What’s Your Learning Style? A Tale of Audiobooks, Stubbornness, and a Few (Dozen) Failures

Let’s rewind to about a year ago when I decided to dabble in audiobooks. You know, like a casual hobby—except nothing in my life ever stays casual. I either go all in or I abandon ship before even getting my feet wet. This time, I went all in.

I got myself a fancy Zoom P4 deck, a solid Samson dynamic microphone, and a whole mess of software that I initially had no idea how to use. I figured, how hard could it be? (Spoiler: very hard). But I wasn’t worried. Why? Because I know my learning style.

Some people take courses. Some people hire coaches. Some people watch endless YouTube tutorials. And then there’s me—stubbornly determined to learn everything by trial and error. I prefer to tinker, to break things, to question my life choices when I realize I recorded an entire chapter with my mic turned off.

"Why don’t you just take a course?" my brother, the actual audio engineer, asked repeatedly. (This is the same brother who once set up my first microphone and watched in horror as I immediately messed up all his carefully calibrated settings.)

But that’s just not how I learn. Sitting through a class? Nope. Being told what to do step by step? Absolutely not. Watching a video where someone explains exactly what I need to do? Too logical. Instead, I prefer to read, tinker, fail, Google frantically, and eventually figure it out my way.

The result? After some—okay, many—rough recordings and a few existential crises, I now have a pretty solid audiobook process. I even impressed my brother (after he recovered from his initial horror).

And the best part? I proved something I’ve always believed: There’s no one right way to learn. Some people thrive in a classroom. Some people need hands-on practice. Some need structure. Some need chaos. The key is knowing your learning style and embracing it.

So if you’re like me—if you learn best by trial, error, and sheer determination—don’t let anyone tell you you’re doing it wrong. Keep going. Keep breaking things (preferably not expensive things). Keep learning. Because no matter how you learn, the most important thing is that you never stop.

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