Sustainable reading strategies make you less crazy
Previous week’s highlights — Here’s what you should read today.
I am not sure about a lot of things, but there is one thing I am sure about — Trump’s boring all of us with his rants.
And when I am bored, I read.
So here’s what I read last week. Come let’s dive in together.
I did not read anything on Sunday. On Sundays, I pretend to sleep while I tell everyone I am meditating. Trust me, works every time.
*wink, wink*
Monday
Theodore Roosevelt was rumoured to read a book a day.
And if you’re curious, no, he did not have more than 24 hours.
In fact, there is one thing common among all the greatest men and women in history — they were all lifelong learners.
Well, why? Why does lifelong learning matter? Shouldn’t graduating from a high school or a university be enough?
To succeed in the modern world, we must be in the constant state of adaptation — continually unlearning and relearning.
— Thomas Oppong
Suffice to say, your skills, knowledge and experience are not sustainable. Moreover, like everything else, they also tend to become obsolete.
As Krishna very triumphantly pointed out in Gita,
With time, there is nothing but one thing constant — change.
And we all have experienced this, haven’t we? Anything relevant today might not be tomorrow.
How are you planning to cope with this kind of transformational and dynamic change if you refuse to unlearn and relearn?
And just learning is not important, applying that knowledge is just as necessary.
Thomas Oppong points out in his article, four habits of the most effective life-long learners —
Habit 1 — They prioritise self-learning
Habit 2 — They are voracious leaders
Habit 3 — They maintain to-learn lists
Habit 4 — They test their understanding
So what are you waiting for? The last supermoon event of the year has passed now.
What would you learn today?
Wednesday
This pandemic has changed the way we live, however, this kind of change is here to live.
If you know what I mean.
During this time, consumer behaviour is evolving at a breakneck pace. Duh.
How should Marketers continue keeping their connection secure during this time? More so, how do emerging marketers connect at all?
Doris Claesen at Google answered this question, and you must check it out.
One essential pillar of any marketing strategy is experimentation.
Usually, the rule of the thumb is, if something worked out for a campaign, it may or may not work out for another one.
So unless you experiment in this super-dynamic industry, you cannot sustain.
And Miss Claesen points this out very well in this article — you should continue experimenting even now. Until you hit a temporary jackpot, that is.
Testing out different tools, tactics, and strategies is how marketers can uncover opportunities to be more efficient while delivering better, more relevant campaigns.
— Doris Claesen
Thursday
A week ago if you would have asked me, ‘why people believe in crazy things?’ My answer would have been ‘because they are not crazy.’
A week later, my answer remains the same, but now it stems from research.
These last two months have brought about a lot of things, from ‘toilet paper shortage’ to ‘your going offline after university went online’, and all of us locked-down inside our houses.
But there is one thing common between everyone who is enjoying or hating this lockdown — everyone has, at least once, read one conspiracy theory.
My favourite one was when ‘pandemic’ was respelled to ‘plandemic’.
These claims have been long since proven false, despite what some presidents like to say.
The question that remains is, why do people come up with such theories, and why do other supposedly rational people end up believing them?
The answer lies within you.
Humans crave certainty. The answer to why.
They might like to ignore reasons from time to time. But when they are forced to do something against their will, then the only thing they overlook is their ignorance.
So when we are dealing with calamities, which by the way, are a pool of uncertainties, we look for certainty. I mean, you, you look for certainty.
I am not a human, remember?
One thing we do this is by looking for something or someone who would benefit from this certainty.
In this case, who was the apparent scapegoat? Our extra-white neighbour.
Another very humanly reason (because we are dealing with humans) that Mark mentions —
Knowing what other people don’t know gives us a sense of superiority.
Humans tend to pity those who are ‘unaware’. Moreover, they tend to be angry at these people. Because apparently, they are not doing anything to help humanity during crises.
And then this false sense of superiority goes to cement uncertainty.
The third reason — lack of critical thinking
Okay, don’t blame me for being Miss Obvious here, but this needed to be said.
Conspiracy theorists are the people who fail to play the fourth move on the chessboard.
Due to their lack of critical thinking, they fail to understand the difference between fact and opinion.
I know you already know this.
But what you don’t know is — Conspiracy theorists are usually lonely.
They tend to believe that large organisations can come together to orchestrate something so grand, without the information leaking out. Yes, they believe such outlandish things about human nature.
Just one of the many side effects of not going out enough.
Let me rephrase it, just one of the many side effects of not following the TROT rule.
T — Travel
R — Read
O — Observe
T — Talk
If you do this, you’re rarely lonely.
Saturday
There are two kinds of people on this planet —
One who likes to innovate. Two who likes to watch movies.
There is also a third kind — you like to innovate and watch movies.
If you belong to the third one, this is for you.
