While it’s good to strive for high-quality output, that won’t be possible without first having experience. To gain experience, one has to actually get started. After a certain point, you’ve got to get out of the classroom and into the field.Any progress is good progress when starting out learning something.Between the amateur and the professional stages, there are hundreds of mistakes. The faster the amateur experiences those mistakes, the faster they’ll become a professional.

Quick Learners Aim For Progress, Not Perfection

Taking notes and knowing about something is different from actually being able to do it.We can spend all our time discussing what exactly a bicycle is and the mechanics and physics of how it works. But nothing is going to be accomplished until we get on the bike itself and apply what we’ve learned.Quick learners always translate lessons into action. It can be difficult at times. And there’s no faster way to learn than hopping on and falling down.

Quick Learners Apply What They’ve Learned

Studies showed that having not only a self-oriented goal (enjoying one’s future job) but also a “beyond-the-self-oriented” goal (having a positive impact on the world around them) increased the students’ GPA in their academic career.Knowing what exactly the skill is going to be used for will not only sustain motivation but make it clearer what information is useful and what isn’t, making the learning process that much faster.

Quick Learners Have A Reason For Learning

Quick learners commonly use the learning method called “Chunking”. Essentially, it involves breaking down large pieces of information into manageable and meaningful groups, called “chunks”.It might seem counterproductive to break information down into small, and thus more, lessons to learn. But it makes it easier for your mind to encode the information while also ensuring high-quality results.

Quick Learners Simplify Information

The greatest lessons don’t come from professors and reading assignments; they come from action. Specifically, it’s the feedback gained from taking action where someone really gets to learn something.The key term here is “immediate”. If someone doesn’t get the feedback that they need as early as possible, they risk continuing on with the work, not knowing if their process works or not.

Quick Learners Look For Immediate Feedback

As discouraging as they can get, it’s the lessons learned in those failures that are the most lasting. Being a beginner, it’s also expected to make mistakes.Quick learners trust their gut and make as many mistakes as they can. Not intentionally, of course. But they welcome each one as a valuable lesson to learn.

Quick Learners Make Mistakes

<ul><li>There’s nothing wrong with asking for help. Sometimes, it’s exactly what’s needed to boost learning.</li><li>While figuring out something on your own can be more rewarding, asking for guidance from an expert can still be beneficial for quick learners. </li><li>That way, they can guide you on the right path, helping you to avoid spending your time on activities that they’ve tried and found useless.</li></ul>

Quick Learners Ask Others For Help

Lessons aren’t learned in a single day. To learn as fast they can, quick learners practice often.Studies found that consistency in learning plays a significant role in one’s understanding and proficiency. This is the athlete going to regular training. The musicians going to rehearsals. The writers developping a writing habit.The more you do something, the better you get at it.

Quick Learners Have A Consistent Learning Routine

When learning something, there is often a set of steps that need to be remembered in order to perform it well. Those procedures can vary depending on what’s being learned. The human mind has difficulty holding on to disparate pieces of information. It’s why remembering a stranger’s number can be tricky. That’s why there are people that employ the use of a mnemonic device. By turning the steps into an easier-to-remember acronym, a study found, quick learners are able to use the power of mnemonics to improve their recalling ability and memorization.

Quick Learners Have A Memorization Technique

You can’t learn without first listening to a mentor, teacher, professor — anyone who’s guiding you. When quick learners listen to their instructors, they listen carefully to their instructions.Through active listening, they are able to catch all the necessary information so that they may absorb it and implement it in their work.

Quick Learners Are Active Listeners

Being a quick learner doesn’t mean having to learn everything. You don’t need to study the history of the printing press and literature to be an acceptable writer.When someone’s starting out in learning something, they only need to really know the essential parts of the skill — the parts that they’re actually going to be using.

Quick Learners Admit To Not Knowing Everything

<ul><li>Skills don’t usually exist in a vacuum. Where there is a skill, there’s a place for it to be applied. A study found that visualizing the solution can accelerate learning. It allows us to have a clear end result to work towards.</li><li>Visualizing how they intend to use the skill allows quick learners to sift through what skills will contribute to the solution and what won’t.</li><li>That way, they know what to prioritize, and be strategic in their learning.</li></ul>

Quick Learners Visualize The Problem And The Solution

How to become a quick learner and  use it to your advantage

problemsolving

Problem Solving

education

Learning & Education

career

Career

entertainment

Entertainment

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

How to Become a Quick Learner

12 things quick learners always do (but never talk about)

Habits and traits of quick learners

No person in an argument is right about everything all the time.  Research shows when we admit we might be wrong, it can help us be better friends, happier people, and more effective advocates for what we believe. This is intellectual humility and a gift you can give yourself.

Intellectual humility

In our minds, we weave together our ideas, assumptions, and experiences to form a picture of the world. One tug on the tread can make us feel that our sense of self is unravelling. Research shows that we react to attacks on our beliefs the same way as physical threats. Our natural tendency is to avoid those threats by finding like-minded people.

It is hard to admit that we might be wrong

Our ideas don’t need to limit us. We should accept that some things we know are wrong or incomplete. Recognising that our knowledge is incomplete is not weakness or ignorance. On the contrary, it should give us a feeling of relief.  We can let go of ideas that were holding us back. We can now turn every day into an opportunity to learn and grow.

Becoming open-minded

Arguments on social media are notorious. Can practicing intellectual humility make us smarter and happier? Science says yes. Subscribe for more videos of people thinking differently and making a difference: http://freeth.ink/youtube-subscribe-humility Internet arguments have a terrible reputation, especially when it comes to social media and politics. People often naturally form an echo chamber with similar beliefs, and when those outside it start arguments, it becomes toxic very quickly. Is there a better way? Science suggests that a good starting point is by practicing intellectual humility. By admitting the possibility that we ourselves could be wrong, we're able to better evaluate arguments and construct more robust belief systems. Studies show it also reduces stress and increases happiness. Could more widespread understanding of the role humility plays finally help build a happier internet? This video is brought to you in collaboration with the John Templeton Foundation. Subscribe for more videos exploring big questions with the potential to make the world a better place. Join the Freethink Forum for people interested in making a difference: https://www.facebook.com/groups/freethinkforum/ For more stories profiling pioneers of science and tech innovation, subscribe to Freethink at https://www.youtube.com/freethinkmedia And follow Freethink across other platforms here: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/freethinkmedia Twitter: https://twitter.com/freethinkmedia Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freethink Website: http://www.freethink.com

productivity

Productivity

videos

Videos

Arguments on social media are notorious. Can practicing intellectual humility make us smarter and happier? Science says yes. Subscribe for more videos of people thinking differently and making a difference: http://freeth.ink/youtube-subscribe-humility

Internet arguments have a terrible reputation, especially when it comes to social media and politics. People often naturally form an echo chamber with similar beliefs, and when those outside it start arguments, it becomes toxic very quickly. Is there a better way? Science suggests that a good starting point is by practicing intellectual humility. By admitting the possibility that we ourselves could be wrong, we're able to better evaluate arguments and construct more robust belief systems. Studies show it also reduces stress and increases happiness. Could more widespread understanding of the role humility plays finally help build a happier internet?

This video is brought to you in collaboration with the John Templeton Foundation. Subscribe for more videos exploring big questions with the potential to make the world a better place.

Join the Freethink Forum for people interested in making a difference: https://www.facebook.com/groups/freethinkforum/

For more stories profiling pioneers of science and tech innovation, subscribe to Freethink at https://www.youtube.com/freethinkmedia

And follow Freethink across other platforms here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/freethinkmedia
Twitter: https://twitter.com/freethinkmedia
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freethink
Website: http://www.freethink.com

Freethink is a platform for the people and ideas that are changing our world. We believe that together we can move the world forward, one remarkable story at a time.

Freethink

The Joy of Being Wrong

Winning products come from the deep understanding of the user’s needs combined with an equally deep understanding of what’s just now possible.

Nine out of every ten products launched fail because they did not achieve their sales goals and in many cases, this happens because of the lack of a proper product management process and a professional to manage it. The product manager has a mission to solve the problems of consumers and therefore, they need to know who the target audience of the product is, what their problems and challenges are, and be smart enough to propose real solutions. To hire a good product manager, a good place to start the hunt can be within the company itself. Your future product manager can be in any department.

Technology and Business Intersection

The PM has 2 primary responsibilities: Assess opportunities for product development and define the products that will be built to fit these occasions. The PM needs a productive team around to achieve this:<ul><li>Designers and Users Experience Professionals should focus on creating the product interface for the ultimate consumer.</li><li>Software engineers must develop the product that the manager has defined.</li><li>The Product Marketer, this person, and the product manager must support each other to formulate marketing messages about the product together.</li></ul>

Product Teams Need The Right Resources

The PM must work intensively with a design team:The interaction designer works to understand the requirements and way of thinking of the target audience, and creates a prototype, also called a wireframe, based on this understanding. The visual designer contributes the visual interface, applied to the skeleton. Essentially, these two roles create the entire user experience, making them key components of the product team. Finally, it is necessary to test the product with users through usability tests and generate ideas for more iterations of the design process.

User Experience Must Come First

To understand how best to exploit these opportunities, you need to use a list of questions proposed by Cagan. The key issues are:<ul><li>What problem will this opportunity solve?</li><li>Who is affected by the problem and how big is this market?</li><li>What alternatives do competitors offer?</li><li>Why can we succeed in this?</li><li>What factors are critical to success?</li><li>What metrics will we use to measure our success?</li><li>Why is this the right time to enter the market?</li><li>What is our entry strategy?</li></ul>Only after finding a product opportunity to pursue is that a PM should initiate product discovery.

PM Must Incessantly Look For New Opportunities

To create a good product, engineers need to build it, consumers must use it, and the product must be valuable for consumers to buy. To prove this, the PM must use a navigable prototype that offers a minimally realistic user experience so that users can test it. Involving engineers is also essential to decide which elements to have, also to know if the product is technically executable. Once you have delivered the specifications to the dev team, your mindset should go out of the discovery process to get into execution.

Discovering A Product

Goal is to create a prototype with which anyone can interact to understand the product without necessarily having to look at its specifications. To prepare this, you will need volunteers. Bring them together from every source you can: friends, family, classifieds ads. Define which tasks you want users to complete.When you run the test, the less you talk, the better, so you do not get in the way of users’ experiences with your own opinions. Your goal is to observe and understand whether your model might be inconsistent with how the user thinks. Fix problems that you find

High Fidelity Prototypes Are A Fantastic Tool

Be present in every client interview and usability test. Keep your focus on identifying customer needs and find out for yourself how to meet those needs. An excellent way to gain customer insight is through the user relationship program focused on solving a particular problem. You then work with these clients as collaborators to develop and test a product to address this issue.You need to develop a product that works for your entire target market, do not fall into the trap of making a specialized product for only one or two of your users.

Create A Client Relationship Program And Collect Testimonials For Launch

To help with making hard decisions, you need to create a set of product principles. Principles should be specific enough to help guide decisions about functionality, target audience, etc.Another great tool to use in product management is the use of personas: fictional user profiles of typical clients. The product manager creates personas based on what he or she knows about customer prospects.Such simple archetypes help align the entire product team according to what the customer wants and what is important to them.

Use Personas And Principles To Make Decisions

Adapting features indiscriminately to please specific customers, ends up making the product less attractive to the market and hampering its long-term success. Product improvement should begin with an understanding of what your goals are. You should understand the most important product business metrics and guide all improvements to these metrics. The most valuable time to make changes to a product comes after its release. During this time, go into “quick response” mode, approaching ideas and customer requests quickly. Consider running old and new versions of your product in parallel.

Manage And Change Gradually

We’ve collected a list of our favourites on a range of topics from entry-level to expert.

books

Books

business

Business

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

communication

Communication

Top 7 books for Product Managers

How do today’s most successful tech companies—Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla—design, develop, and deploy the products that have earned the love of literally billions of people around the world? Perhaps surprisingly, they do it very differently than the vast majority of tech companies. In INSPIRED, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides readers with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization, and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love—and that will work for your business. With sections on assembling the right people and skillsets, discovering the right product, embracing an effective yet lightweight process, and creating a strong product culture, readers can take the information they learn and immediately leverage it within their own organizations—dramatically improving their own product efforts. Whether you’re an early stage startup working to get to product/market fit, or a growth-stage company working to scale your product organization, or a large, long-established company trying to regain your ability to consistently deliver new value for your customers, INSPIRED will take you and your product organization to a new level of customer engagement, consistent innovation, and business success. Filled with the author’s own personal stories—and profiles of some of today’s most-successful product managers and technology-powered product companies, including Adobe, Apple, BBC, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix—INSPIRED will show you how to turn up the dial of your own product efforts, creating technology products your customers love. The first edition of INSPIRED, published ten years ago, established itself as the primary reference for technology product managers, and can be found on the shelves of nearly every successful technology product company worldwide. This thoroughly updated second edition shares the same objective of being the most valuable resource for technology product managers, yet it is completely new—sharing the latest practices and techniques of today’s most-successful tech product companies, and the men and women behind every great product.

product

Product & Design

How do today’s most successful tech companies—Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla—design, develop, and deploy the products that have earned the love of literally billions of people around the world? Perhaps surprisingly, they do it very differently than the vast majority of tech companies. In INSPIRED, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides readers with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization, and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love—and that will work for your business.With sections on assembling the right people and skillsets, discovering the right product, embracing an effective yet lightweight process, and creating a strong product culture, readers can take the information they learn and immediately leverage it within their own organizations—dramatically improving their own product efforts. Whether you’re an early stage startup working to get to product/market fit, or a growth-stage company working to scale your product organization, or a large, long-established company trying to regain your ability to consistently deliver new value for your customers, INSPIRED will take you and your product organization to a new level of customer engagement, consistent innovation, and business success. Filled with the author’s own personal stories—and profiles of some of today’s most-successful product managers and technology-powered product companies, including Adobe, Apple, BBC, Google, Microsoft, and Netflix—INSPIRED will show you how to turn up the dial of your own product efforts, creating technology products your customers love. The first edition of INSPIRED, published ten years ago, established itself as the primary reference for technology product managers, and can be found on the shelves of nearly every successful technology product company worldwide. This thoroughly updated second edition shares the same objective of being the most valuable resource for technology product managers, yet it is completely new—sharing the latest practices and techniques of today’s most-successful tech product companies, and the men and women behind every great product.

Marty Cagan is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Marty Cagan has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Marty Cagan's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Marty Cagan

INSPIRED

INSPIRED - How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

The Hook Model is a way of explaining somebody's interactions with a product as they go through the four phases: the trigger to begin using the product, an action to satisfy the trigger, a variable reward for the actions, and an investment - in which the user feels that the product is more valuable to them.After the cycle has been completed by the user, their habits will reinforce the product and therefore a win to the company.

The Hook Model

Triggers come in two types: external and internal. Habit-forming technologies begin by alerting us consumers with external triggers like emails, or an app icon. By continuously doing this, we begin to form associations with internal triggers therefore becoming attached to existing behaviors and emotions.

Hook Model Step 1: Trigger

After forming trigger habits, the companies will leverage the two pulleys of human behavior: motivation and ability.In order to increase the offs of a user taking intended action, the behavior designer must make the action as easy as possible while boosting the user's motivation.

Hook Model Step 2: Action

Companies use variable schedules of reward. This powerful tool shows that our brains are surged with dopamine when expecting a reward.By introducing multiple variables in effect, it creates a frenzied hunger state and it activates the parts that are associated with wanting and desire.

Hook Model Step 3: Variable Reward

In this part of the model, the user is asked to do a little bit of work. This is the phase where: 1. the odds where the user will make another pass through the hook model will increase, and 2. the user's brain is swimming in dopamine so the company is now letting up pay for that dopamine.The investment generally varies between giving a combination of time, data, effort, social capital, or even money. However, the investment phase implies that this action that the user is willing to do will improve the service for the next go-around.

Hook Model Step 4: Investment

Whether we like it or not, and whether we've noticed it or not, habit-forming technology is already here and many apps are already using it on us through various devices. With what they acquire from us, this trinity of access, data, and speed further creates new opportunities for habit-forming technologies to hook a user.

Habit-forming Technology

The Hook Model is a theory of building habit-forming products through specific experiences. Through Hooks, products can increase user engagement.

The Hook Model: How to Manufacture Desire in 4 Steps

Many of us imprison ourselves in a self-made world of denial, not able to confront our own failings. We end up blaming others, or the world for our own shortcomings, just to avoid our deepest fears, like shame and a sense of worthlessness.
Our inability to confront our feelings of inadequacy is partly due to the consumer culture we live in, where our worth is measured by our wealth, possessions and achievements. This makes it impossible to be okay with being sub-standard and incompetent.

The Fear Of Not Achieving

Being inadequate is a fearful emotion, which can make the chest tighten up, eyes heavy and heartbeat fast. The head spins and the mind constantly tells us that something is wrong.If we can move past this feeling, we can start to appreciate the good things, and look at the situation objectively, with clarity of mind.

Taming The Fear Of Not Doing Enough

Ryan Vaughn explores how confronting the feeling of not being good enough allowed him to slow down and stop making fear-based decisions.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

mindfulness

Mindfulness

mentalhealth

Mental Health

What Happened When I Leaned In to My Fear of Not Achieving - Mindful

Music is important to people individually and on a societal level. Music is greatly influential to the state of technology. The devices we use to listen to music shape the technological landscape.
But when did earbuds become synonymous with a portable music player, and where did it all start?

The social and personal importance of music

Music has always been an important part of human culture. Until 1877, people could only listen to music when someone was playing, whether in a concert hall or at home.
But Thomas Edison's invention of the phonograph revolutionised the consumption of music. Sounds to be recorded were transmitted through a recording stylus, which would make indentations on a phonograph cylinder. A playback stylus could read the recording and play it through a diaphragm and horn.

The story of music consumption: The phonograph

In the 1890s, the transition to flat-disc records began. The recording was etched onto a disc we today recognise as a record. The main advantage of the disc record was that it could be mass-produced, whereas a phonograph had to be recorded individually. Discs were first sold in a five-inch version, then seven-inch, then a ten-inch, and finally a 12-inch version. Interest in double-sided records started to rise in 1903, and Edison took the opportunity to make a 1/4-inch disc that could only be played on Edison Disc Phonographs.

The flat-disc record

At first, the flat-disc record was made from shellac. Only after WWII, vinyl replaced shellac as it was a lighter and more durable material. The transition to vinyl happened together with the change from 78 rpm to 33 1/3 rpm, which allowed a larger amount of music to be recorded on a single disc. A 10-inch, 78 rpm disc contained about three minutes of music. Long songs were split across several discs, each contained in a sleeve bound into a book format, leading to the term "record album."

From shellac to vinyl recordings

A 12-inch vinyl, 33 rpm record could contain about 20 minutes of music on a side. This longer-playing (LP) format began to dominate the market. 45 rpm records became popular after the war, most containing a single song on each side, known as "singles." Extended-play (EP) 45s were also added, and they contained two songs on each side. From here on, changes were focused on the hardware used to turn the disc.

The LP player

During WWI (and WWII), the US Congress suspended all amateur radio broadcasts. In 1919, shortly after WWI, 1XE of Medford, Massachusetts, was broadcasting music. Then more music radio stations began to pop up. But they met with resistance. People thought radio was only supposed to be used for two-way communication. Commercially licensed stations started to appear, and by 1930, 60 % of American families purchased radio receivers. Many stations only started broadcasting music after they had been on the air for a while.

Music radio

In 1922, the first radio advertisement changed the future of music broadcasting. Before that, companies would sponsor musical programs known by names like Champion Spark Plug Hour or King Biscuit Time. The rise of the top 40 stations in the early 50s influenced how music radio operates to this day. The higher fidelity magnetic recording made it possible to broadcast pre-recorded programs in the 1940s.

The top 40 stations

In 1958, the RCA tape cartridge changed the future of home music consumption. The high-quality audio had been encoded onto a magnetic tape medium for home use. In 1964, the 8-track Lear tape was introduced. Other tape formats were already available in the home market, but the inclusion of 8-track players in many cars led to it becoming the dominant format of the day.

The RCA tape cartridge

In the early 1970s, the compact Phillips cassette tape began to rise to domination of the automobile music market. The small size counted in their favour. When the manufacturers started making smaller, portable tape decks, the cassette's place in music was sure. The innovation of the Sony Walkman in 1979 was even more important. The small portable stereo tape player made music listening more accessible for personal use as it was no longer tied to large record players.

The Sony Walkman

<ul><li>It was not until the early 1980s that the first commercial compact discs (CDs) appeared. The format was standardised in 1980.</li><li>Before the CD, magnetic tape data was read mechanically. The use of a laser to read the data on a disc was a huge leap forward in audio technology and dominated the market into the early 2000s.</li><li>CD-ROMs (CD-read only memory) debuted in 1985, and further improvements led to the Video CD, Super Video CD, DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray discs.</li></ul>

The digital age: Compact disc

<ul><li>In 1982, an electrical engineering PhD student Karlheinz Brandenburg was challenged to find a way to transmit music over digital phone lines.</li><li>Advanced technology that could separate sounds into three sections, or layers, enabled Brandenburg and his colleagues to discard obscured sounds without a real loss in quality. This led to the ability to encode files with fewer bitrates.</li><li>The Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) were tasked to create worldwide standards in audio recording. The standard created included Layers I, II, and III.</li></ul>

The history of MP3

The invention of Napster shook up the music work. Napster was a simple, free, peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing service that focused on MP3 sharing. This free distribution of music was attacked by the music industry and shut down in 2001. Many other P2P file-sharing services sprung up and were also shut down. P2P music sharing still exists, with BitTorrent one of the most popular formats that are much harder to shut down.

Peer to peer music sharing

In 1996, MP3s players found their way into listeners pockets. At first, the rudimentary systems could hold six to twelve songs, but the Apple iPod changed the market in 2001. It held up to 1,000 songs. iTunes debuted in 2001 with the iPod as the world's best jukebox software. It has been the single largest distributor of music in the world since 2010. iTunes does not use the MP3 format but Advanced Audio coding (AAC) format, and although MP3 is still used, AAC has more industry support.

Apple iPod dominating the market

Pandora pioneered the style of music recommendation service that would become a huge trend in modern music. The idea was of a service that allowed listeners to hear music from thousands of artists without buying any album. The battle over royalties paid to artists are constant and not limited to Pandora. Despite the drop in album sales and the small earnings of artists, streaming services are doing well.

The streaming revolution

Many people are looking for an easy listening experience that allows them to consume and not create. That is why many people are looking into "zero-UI" music players, where the player would ideally need no interaction from the listener. From a broader range of information made available through demographic data, Facebook and Twitter, heart rate, temperature, etc., it would generate highly targeted playlists that would work with the user's taste and context. But the future of music consumption is uncertain at the moment. A move back to complete control is not out of the question.

The future of music listening

The rise of the iPod, the music-playing mobile phone, and a number of streaming media platforms all point toward a single, simple idea: music is important. But how did we get here?

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

The Evolution of Music Consumption: How We Got Here

<ul>
<li>Earth Day, the birth of the environmental movement, is about raising public consciousness about the condition of our beloved blue planet.</li>
<li>The first Earth Day was celebrated on 22nd April 1970, a time when industrialization was making American corporations consume leaded gas and other harmful pollutants, something which the average American was unaware of.</li>
<li>The rising consciousness was a result of a 1962 bestseller ‘Silent Spring’ which shined a light on the decaying planet, the condition of living organisms, and the link between pollution and disease.</li>
</ul>

Earth Day: Origins

In 1990, Earth Day mobilized 200 million individuals in over 140 countries, catapulting environmental issues on the global stage. 
The recycling efforts across the world got a huge boost and paved the way for a UN Earth Summit to happen in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Earth Day Founder, Senator Gaylord Nelson was awarded the Presidential Medal Of Freedom.

Earth Day Goes Global

With a new Millenium providing fresh new energy, Earth Day 2000 leveraged global and local individuals, the power of the internet, and over five thousand environmental groups in over 184 countries to reach out to millions.
It sent a clear message to those in power: Citizens from across the world demand accountability towards environmental issues.

Earth Day 2000

As Earth Day completed forty years, it battled new enemies: Climate change deniers and oil lobbyists with deep pockets. Other challenges were a distracted public, shrewd politicians and a divided environmental community. 
Yet the collective power of global environmental activists won over these challenges, and established EARTHDAY.ORG, bringing millions of people into the environmental movement.

Earth Day 2010

Earth Day activates over a billion people every year on 22nd April, and is the largest secular observance across the world. 
As world leaders are relentlessly valuing greed over the environment, the citizens of the world are rising up to take action for our planet and its inhabitants.

Earth Day Today

Learn the history behind the Earth Day movement, which engages a billion people worldwide on April 22 of every year. 2020 marks 50 years of Earth Day.

history

History

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

The History of Earth Day | Earth Day

<ul>
<li>In the late 50s, Frank Herbert, a freelance writer, was roaming the desert landscapes of Florence, Oregon, researching sand dunes. </li>
<li>His classic Dune got rejected by about 20 publishing houses, and soon after getting published by a magazine company, built up a huge fan base in the coming two decades. </li>
<li>Fifty years later, it is considered the greatest novel of the science fiction genre.</li>
</ul>

Dune: The Origin

The story of Dune is set in the far future, with a vast, hostile desert being the hotbed of the action. The beautiful story is filled with treachery, tragedy and an addictive drug everyone wants: Spice. 
The writer borrowed heavily from Islamic culture, and created meaty characters, along with the protagonist, Paul, being a man of destiny.

Dune: The Story

<ul>
<li>The book became the greatest science fiction novels of all time and sold millions of copies.</li>
<li>Dune’s official Hollywood debut happened in 1984, but it was a cheesy movie (with Sting in a codpiece) that was ridiculed. The grander, epic-scale movie was planned but never got made.</li>
<li>The story of Dune was then repackaged by George Lucas, creating a movie everyone knows about: Star Wars.</li>
<li>The book series continued even after Frank Herbert's death in 1986, with 13 more books getting produced apart from his earlier sequel works.</li>
</ul>

Dune: From A Book To A Movie

It has sold millions of copies, is perhaps the greatest novel in the science-fiction canon and Star Wars wouldn’t have existed without it. Frank Herbert’s Dune should endure as a politically relevant fantasy from the Age of Aquarius

sciencefiction

Science Fiction

movies

Movies & Shows

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

Dune, 50 years on: how a science fiction novel changed the world

The foundation of practical wisdom is derived from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. It deals with the question: How best shall we live?
To live well is to act well. To act well is the ability to do the right thing at the right time, in the right way, and for the right reason. To do that, we need discernment and the will to do so.

Aristotle's Practical Wisdom

To merely have practical intelligence and skill can run the risk of what Aristotle called "cleverness" or "shrewdness" - the ability to accomplish one's goals regardless of the rightness or consequences of those goals themselves.
Aristotle suggests that having the right character puts one on a much better footing. To know the intention of an action is to know its real aim. To act rightly, we need to know the right ends we aim for, the motivation to want those ends (i.e. moral will), and the means to accomplish them (i.e., character virtues). This is practical wisdom.

Practical Wisdom

For social institutions, like the family, the community, businesses, hospitals, governmental organisations, etc., their true aim must be known to function well.
Unhinged from its larger purpose can lead them astray. For example, politicians that vie for power rather than service, doctors working for money rather than humans, news outlets sensationalising for rating instead of objective reporting, etc.

Why Practical Wisdom Matters

One avenue for practical wisdom's application is in system changers. This comes back to Aristotle's original vision for legislators and politicians, whose primary obligation was to structure organisations and their practices to encourage others to learn to act wisely.
Practical wisdom cannot be learned in the narrow sense of learning as reading books or listening to lectures. It is embedded within the actual practices of a given role or vocation and can only be learned through hands-on, lived practice.

How To Apply Practical Wisdom

philosophy

Philosophy

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

Aristotle's Wise Action: Practical Wisdom

<ul>
<li>It is normal to experience a bad mood occasionally, when feelings of anger, frustration, anxiousness, or being let down take control over our normal behaviour.</li>
<li>Emotional short cuts, hacks and quick fixes are limited and temporary in their effectiveness, and it is better to practice acceptance and self-compassion, along with a willingness to go through the feelings.</li>
<li>The 3 Ms of handling bad moods are:: Move, Make and Meet.</li>
</ul>

Handling A Bad Mood

Physical activity and exercise can get rid of lethargy and irritability, and help with serious issues like chronic anxiety and depression.
What’s really great is that you don’t need an hour to improve your mood. Even a stroll in the park or a few pushups can dispel your grogginess, boosting positive feelings in your brain.

Ways to Cure A Bad Mood: Move

Creating something beautiful is a great way to boost your mood. We all are makers and creators, and making stuff is a powerful way to feel good.
Cooking food, fixing something, decluttering your desk, or painting bottles can help pep you up.

Curing A Bad Mood: Make

On a basic level, human beings are born to connect. We can form complex relationships to build, coordinate, and take advantage of interpersonal connections.
Individualism and independence have led to isolation, which results in amplifying our suffering. Connecting with others in any way possible can help boost our mood.

Meet: Bad Moods And Human Connections

Do you ever find yourself stuck in a bad mood—irritable, sad, or anxious? If so, one of the best ways to quickly shake it off is the 3 Ms strategy.

12 things quick learners always do (but never talk about)

The Joy of Being Wrong

INSPIRED - How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

The Hook Model: How to Manufacture Desire in 4 Steps

What Happened When I Leaned In to My Fear of Not Achieving - Mindful

Maryadonna