You have acquired countless skills, but why have you achieved nothing?

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A few days ago, I saw a sentence from teacher Ruan Yifeng, which made me feel emotional. "You just sit in front of the computer and post a piece of text or a picture on the Internet, whatever, and you can reach so many strange souls. This is why I love the Internet." I think from the bottom of my heart that this is the best era. In this era, we can access more information than at any time in history. We can easily share our joy and spread our thoughts through the Internet, just like the words I am typing at this moment.

Today I don’t want to brag about how great the information age is, after all, we are still living behind the wall. Today I just want to talk about some of my thoughts, how should we, who are in the tide of information, look at this era from what perspective, and how can we climb to the top of the food chain in the natural selection of the information age.

I'm bragging a lot, as if I'm going to teach you a lesson every minute. In fact, what I want to talk about is a skill that is easily overlooked by everyone: information acquisition. Some people may not think that this is a skill that needs to be practiced, and some people may have gotten used to their own way of reading and don't care about it.

In fact, this is an extremely important basic skill, especially in today's information explosion. This is like the way a person eats. Some people empty their minds when eating, stare at their eyes without moving, and enjoy the meal with their lives. They will definitely gain weight successfully. On the contrary, some people are still thinking about how to solve that bug and how many things they have to do this afternoon when eating, and they forget what they eat. He does not focus on eating, does not eat seriously, and has no competitiveness in eating, so he will not gain weight no matter how much he eats.

The acquisition of information is the same as the acquisition of fat. Only with the right posture can you absorb the essence. In the information age, how can we make good use of the resources around us, realize our ideals, marry a beautiful and wealthy woman, and embark on a life of revolution? Let's review history to see what inspiration we can get.

If it were the agricultural era, how would you go from being a commoner to success? The core resource of the agricultural era was land. You could only save a little money by working hard, facing the earth and using yourself like an animal. Then you could buy some more land, increase grain production, and rent the remaining land to tenants to collect rent. Then you could gradually move from being a poor peasant, a middle peasant, and a rich peasant to a small landlord. This was your path to development. In fact, the family of Yan Xishan, a big warlord in my hometown, had such a development process. It was only because of the desperate efforts of their ancestors that they could become small landlords in their generation and live a relatively prosperous life.

What if it is the industrial age? Productivity technology is the core resource, opening a factory, improving production efficiency, and ultimately leading to the road to entrepreneurial success.

Now is the information age. What is the core resource? It is information. More specifically, it is the websites you browse every day, the Weibo you check every half an hour, Zhihu, Douban, and Moments. Oh my God! The core resources of this era flow before your eyes every day! Aren’t you excited?

I'm not excited. Because there's too much.

What a sincere statement. This is the information age, and also the age of information overload. There are many competing products in every field, and even more marketing experts are racking their brains to exploit the shortcomings of human nature, just to make you look at them more.

I can't keep up with them all! Therefore, fragmented reading has become our habit, and even a behavior pattern. You can spend 2 minutes to read 100 Weibo posts, and then your high-speed brain will select one or two valuable ones, spend 2 seconds to forward them, and at most add a sentence "new skills acquired". Then you will skillfully close Weibo and open Moments to continue reading, switching seamlessly. And the "100 Excel Usage Tips" or "10-Minute Magical Weight Loss Exercise Every Day" that you just got has long been forgotten.

Some people are even quicker, and they think they understand the article just by reading the title, without even reading the content. When you talk to him, you feel like he knows everything, and when you discuss it in depth, you are speechless. No wonder clickbait is so popular nowadays.

Obtaining information in this way will result in us only knowing the conclusions but not the reasons behind them. We do not really think and explore, but simply passively accept opinions. This is very harmful. You cannot even form your own opinions and have no thoughts of your own. How can you create your own ideas and exert your creativity at work?

I have long been wary of fragmented reading. Although reading may seem efficient, the information that can be truly absorbed is very small, accounting for less than 5%. So you feel that you have acquired countless skills, but in fact you have gained nothing. You still can't adjust the format in Excel, and you are still a fat person.

If you spend the same amount of time, calm down and slowly read an article or a chapter in a book, you can absorb a lot of content. You read carefully and think about it, so that the information you get can be truly integrated into your thinking, rather than just going through the motions in your brain. So now when I read articles, I will deliberately remind myself to read slower, slower. I remember when I was reading the book "Out of Control", I even stopped to think after reading each paragraph, and only continued to read after I truly understood the content of the book.

This seemingly slow and clumsy way of reading can actually get you a lot more information than fragmented reading. So, I suggest that you calm down and read slowly. Why not start with this article?

After being able to "really read" information, another important ability is to judge the authenticity of information. After all, we receive too much information every day. We absorb all the information without distinguishing its authenticity, and even spread it to others, eventually forming a situation where everyone follows the crowd and the truth is obscured.

I don't want to emphasize that we must grasp the truth, but I want to emphasize that we must have a process of "verification" for inaccurate information. For example: the National Development and Reform Commission issued a red-headed document ordering house prices to be reduced by half. You should at least go to the website of the National Development and Reform Commission to check if there is such information. Sometimes it is just a simple step, but we lack this awareness. Sometimes there is only one step between wisdom and ignorance.

Also, do not easily spread information that you have not verified. If you really can't help it, at least add two words in front of it: it is said. For example, "360 is a rogue, stealing user information", have you ever done an experiment? Do you have definite evidence to prove the problem? I believe that many people have "heard from others" about this information. Don't think that it's no big deal if I just talk to others casually. Not to mention the impact on others, for you, it has already determined your thinking, whether it is on the side of reason or on the side of ignorance.

Therefore, when dealing with information, we must conduct necessary verification. Only in this way can we obtain first-hand information and get one step closer to the truth.

After truly absorbing information and being able to distinguish the authenticity of information, we still need to learn a skill, which is to judge the quality of information. After all, you read too much information every day, and we should keep those that are truly useful and can have an impact on your thinking or work.

Don't be too enthusiastic about what Jack Ma and Pony Ma say. What they say is right, but it's too far away from you. You are not at the stage of leading a large enterprise yet. Unfollow those funny rankings, jokesters, marketing accounts, and people who talk nonsense every day on your Weibo. I just did this myself.

You saw countless jokes, but you were not happy.

What kind of information is valuable to you? I believe that different people have different standards, so I won’t judge here. What I want to say is that no matter what your standard is, you must have this awareness, that is, you must identify this information, otherwise you still have a brain that accepts both good and bad things. To put it bluntly, you still haven’t formed your own thinking and position.

This is a great era. The most valuable core resource of this era is right around you and me. Just by taking advantage of information asymmetry, huge business opportunities can be generated. Those who occupy the high ground of information can command the behavior of those who lag behind in information. The Internet is so wonderful. Don't just use it to have fun and play games. Go and explore the secret garden of this era.

Well, it’s time to end and reflect on yourself. Did you read the article carefully? Did you just read the title and leave? Did you really absorb the ideas in the article? Did you give it a thumbs up?