The Skills We Weren’t Taught in School

Skillz.

By now, it’s apparent that we may be among the last of the generations able to coast through careers on the basis of a four- to six-year learning experience. Having put in our time at the front lines of the digital revolution, we’ve had plenty of on-the-job learning. But as we think about new verses or even remaining highly relevant in the ones we are in, we consider Darwin’s observation, “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” True, that. Of course, knowing this and putting it into practice are two different things—change is indeed hard—but our heads need not be. We’ve gathered resources to help you break some new neural ground.

Playing dumb.

We’re longtime fans of organizational psychologist Adam Grant’s work, including his latest,

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, which dives into what’s required to loosen one’s grip on what we deeply believe we know. Grant doesn’t sugarcoat the work it takes to unlearn something, but he shows it to be a vital skill in a rapidly changing world. 

You’re wrong about.

Maybe it was a post from a friend or your 1,000th attempt to make a point that has had you asking, “Is this person batsh*t crazy?” We can’t lie–we say that more than we would like these days. Enter How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion and Persuasion, a read that delves into what it truly takes to change one’s mind—and the limit of reasoning. It helps to reveal the conditions under which people can truly transform their deepest beliefs (so you can stop meeting the wall with your head if it’s a lost cause). 

Of two minds.

Sure, we’ve recommended dipping into the Heath brothers’ work a time or two, but we never tire of recommending Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard. This one illuminates the true, biological and neurological forces that can enable or create barriers to change. With awareness, progress.

Better than before.

Gretchen Rubin wanted to answer a simple question for her friend: Why had she, a former athlete, been unable to get back into her habit of exercise? In doing so, she found that we all have habit tendencies that require different strategies to make a given change stick. If you’re trying to make a personal habit change, big or small, we recommend her 21 Strategies for Habit Change and checklist.