Earned vs Paid

Photo by Michael Longmire on Unsplash

In advertising, there are concepts of paid and earned media. Paid media refers mostly to the traditional advertising model. For the sake of argument that looks like when an ad agency buys TV slots or airtime for a client. Its “money in-content out”.

Earned media on the other hand cannot be bought or owned. It grows organically by dint of it’s worth alone.

This same model could be said to apply to education. Traditional education is analogous to paid media - show up and be served knowledge to consume. It’s probably not the best way to grow and develop intelligence, but it’s the model that for many years has been implemented because it seemed to work at scale, for the types of workers the industrial era needed. The true price of this type of education is the opportunity cost of time, effort and often money.

On the flip side, curiosity could be said to be the earned media of lifelong learning. At its heart is the organic following of your instincts for what interests you. Its the act of noticing, digging in, finding the corners of the world that fascinate you, that make you effortlessly pursue more. It's usually different for everyone and usually leads one away from the pack. However, this type of education goes to the core of who each of us is. It is founded on our individual values and sense of identity.

When it comes to lifelong learning and platforms for growth, there is probably nothing stronger than the earned wisdom of curiosity.