How to Get Your Mind to Read ((article by Daniel T. Willingham (@DTWillingham) is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and the author, most recently, of “The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads.” Republished from the New York Times
Photo: Credit Lilli Carré))
Americans are not good readers. Many blame the ubiquity of digital media. We’re too busy on Snapchat to read, or perhaps internet skimming has made us incapable of reading serious prose. But Americans’ trouble with reading predates digital technologies. The problem is not bad reading habits engendered by smartphones, but bad education habits engendered by a misunderstanding of how the mind reads.
The way to find the strait and narrow of happiness (See The Anna Karenina Principle) is to watch the feedback … and self-correct. Yesterday I added integrity to the starting point measurements. so far all people I measured ranked on 3 out of 100. Wow. I had an exchange of text messages with a guy, […]
If I asked you: how many percentage of what I say or write in my articles actually lands, accurately in you?
Experiments and tests show that if you have the right attitude, high level of interest, and you are coherent: you can receive as much as 7% of what is being said. Word based communication.
Re-listening or re-reading the same thing won’t improve the percentage much. Why? Because what you think is there replaces, effectively, what you hear or read the second time.
This is what is normal.
What is also normal is to believe that you got 100%. And for the speaker to think that you can get more than 7%.
Talk about useless activity! Tree of Knowledge, mind candy, justifying self… all the bad stuff. Bad for you… keeping you exactly where you are… and if that is a bad place… then it keeps you firmly anchored to that bad place.
And it is the overwhelming habit of readers of my site.
But to make it even worse: it is the habit of some of my 67 step students.
Useless, waste of time, unless all you want is entertainment. Then I understand.
So if you actually wanted, what you read/listen to, to make a difference for you, what should you do?
Are you planning a cleanse? purging? A drastic change of diet? Based on what? Ignorance?
You can’t be well, you can’t be happy, you can’t be sharp if you are not well inside!
One of the reasons today’s human suffers is this: you have delegated most if not all decision making to “experts”… and you hoped that you would never have to know anything about those areas of life and you’d be safely and nicely taken care of.
A step on delegation in the 67 steps begs to differ.
Unless you have at least cursory and accurate knowledge in what you are
I started to read the book by Edward Deci, “Why we do what we do. Understanding self-motivation”.
This is the first book, that I know, that defines self the way, or similarly the way I do…
To become a person, to have autonomy, self-determination, self-expression, integrity, self-motivation, the most important job is to find the self, by distinguishing what is the driver of all your actions, whether it is inner or outer.
And if it is inner… is it the self, or is it the “not-self”?
Greed, narcissism, hate… area inner motivators, but they are all the not-self. So are all the “negative” emotions, like frustration, haste, the desir
Knowledge is power… And when it comes to your health… Power means Life.
One reason most people are not well, is because they have serious nutritional deficiencies.
Doctors are not trained to know that you actually need nutrients (!) so they probably will never tell you, never ask you.
According to Dr. Joel Wallach there are 90 essential nutrients you need to take daily. Deficiencies from any of them can cause wide ranging issues, from headaches, muscle spasms, tiredness, to serious chronic illnesses.
In addition to knowing what you lack, the deficiency profile also indicates what causes the deficiency.
Often the deficiency is cause by lack of absorption due to dietary mistakes, or hidden conditions that haven’t expressed themselves in disease yet.
I perform this examination, through muscle testing, as part of my comprehensive health consultation, but as I like to offer a special deal from time to time, I am offering this service, separately now, for a few d
how do you go from one profession to another? having a vague idea is not enough!
learned, school learned profession may give you a process and teach you everything
learning, self-directed needs YOU to build a curriculum, or you’ll fail
law of process, research, guidance, mentors
how do you know what skills to build?
interviewing people
watching movies
reading books
how can you build skills if that is not part of your job?
volunteering
providing services, small services online/offline through craigslist, fiverr
What other than skills do you need?
process capacity
mental representation aka vision
growth attitude… beginner attitude.
Article
How do you choose the next step if what you are doing in the present isn’t it… but you have no experience in the next profession, the next adventure?
You may have no skills that you know of that would get you a job in the next profession…
But you may have some skills… or why would you want to go that way? After all, the rule of thumb is: go with your strengths… and if you have strengths, you know you have them, because you’ve been using them.
Here is how I did it. The time was 1988 and I was an architect. And that opportunity closed for me…
I did a skill inventory, and found that all my skills at that point were putting ink on paper… writing, drawing, designing… and communicating. With people.
Graphics, design, text, communicating… I decided that the best match was publisher, although I had no idea what I would want to say… Magazine publishing.
I was unemployed, so I spent my time training myself… designing ads, writing ads, and I even apprenticed with a small printer so I had some idea what printing entails.
Then I sent out two resumes to small local pennysavers… that I saw all the time in the supermarket.
One answered, and said that the only job available is advertising sales. That I would get someone to train me…
I said OK… The woman who came to train me (I didn’t have any transportation) gave me a script and went out with me to a few stores to sell advertising.
Next day she went and covered all the stores I could have been able to walk in and sold everyone she could… Dog eat dog is the advertising world.
So I called the other publisher. I told him I sold five ads on my first day… He met me and hired me, even gave me a beat up car to use, so that I can get around and do the job.
I was grateful. I worked 80 hours or more a week. I actively participated on Friday’s meetings when every salesperson brought in what they sold. After two weeks I took over that part of the job, laying out the magazine for Saturday printing.
I even delivered all the magazines to the stores in my sales area.
I busted my ass.
I built enough relationships with customers, typesetters, printers that after 14 months, when the owner felt threatened and kicked me out, I could start, overnight, my own magazine.
After that fateful meeting, when I got kicked out, I called the typesetter, called the printer, and asked for credit for one issue.
I got it. I stayed up all night, and next day at 4 pm my own magazine was in the street.
It was the beginning of a wonderful eleven year run.
How to Get Your Mind to Read ((article by Daniel T. Willingham (@DTWillingham) is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and the author, most recently, of “The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads.” Republished from the New York Times
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