The alluring trap of information hopping

When I used to work at a pre-college program for gifted young musicians, the staff would sometimes come across a very specific type of student: the teacher hopper.

The name is pretty self explanatory. But to be abundantly clear, a teacher hopper referred to a student who had racked up an impressive number of private lesson teachers in a very short amount of time.

This was a noticeable phenomenon, since a typical student would have one or two teachers over the course of their young studies. Teacher hoppers would have something more like four teachers over a five year span of time.

999 out of every 1000 times, a teacher hopping student would be accompanied by a very specific type of companion: the micromanaging parent.

Often an anxiety-induced and anxiety-inducing experience, the micromanaging parent wanted to control every aspect of their child’s education - especially the aspects that they did not understand.

In lieu of a process that they understood, and therefore could trust, this type of parent would latch onto the most specific of achievements or accolades as a metric for teacher’s success.

Their child studied with a teacher but didn’t win the concerto competition? Time for a change. They would hire the teacher of the child who did win.

After months of studying with the new teacher, their child didn’t place in the top orchestra? That teacher is out. They would then hire the teacher of the top chair student.

And so on. And so forth.

Where does all the information go?

I love knowledge. I really do. I can get positively drunk on a google search rabbit hole that leads me somehow to the history of the caterpillar and how windmills work.

It is both fun and important to read new things, hear new perspectives, and be exposed to new pieces of information.

But there is a difference between going wide and going deep. And when it comes to the areas where most of us want to actually grow, we often choose the wrong direction.

Have you ever walked into a book store and walked out with five new books, when you haven’t even read most of the ones you own?

What about reading article after article and watching video after video, amassing a world’s worth of business advice - but you haven’t actually taken a moment to implement any of it?

Or maybe in the quest for rapid growth, you’ve launched yourself into hiring coach after coach, joining mastermind after mastermind, and enrolling in coaching program after program, never taking the time to recall and use the perspectives you’ve already learned?

Listen, there is absolutely no problem with buying a ton of books, listening to a ton of podcasts, and engaging in a lot of coaching. The issue occurs when we conflate the purchasing, reading, and the enrolling with actual implementation and growth.

This keeps us on a hamster wheel of next. The next book will give me the information I need to level up. The next article will fix all of my business problems. The next coaching program will create my dream life.

Next, next, next.

When we are in this mode, we find ourselves months and years later with a ton of information and nothing actually changed.

Invest in yourself

There are many reasons we find ourselves on the hamster wheel of next, but a large one is the loudly touted concept of ‘investing in yourself’ we see used as a marketing technique.

This book could change your life. Sure you don’t need it, but how will you grow if you don’t invest in yourself! That coaching program could 10x your business. Yes you can’t afford it, but how will anything change if you don’t invest in yourself!

And to an extent, I don’t disagree with the concept. But I do disagree with the incredibly narrow use of the word ‘invest’.

For example, if you pay money for a college degree, and that payment is the largest interaction you have with your education, that’s not an investment. That’s a fee. That’s a price.

Similarly, you can invest enormous amounts into your education without ever paying for anything. You can look up the faculty and syllabus for a certain program. You can read the course material and find ways to discourse with others about what you’ve learned. You can take notes, and run experiments, and investigate more. In this case, even if no money is ever spent, you are most certainly treating your education like an investment.

I’m not saying that paid things aren’t helpful if they are within your reach. Some of the biggest leaps in growth in my life have been with paid support. But also, some of the biggest leaps in growth in my life have been accessed for free.

And when we see investing as how we show up, and how we continue to squeeze value out of the information we’ve already sourced, a world of opportunity opens up to us. There will always be free options, there will always be paid options, but above all, it’s our approach that will help us get where we want to be.

Information hopping

I no longer work with young musicians, but the updated version of the teacher hopper would be the information hopper. And I experience information hoppers everywhere. Heck, sometimes even I can be an information hopper.

The thing about information hopping is that it promises the world. And for the curious minds out there, it can be fun.

But just like with teacher hopping, when we hop from information source to information source as a primary pattern, we never allow ourselves to go beyond the surface. We never get to experience the depth that developing trust with a body of information can provide.

And ultimately, if we information hop for long enough without developing a depth of approach, we can start to believe that our best self, our best life, our best business is out there. All we need to do is find it… or buy it. This belief is not only disempowering, it’s incorrect.

You are the one who will build whatever you seek. Yes, you may receive help. Yes you will learn things that help you build. But ultimately, it’s you.

And when we can really understand where the source of investment really is, it makes any information or support we externally invest in go infinitely farther in our lives.