“Creativity only fails when it stops.” — Questlove
There’s no one way to be creative.
You can create for yourself or others, for pay or for free, to express a deeply-held belief or explore a new one.
You get to choose.
What an opportunity.
Now, on to this week’s ideas…
1. How To Instantly Improve Your Memory
“One study found people who took a break after studying a list of items recalled 50% of them compared to just 28% recall for the group who didn’t take a break.”
You don’t have a bad memory, you just may not know the best ways to use it.
In this post I share five ways to instantly improve your memory including to stop telling yourself memorization is hard, take quick breaks immediately after learning something you want to remember, and do what spies do.
Related: How to make the most of the time you spend learning.
2. How Creating A Movement Can Help You Get Attention For Your Creations
“If you’re a creative in any discipline, I’d advise taking a look at the culture that created you and then looking around for like-minded individuals who share your cultural context. Odds are, they have the same goals as you do.”
This is a must-read if you’re a musician, comedian, podcaster, writer, artist, or creator of any kind.
Ernest Wilkins uses an excerpt from a Questlove interview as a jumping off point to explain how creating a movement can help you get attention for your creations.
He breaks down how The Roots strategically created a cultural context for their music in order to attract an audience, launch their career, and give exposure to other similar artists including Common and Erykah Badu.
Related: Get more attention for your creations by telling your three stories.
3. Ignore Your Plans
“Unless we’re actually shut out of great things for lack of planning, then following no plans is the ideal way to make the best of each moment.”
People give lip service to the idea of living in the moment, but then go and schedule every second of their day.
Derek Sivers suggests sometimes it’s best to ignore your plans and shares what he learned from spending a day with his 7-year-old son after the kid declared he didn’t want to do anything Sivers had planned.
Related: 44 movie scenes that influenced how I live my life.
4. The Six Principles Of Persuasion
“People want more of those things that they can have less of.”
This video will save you some time and make a huge difference in your ability to get people to take the actions you want them to take.
It’s an 11-minute video about the six principles of persuasion that summarizes the core ideas in Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: Science and Practice.
You’ll learn how things like reciprocity, authority, and consensus influence the decisions people make and actions they take.
Related: Nine phrases that persuade people to commit to something.
5. Nine Stretches To Relieve Lower Back Pain
“Nearly 85 percent of adults will experience some kind of lower-back pain in their life.”
As someone who’s had his share of back pain over the years I know all too well how frustrating it can be.
That’s why I thought you may find Abigail Barronian’s breakdown of nine stretches to relieve lower back pain helpful.
They include stretches designed to warm up your body and stretch your legs and spine.
Related: To fix your back pain, change the way you sit.
Do the following five ideas interest you?
• How to learn something in half the time it would normally take
• How to design your own social media strategy
• How a CEO of a 200+ person company manages his email
• The three most important rules of marketing
• How to figure out your ideal level of productivity to be happy
Become an FTI All Access member and I’ll send them to you next week.
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The Full Monty combines the timely and the timeless in powerful ways.
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It’s All Right/Sentimental Reasons by Sam Cooke on the For The Interested playlist.
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I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi.
People
Some of this week’s ideas came from Kevin Kelly, Paul Metcalfe, and Further.
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