The Ultimate Man’s Knowledge Box:
How to Become Smart & Sophisticated, Fast!
Originally appeared in Men’s Muscle & Health Australia
In your life, if we took away all the material goods and stripped back everything you didn’t need, there would be only 2 things you could control in the end… Your Health & Your Mind.
As you age your body isn’t going to keep up, but the beauty of the mind is it will continually grow stronger, smarter and wiser if you look after it (just like your body). Your body is the car and your mind is the engine.
Your mind is the engine that will keep people interested in listening to what you have to share. Your mind is the engine that will separate you from the rest of the fellas out there and so through all my years of self-development I’ve learnt a way to download knowledge in today’s busy world. No longer do you have to sit and read a book about philosophy or go to a class to learn a language.
It’s all possible on your phone and in a much shorter time period meaning you got more time for other stuff! So here are the top 5 apps any man needs to become the smartest and most sophisticated guy in any conversation.
Overcast (https://overcast.fm/)
More than ever our world is constantly on-the-go and most of all ‘budded up’ (locked in with head/earphones). For many we just zone out listening to the latest tunes, but if you’re reading this then you aren’t like most men. You want to make the most of your time and I’ve personally found that switching from Music to Podcasts has opened up my mind to new ideas, perspectives and learnings.
Think about it, what if you just got lost in listening to a thought-provoking idea in a podcast and that leads to you researching more about how meats can hurt your body, or smashing your belief systems about what girls really want from a man?
You can listen to them while walking, on public transport or doing chores. When I drove I would call it ‘Car University’ when the podcasts would be playing!
The thing is with most of these podcast shows an episode is around 30-60mins long. Now not all of us have time to commit and sometimes there are long pauses during the show. That’s where Overcast comes in to shorten the episodes allowing you to consume them faster without feeling like you just missed everything!
Other players will just speed the audio up making everyone sound like chipmunks, but Overcast has the smart speed function. Smart Speed allows you to listen up to 1.5-2X faster not just only by speeding up the audio but also by cutting out the silences and pauses. Making it much easier to listen to on the fly…
Originally appeared in Men’s Muscle & Health Australia
Blinkist (https://www.blinkist.com/)
It’s amazing how even in this digital age there are so many people publishing books still, but if you’re anything like me maybe that 500g Tony Robbins book isn’t going to be finished anytime soon (especially if you read as slow as I do!). Wouldn’t it be cool if you could take all the key learnings from the book in a blink?
That’s where Blinkist comes in to the rescue for us time-poor men. They have a dedicated group of writers who review each book, with many more coming out each week, and break down the key points into what they call ‘blinks’. A book could take between 8 – 15mins to finish within Blinkist and each ‘chapter’ is called a ‘blink’. I truly love this app because it makes learning so much easier with the cliffnotes version that is not totally watered-down or a straight out bad copy paste rip off from the book!
Audible (www.audible.com.au)
Now what if you’ve read the summary from Blinkist and want to get into the real meat of the book?
You could go out to grab a copy of the book from the bookstore or Amazon, but what if you’re like me and find it hard to find time to sit down and read?
Then this is where the invention of the audiobook is a godsend!
Audible is the premier marketplace for audiobooks. It’s owned by Amazon and has a huge selection with an affordable membership fee to buy books to listen to at your pleasure. The audiobooks are high quality and often you can get copies of your favourite author reading them as well.
The best part is you can make notes and bookmark certain parts of the audio and the audiobook is also broken up into chapters. If Blinkist is the sizzle of the steak then Audible is the steak that gets you filled up with knowledge.
FluentU (www.fluentu.com)
If you’ve ever wanted to pick up a language now it is easier than ever before to learn. I would have put Duolingo in this list, but it didn’t have Chinese and so I discovered FluentU.
What sets this app apart from other apps with learning Chinese is that it has been designed by the team to be as interactive as possible. It isn’t just about grammar, but it focuses on teaching the basic essentials to help you apply in general conversation. I love the fact that it has videos with subtitles from both Youtube and their own to help you pick up the language quicker!
There is also a revision box where it’ll keep track of the words you’ve learnt and you can quiz yourself on.
As with any language you’ll only get better with practice and with FluentU you can do each lesson in 5mins or less and get practicing almost immediately.
Evernote (www.evernote.com)
True knowledge does not come from retaining every single thing you’ve learnt, but knowing where to go to find the answers…
There is no point being a sponge and absorbing knowledge all the time because eventually like your phone or hard drive, your brain will run out of memory and space. But what if you could download what you just learnt in your own words?
That’s where Evernote comes in handy!
This app isn’t new, but it definitely is one of my most used apps on a daily basis. Just imagine it as a digital notepad where you can write on your computer at work then finish the note while on the train ride home. Don’t fret if you’re not a writer because Evernote also allows you to do voice recordings. Best of all everything is searchable meaning you don’t need to try and find that needle in the haystack of paper notes anymore!
As I tell my clients, you’re going to need to create the space to allow greatness to come into your life. So start downloading the knowledge you’ve learnt and cement it somewhere you can find it later, rather than clogging up your head!
At the end of the day though true power doesn’t come from what you know, but from what you do with what you know…
Never forget to take action on what you’ve learnt otherwise it’s kind of like reading everything about basketball, but never stepping onto the court. Step-up, start learning and get into action!