“An investment in knowledge pays the most interest.” — Benjamin Franklin
He certainly sounded like a man who embraced the concept of lifelong learning. And given that Franklin was, among other things, a printer, author, diplomat, inventor, and scientist, he had perhaps earned the right to say so.
Learning doesn’t end at school. It’s just the beginning.
What we picture when we think about learning #
When most of us think about learning, we think about education. And when we think about education, we picture a classroom — sitting in front of a teacher who, bless them, is doing their level best to teach us things that don’t always hold our attention. There isn’t much interaction. It’s often a cramming session of facts and figures, delivered to a room of people with very different interests and very different ways of taking things in.
And yet — it works. Most of us learned a great deal during those years, even if we didn’t always appreciate it at the time.
The real limitation of formal education isn’t that it fails us. It’s that for most of our school lives, we don’t get to choose what we’d like to learn about, or more importantly, how we’d like to learn it. That freedom comes later. And for many people, it never quite arrives, because the classroom experience puts them off the whole idea of learning for years afterwards.
The science behind keeping the brain active #
There is a compelling reason to revisit that relationship with learning, and it goes well beyond professional development.
Research into neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to adapt and form new connections throughout life — has fundamentally changed how scientists think about the adult mind. For a long time, neuroscientists assumed the brain was largely fixed after early development. That view started to collapse in the 1990s, accelerated by studies including research on London taxi drivers, which showed measurable structural changes in the hippocampus among people who had spent years memorising the city’s complex street network. The brain had physically changed in response to sustained learning.
Research indicates that engaging in cognitive activities can promote neurogenesis — the creation of new neurons — which continues throughout life and is essential for memory retention and the health of the hippocampus. Longitudinal studies have also found that people who report higher levels of mentally stimulating activity in midlife show slower rates of cognitive decline in later years. HbrhcNursing Care Hawaii
Put simply: the brain responds to being used. And the good news is that learning doesn’t have to happen in a classroom to count.
People learn in different ways #
This is where it becomes genuinely liberating. Research into learning styles consistently finds that most adults use a combination of approaches rather than a single fixed style — the majority of people have multiple learning style preferences, blending visual, auditory, reading, and hands-on approaches depending on the subject and the setting. Southern New Hampshire University
Some learn by doing. Some learn by reading. Others absorb information most naturally by listening — through podcasts, webinars, or simply the conversation of people whose experience they respect. Technology has made all of these routes more accessible than at any point in history, available at almost any moment of the day.
I read, because I’m the inquisitive type. But I also learn from conversations, from watching how others approach problems, and from dictating notes to myself — as I’ve done here, a message to myself in Outlook, captured in a spare moment rather than scheduled in. Not everyone learns the same way, and accepting that is part of developing a genuinely useful relationship with learning as an adult.
Finding the time #
This is where most people get stuck — not from lack of interest, but from the feeling that lifelong learning requires a significant, organised commitment that simply doesn’t fit around a busy life.
It doesn’t have to. The most sustainable approach is the one that fits into the spaces that already exist. On the road. At home with fifteen minutes spare and a coffee. During a walk. The content available through podcasts alone means that genuinely useful, well-researched ideas are available in every one of those moments, without any additional planning required.
Taking notes, even brief ones, adds another layer. A personal journal of ideas encountered across weeks and months becomes something to return to when energy or inspiration is running low — a resource built gradually from ordinary days.
As we grow older, most of us develop an instinct toward this kind of learning naturally. We become more selective, more curious about the things that genuinely interest us, and more willing to seek out the people and ideas that challenge our thinking. Stephen R. Covey called this sharpening the saw — the discipline of continuous renewal that keeps everything else working well.
The investment that compounds #
Franklin’s metaphor of interest is worth returning to, because it captures something the neuroscience also suggests: the benefits of lifelong learning are not one-off. They compound. Each new piece of knowledge or skill creates connections that make the next piece easier to absorb. Each conversation with someone who thinks differently adds texture to how we approach our own problems.
To close with Robin Sharma, whose words I’ve always found clarifying on this subject:
“Investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make. It will not only improve your life, it will improve the lives of all those around you.”
Thank you for reading.
Author: Richard Bull-Domican, founder of New Era Financial Introductions, a B2B lead generation consultancy with over twenty years of experience. The perspectives shared here come from two decades in the field; not theory, but practice.
I create small, digestible guides on Gumroad for business owners who hate aggressive tactics and prefer relationship-led approaches. New resources are added regularly. For longer reads on lead generation and the human side of sales, follow me on Medium and join the daily conversation on LinkedIn.
Gumroad: https://richardbulldomican.gumroad.com/
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