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The Invisible Mentor Weekly Newsletter: Brain Food Wednesdays Number 100: How to Activate Your Knowledge to Profit From the Books You Read
DearReader,
Most professionals read a book and do nothing with the information. You may have heard me say this before, but reading a book, and not applying the ideas, is similar to slaving all day in the kitchen preparing a delicious five-course meal and nobody eating it. That makes no sense, does it?
I try to apply ideas from the books I read, but there are times when I don’t go far enough. I am writing to clarify my thoughts. And that’s what I’m doing right now. This post is a reminder to me, as it is to you, to always apply your knowledge to practical situations. You bring the information to life, and you remember more of what you’re reading.
Every day, you face challenges and obstacles at work and home. There are always questions you want answered. And one of the ways to solve the challenges and obstacles, as well as answer questions you have, is by reading books to gather the relevant information.
In the Ask Avil section, I’ll explore more deeply how to activate the big ideas and business processes you find in books.
Join my Facebook group Reading Rocks: Read a Book, Discover Solutions, Change the World.
In the News
Here are some podcasts I appeared on. They’re packed with a lot of information.
Ellevate Network: http://ow.ly/s8pR50GCBTy
Envision2BWell: https://blog.envision2bwell.io/post/1157/envisionwell-podcast-invisible-mentors
313 Challenge with Ryan Foland: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/avil-beckford-read-and-get-new-ideas/id1484382840?i=1000523572323
Ask Avil
How to Activate Your Knowledge to Profit From the Books You Read
Last week we talked about profit reading because I think it’s such an important concept. This week we’re talking about activating the knowledge to aid in profit reading. You cannot profit from your reading time unless you do something with the information.
As another new year draws near, what aspirations do you have for yourself and your family? One thing the pandemic has taught me, is how fragile life is. No one is promised tomorrow. What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind? Keeping these questions in mind, I think it’s invaluable to leverage the information you find in books, to enable you to achieve your goals. Knowing how to activate knowledge allows you to apply big ideas and business processes to practical situations.
Activate Your Knowledge from the Books You Read
If you take notes when you read a nonfiction book, this will work for you. And if you didn’t take any notes, going forward you can start doing so (You can find many book summaries on my website, The Invisible Mentor). I usually take notes by hand when reading nonfiction books, and then convert them to digital text. But recently, I’ve started to take notes on my computer. This saves me time since I’m not handling my book notes so many times.
Process to Activate Knowledge
- Start the process by reading through your notes a few times to review them.
- Pick out the big ideas from your notes.
- If you noted any business processes, techniques, models, or systems, pay special attention to those as well.
- Create a simple table with seven columns and three rows. You’re going to work with five books at a time.
- In the seventh column, you have combined ideas and business processes.
- In the five column headings to the right of the combined ideas (Columns 2 to 6), add the name of the books you have notes for.
- In the second row of the first column label it big ideas, and in the third row, label it business process for simplicity sake.
- Record the ideas and models for each of the five books into your table.
- Start combining ideas in each book and then across the five books to see what you discover.
- Start combining the business process across books. This will enable you to identify the gap in the business process in any book. And the combining will bridge the gap.
- Pay close attention to what you discover in the process.
I used this methodology with sales books and books on creativity and ideation, and it worked very well. I came up with elevated ideas and hybrid business processes. It’s important for me to continue the process. For each course offered on the Art of Learning, I plan to activate the knowledge. I already went through the process of recording the big ideas and business processes if the book had one. It will be interesting to see what I discover when I activate the knowledge.
It’s important to do this exercise to find that one big idea that can transform your life. Ideas are seldom fully formed, so it’s important to work with them to make them better. One way you can do that is by combining them. In terms of combining business processes, you might find a process that’s now unique to you, to use in your business or career. Most people will not go through this process, because they’ll think it’s too much work. But you already know that to succeed in life, you must do the work.
Email me for an example of the template, so you know what to do.
Next Steps: Reading Advice for the Ambitious Professional
If you don’t have any book notes to activate, I can help you. You can subscribe to my membership site, the Art of Learning. You can use the process outlined above with each Bookish Notes I curated into courses. Start the process with topics that are relevant to you, personally and professionally.
If you want access to my Bookish Notes please consider joining my membership site, the Art of Learning.
Reading List
- The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave by Robbie Kellman Baxter
- The Subscription Boom: Why an Old Business Model is the Future of Commerce by Adam Levinter
- Gym Membership Sales: Triple your growth, develop your team, change your life by Ryan Moore
- Retention Point: The Single Biggest Secret to Membership and Subscription Growth for Associations, SAAS, Publishers, Digital Access, Subscription Boxes and all Membership and Subscription Businesses by Robert Skrob
- Never Lose a Customer Again: Turn Any Sale into Lifelong Loyalty in 100 Days by Joey Coleman
- Membership Recruitment: How to Grow Recurring Revenue, Reach New Markets, and Advance Your Mission by Tony Rossell
- Subscription Marketing: Strategies for Nurturing Customers in a World of Churn by Anne Janzer.
- The Leadership Gap by Lolly Daskal
- Brave Leadership, Kimberly Davis
- How Women Rise, Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith
- Business Model Shifts by Patrick van der Pijl, Justin Lokitz
- The Invincible Company by Alexander Osterwalder , Yves Pigneur
- Love-Based Business Models by Shawn Driscoll
- Why Leadership Sucks by Miles Anthony Smith, Book 1
- Why Leadership Sucks by Miles Anthony Smith, Book 2
- Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo
- The Airbnb Story: How Three Ordinary Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions . . . and Created Plenty of Controversy by Leigh Gallagher
- Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal by Nick Bilton
- Levers: The Framework for Building Repeatability into Your Business by Amos Schwartzfarb
- Five Stars: The Communication Secrets to Get from Good to Great by Carmine Gallo
- I Got There: How a Mixed-Race Kid Overcame Racism, Poverty, and Abuse to Arrive at the American Dream by JT McCormick
- One Big Thing: Discovering What You Were Born to Do by Phil Howard Cooke
The Invisible Mentor Blog
Blog Posts
Behind the Red Door by Louise Claire Johnson, Book Summary
How to Write the Perfect Sales Page By Nathan Fraser, Summary
How to Look for Interconnections Among the Books You Read
The One Problem
I’ve published 39 podcast episodes already. Some topics are in books I’ve read. So, I’m thinking of adding the podcast videos to book summaries where appropriate. I think this will add more value for my readers and clients.
- Alta Odendaal, Financial Coach and Consultant
- Larissa Russell, Founder and CEO Queer Voicez and Creative U Business
- Glain Roberts-McCabe, Founder, the Roundtable, Group Coach Academy
- Dr Marsha Carr, Professor, University of North Carolina, Wilmington
- Gabriella O’Rourke, Business Consultant, Borden Ladner Gervais
- Stefanie Booker Atchison, Wisdom Coach & Motivational Speaker
- Michelle Griffin, Founder Brandthority, Building Your Personal Brand
- Donna Knutson, Founder of Write Journeys
- Sophie Gray, Founder of DiveThru: Being Disconnected from Yourself
- The One Problem Interview with Lois McGuire, Author
- The One Problem Interview with Roberta Liebenberg, Senior Law Partner
Product Alert
7 Day Reading Makeover Challenge
This is an affordable program to get started on leadership reading. Leaders read to learn what they need to know. You’ll also learn how to synthesize information.
Art of Learning Membership Site
How would you like to access the best, most useful information I have, that’s better than book summaries? Buy monthly access to the Bookish Note that’s behind my paywall. I group Bookish Notes together by a common theme, turning them into a course. Imagine reading themed Bookish Notes and starting to lay the foundation for a new skill.
Until Next Week,
Avil Beckford, Founder, The Invisible Mentor!