The Invisible Mentor Weekly Newsletter: Brain Food Fridays Number 76: Do You Take Breaks to Recharge Your Batteries?

Dear Reader,

One of the things the pandemic has taught us is the importance of self-care and mental well-being. I’m hosting a reading challenge in my Facebook group, Reading Rocks: Read a Book, Discover Solutions, Change the World. During the challenge, participants will read eight books and will connect the ideas among all the books. I created a video to teach participants how to learn what they need to know from each of the books. The concept is called leadership reading. I used to call it selective reading, but I prefer the new name.

I love to read and I cannot honestly remember a time in my life when I didn’t enjoy reading books. Over the weekend I felt drained, so I decided to take time to walk along the Toronto Waterfront, which is a mere five minutes from where I live. It was great to “people watch” and reflect on what I had been reading. I didn’t stop reading because I read some great mysteries. We need to do a better job of listening to our bodies.

Yes, I’m leading the reading challenge, but there isn’t a danger of me not completing my own reading challenge. I have read 30 books in 30 days at least six times, so I will get back on track. Don’t worry about what could possibly go wrong if you take a break. Instead think of what could go right. Taking a break, focusing on something different, allows your subconscious mind to connect ideas. It’s during times like these that you are able to creatively problem solve.

Join today! This training will make a difference in your career and business.

Partnerships and Collaborations

Maura Joy Lustig is a Transformational Coach. I met her on LinkedIn and we’re fellow book lovers. I’ll be speaking at her event next week and I’d love it if you joined us.

Are the Books Critical to Your Business Gathering Dust on a Shelf?

You can learn how to digest a nonfiction book in 30 to 60 minutes! On June 16th Maura Joy Lustig is hosting a one-hour workshop where I will be speaking.

This is for you if you struggle to keep up with the pile of books that you’d like to read for personal and business development! You will learn how to read more intelligently, absorb more of what you read and remember it!

Join Maura Lustig and Avil Beckford

Wed. June 16, 2021, 4 pm EDT (1 pm PST)

Avil Beckford will teach you how to tackle your pile of to-be-read books to find answers to questions that are waiting to be discovered!

Leaders MUST be Readers and today growing and adapting quickly to change is a necessity. How would your business benefit when you had an infusion of ideas to apply?

Ask Avil

Do You Take Breaks to Recharge Your Batteries?

How do you know when you need a break? Are there signals that your body gives you? Do you make it a habit to have one day each week when you’re turned off. I must admit that this is something that I struggle with. The compromise for me is that I don’t work on any work project on Saturdays. And I read whatever I want. And this works for me, but it may not work for you.

What does self-care look like for you? When the pandemic first started, I read about Hygge.

Hygge (pronounced “hoo-gah”) is a Danish word that encompasses and embodies contentment, coziness, and overall well-being. Being connected to others gives you meaning and purpose in your life. Humans are social beings. Having social ties with others increases longevity, reduces stress, and boosts your immune system. Hygge is also about the balance and flow of discussions in a light-hearted way. People need to laugh with each other. We need this more than ever. In fact, it’s a great time to practice laughter yoga, where you start to laugh for no reason.

“Hygge, in the most basic sense, can be defined as the Danish word for a feeling of contentment and comfort. You will see most translations define hygge as being the Danish word for “cozy”, but it’s important to note that no literal translation actually exists between the two words.”

[Read Hygge: Danish Practice Embodying Contentment, Coziness, and Well-Being to Help You during Isolation]

What I’m Reading

I abandoned Bulletproof Problem Solving because I was not enjoying the experience reading it. I finished reading The Million Dollar Greeting. However, I have to move things around in my notes to make the information more useful to my readers. The book I’ll start later today is Teach Online in 2021 and I’ll return to The Art of Opportunity in a few days.

The Million Dollar Greeting

Sometimes I wonder if I expect too much from books. I had very high expectations for The Million Dollar Greeting, but it didn’t deliver what I wanted in the way I wanted it. This forced me to think of how I could present the information in such a way that would best serve my readers.

The other thing I wanted to say is that there are times when you read a book, but the way the information is presented doesn’t best serve your needs. What you can do is move the information around in your notes, so that it’s easier for you to understand and act on. And that’s what I’m doing with this book. After I’ve finished that process, I will do a mini summary and review in this newsletter.

The Invisible Mentor Blog

I’ve been updating the content on my blog, in addition to writing new blog posts. I recently updated Good Note Taking Techniques When Reading. I’ve mentioned a few times that I’ve been experimenting with Roam Research. The web-based app is not the easiest to use, but I’m using it in one unique way. I’ve been adding my book notes there, so I can better see connections among the books I read.

The intent is that the process will allow me to write better and more unique articles filled with ideas you don’t see on the internet. It’s been slow going, but now I can start to see the beauty of the software as I add more notes. If you’d like to add your book notes to Roam Research, here are the steps to follow.

Network Note Taking: New Generation of Note Taking Techniques

I wrote about the importance of connecting the dots in a previous newsletter, so you can see the connections between the notes you take when reading books. There are now web-based apps that allow you to do network note taking with bi-directional links. Think of how Wikipedia is structured with the links.

I’ve been experimenting with Roam Research, which is not the easiest tool to use, but if you master it, it could be a game-changer. Although they recommend that you take notes inside the app, that doesn’t work for me because I always take notes by hand before I convert them to digital text.

There are many ways you can use Roam Research, but I only want to transfer my book notes to the web-based app, so I can see connections between the books I read. I haven’t transferred a lot of my book notes into the app yet. But I would say I have about 20 so far. Think of notes that you have for a book. Pick out the keywords and place them in double square brackets, which creates the bidirectional links. If you have a quote in your notes, before the quotation, you write the greater than sign (> ) and leave a space before the quote.

Recently I read and reviewed Secrets of the Master Closer: A Simpler, Easier, and Faster Way to Sell Anything to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere by Mike Kaplan. Examples of keywords in this instance are the title of the book, the subtitle, and author name. This is what my notes look like before I transfer it into Roam Research. By the way, the people at Roam Research have told me to add the double square brackets after I transfer into their app, but I do it my way.

[[Secrets of the Master Closer]]: [[A Simpler, Easier, and Faster Way to Sell Anything to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere]] by [[Mike Kaplan]]. Secrets of the Master Process provides a sales process, so whenever I mention sales process in my notes that would also be in double square brackets. After you’ve placed the double square brackets around the keywords in your notes, when you transfer them to Roam Research, they’re now bidirectional links. The beauty is that, if Mike Kaplan has written several books, and you have your book notes in Roam Research, then the notes are linked. The image below is a graph of all my notes in Roam Research.

[Read: Good Note Taking Techniques When Reading]

The One Problem

I’ve mentioned The One Problem Series that I’ve been doing and it’s slowly getting traction. People are sharing the interviews on social media and some of them are now reaching out to me to interview them. I think that’s news worth sharing. The videos are short, so they’re easy enough to listen to.

Here are the Episodes that I’ve published on my blog so far.

Blog Series On Selective Reading

5 Common Reading Mistakes You Don’t Realize You’re Making

How I Came to Teach Professionals How to Read Selectively to Accelerate Their Business

5 Things You Never Knew about Reading Books

Before And After You Learn How to Read Selectively

Thinking About Investing in the Business Knowledge Accelerator Program?

Product Alert

7 Day Reading Makeover Challenge is a great product to start off with. You’ll learn how to read like a leader, as well as how to synthesize information.

I Want the 7-Day Makeover Challenge

Until Next Week,

Avil Beckford, Founder, The Invisible Mentor!

theinvisiblementor.com

LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest | Facebook

The Invisible Mentor Weekly Newsletter: Brain Food Fridays Number 76: Do You Take Breaks to Recharge Your Batteries?

​Join today! This training will make a difference in your career and business.

Partnerships and Collaborations​

Are the Books Critical to Your Business Gathering Dust on a Shelf?​​

Join Maura Lustig and Avil Beckford

Wed. June 16, 2021, 4 pm EDT (1 pm PST)​​

What I’m Reading​

The Million Dollar Greeting​​