The Lessons Learned Through Self-Education; How Reading Changes Lives.

Exploring the world of books has been a joy during the quarantine caused by covid-19 & the pandemic at large.

Many people have found themselves going out less, and staying in more. As we near the end of 2020, all we can do is look forward and ask ourselves how we can provide assistance to help mitigate the spread of the virus.

Let’s take a deep dive into some of the teachings I’ve managed to come across while I find myself focused on taking a more creative approach to analyze nonfiction & literature.

The three books we will be discussing are:

1. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry
2. Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges by Amy Cuddy
3. The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs

Lessons from Emotional Intelligence 2.0

“Emotional Intelligence is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships.”

1. Be aware of your emotions to better manage behavior and relationships.
2. Balance logic with emotions; often one is taking dominance over the other.
3. Align body language with verbal language.
4. Be vocal about your goals — talk to others about theirs as well.
5. Ask for sincere feedback, and give genuinely constructive criticism when asked.

Lessons from Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges

“Focus less on the impression you’re making on others and more on the impression you’re making on yourself.”

1. To gain courage and handle stress: write and talk about your top core values.
2. Remember all of your previous victories; you don’t need to feel powerless or helpless.
3. Improve your posture to become more confident; stand tall to feel stronger & in control.
4. Openly talk more about what you love, and whom you love the most. Be confident with how you feel about these things, and the knowledge you have to share.
5. Approach new challenges with excitement — take advantage of talking with professionals about their interests too; they are often very happy to share their experience & expertise.

Lessons from The End of Poverty

“The world is not a zero-sum struggle in which one country’s gain is another’s loss.”

1. Find kindness and compassion through learning more about the places & nations currently dealing with poverty.
2. Countries do not need to lose something for the people in other countries to win; there should not exist a zero-sum game between nations.
3. Many of the poorest countries need assistance because they are trapped in a cycle of poverty through a variety of different factors: geographical location, poor governance, insufficient infrastructure, and brain drain: educated people who leave for better opportunities.
4. Every poor nation has its own unique problems to deal with; this requires different & unique solutions — there are no one-size-fits-all. We cannot simply send them money, supplies, or resources and hope it fixes the problems.
5. By comparison, Africa has the lowest emissions and the smallest consumption of resources, but it is unfairly affected by climate change; this disproportionally affects their ability to escape poverty.

Comment & share some book suggestions!

About the Author

Stephen Stilwell is a recent Computer Science graduate from the Eastern Florida State College in Melbourne, Florida. He is currently exploring options in employment. Excited to learn new tools in technology, Stilwell is actively seeking opportunities in IT.

I am a success story. My parents passed away when I was younger. My mom never went to college and my dad never finished a single year at university. Growing up in Florida was rough, as the rest of my family was anchored in New York.

As of last week, amidst the deep concerns of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have attained the level of College Graduate.