Best way to explain new concepts using PowerPoint, Out of Africa migration and Scott Adam’s book
Three interesting stories that I came across last week:
• I don’t remember who recommended ‘How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big’ by Dilbert creator, Scott Adams, but what a fantastic recommendation this one turned out to be! This is a book full of practical wisdom. The underlying theme is that the goal of life is to pursue happiness (no surprises here) and the key tool in this pursuit is energy, your personal energy. Adams believes that diet, exercise, sleep, flexible schedule and a move towards simplifying your life are some of the biggest contributors for increasing your energy. Moreover, there are a few skills that when learnt at a basic level multiplies the chances of success. Adams includes design, persuasion, grammar, and a basic understanding of psychology among these skills. Adams is also a big supporter of systems thinking in preference to goal-based thinking - a concept that I constantly try to apply in my own life. “Goals are a ‘reach-it-and-be-done-situation’, whereas a system is something you do on a regular basis with a reasonable expectation that doing so will get you to a better place in life,”Adams writes. This book has become my most underlined book after Atomic Habits that I wrote about here. Both these books have one thing going for them — they are deeply practical.
• This story in NYTimes summarises a new paper that pushes back the Out of Africa migration of modern humans by another 70,000 years — to as long 200,000 years ago from previous estimate of 140,000 years. I am generally becoming interested in this topic of our origin after reading Early Indians by Tony Joseph. Joseph’s book tries to answer the question of who were the people who built the Indus Valley Civilisation. I am still in the middle of the book and will write a summary when done. However, this recent discovery that modern humans may have left Africa 200,000 years back and interbred with Neanderthals adds a new context, for interbreeding with Neanderthals did not just happen after the final successful migration of modern humans that took place some 60,000 years back. Why is understanding the story of our origin important though? It interests us for we are curious beings. I also believe knowledge of where we came from may help dilute the thickly etched perceptions that we have built based on skin colour.
• Stumbled across this story on how to communicate effectively. Though meant for educators, I see no reason why we in the corporate world cannot learn a trick or two from it. The underlying concept is about how to reduce cognitive load and stress on the working memory while explaining a new concept. The takeaway for me was to eliminate text from the slides, or best limit it to a single word, and use the space for complimentary images instead. The explanation should come directly from the presenter and in a conversational style.
A quote that I came across last week:
When your energy is right you perform better at everything you do, including school, work, sports, and even your personal life. Energy is good. Passion is bullshit.
— Scott Adams
