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The world keeps growing and everything keeps changing. Today you know something and tomorrow it is old school. People are trying new ways to make life easy and technology keeps advancing. Government policies keep changing, world power taking new directions and current happenings are changing future predications. At times like this, there is a need to stay relevant and add more Intellectual value to yourself.
The question now is, how do you add more value to yourself intellectually? Or maybe there is no need for that, the world can just keep advancing leaving you behind. No matter what part you take career-wise or business-wise, you need to keep adding value to yourself intellectually. So you can be the evergreen MVP.
Adding more intellectual value to yourself is not like trying to get into college, get the certificate and later lose interest in what you’ve spent four years trying to learn. It’s way easier than that. It’s simply you trying to update the skills you learned 2 years ago and trying to broaden your knowledge in certain areas. The best part about this journey is this, there are many ways to do it. You only need to adopt some habits that can help you achieve it.
The ways to add more intellectual value to yourself I will be sharing with you is an evergreen process that never gets old.
1. Read books to add more Intellectual Value to Yourself
Reading books is the number one recommendation to personal development and there is no way I am not going to include it in this list.
There is a lot to gain from reading books. People put in a lot of research, surveys, facts, thoughts, intelligence and history into books.
I am not going to tell you what kind of books to read but if you are looking to be vast in knowledge then read books that will help you achieve that.
This depends on what aspect of your life you want to be intellectually sound.
If you want to know business better and discover some secrets reads book of people who have succeeded. Read books that are filled with valuable information. Books that could actually change or make your business orientation better.
Likewise for your career. Find books that will help you excel in your career choice. Books that will teach you work ethics.
I know relationships for instance, works differently. However, there are some general rules that works for everyone. Hence, read those books too. You don’t know when you might give an advice and someone will think he/she just met an expert.
In reading books let’s not forget personal development and self-care. Don’t be too serious about business and work alone. You have a life to live therefore, add value to yourself intellectually in those areas too.
2. Learn History
Personally, history has helped increased my understanding of where the world is and probably where it is heading to. A lot of secrets is buried in history and the moment you unravel it a lot starts making sense to you.
History is not necessary what happened decades ago, it is also what happened two years ago. At that time the story wasn’t clear. As time goes own things are opened up and better light is shared.
When I say history, its not just one aspect of it. Learn business history, political history, journalism history, war history, law history and all the historical events that shaped the world you leave in now.
Intellectually you should be curious about what brought about some certain change. Things like what brought the end of an empire and how did the one after it come to be. If a certain leader wasn’t assassinated what could have been the turn of event. If there was never a great depression what will the economy be like?
History answers a lot of questions and even give a solution to current and future problems. What about its ability to predict the future.
If you know fashion history, you will notice that style only keeps evolving. It’s either longer or shorter, tighter or lose, light or heavy and more revealing.
Learning history has made me less angry about some past and have added more intellectual value to me. It can add more value to you intellectually.
3. Watch TV
Before you conclude this is a bad advice, read what I have to say about watching TV first.
TV has played a major role in how vast I am to the things I know happening around me or globally. This started from childhood and I know you reading this now will agree.
There is no denying the fact that there is so much rubbish going on as entertainment. But the fact is this, there are still some good valuable programs on TV.
Here is my advice on TV. Don’t rule out TV from your life, simply select what you watch. Watch a lot of reality shows, I am not talking about the Kardashian type of reality show that’s entertainment. Watch reality shows where you get to see new cultures, tradition and different ways of life.
If you are a parent reading this, I will advise you don’t cut your children off the TV completely. Rather teach them how to watch more educative programs and less entertainment. Everything has a good and a bad side so does TV. It’s not completely bad.
4. Follow News
Follow the news from every level. Starting from the local news within your state, then news concerning the entire country and the global news.
Don’t listen to rumors or gossips on social media. Listen to news from reliable sources. If it’s on the internet follow the big information agencies and if it’s on TV local news source is good enough.
For global news follow/listen to big media channels such as CNN, BBC and Aljazeera. I just mentioned a few there are a lot of good ones out there.
Make news so important you literally create time for it. If it’s the news at 8 stop everything and listen.
The news brings events and happenings closer to you. Most of this event shapes the present and changes the future. You shouldn’t want to miss up on that.
If you are a business owner or plan on starting one, then the business section of the news is something you shouldn’t neglect.
5. Watch Documentaries that can add intellectual value to you
Do you wonder why I didn’t include watching a documentary in watching TV? That’s because I see it differently. My brother and I set reminders to watch documentaries. It’s a form of learning and discovery to me.
Documentaries are fully loaded reports, some which took years of research and compilation. It could be on crime, war, history, politics, empires, government and power.
Things that were once secrets are brought to light. Victims and witnesses could speak out and say their stories at it.
Some documentaries are stories of what is currently happening in the world. What better way to learn about world secrets than this.
Reading history can take long and you av loose interest. But watching it through a documentary makes it easy to follow through. All you have to do is follow the series.
Documentaries also show you how things are made if you ever wondered how what you are using is made.
Hence, if you are looking to uncover a lot of mysteries watching documentaries will help you.
6. Understand the Economy
Do you wonder why I didn’t say “your economy”? That’s because to fully understanding how your economy works, you need to understand the ones around you.
Know what industry is making it and which is struggling at the time. Understand the stock market and foreign exchange. Follow the price of commodities like oil and gold. When it goes up and comes down.
Understand the economy of the country your country trade with. If something big should happen there will it affect your economy? Just the resent global pandemic has opened the eyes of everyone to see the gap in their economy and how no country is doing it all by themselves.
If bigger companies and market were affected, then your small scale business stands at risk. Not only business but even jobs and career.
Hence, when you want to add more intellectual value to yourself you have to learn and understand everything around you. Whether it affects you directly or indirectly.
7. Have Intellectual Conversation
I do this all the time and I start one or join one very often. However, you can’t be good at this without taking numbers 1 to 6 on this list serious.
The reason why having intellectual conversations with people helps in adding more intellectual value is this. You get to understand a topic from another point of view.
Your opinion might be from another perspective and another person from a different perspective. Putting them together, you’ll see that you have a better picture of everything.
Just as we learn from our teachers, consider having an educative conversation as learning. If we were perfect and knew all then we won’t need to learn. But as humans, we have the capacity to learn every day from people. So let’s make good use of it. See it as a free education.
Besides no matter how well learned you are, you will meet people who have more knowledge and experience from you. Humble yourself ask questions and learn.
8. Learn Something New so you can add more Intellectual Value to Yourself
From the beginning I told you adding more intellectual value to yourself is basically you adding more knowledge to what you already know.
Hence, learning something new is not you starting a college diploma but you dedicate at least 1 hour every week to learn something new. It can be an online course, seminar or a new skill.
Before you start feeling like you can’t achieve this because of financial constraint. I want you to know that there are a lot of free valuable resources out there. There are free courses and training online you just have to find the best. However, I will recommend the good ones I know.
Alison, Coursera, Udemy and Futurelearn. These are places I am sure you can find free or paid training and resources. Alison is the number one for me so if you are looking to learn something new, check it out.
Enrol for courses that will improve your business skills and boost your career. Learn marketing, sales and customer engagement. No education or knowledge learned is ever a waste.
In Conclusion…
When you are on a journey to make yourself valuable let nothing stop you. There are a lot of easy and natural things to do to achieve it.
It’s you changing a lifestyle, picking interest on something new or changing your routine. If you didn’t read books before read them now. You thought you had nothing to gain from your local news or business news now you know you need it.
I’ve gained a lot from asking people questions and starting a conversation i call “educative conversation”. I know we have different personality which we might like starting up a conversation. However, when one is initiated try to be a part of it.
You might want to read and know what you need for your mental health because it matters.
These are my easy tips and advise on how you can add more intellectual value to yourself.
