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Brain Food Fridays, Number 43: Learn What Skills the World Economic Forum Says You Need to Thrive in 2025?
Dear Reader,
I’m going to try an experiment in this newsletter and I’m not sure how it will work. Many of you joined the list because of a reading challenge I hosted. I’m going to run a short reading challenge through this newsletter, and we’ll officially launch next week. The World Economic Forum (WEF) listed it’s 10 skills needed to thrive in 2025. You’ll read a book a week, so this reading challenge will run for 10 weeks. Here are the 10 skills, and we’ll officially begin next week, October 29th.
- Analytical thinking and innovation.
- Active learning and learning Strategies.
- Complex problem-solving.
- Critical thinking and analysis.
- Creativity, originality, and initiative.
- Leadership and social influence.
- Technology use, monitoring, and control.
- Technology design and programming.
- Resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility.
- Reasoning, problem-solving and ideation.
Check your bookshelf to see if you own any books that cover the above skills. Number 3, 5, and 10 are often found in one book. The MacGyver secret would cover those skills. For Number 1, I’m thinking that Non-Obvious Megatrends might work well here.
The book is not about analytical thinking and innovation. However, the Haystack Method described in the book will help you with developing your analysis skills and playing with ideas can lead to innovation. Approaching the skills in a non-obvious way can give you an edge over your peers.
For active learning and learning strategies, Learning How to Learn and Teach Yourself How to Learn are two excellent books. See what you can borrow from your library, although I think libraries are only offering curbside pick-up because of the pandemic.
Take a look at the skills above to see how they have changed over the years. Until the next newsletter, please spend some time choosing the 10 books to read, keeping in mind, as a mentioned before that some skills are related.
So that you do not spend all your time reading while particioating in the reading challenge, here are some reading tips for you.
Four things to keep in mind when reading nonfiction books.
- Francis Bacon Quote: “Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” Sir Francis Bacon
- Traditional Publishers Have Word Counts: That often means an author has to pad a book to get to the word count. How many case studies do you need to understand the text in a book?
- Follow the 80/20 Principle: You can understand 80 percent of the text by reading only 20 percent. The trick is to know which 20 percent to read.
- While taking the PhotoReading course I learned that only four to 11 percent of the text on a page is important information.
Before you read, prepare your mind. Do a search to find mind gym exercises. These exercises engage both sides of the brain. You want to familiarize yourself with them because you’re going to do them every day. Next, write down your purpose for participating in this 10-week reading challenge to learn the 10 skills.
Preview every nonfiction book before you start to read it. This should take 30 – 60 minutes. Set a timer for 60 minutes. Here’s what previewing a book entail:
· Read the Preface, Foreword, Introduction.
· Review the Table of Contents
· Place a check mark beside the chapters and sectors that you want to explore more deeply. You also want to read the sections that align with your reason for reading the book. That’s why having a purpose is so important.
· Scan the Index. The terms with the most references tell you what the author considers important.
· Read the Book Description.
· Write down the main idea of the book and everything you know about the topic.
· Read sections of the book that you think needs further exploration.
· Tie what you’re reading to what you already know.
· Decision time. Does the book need further exploration?
This is all we’ll cover in the newsletter for this week. I don’t want to overload you.
Avil Beckford, Founder, The Invisible Mentor
P.S. I almost forgot. A few days ago, I published Digest 30 Books in 30 Days on Amazon. Please buy a copy.
Until next week!