Keeping Up To Date
Would you consider yourself up to date?
Is your knowledge relevant?
Are you informed on the latest trends in your industry?
In our last blog I finished asking how you keep yourself informed with relevant information to ensure that you stay educated and up to date with what you need to know to be successful.
In a recent Keynote talk on mindset I raised this topic with a group of consultants. I broached the topic by asking how many non-fiction books they had read this year? Most people only read 1-2 non-fiction books a year. This therefore means that a lot of the knowledge that have required is through mainstream news outlets. The challenge this gives them is the incredible bias many of these channels have and the tendency to focus on news that sells in the present day rather than information that can help companies and people to grow.
I know for me personally, that a significant change point in my life came when I realised that if I focused on reading one book a week I would be 50 times ahead of the average person. There is an incredible amount of knowledge to be found in books. As I got busier and started to travel I found that the time for reading diminished rapidly. It was then I discovered the joy of audio books and talks.
Many people ask how I read so much. The reality is that I actually have multiple ways of gathering information. My top 5 are listed below:
In recent years I have found that listening to audiobooks through the app Audible has been my preferred way of insuring a stay up to date and continuously learning
Ted talks have been amazing and I am an avid fan of this short and pithy way of learning what some of the greatest minds on the planet are exploring and have themselves discovered.
Podcasts seem to grow in popularity with every passing week as more and more people explore tighter niches of specialist topics. I am sure there must be a podcast almost every imaginable topic one can dream up.
Articles, forums and summaries proliferate the internet and the more I explore it the more I have come to find information sources that continue to stay thought provoking and relevant. The Harvard business review and McKinsey reports are among my favourites.
For all of modern technology with YouTube and podcasts and interviews, seminars I still find that I love to read a good book. The modern trend towards having business books in a fable format is only made this more enjoyable and I continue to delight in all that is to be learnt through the generous sharing people who have walked the road before me.
The saying goes that the only constant in life is change. In order to cope with the change that is inevitable, it is important to ensure you feed yourself useful and relevant information. I'd love to hear from you how you stay ahead of the curve.
Here’s to your success!
