YouTube - Learn Anything

That might be a slight stretch, but really...you can learn so much on YouTube.

I was talking to a colleague this morning about some of my "business ideas" and she said, "You know what I want to learn?" She proceeded to tell me that she wanted to learn how to get her photos from her camera onto her computer, how to make them black and white and how to create calendars with them. I told her, "You should search on YouTube." She said, "Really?" Yes, really. Now the truth is Google would help her just as much, but I suggested YouTube because she gave me a spiel about how she need to touch and see...and all that...to learn.

A colleague and I gave a brown bag lunch talk a few months ago about how you can learn for free online by reading blogs, newsletters, participating in webinars, searching YouTube, etc. As we were preparing, we tried to order the topics from the most familiar to the least familiar. My colleague told me that she'd never searched for anything educational on YouTube and my boss told me the same thing.

These moments make me feel crazy and remind me how "abnormal" I am. I honestly think a part of me thinks other people are crazy when they say, "I want to learn..." or "I need to take training to..." I know, it's insensitive of me to think that and probably a little rude. But, the thing is...the moment an idea pops into my head about something I'm interested in learning...I go to Google. [sidebar: You know we have a special relationship :) I love Google and Google loves me.] I mean...anything you want to know is at your fingertips. And over the years, Google makes sure that any videos that are available on the topic you search show in your results. It's crazy, exciting and awesome!

The only trick is you have to know what you want to learn. You have to type the right question. Usually, after searching enough about something I don't know much about, I can figure out the right terms/key words/industry language to use in my question. I told my dad yesterday that I believe that people who say those things don't really want to learn. They aren't committed to it. They aren't serious about it. Otherwise, they would Google it and find out. I have never been the type of person to wait for someone to teach me something or give me the tools I need to do something. I learn what I need to learn to do what I want or need to do and I buy what I need to do it. I think my mother made me this way. Let's blame her.

I say all of this to say, if there's something you want to learn how to do, search for it on YouTube. You might just find a great tutorial. Oh and when you do, tell someone about it so they can learn more too!