honest question, has anyone ever improved their lives by reading articles of this flavor ? (e.g 10 things successfully ceo's do, 10 ways to increase your chances of building a successful company)
In other words, reading the piece might not alter your behavior today and you might forget 98% of it if quizzed later, but next time you're presented with a decision to which it applies, you find yourself behaving somewhat more wisely than you would have if you hadn't consumed these articles.
Maybe. Or maybe these articles are no more useful than reading the backs of shampoo bottles. Tough to measure.
Almost 20 years ago articles about David Allen and his Getting Thins Done book were popping up in my feed. That led to me reading the book and it has had a big impact on me.
Articles on a subject also lead me to the books and videos on the subject as well.
Some of those '10 habits of successful CEOs' fluff pieces don't really have many actionable insights so you're not going to get much out of them no matter how hard you try. But a good book like 7 Habits, GTD, Richest Man In Babylon, etc. - you re-read those and study even one and you'll probably get a lot.
Personally, I think there's a lot of actionable information in this article, for example about intelligent people having greater difficulty handling situations when they feel threatened than non-intelligent people.
It's like advertising. A single ad probably isn't going to get you to go and take action, but lots of ads over time sway your opinion.
So, most of the time I tend to save these article (pocket archive) and refer it back once the realization hits. And it most of the times it happens within a week.
Most things must be dealt with generic advice (and it's still surprising how many get generic advice wrong, and do the opposite).
And most of what we do as people are not that unique anyway, to require any non-generic advice.
The hard part is sticking to the generic advice and making it work.
But there are no, or very few, shortcuts and precise step-by-steps procedures to success.
Generic advice: if you want your startup to succeed, work had and focus.
Specific advice has to do with a situation. "I have trouble meeting my sales targets." Advice: "Hire a sales person." Q: "I don't know how?" Advice: "Do you have an HR network?" etc.
The hardest part is definitely not sticking to generic advice. Generic advice is contradictory, obvious or both. (Stay focused on the big picture, vs. be detail oriented. They are both true at different times).
The second advice is only useful if you've learned (or naturally follow) the first generic kind.
If you can't sit down and wort hard when its needed (but e.g. instead expect success to come easy once you've launched your startup) or if you can't focus (but instead try to do everything at once, or you're over the place, easily distracted, etc), whichever "specific" advice you're told to meet sales targets wont make much difference.
>The hardest part is definitely not sticking to generic advice. Generic advice is contradictory, obvious or both.
It being obvious doesn't preclude it being extremely important or it being hard.
The best advice for diet can be summarized as "eat food, not too much, mostly plants". All obvious parts, all very beneficial if followed. And yet, tons of people fail to follow through, and want magic "specific advice" ("do the avocado detox", "eat 80% protein and less of 50 grams of carbs each day" etc).