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Brain Food Fridays, Number 44: Week One to Learn Key Skills to Thrive in 2025
Dear Reader,
I’ve been thinking about the 10 skills the World Economic Forum says you need to thrive in 2025, and trying to decide if the place to start is with the first skill on the list. I decided that the best skill to learn first is active learning and learning strategies. These skills will make learning the other skills much easier. You’ll also learn strategies to remember more of what you learn. And that is critical for learning any other skill.
I’m re-ordering the list for you in the way that I believe you should learn the skills. The order is based on the skills that can help you the most in any situation.
- Active learning and learning strategies.
- Analytical thinking and innovation.
- Complex problem-solving.
- Creativity, originality, and initiative.
- Reasoning, problem-solving and ideation.
- Critical thinking and analysis.
- Leadership and social influence.
- Resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility.
- Technology use, monitoring, and control.
- Technology design and programming.
You can choose the book you’d like to read to learn the skill I’ve chosen for you to learn this week. I recommend that you choose either Learning How to Learn by Barbara Oakley, Terrence Sejnowski, and Alistair McConville or Teach Yourself How to Learn by Saundra Yancy McGuire. If someone forced me to choose between the two books, I would opt for Teach Yourself How to Learn.
Although Learning How to Learn has a free course that has the same name and has been around for a longer time, I stand by my choice. Teach Yourself How to Learn includes Bloom’s Taxonomy. And as a professional, this will serve you well in your career. When learning a skill, you want to go beyond understanding and synthesizing the information. You want to get to the stage where you use the information to Create something. Create is at the top of the pyramid.
If you don’t care about this and you want to go with what’s obvious and popular, then choose what you want to read to learn active learning and learning strategies. I’ve read over a dozen books on the topic and I am giving you advice based on what I have experienced.
Any book you choose to read, make sure that you preview it first, following the steps in last week’s newsletter. Read the sections of your chosen book that have essential information. As you’re reading the book, remember to take notes, writing the information in your own words.
Video to Help You Get the Most from Books
I created a short video to demonstrate how to preview a book before you read it. It’s not professionally done, but it has what you need to read more effectively. I brought up a book on my iPad and quickly grabbed some books from the bookshelf.
The important sections in a book align with your purpose for reading. Other important information would be any that aids your understanding of the text. Read as much of the book as you need to. No more. No less. Think of the 80/20 Principle – read 20 percent of the book to understand 80 percent of the text. When you preview a book first, you know which 20 percent to focus on.
What’s Keeping Me Busy
I’m creating a membership website that I want to launch by the middle of next week. I’m starting off with the first course, Creativity and the Art of Getting Ideas. The course will consist of books that I’ve read on the topic and the insights I’ve gained over the years. I’m trying to follow a logical process for the course. That means, I start off with helping the reader to get ideas, making them into bigger and better ideas, and finally applying the ideas.
I’ve been blogging since 2009, so I have a lot of content. And frankly speaking I’ve forgotten about a lot of really good content. I discovered some cool and relevant content yesterday when I was looking at my analytics. The course is not a copy of what’s on the blog. It’s so much more. For each lesson, I’m also creating a workbook to help subscribers to understand the creativity model presented, so they can use it.
At the end of each unit, I let the participants know it’s decision time. Does she have enough information from what I’ve presented or does she need to read the book. The Book Study Guides I’m creating are not meant to replace the books they’re based off. But I provide sufficient information that you can use the creativity and idea models.
It’s slow going so far because I’m making sure that what I create can help subscribers. As I’ve mentioned last week, The World Economic Forum says creativity, ideation, innovation, problem-solving, critical thinking, and analysis will serve you well in your business and career over the next five years. I want to help people to develop those skills by applying them in real world situations.
The Invisible Mentor Resources and Merchandise
On the Resources page of my website, I list a number of tools that I use. You’ll find e-zines to subscribe to, to get notified of free and heavily discounted books. I’ve saved a ton of money doing this. You’ll find book recommendations, other bookish tools and resources. On this same page, you’ll find some of my company merchandise. I appreciate your patronage.
What I’m Reading
What Is Your What by Steve Olsher
Until next time!
Avil Beckford, Founder, The Invisible Mentor