7 Foundational Practices for a Life of Thriving Part 5: Knowledge and Awareness

Daily Learning – Knowledge and Awareness

Benefits:

• Increase Awareness of the Endless Factors that Influence Your Life
• Better Understand The Nature of Your Surroundings
• Align Your Actions with the Flow of Surroundings for Optimum Outcomes
• Deepen Knowledge of Your Passions and Interests
• Stay Motivated to Learn and Grow
• Expand Your Worldview – Explore Culture, History, Science, and Philosophy
• Practice Perspective Taking
• Stoke the Fire of Curiosity
• Explore Areas of Knowledge You’ve Never Considered
• Always have New Ideas to Aid Creativity, Productivity, and Novelty in Life

Smart phones, audiobooks, and Audible.com in particular mean we have access to more ideas than ever before. We can carry entire libraries of information with us right in our pockets. The benefit of audio books over podcasts or other talk radio is that books are usually more refined and comprehensive. Podcasts can be thrown together in a matter of hours, or less. Sometimes the flowing nature of these conversations make them interesting. But books tend to take more time to complete and for this reason they are generally of a higher overall quality.

Additionally, with lecture series such as those made by The Great Courses, we can learn more than ever before. They offer university level information on a wide array of subjects and are broken down into 30 minute audio clips. A typical course is around 12 hours. The main advantage of these courses is that they present a much more comprehensive look at a topic than we can ever get via 5-10 minute YouTube videos or blog posts.

The overabundance of information in this day and age encourages us to take in many small ideas, some as tiny as a 144 character twitter post. These short shots of information encourage our ever-shortening attention spans. By contrast, lecture series and books in general give us opportunities to consider ideas more comprehensively. Larger ideas stretch the limits of our minds and we learn to think about topics from multiple perspectives. Thus, by switching from music to audio books at least periodically transforms our mind by building on what we know and encouraging a more deep approach to all subjects that make up our lives.

Suggested Listenings:

• A Short History of Nearly Everything (unabridged) by Bill Bryson
• *The Great Courses:
  • A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking
  • The Science of Mindfulness
  • The Great Ideas of Psychology
  • The Creative Thinker’s Toolkit
  • The Meaning of Life: Perspectives from the World’s Great Intellectual Traditions
  • Origins of Human Mind
  • Great Thinker’s of the Western Intellectual Tradition
  • Great Thinker’s of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition
  • 12 Essential Scientific Concepts
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (learn more about resistance here)

* Note: These courses are available via audible for only $9 -$12 which is a 60-90% discount compared to the Great Courses Catalogue Price.

*** Learning/Audiobook Challenge***

1) Listen to 3-5 hours of audio books per week while walking, taking public transport, or driving to work.

and

2) Read for 20-30 minutes every day (immediately before bed is an ideal time and can lead to a smooth transition into sleep).

For the sixth Foundational Practice for a Life of Thriving click here.

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