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Brain Food Fridays, Number 48: Week Five to Learn Key Skills to Thrive in 2025
Dear Reader,
Thank you for being on my list. How are you doing? Toronto went into lockdown again this past Monday. And will be in lockdown for at least a month. How do you make the most of a bad situation. Like most people, I’m just trying to figure things out. I don’t have all the answers.
How is your reading coming along? Are you enjoying the reading challenge?
If you’re on track, last week you read a book on creativity, originality, and initiattive. For this week, the focus is on creativity, originality, and initiative. And the next week, the skills are related. I recommended a few books so you have some options. You will find books that cover all the skills in most of them.
- 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 MacGyver Secret, Lee D Zlotoff and Colleen Seifert
- How to Get Ideas, Jack Foster
- Technique for Producing Ideas, James Webb Young
- The Imagineering Process: Using the Disney Theme Park Design Process o Bring Your Creative Ideas to Life, Louis Prosperi
- 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 six books and they’re good books. They’ll help you with problem solving, creativity, idea generation, and critical thinking. If you’ve been paying attention, I’ve added two more books to the list. I want to emphasize that it’s very important to take notes as you read. For each book that you’ve read so far, review your notes and pick out the big ideas.
After you’ve read five books, I’ll teach you how to analyze and synthesize the information. We’ll do that next week.
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 launched my course on a new learning management system. The course consists of nine Bookish Notes on books that deal with getting ideas. I analyzed and synthesized the information from the books. Some of that information is in a PowerPoint presentation.
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.
I launched my course because it doesn’t have to be perfect. Perfectionism doesn’t exist. We often procrastinate because we fear rejection. Version 2.0 of the Creativity, Innovation, and the Art of Getting Ideas will be better than version 1.0. Based on all the books I’ve read on creativity, innovation, ideation and so on, I could easily have Part Two and Part Three of this course.
The first 100 subscribers to the program will join at USD $25/month and then the price will more than double. By the end of January 2021, I will have about 10 courses on subjects like resilience, focus, growing into your potential, networking, and more. What topics would you like to learn?
What I’m Reading/Read
- Your Best Year Yet, Jinny Ditler – this book is worth the read. You answer 10 questions and out of that a one-page plan with your goals emerge.
I’m dipping into a lot of books to update blog posts I wrote 10 years ago. I’m also using the books as problem-solving tools to grab what I need from them. So I’m diving in and out of lots of books looking for information that I need. I’d like you to develop the habit of doing that as well. Look at the books in your to-be-read pile, pick out a few that you bought because you believed it had information that could improve your business or career. Open the books and grab what you need from them today!
Blog Post of the Week
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay, Book Review: There is a film based on this book, I haven’t watched it though. If you’re looking for a mystery, this is a good book to read.
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.
MoreReads Leadership Development Programs
I revampled my core programs. And although they align with the skills the World Economic Forum says you need to thrive, I’ve made it less reliant on the think tank. I’m trusting myself a lot more and adding information that I think are important. In Month Six, you add three skills that are important to you.
It’s interesting because there have been several instances when the World Economic Forum comes out with its skills to learn and I’ll write about what’s missing from the list.
When the next survey results come out two years later, the skills I said should have been on the list are now on it. Why don’t we trust ourselves a lot more. We need, or I need, to become more comfortable voicing my opinions. I have the experience. This is something I’ll be working on in 2021.
The MoreReads program are brain accelerator programs 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?
I have a corporate version of MoreReads. I’ve been doing informational interviews. Based on what I learned, I revamped the programs. I was advised to have a six-month, 12-month and cadilac version of the program for corporate clients. Both programs have a six- and 12-month version
Until next time!
Avil Beckford, Founder, The Invisible Mentor