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Brain Food Fridays Number 49: Are You Learning The Skills The World Economic Forum Says You Need to Thrive?
DearReader,
This week I’m feeling overwhelmed. I’ve had so many meetings. And I’m finding Zoom so draining. Yesterday I had six Zoom meetings. At one point, I had to leave the meeting early for my mental health. I did something fun to set the tone for the other meetings. Are you suffering from Zoom fatigue?
Now, enough about me, how are you doing?
Week Six Learning the Skills the World Economic Forum Says You Need to Thrive Up to 2025
This is Week Six of the reading challenge to learn the skills that the World Economic Forum says you need to succeed in your career. So far you’ve read five books. I’m going to teach you how to get more from those five books.
But first, let’s talk about the book to read this week. This is about critical thinking and analysis. But if you’ve been reading the books I’ve recommended, you’ve already gotten a taste of analysis. I recommended Non-Obvious Megatrends by Rohit Bhargava.
- 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.
This week, I recommend that you read The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools by Richard Paul and Linda Elder. To be honest, it’s not the easiest book to read, but it’s worth the time and effort. You’ll get good information that you can apply.
TEACHING: How to Get the Most from the Five Books You’ve Read So Far
I mentioned before that I created the course, Creativity, Innovation, and the Art of Getting Ideas. All the Bookish Notes I featured are on books I’ve read. Some of them I read more than five years ago. I decided to do the exercise I’ll be teaching you, and it was an amazing experience. I’ve never grouped these books together in this way. And by the way, you can group any books this way.
First, I bought a large sketchpad from the Dollar Store. I created six columns. One for each of the five books, and another for the combined ideas. If you haven’t done this yet, review your notes, write down the big ideas from each of the five books you read.
The aim of the exercise is to get bigger and better ideas. Suppress the critical part of you and just choose to have fun. Start from any point you want. Combine ideas from the different books and write your combination under the Analysis column. You may need more space if you didn’t create a huge table.
I saw the content from the books in ways I’d never seen before because I’ve never matched them up this way. The big Aha moment was that I filled the gaps in my knowledge. One book is incapable of covering a topic completely, so this exercise broadens your perspective and knowledge of the topic.
Doing this allows you to see what others miss. Even people who have read the same books because they aren’t going as deeply as you. Try this exercise with books from diverse disciplines. Earlier in the year, I ran the Digest 30 Books in 30 Days, so I’m doing this exercise with books that are very different.
Book I’m Reading This Week
I’m reading Hook Point by Brendan Kane. I read his other book, One Million Followers: How I Built a Massive Social Following in 30 Days and didn’t like it because I don’t want to spend money to grow my following. I want to grow organically. So that book didn’t work for me. However, I’m enjoying Hook Point because I want to learn and master how to draw people in with my writing.
Until Next Week,
Avail Beckford, Founder, The Invisible Mentor!