Perhaps the most valuable skill one can have today is the ability to learn new things. The world is changing so fast. Static, top-down learning and development programs are quickly becoming outdated and irrelevant.

The good news is that there is so much information available for free. Any self-motivated individual can learn almost anything on their own — assuming they know how to learn in a self-directed way.

In my mind, there are three steps to being proficient at self-directed learning:

1/ Identify what you don't know that's important to learn.

2/ Find resources to learn about the things you don't know.

3/ Do the work to learn about the things you don't know.

Identify what you don't know. This is the hardest part. Because often you don’t know what you don’t know. This is where it's helpful to have mentors that can help identify your blind spots. It's also helpful to have a network of other people who are doing your job or the job you want to do.

For an aspiring sales leader, here’s a list of things they should be learning as they climb the ladder from individual contributor to a sales manager to an executive.

Individual Contributor:

Sales tactics (discovery, outreach, access, presenting, proposals, objection handling, creating urgency, closing, etc.).

Understanding your buyer and your buyer's industry (business model, competitors, motivations, priorities, org chart, decision framework, regulatory, etc.).

Sales Manager:

Management (hiring, firing, employee engagement, giving feedback, setting priorities, territory management, performance management, etc.).

Sales strategy (forecasting, OKR management, customer segmentation, prioritization, leadership reporting, etc.).

Executive:

Management against industry metrics (e.g. in SaaS - CAC/LTV, Rule of 40, Payback period, growth rates, gross margins, etc.).

Company strategy. Setting mission and vision. High-level qualitative goals and financial goals.

Thinking like an investor. Understanding how financial metrics, storytelling, and a long-term plan connects to a company’s valuation. Understanding the mindset and motivation of investors that would invest in your company.

Find resources. This is relatively easy these days. Use Twitter to follow experts in your areas of interest. Setup a Feedly account to get a feed of blog posts related to the interest area. Setup your podcast feed to receive daily podcasts on the topic. Read the best books on the topic. Join communities (such as Pavillion or SaaStr) to interact with peers. Leverage your investor networks (First Round Capital has a great one). Find a coach. Find a mentor.

Do the work. Once you've identified the learning area, start to obsess about it and immerses yourself in content. You'll quickly identify areas that you didn't know you didn't know. Learn about those things. Create habits that force you to keep learning. Listen to one podcast per day. Read 50 pages per day. Set a goal of having coffee with at least one mentor or person that does the job you want to do each month. Repeat.