What You Will Learn

Latest Episodes:

The Prince Jul 24, 2020

Show notes

The word 'Machiavellian' gets bandied around all the time. Frank Underwood from House of Cards, Richard Hatch from Survivor, Lord Baelish in Game of Thrones or Scar from The Lion King, each were able to manipulate in different ways to ultimately get what they want. For them, effectiveness was more important than being perceived as "nice".

The Prince was written in 1532 by Niccolo Machiavelli. To Machiavelli, the greatest evil was stagnation and complacency. The agents of healthy change were what he called "new princes".

It has become one of the most influential instruction manual for leaders throughout history. Decades after Machiavelli's death, it spread far and wide. Over the centuries, millions have used it for advice on power.

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The Power of Positive Thinking Jul 18, 2020

Show notes

This book is written to suggest techniques and to give you examples which demonstrate that you do not need to be defeated by anything, that you can have peace of mind, improved health, and never-ceasing flow of energy. In short, that your life can be full of joy and satisfaction.

THE PROBLEM: Too many people are defeated by the everyday problems of life. They go struggling, perhaps even whining, through their days with a sense of dull resentment at what they consider the 'bad breaks' life has given them. In a sense there may be such things as 'the breaks' in life, but there is also a spirit and method by which we can control and even determine those breaks. It is a pity that people should let themselves be defeated by the problems, cares, and difficulties of human existence, and it is also quite unnecessary

SOLUTION: By learning to cast the obstacles from your mind, by refusing to become mentally subservient to them, and by channelling spiritual power through your thoughts, you can rise above obstacles which ordinarily might defeat you.

William James, often called the Father of Psychology, said: "the greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering the attitudes of mind"... “As you think, so shall you be”.

In three words: BELIEVE AND SUCCEED. The secret of a better and more successful life is to cast out those old dead unhealthy thoughts. Substitute for them new vital dynamic thoughts. You can depend upon it - an inflow of new thoughts will remake you and your life.

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Steve Jobs Jul 11, 2020

Show notes

Steve Jobs is the authorized self-titled biography of Steve Jobs. The book was written at the request of Jobs by Walter Isaacson, a former executive at CNN and TIME who has written best-selling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein.

The saga of Steve Jobs in Silicon Valley is the creation myth at large. Launching a startup in the parents garage and building it into one of the world's most valuable companies. He didn't invent everything outright, but he was a master at putting together ideas, art and technologies in ways that invented the future.

Some leaders push innovations by being good at big picture, others by mastering details. Jobs did both relentlessly. He launched a series of products over 3 decades that transformed whole industries:

- Apple 2 which took Wozniak's board and turned it into the first personal computer

- Macintosh popularized graphical user interfaces

- Toy Story and other Pixar blockbusters, opened up the miracle of digital imagination

- Apple stores, reinvented the role of a store in defining a brand

- iPod changed the way we consume music

- iTunes saved the music industry

- iPhone, which turned mobiles into music, photo, video, email and web

- App Store, spawned a new content creation industry

- iPad, launched tablet computing

- iCloud, demoted computer from its central role in managing our content and let all of our devices sync seamlessly

- And Apple itself, which became the most valuable company in the world

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The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up Jul 04, 2020

Show notes

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up - by Marie Kondo

This book has the potential to change your life. The act of tidying is a series of simple actions in which objects are moved from one place to another. It involves putting things where they belong, something so simple that even a six year old should be able to do it. Yet most people can’t. A short time after tidying their household descends into a disorganised mess.

When you follow the advice of this book and finish putting your house in order, your whole world will brighten and never again will you need to revert to clutter. This is what Marie Kondo calls ‘the magic of tidying’.

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Best of Season 4 Jun 04, 2020

Show notes

Thanks for listening to Season 4 of What You Will Learn!

In this episode, we'll recap our favourite lessons from our favourite books of Season 4. We go through our 'honourable mentions', then each of our respective Top 10s. The was a seriously strong season: we re-did some of our favourites in Mindset and The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, plus some new favourites in Range, Mastery and The Slight Edge.

Listen in to hear how we ranked them (especially where we agreed and disagreed!). Check out the post here with the short written summary of each of our favourite nuggets: https://whatyouwilllearn.com/best-of-season-4/

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Decisive May 30, 2020

Show notes

We're awful at making decisions. A survey found that 44% of lawyers don't recommend that students become lawyers. 83% of mergers/acquisitions fail to add any real value to the company. Hundreds of thousands of tattoos are removed each year. Young people start relationships that are bad for them, middle-aged people let work interfere with their personal lives, elderly have regrets about not smelling the roses more when they were younger.

We need a better process for making the big decisions.

Our generic process is usually: encounter a choice, analyse our options, make a choice, then live with it.

But at each stage of the process, there is a villain: narrow frame, confirmation bias, short-term emotion, overconfidence.

In order to overcome these villains, we need to "WRAP" our decisions: Widen our options, Reality-test our assumptions, Attain distance before deciding, Prepare to be wrong.

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Guns, Germs and Steel May 23, 2020

Show notes

Jared was studying bird watching in New Guinea when he came across a local politician Yali; who asked the question he asked was "why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people have little cargo of our own?" It was a simple question and this book is the answer.

Diamond shows us how “History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves”

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Derek Sivers: Pop Philosophy, Questioning Answers, Finding the Opposite, and Nerding Out About Books May 20, 2020

Show notes

Adam Ashton interviewed Derek Sivers, the author of the book that was our FIRST EVER episode of the What You Will Learn podcast, 'Anything You Want'.

We spoke about answering questions then questioning the answers, using creative thinking strategies to find an answer that is the opposite but also true, then we spent a long time nerding out on books. What makes a 'good' book? Is there a difference between a book you like and a book you would recommend? How do you pick what book to read next? What are some of your favourite books?

Derek has three new books coming out soon. Keep an eye out for 'How To Live'.

Check out all of Derek's books notes and book ratings at: https://sivers.org/book

If you want to contact Derek, you can find that on his website too.

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A Whack on the Side of the Head May 16, 2020

Show notes

A Whack on the Side of the Head - by Roger van Oech

"How You Can Be More Creative"

Creative thinking is absolute vital to success. The author even says that creative thinking is just like sex for the mind (not sure what his sex life is like, but each to his own...). But we all have a bunch of 'mental locks' that trap us in our current ways of thinking. As much as we try, we can't break free from these mental locks. Some times we just need a 'whack' to snap us out of it.

Mental Lock = "I need to find the right answer"

Whack = There's always a SECOND 'right answer', push yourself beyond the first thing that comes to mind and think of another answer

Mental Lock = "Play is frivolous, we need to be practical"

Whack = Use your imagination! Some times you need to think practically, but sometimes you need to give yourself permission but play and use imagination to come up with new, creative ideas

Mental Lock = "That's not my area, coming up with new ideas is for those creative types"

Whack = EVERYONE should be bringing new ideas together. Rather than working in silos, bring together different departments and different fields. This 'cross-fertilisation' means you can new approaches to old problems.

Mental Lock = "Making mistakes is bad"

Whack = 'Success' isn't always good (it can trap you into a certain way of thinking) and 'failure' isn't always bad (it means what you're doing now isn't working, but that doesn't mean that you'll never find a solution)

Mental Lock = "I'm just not creative"

Whack = EVERYONE is creative. If you ever saw a cardboard box and pretended it was a space ship or a race car, you're creative. You've just told yourself that you're not. Give yourself a licence to be creative. We need your ideas!

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Malcolm Turnbull, 29th Prime Minister of Australia: Politics, The Media & Embracing Antifragility May 13, 2020

Show notes

Malcolm Turnbull was the 29th Prime Minister of Australia, in office from 2015 to 2018. His career also spanned through Journalism, Law and Investment Banking.

In this episode we spoke to Malcolm about books, the Murdoch Media influence and the world post-corona.

Watch the video version here: https://youtu.be/kwiqyMizH0E

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