When I was in Amway, 21 years old, trying as hard as humanly possible to become the next Diamond MLM superstar sensation, I’m pretty sure the hundreds of people who said “NO” (my friends and my parent’s friends) said no because they could tell I was cut out for way bigger stuff than that.

Pink Koolaid notwithstanding, that was a chapter of my life in which I developed VERY important skills I’m not sure I could have picked up anywhere else.

And I remember while I was in the middle of that (I hardly ever made any money at all) I was really into it and I had learned to enjoy the challenge and…

All I really wanted to do was be successful enough to do it better and keep pursuing. I just wanted enough money and enough success to “build the business.”

Every week I would add a couple of extra cassette tapes to my orders. The tapes cost $5 each. An extra $5 or $10 was a lot of money back then. We had to give up stuff to buy those tapes. My wife didn’t buy any new clothes for probably five years.

I would dig into the tape catalog and hunt for interesting titles. Once I borrowed a box of about 500 tapes from my sponsor’s sponsor. Listened to every single one that summer. I dreamed of having enough money to just buy ALL the tapes. I became a walking encyclopedia.

Looking back, I was grooming myself to be a professional student and lifetime RABID learner.

Not the kind of professional student that says in grad school until they’re 57 and gets 5 degrees that they never use; rather, the kind of lifetime rabid learner who never runs out of cool things to discover and never runs out of ways to apply their knowledge.

As misdirected and naive as my efforts were at age 21, most of the habits I was developing have served me VERY well. Because once I latched onto “real” opportunities, my commitment to be the best student anyone had ever seen started paying off handsomely.

I studied copywriting under John Carlton – one of the very best copywriters in the world – during his first year as a teacher.

At a seminar, he introduced me to another guy, Harlan, and said, “Harlan meet Perry. Perry meet Harlan. You guys are my two best estudiantes.”

Looking back, it’s pretty cool that I was one of John’s two best students his first year as a copy guru.

It’s not surprising because I learned how to be that kind of rabid learner in Amway. In college, the best students stay up until 3am cramming for exams. In Amway the best students stay up until 3am drinking coffee at Denny’s and listening to road warriors tell stories that you’ll never hear on any tape.

For the last 15 years people have flown in from all around the world (sometimes in private jets) to seek my counsel. Because they want to hear stories that you’ll never read in any book or hear on any YouTube video.

And I can tell you that all those who are sought out at this level paid their dues in the form of being as rabid as I was. Will-not-be-refused students of their craft.

I am STILL a professional learner. I attend lots of seminars and masterminds. I seek out experts. I invest enormous amounts of money.

I have branched out into many other forms of knowledge. The biggest perk of my life – the luxury I value the most – is 1) unencumbered opportunities to learn as much as I desire, not limited by budget and 2) the opportunity to travel anywhere for any reason to learn anything I want to learn.

I don’t care about cars. I sold my Infiniti G37 convertible last fall because I mostly ride Uber now (you can learn a lot more reading in the back seat of a “21st century limo” than trying to maneuver traffic).

I don’t care to live in a mansion in a gated community.

I just want to learn and explore and apply knowledge and solve problems. The hardest problems in the world.

If you visit my library you’ll find books on business, theology, art, poetry, cosmology, science, psychology, electronics, philosophy, chemistry, travel, history, mathematics, anthropology, biology.

Everything is interconnected. There is no such thing as walls between spheres of knowledge. And the biggest joy is connecting those disparate things together. Linking silos. Making interdisciplinary discoveries.

One of the things that deeply motivates me is that I want to be the BEST person at solving the problems I choose to solve. Better than anyone in the world.

I don’t even consciously articulate this to myself anymore. It’s just an attitude. It’s where my thermostat is set.

If you relate to this – if I’m singing your song – then Advanced Mastery Network may be perfect for you.

At Rosetta Stone in May, after six months of intensive prep, I delivered a seminar that people immediately described as “Lifetime Achievement” and “Magnum Opus.” That’s because it was. A synthesis of 16 years of direct marketing and business strategy.

I delivered three days of very dense content. Everyone could tell I was only scratching the surface on most topics.

In Advanced Mastery we’re 1) going to go very deep, and 2) master these things in a LAB setting (not classroom), and 3) build a network of businesses (“Aircraft Carriers”) and marketing experts (“Fighter Jets”) who work together to build massively successful companies.

It’s not inexpensive. But if you love to LEARN and DO, there is nothing else like this anywhere.

Discover more at www.perrymarshall.com/amn.

Perry Marshall