Have we become completely dependent on Google and other internet resources for our personal development?
How do you collect your information on a regular basis?” I’m sure we have a personal pattern i.e. newspapers; magazines; electronic media; internet; and social networks. However, I was told that only 20% of us read newspapers by habit because we spend so much time travelling to our offices which are mostly in Mars & Jupiter. One of my colleagues told me that he only reads the dailies in the evenings. When I frowned, he said that with the advancement of technology, news that matter would have reached him either via speed mail; WhatsApp; Facebook; or LinkedIn; he went on to add that that time is far too precious to be spending reading everything in the newspaper.
In today’s world of work, our absorption of information and our personal outlook defines how we set up our ecosystem. Amongst the people you admire personally, I am sure there are people you have high regard for the length and breadth of their knowledge, communication and intellect amongst others. Their personal habits of acquiring a wealth of information must have undeniably influenced your admiration of them. On the other end of the spectrum, it is also very easy to fall into the trap of our surroundings in which most people we surround ourselves have similar backgrounds and the information we discuss/share with them arise from same/similar sources. Not all of them would be useful for our needs of today and tomorrow.
We all work in the consulting world; there is a need for personal development and to be equipped with basic to sophisticated information from time to time to survive progress or excel.
Once, in a gathering of 200 people, we were asked as to how many countries are there in the world. With the exception of one person (not me), none knew the answer. Knowing the number of countries around the globe might be irrelevant to the business (recruitment) I’m in. But, when we tell our customers that we are present in 40+ countries, we need to know how many countries exist! Now, how many hands went up while reading this?
We are all determined to be successful in our career and life. One of the key ingredients to success is personal development and how we think and this comes from our ability to collect and process varied and relevant information. To be more specific, what we read, hear, see, converse and practice make or breaks us.
Furthermore, to reach the dream destination we envisage for ourselves, we will need to bombard ourselves with the right information. If the information we receive is based on what our network beyond google (which mostly comprises of people like us) dishes out to us, it may not be ideal. If we know our destination, we should ideally start to build our surroundings with the regular consumption and updates on the types of information which will take us to our destination. In today’s digital world of information, we need to regulate what we read, listen or see every hour of the day!
I would not be far from right if I were to say that we should refrain from limiting our knowledge source from the junk our network feeds. They could be via Google, LinkedIn, FB, WhatsApp, and emails to state a few. Moreover, Our life’s destination is simply too precious to be left to our surroundings!
Very much like Fitness, gaining Knowledge is hard work. I wish it was easy and doctors could inject us with the knowledge we need to succeed. How have you set up your channels of information to take you to your destination?
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