Learning as a lifestyle: A Conversation with Álvaro SanMartin Cid

Learnerbly
Aug 23, 2017 · 5 min read

Many people preach about the value of learning, but few truly live a learning lifestyle. A lifestyle in which development, in the widest sense of the word, is baked into everything you do.

Álvaro Sanmartín Cid, the Co-Founder of Floqq, formerly Growth manager at Udacity, and now Head of Growth at Skills Matter is one such person. As Álvaro says below, personal development is a crucial part of his career and life — to the extent that he comes up with a personal personal development plan at the start of each year. Read on for for a condensed version of our interview with Álvaro, his key takeaways, and his learning playlist.

Click here to read the full, non-condensed interview on our website, and to read more interviews with business leaders such as Eric Schmidt, Stephan Thoma, and Ajaz Ahmed.

Every year I do a personal budget: I disconnect for a few days and figure out the ten key things I would like to learn over the coming year. It’s important for me to have a learning strategy in place so I can spend my time effectively. The objective sheet, which lists my ten key learning goals, is really helpful in this regard.


Álvaro’s key learning takeaways:

  • Take the time to invest in your learning and really live a learning lifestyle. Establishing a routine is important as you can’t learn if you don’t set aside specific “learning time.”
  • Look beyond your discipline and industry for inspiration. Apply concepts and lessons from the past to be more successful in the present.
  • Look to develop your skill-set in the round. Growth is a holistic concept so look to develop as many skills as possible.
  • Reflect on your learning strategy and create a “personal budget”: an inventory of what you want to learn over the next year. What is it that you most want to learn? Pursue it with vigour.
  • Embrace an entrepreneurial mindset. Starting new projects is the fastest way to accelerate your growth.

How did you develop the skills to succeed as an entrepreneur?

Most of my experience has come through doing things. I sympathise with a quote that goes something like: “We will go from failure to failure until the final victory”.

When I was in high school, for example, I started a mini-business, where I would rent movies to my classmates and their friends. I’ve always been taking on new projects and starting new initiatives — this has always been the way that I’ve learnt new skills.

It’s always important to be able to work with people who have a different worldview, but it doesn’t provide you with all the answers.

Who are your heroes in the industry?

I try not to focus on my industry in isolation as I’ve found you often learn the most from people in other fields and disciplines. I’ve always preferred to look up to people like Alejandro de la Sota, an architect who created an architectural movement applicable to the sciences.

Where did your employees at Floqq go for training?

It was easy for us to find resources, as we were a learning company. What was more difficult for me was making everyone understand how important learning was for both the company and their own personal development.

We regarded learning as a core Key Performance Indicator. To get this message across we actually made sure that everyone took time out of their day to learn. It sounds crazy because you’re literally forcing people to stop working, but I really believe that people should invest in themselves.

It’s something that I’m very proud of. We created a culture where it’s about how much you learn rather than how much you earn. We placed much more emphasis on the learning side of the equation.

We look for people that have a shine in their eyes when they talk about how they’ve learned a new skill or created a novel product feature. I’ve always told my team that we have to feel more like a band of artists than an army of soldiers.

What do you think we’ll see in the learning industry in 2018? What are the big trends?

We’re going to see a movement towards educational platforms that bolster technical skills. This is simply because they’re the most in demand skills on the market.

In the corporate world, big companies will start changing their providers from traditional training companies to more tech-focused companies as a function of lower costs and increase performance.

The way we measure learning is also set to improve. Technology enabled learning is much easier to measure than traditional learning because if you’re simply sitting in a room listening to someone speak than you can’t measure anything.

If you’re watching a lecture on your phone or your laptop you’ll be able to track how long you watched it for, how well you did in your tests, and how well you did in relation to your peers. We’re going to see a lot of disruption in this area.

What’s on your learning playlist?

In terms of conferences, the best you can got to right now are:

Conferences are not necessarily a great place to learn new things; they’re a place to connect to people. You can watch a conference on your laptop and the takeaway will be the same, but what you can’t do on a laptop is talk about the field with the person sitting next to you. That’s the true value of a conference.

TED Talks are my go-to for videos, and most of the other learning resources I use come from:


Learnerbly helps unleash brilliance at work. Find out more and request a demo here. Check out our other interviews with industry leaders such as Eric Schmidt and Stephan Thoma here.

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