Tiago Forte: The Man Who Spawned A Million New Brains

In today's day and age, anyone can teach.

No longer do you need to be a college professor or public school teacher to teach for a living. All you need is a set of domain expertise and a passion for teaching. Tiago Forte is evidence of this.

As one of the most successful online course creators globally, Tiago Forte has taught over 20,000 people how to effectively use technology to create personalized information knowledge systems through his flagship course, Building A Second Brain. 

As the Founder and CEO of Forte Labs, Tiago is passionate about teaching people how to improve their productivity and expand their brains -- their ‘second brain.’ He teaches practical principles knowledge workers can adopt. His four-part framework, CODE (capture, organize, distill, and express), is a system anyone can use to get things done. 

So if you’re wondering how Tiago built an online education empire that includes cohort-based courses and live workshops, you’re in the right place. We will explore how Tiago Forte got started, how he built his online education business, and what’s next. 

Inspiration For Building A Second Brain 

In 2013, while working at a consulting firm in San Francisco, Tiago picked up Getting Things Done by David Allen, a book about stress-free productivity. At the time, he was overwhelmed by the demands of his fast-paced job and struggled with the amount of information he had to manage. Excited about what he was learning, he started telling his coworkers about the book and started a book club. The book club turned into a workshop, and after a few meetings, a coworker encouraged Tiago to create a course to teach more people. He turned his in-person workshop into an online course called Get Stuff Done Like A Boss. It consisted of short, actionable videos. Three years later, Tiago created the first version of Building A Second Brain. Recruiting a small group of friends and former colleagues he created the first cohort-based course to gain significant traction. 

Fast forward to 2019, Tiago partnered with David Perell to launch Forte Academy, an online education company that offers various online cohort-based courses and live workshops to train knowledge workers in ways they can use technology to improve their productivity. His passion for personal effectiveness led him to start a blog and work with brands such as Toyota and Nestle. Forte Academy currently includes Building A Second Brain, and Write of Passage, taught by David Perell.

The simple truth is that it’s impossible to keep everything we need in our brains. But Building A Second Brain goes beyond just capturing those ideas. In this cohort-based course, you’ll learn how to connect those ideas and create powerful insights that you can then share with the world. Challenging the way we learn, work, and think, Tiago teaches how to enhance your reading, learning, and productivity to create the career and life you want.

What’s Next? 

Over the years, Forte Academy has grown to a team of eight, including Course Director and co-host of the Reshaping Education Podcast, Will Mannon. 

As an angel investor in Circle and SchoolHouse, Tiago invests in startups that he believes will shape the future of education.

In April 2020, Tiago landed a six-figure book deal with Simon & Schuster for his upcoming book, Building A Second Brain. His goal is to make his methodology more accessible. He hopes this book gets adopted by schools, government agencies, and companies worldwide. Keep an eye out for the audiobook, ebook, and softcover versions coming to bookstores and online retailers. 

Website: https://fortelabs.co  

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmvYCRYPDlzSHVNCI_ViJDQ 

Twitter: @fortelabs

Sources

Source 1 (about): https://fortelabs.co/about-forte-labs/

Source 2 (book deal): https://fortelabs.co/blog/book-deal-for-building-a-second-brain/

Source 2 (more about): https://fortelabs.co/blog/tiago-fortes-origin-story/

Angel Investor (Circle) https://fortelabs.co/blog/why-im-investing-in-circle/Angel Investor (SchoolHouse) https://fortelabs.co/blog/why-im-investing-in-schoolhouse/

Source 3: https://podcast.mindvalley.com/tap-into-the-power-of-your-second-brain-tiago-forte/