Circular economy

• On-demand marketplaces established, in the last 10 years, new ways for people to make money - workers could easily monetize their time in specific, narrow services (food delivery, parking, or transportation). 
• These marketplaces automated the matching of supply and demand, as well as pricing and used platforms that were convenient for both the user and the provider.
• Specific platforms provided a path to self-employment for millions of people and they also homogenized the variety between service workers, prioritizing consistency and efficiency. 

New digital platforms are enabling the 'passion economy', where individuals with certain creative skill sets can earn a livelihood while doing the very thing they are good at. These platforms provide:

• Greater ability to build customer relations. 
• Increased support for expanding their business. 
• Better tools for standing apart from the competition.

The Netflix Show ‘Tidying Up with Marie Kondo’ is the most-watched non-fiction show on the platform. She is now at par with Martha Stewart, Oprah, and Gwyneth Paltrow, as a goddess of wellness and domesticity.

She has an e-commerce website, blog, newsletter, and does consultation work in over 40 countries through her personally created brand. 

Marie Kondo’s decluttering philosophy, which became a rage, invited critics to label her as someone who has an anti-capitalist agenda that can cripple the economy. 

She was also labeled as someone who only appeals to the rich. This unwanted attention resulted in even more business opportunities.

The basic productivity formula(productivity= output divided by input) worked well in the industrial age as the output and input were clearly defined and measurable.

Today’s leaders need innovative solutions to measure and improve productivity in a knowledge-based workplace, as the measurement of output and input is not what it was.

While assigning value to the output of knowledge workers, we cannot simply measure the output like before.

Coders and doctors cannot be measured by the hour, as their output is not uniform or consistent every hour.

We often start habits and drop them a few days later. To combat this, you can use triggers to remind you to practice the habit. Examples of triggers:

• Reading at the same time everyday will prime your brain to automatically trigger itself to begin reading.
• Leaving your books in places you will easily see is another trigger. If you read books digitally you could pin your tab so it’s always in your visual perspective.

Studies indicate that the Zeigarnik Effect is real. It says you are more likely to recall uncompleted tasks than completed ones.

Knowing this pattern of our brains, we can trick it by forcing cliffhangers when we’re reading books. It’s hard to stop reading in the most interesting part but it will make you want to start reading again.

"You must do the things you think you cannot do."

"The truth is more important than the facts."

• The Hunger Games gave us a neo-Depression dystopia where media-obsessed elites torment the starving lower classes.
• The Expanse is about class warfare.
• The 1950 Foundation series was partly about saving the galaxy with sound economic programs.
• The 2012 novel Three Parts Dead, was a mythical reimagining of the 2008 financial crisis. The author, Max Gladstone, said you couldn't tell a story like the financial crisis with realism. You need fantasy to explain it.

The “dark” kind of science fiction deals with the foundation of economics, which is scarcity. There is a fear that poverty will come faster as automation continues to devalue human labor.

People are experiencing scarcity or are afraid of it on a regular basis. Writers are turning to economists to make their financial worlds more plausible.

By making wealth your priority now, you could be both later. Establish a strong financial foundation that will give you financial security and peace of mind moving forward. 

Living paycheck to paycheck is a guaranteed way not to build wealth.

If you’re just starting on your personal finance journey, it might not be time for you to start acquiring these assets yet.

• Investing in stocks is simple if you avoid lucky stock picking. Keeping long-term perspective, invest early, especially in low-cost index funds.
• Rental properties.
• Small business ownership.
• Delaying gratifications.

Take language away, and the amount of information you can acquire decreases.

Many deaf children born into hearing families live in a world unable to communicate properly. They are never exposed to abstract ideas such as "justice" or "global warming." Unless the parents learn sign language, the child's language access will be delayed or missing entirely.

The lack of language affects even functions like math. Keeping track of exact numbers above four requires knowing the words for these numbers. The language-number interdependency means many deaf children in industrialized societies fall behind in math because they did not learn to count.

Social cognition is another part of your mind that needs language to develop. Why is your mom upset? Understanding social situations requires inferring what people around you are thinking.