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Craig Perry

Become a profound thinker.

The Profound Self-Education Guide

The Profound Self-Education Guide

€19.99

Become Dangerously Self-Educated in 30-90 mins/day

Let's start with how this guide has changed my life:

  • 📈 35,000+ newsletter subscribers in 12 months

  • 📈 18,000+ YouTube subscribers in that same time

  • 👁️ Over 1.6 million Substack reads

  • 📚 Substack Bestseller in 4 months

  • 🎓 Built at 22 (straight out of college)

You are right to ask...

How does this have anything to do with self-education?

The answer is everything.

But first:

Can you point to a single, measurable change in your life, from everything you've learned in the last year?

Not "I read 20 books."

Not "I finished 3 courses" or "I watched 1000+ hours of YouTube."

I mean a skill you can use.

A project you completed.

A problem you solved.

Or a result you can show.

If you can, great!

Feel free to leave this page.

If you can't, then you're not self-learning as best as you could be doing.

If your learning is not changing your life... it's not really learning.

It's not true intelligence.

But what do I mean by that?

True intelligence...

Intelligence is getting what you want out of life

Learning is behaviour change.

If you're consuming all day, and nothing is changing in how you behave, you are not learning.

Most people treat learning as something that can be "finished."

Or worse. 

They watch. 

They read.

They highlight or take notes.

They organize their "second brain."

But they never do anything.

Why?

They mistake the act of consumption for the actual learning.

Everything I listed above, that was the younger, naive, but still intellectually-hungry version of myself.

Embarrassing. I know.

It was my third year of college, and at 21, I was overwhelmed for a few (valid) reasons:

  • Trying to get my degree

  • Improve my jiu-jitsu

  • Complete my reading list

  • Build muscle in the gym

  • Start a personal brand, a weekly newsletter, and become a writer

But I felt like I was working constantly.

I wasn't seeing any progress.

I was tired and burned out all the time.

So, guess what I did.

I analyzed my time.

I was spending 20 hours per week on college work, with only 3 hours of real output.

The rest was busy work.

Shallow work.

None of it was productive, needle-moving work.

So, I flipped the model.

Less time. More focus. I applied the same principle to everything - lifting, jiu-jitsu, writing.

I outlined my first project: Profound Ideas, a newsletter about learning, writing, and ideas I loved thinking about.

That project then became my compass.

Within 9 months of starting, this happened:

  • Finished all my college assignments one month early

  • Grew to 35,000+ newsletter subscribers in under 12 months

  • Became a Substack bestseller within 4 months of writing paid content

  • Built a profitable part-time business working 1-2 hours per day - getting paid to read, write, and think about my own interests

  • Quadrupled my reading comprehension

  • Packed on 5kg of muscle while lifting 50% less

No course on "how to build a course" was needed, and no guru tactics either.

Instead, I built my own system for learning what I needed, when I needed it, to build what I wanted.

Outcome-based learning made me realize that I never needed more hours and effort...

What is outcome-based learning?

Instead of learning about things, you learn through doing things.

You start with the life you want, a vision, I mean, and you work backwards from it.

You pick a project that helps you move toward it.

Then, you learn only what is absolutely necessary to complete that project.

And nothing more.

  • 30-90 minutes of focused work per day - Not 4-10 hours of busywork

  • Projects as your vehicle - Not courses and tons of content

  • Iteration > Perfection - You try, you evaluate, you adjust, and repeat

This is the exact system I used to:

  • Get my degree - with 1/4 of the time and effort

  • Build a personal brand on the side - and grow an audience from zero

  • Learn from dense Wikipedia articles - and actually retain what I read

  • Study learning science - to understand how my brain works

  • Complete my reading list - finally finished The Myth of Sisyphus (and understood it too!)

  • Explore topics that interested me - because I wanted to understand them, and not just memorise them

The most efficient and rewarding self-learning is always in service of a project.

A project that simultaneously helps you build the life you want.

And the system is super simple.

It works for anything.

Creative projects, physical skills like jiu-jitsu, formal study, career goals, intellectual development or self-study (philosophy, learning science, deep reading), or working through a reading list that actually changes how you think.

What if I'm a student or self-learner with a stack of books?

This isn't just for creators like me building their own personal brands from scratch.

I used the same system to:

  • Finish my college essays, assignments, and projects one month early

  • Work through a reading list of philosophy - from Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus to Dostoevsky's White Nights

  • Learn mind mapping to organize my thinking and connect ideas

  • Study learning science to understand how my brain actually retains information

  • Read deeply on topics I'll never monetize, because I wanted to grasp them for my own enjoyment

The main thing is that this system will make sure you never read/study randomly, with any clear direction.

I had a vision for who I wanted to become.

A clearer thinker.

A better reader.

Someone who could synthesize ideas across many disciplines.

That vision turned reading into a project.

That vision turned studying into progress.

That vision turned curiosity into competence.

Whether you want to build a business, master a physical skill, crush your formal education, or simply forge a more developed mind...

The system is the same.

You just need to know why you're learning.

This guide is for anyone who wants to make measurable changes to their life through gaining knowledge, wisdom, and intellectual growth.

That's the big-picture problem it will solve.

If that's a problem you want solved yourself, it means this guide is for you.

So, what do you get?

1. The Profound Self-Education Guide (70 page PDF)

My complete philosophy/ framework for outcome-based learning:

Table Of Contents:

  • Introduction - Why most learning fails (and what to actually do instead)

  • Creating the right mindset - The 4 principles of an autodidact

  • Creating your vision - Ideal day, ideal week, anti-vision, and defining your first project

  • Building a project vs taking a course - How to approach your first project (and why you should start before you feel ready)

  • Deep work - Focused vs diffuse thinking, scheduling, and training your focus

  • The iteration engine - Evaluate, destroy, rebuild, technique stacking, and knowing when to level up

  • Building your self-education plan (without AI) - The 4-step process from vision to action

  • Building your self-education plan (with AI) - How to use the prompt and get the most out of it

  • Conclusion - Start before you're ready

2. A Prompt To Become Dangerously Self-Educated (AI Prompt)

Copy, paste, and run the prompt in any AI chatbot.

It walks you through:

  • Clarifying your vision (Ideal Day, Ideal Week, Anti-Vision)

  • Choosing a single 30-90 day project tied to your goals

  • Building a sustainable system around your real-life constraints

  • Defining your first needle-moving task for tomorrow

This prompt will turn my philosophy/framework into a personalized, action-focused plan, so you know exactly what to do alongside reading this guide!

+2 FREE BONUSES

BONUS 1 of 2: A Guide to Profound Reading for FREE (worth €9.99)

My previous digital product free to read on my Substack paid-tier.

Which means you'll get instant access to...

You can see the reading guide testimonials, here.

BONUS 2 of 2: Lifetime Access to My Paid Substack (worth €56 yearly)

All future (and exclusive) paid guides on my Substack, for free, for life.

My paid learning strategies will help fill the gap between the philosophy (this guide) and the science of how your brain learns (learning science).

The lifetime-access link is at the top of the education guide PDF.

Guarantee

I'll give you a full refund if you don't like it.

100% of your money back.

Yes, I'm being serious. There is zero risk.

If the guide and prompt aren't for you, email me, and I'll refund you. No questions asked.

And you can keep the guide and prompt if you ever want to return to them. That includes the free lifetime-access to my paid Substack tier.

Consider it a thank you from me to you!

So give it a try. You have nothing to lose.

FAQ

  • How long is the guide? Over 15,000 words. I would recommend multiple readings to fully digest it, but the prompt should take you 30-60 minutes to create your first plan immediately.

  • Who is this for? Anyone who wants to improve their life through learning but feels stuck. Whether you're a student, a parent, a creative, or someone with a full-time job. If you can carve out 30-90 minutes a day to learn something new, this is for you.

  • I'm a student / I just left college, will this work for me? Yes. This is exactly how I finished my college work one month early, and how I turned my post-graduation uncertainty (the section on creating a vision solves this) into a Substack bestseller and side-income at 22. It works with formal education, not against it.

  • I've never used AI before. Will I be able to use the prompt? Yes. You copy and paste into ChatGPT (or any AI chatbot), and it guides you step-by-step. No tech skills required. Just copy and paste.

  • What if I don't have time? The system is built around 30-90 minutes per day. Charles Darwin wrote 19 books working 2-4 hours daily. All you need is a short amount of focused time. You will be shocked by what you can achieve with 30 minutes of needle-moving work per day.

  • What if I have multiple interests and don't know what outcome I want? The AI prompt starts with creating your vision and anti-vision. What you actually want your life to look like. Once that's clear, choosing becomes strategic and a lot less overwhelming.

  • What makes this different from other self-education guides? Most guides teach you about learning. This guide makes you do something. You leave with a concrete plan and your first task for tomorrow morning, not just abstract ideas on "how learning is important," and tons of impractical knowledge that doesn't apply to anything.

  • What if I pick the wrong project, or fall off after a few days? You almost want this to happen, and it likely will, if you currently feel lost and lack direction. Your first project is a first draft, not a perfect, final answer. You cannot gain clarity without action. That is why we have a whole section devoted to iteration.

  • I'm not disciplined enough / I've failed at this before. Discipline follows clarity. When you know exactly what to do and why (and more importantly, what to avoid doing), motivation becomes irrelevant. If you've failed before, you probably skipped the vision step, especially with regards to creating an anti-vision.

  • But I'm still not sure. Full refund if you don't like it. You keep the lifetime Substack access either way, along with the guide and prompt if you ever want to try either again. There's literally no risk, so give it a try and see if you like it!

Ready to become dangerously self-educated?

If you want to keep consuming 20-30 years of your life away without making real positive change, don't buy this guide.

This guide is not for people wanting to doomscroll all day like a zombie.

It takes work.

But it's only 30-90 minutes per day of needle-moving work.

Which isn't a lot.

You can steal that time away from your TikTok/Instagram scrolling sessions each night pretty easily.

Which means you can spend 30 minutes using the AI prompt, with the dense 70-page guide by your side, and you can walk away with a vision, a project, a system, and your first task for tomorrow morning.

To help you learn more in the next 3-6 months than what most 4-year degrees teach you.

I'll see you inside.

Become Dangerously Self-Educated Today

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Total :€19.99
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