of how to curate learning in specific subject area. Kaufman’s approach could be applied to nearly any area, and of course, business itself is topic that crosses nearly all learning boundaries. Be sure to check out Josh’s recent interview with Seth Godin for some provocative perspectives on education. (Also, if you are interested in business learning, check out the business category here on Mission to Learn.) *** Enjoy these sites, and please comment with others that readers should know about. Jeff P.S. - Please join me on the ongoing Mission to Learn. Subscribe to the RSS feed or use the e-mail subscription form at the top left side of this page. Related posts:Customer Education: 25 Sampler Sites 35+ Free Online Business Education Sites The Three Essential Career Questions

I had the chance recently to get away for a long weekend on the North Carolina coast. As always, one of the main attractions of this short break from the rat race was the opportunity to read. In a quiet, pleasant setting. For extended periods of time. This doesn’t happen nearly so often as I would like. Sure, I read all the time - it’s an essential part of my work day in and day out. And I always snatch some time before bed or at any odd hour I can to read for pleasure. But reading as a true luxury, with time as no object, is another thing entirely. This time around, I was struck more than ever by the sheer physicality of "old school" reading and by the ways in which I tend to go about reading a book. I dog ear numerous pages, underline, and take notes in the margins - practices that would no doubt make a true bibliophile cringe. I scribble notes in a small notebook I always try to keep with me. Things I want to remember. Things I may want to use later in some piece of writing of my own. I remember other times and places - sights, sounds, smells - associated with other books. Reading War and Peace on the Trans-Siberian railroad decades ago - easily one of the highlights of my life. I still have that copy of Tolstoy’s masterpiece on my bookshelf.  (I need to do better following a friend’s habit of always writing the date and place of each reading in the front of the book.) I listen to my wife’s voice as we once again read a book aloud. This time it is Jane Austen’s Persuasion and Louisa Musgrove has just tumbled from the steps at Lyme. We read the copy I used to teach the book many years ago. There is a certain poetry, I think, in experiencing a real, physical book. As many intellectual thrills as I have encountered on the Web, as many exciting prospects as holding a vast library in the palm of my hand may represent, I have yet to experience this poetry in the digital world. Perhaps it will come eventually. How about you? How do you read a book? Jeff P.S. - In spite of the somewhat wistful tone of this post, regular readers here know I am a stalwart fan of technology when it comes to learning. As far as books and technology go, you may want to check out 15 Online Resources for Book Lovers (which, admittedly - and perhaps appropriately - I did not write). Related posts:15 Online Resources for Book Lovers The Power of Re-Reading 10 Personal Favorites from the M2L Archives

This is a guest post from Christian Arno on why learning second language should be top of your to-do list. Christian covers many practical reasons why you might want to add a second (or third, or fourth) language to your skill set, but the reason I like best is that the process of learning a language opens up new perspectives on culture and communication - as well as on learning itself. Enjoy - and please comment to share any experiences you have or are having with learning another language.  - Jeff *** If you’re reading this, then we can safely assume that you speak English, either as a native speaker or to a reasonable degree of fluency. Well lucky you, you just so happen to have linguistic competency in the current language of international business and the top contender for global language. Have you considered, though, how your life and career prospects might be enhanced by branching out into other languages? Globalisation doesn’t - and shouldn’t - mean that the world will all end up speaking the one language; rather, it means that to be successful in the modern world you need to be able to communicate effectively across a broad range of cultures and languages. Until recently, studying a foreign language (if you’re a native English speaker) was considered to be a necessity only for those going into the fields of translation, teaching or diplomacy. Now, businesses are beginning to realize that having staff with language skills, as well as the relevant technical skills, makes them far better equipped to compete in the global marketplace. No matter what your industry - whether it’s IT, entertainment law or engineering - your employability can only be enhanced by knowledge of a second, third or fourth language. Many employers will even pay higher initial salaries to those with foreign language skills, both for the skills themselves, but also because the very act of learning a foreign language takes time and dedication - in having foreign language skills you’re telling an employer that you have focus, drive and can commit to hard work. The decision to learn a foreign language shouldn’t be dictated by financial reasons alone, though. That would be ignoring the many other benefits that come with studying language. You learn up-close how other cultures operate, which in turn provides you with a new perspective on your own cultural background. You gain a new appreciation for the ways in which languages are structured and how communication works - learning another language’s grammar systems can be both frustrating and very rewarding. Learning one language will also get you started on understanding other languages, as well. For instance, the Romance languages, which have their roots in Latin, all have many similarities - if you speak French, then getting a grasp of Spanish will be far easier than picking up Chinese or Russian, and once you can understand Spanish then moving onto Portuguese or Romanian should be much easier, with its many similar phrases and grammatical rules, after which the leap to learning Italian is simply a linguistic skip and a step. Well, in theory at least. Naturally, if you’re learning the language of a place where you would like to travel or eventually live, then being able to speak the lingo will make your life a thousand times easier - the locals will respect you, you’ll find it much easier to get around and get what you want, you’re less likely to fall into unwise financial deals, and you’ll never order something unusual and unpalatable at local restaurants. This is not to mention the increase in opportunities to be employed and work overseas in exotic locations, or that people will perceive you to be more intelligent because you can converse in a language they can’t. Or the fact that you’ll look incredibly cool in front of your friends if you’re traveling or meeting people for the first time and you’re able to converse fluently in their local language. With all signs pointing towards either China, or maybe even India, becoming the world’s next great superpower, now might be a good time to think about expanding your linguistics repertoire - it doesn’t really matter what language you choose to learn, as being bilingual can only be of benefit - whether you use it to become a professional translator, seek out new overseas business contacts, run an international NGO, go into diplomacy, or just impress people at dinner parties. Learning a language can open all sorts of new doors to you. About the author Christian Arno is the founder and Managing Director of global translations company Lingo24. Launched in 2001, Lingo24 employs some 4,000 professional freelance translators covering a hundred different language combinations. Follow Christian on Twitter: @Lingo24chr. P.S. - Interested in learning a second language? Check out 20 Language Learning Links from the Learning Monitor and 15 Language Learning Tools for Lifelong Learners. Related posts:15 Language Learning Tools for Lifelong Learners 20 Language Learning Sites from the Learning Monitor