Not Everything Is "googleable" - Did you know that?

There are a lot of things that you can Google to learn about but there are a few that you can’t.

Want to learn how to speak a new language? Google it. Want to learn how to cook your favorite dish? Google it.

Google as the number one search engine in the world has become very sophisticated over time. And is able to offer a lot of help when it comes to answering queries. The more recent updates of google to present answers to your queries based on your own search intent is a very advanced step.

Prior to this update, search results were based on the presence of keywords in your search query. As such, Google could present you with an irrelevant result just because someone decided to stack his/her post with those words.

Even though Google is getting more advanced by the day, there are a few things that Google alone can not help you with. I once heard Steve Harvey mention this during one of his shows. I gave this a deep thought and I realized that not so many of us have thought about it.

There are two main things that Steve Harvey made mention of that you can’t “Google”.

You can’t Google experience and success.

If success was “googleable”, it would have taken many of us less than a minute to become successful. It’s funny how many of the queries that many people make is on “how to become successful at certain things”.

Obviously, people can teach you the roadmaps that they used to become successful at a particular thing. But reading about success does not make you successful.

So that is what I think Steve Harvey was referring to when he said you cannot google success. In the same vein, reading about people’s experiences does not guarantee that you will have that kind of experience too.

In fact, I can say that reading about people’s experiences or success stories is not a bad thing to do. Sometimes, they serve as a source of motivation for you. I, therefore, encourage you to read about other people’s experiences and successes. However, don’t spend all your time on the reading aspect and doing nothing for yourself.

You may be hungry for knowledge but if you don’t control your hunger and regulate it rightly, it will be detrimental to you. A lot of people spend all their time doing research or learning new things. Unfortunately, most of these people do not apply the knowledge they obtain. I see that as a waste of time. If you are ready to search and learn then be ready to practicalize what you learn.

You would have to put in the efforts and do the work to gain the experience for yourself. As for the success stories, you will be able to create your own only when you have consistently put in the effort to get work done.

That being said, if you want to master any digital skills, you need to invest your time, energy and most importantly money into it.

Practice and keep practicing. Seek help when you need help. Make sure you are building the right set of experiences along the line.

Don’t get bad experiences, because they will eventually hurt you. Bad experiences are inevitable but you have to do your best to avoid unnecessary ones. You may end up wasting all your time on the wrong things if you do not get the right directions.

In order to avoid bad experiences, you have to seek guidance. Get the right guidance from the right person and pay heed to the guidelines they provide you with. These sorts of bad experiences are best avoided by learning from people who have ever failed at what you are trying to achieve. It doesn’t mean that successful people can’t be of help.

The truth is that success is a result of repeated failures most of the time. So most successful people have a lot of bad experiences or failures under their belt. As such, they can also help you avoid unnecessary bad experiences.

The easiest way to get a good experience is to learn from the experiences of others. Most people who have been in your shoes before may have a roadmap that teaches you what works and what does not work.

Learn from these people, ask them for their secrets. Surprisingly, a lot of people are ready to be of help but you have to ask them first.

You can follow these roadmaps but do not be afraid to take risks to try out new things. In so doing, you will be getting the experience for yourself. experience is one of the factors that determines your worth in any field that you have.

When it comes to putting a price on digital services, there are no regulators and it is mostly based on your level of experience. You charge for the value you are worth. Your value is determined by your level of experience. So, let’s face it, instead of finding the shortcuts to things, spend the time to master them, and build a wealth of experiences.

Once again, success and experiences are not googleable so spend your time to build one for yourself.

Interested in mastering any digital skill? Send me a DM on Instagram and I will be glad to help you (Dr. Ehoneah Obed)

ehoneahobed

Dr. Ehoneah Obed (Pharmacist, Software Engineer, Health Informatician, Founder)

My work focuses on identity engineering, which is the deliberate process of designing and updating who you are, personally and professionally.

Most people experience identity as something fixed or accidental. It is shaped by parents, early success or failure, education, and society’s definition of what a “good life” looks like. They adapt to it rather than questioning it. What most people do not realize is that identity is not just something you discover. It is something you can actively engineer.

Personal identity engineering is about gaining control over how your beliefs, values, and self-concept are formed and reinforced.
Professional identity engineering is about translating that internal identity into skills, work, leverage, and visible contribution in the world.

When people feel stuck, it is rarely because they lack motivation or talent. It is because they are trying to change outcomes while leaving the underlying identity system untouched. Careers stall. Confidence collapses. Direction feels unclear. The system keeps producing the same results.

I learned this by rebuilding myself multiple times.

I trained as a pharmacist for six years. While working in hospitals, I began learning to code alongside my job. That led to building real software, selling products, transitioning into software engineering, completing a master’s degree in health informatics at the University of Toronto, and now building startups and systems full time. Each transition followed the same pattern. My identity did not change because I thought differently. It changed because I took specific actions that produced new evidence, and that evidence forced a new story about who I was capable of being.

That is the core mechanism behind identity engineering.

Identity updates when you intentionally generate evidence that contradicts your old self-image, then compound that evidence until the old identity can no longer run the system.

This blog is where I document that process. I write about how to design identity experiments that are small, controlled, and reversible. How to build proof-of-work that changes both how you see yourself and how the world responds to you. How to move forward without waiting for clarity, confidence, or permission.

This is not motivation and it is not coaching. It is systems thinking applied to human change.

I also write The Ledger, a weekly record of systems and experiments for building a life you own.
And I built the Identity Audit, a diagnostic tool that helps you understand your current identity state before you attempt to change it.

I am not presenting a finished theory. I am engineering this in real time, using my own life as the test environment. If you want more agency over who you are becoming, both personally and professionally, you are in the right place.