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Brain Food Fridays, Number 46: Week Three, Learn Complex Problem Solving Skills to Thrive in 2025
Dear Reader,
Thank you for being on my list. How is your reading coming along?
If you followed my recommendation last week, you read Non-Obvious by Rohit Bhargava. For this week, the focus is on complex problem solving. And the next three weeks, the skills are related. So, I’m going to recommend a few books and you can decide in what order you’re going to read them. You will find books that cover all the skills in them. That’s a good thing.
- 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 may decide to read another book. Any book you choose to read, make sure that you preview it first. The following video I created last week will help you.
- The MacGyver Secret, Lee D Zlotoff and Colleen Seifert
- How to Get Ideas, Jack Foster
- The Idea Hunter, Andy Boynton and Bill Fischer
- The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools, Richard Paul and Linda Elder
I’ve read the four books and they’re good books. They’ll help you with problem solving, creativity, idea generation, and critical thinking.
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.
One of the ways to read books faster, is to read a good summary of the book first. This gives you the helicopter view of the book you want to read. But it also gives you a place to hang the information when you read the book. I subscribe to readitfor.me, click the button to subscribe (Affiliate link).
What’s Keeping Me Busy
I’m days from launching the membership site. I’m starting off with the first course, Creativity, Innovation, and the Art of Getting Ideas, but it’s taking longer than expected. 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.
It’s been a slog so far because I’m making sure that what I create can help subscribers. 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.
What I’m Reading/Read
- Mentor to Millions, by Kevin Harrington and Mark Timm
- Write a Book in Two Hours, Jonathan Green
I loved Mentor to Millions because it has information that’s invaluable to me. You can learn a lot from Kevin Harringto, who was one of the original Sharks on Shark Tank. Write Your Book in Two Hours has a couple good points I’ll incorporate in my next books. A lot of the information I already knew, but he had some good information about how to setup what you put in the back of the book.
Blog Post of the Week
How to Be Smarter Than Your Peers: I’ve been updating blog posts. The original post I wrote over 10 years ago. I added a lot of new content and you will find the tips useful.
How to Generate Creative Ideas to Solve Any Problem: I mentioned that I’m creating my first course for the membership site. This blog post, introduces what I’ve learned from many creativity models. It will help you with your reading this week to learn problem solving. I got some excellent feedback on this post.
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. Your patronage would mean a lot to me.
New Service
For a couple of years, professionals have been asking me if I offered coaching or mentoring on effective reading and learning strategies. I created a service where I offer two hours of my time. I’ll teach you reading and learning strategies. Additonally we’ll talk about your learning goals. At the end of our time togther, you’ll have a Personal Learning Development Plan. I have one of these on my wall to remind me of my learning goals. Book Mentor: 2 Hours Coaching Time. This is a brain accelerator program. I’m only scheduling three each month.
MoreReads
For this program, you will learn the skills the World Economic Forum says you need to succeed. However, you’ll learn a lot more. This is a brain accelerator program where you engage in guilt-free reading. It’s designed for you to get a monthly pool of ideas to apply to your business or career. What is one good idea worth to you?
Until next time!
Avil Beckford, Founder, The Invisible Mentor