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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Listen to the Intro
Non-Obvious summary
Rohit Bhargava
How To Think Different, Curate Ideas & Predict The Future
16 mins
Table of Contents
Non-Obvious
summarized in 8 key ideas
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Key idea 1 of 8
You curate trends by keenly observing the non-obvious patterns in today's society.
Everyone in business wants to stay a step ahead of everyone else. We all want to be the first to figure out the next big thing. We want to predict trends before our rivals do.
Yet when people attempt to predict the future, their ideas are often uninspired or even a bit lazy. In the 1960s and ‘70s, hundreds of people thought we'd be all driving flying cars in the next few decades. This was the time of growing rocket power, air travel and car ownership. It seemed only natural that the technologies would all come together to produce elevated personal transport.
But predicting trends based on what seems obvious at the moment is futile. The present is constantly changing: The world isn't nearly as obsessed with space exploration as it was sixty years ago, and we're not nearly as motivated to go to the moon.
If you want to get a better idea of what people will be doing in the future, look for non-obvious trends.
Non-obvious trends aren't right there in front of us. They're buried under lots of other information, and if you want to spot them, you need to become a trend curator.
Think of what a museum curator does. First, they collect things, like works of art or other artifacts. It's important to build this collection, but the collection alone does not a museum make. Curators also have to bring out the meaning in the objects they present.
A trend curator is similar. They gather lots of information about what people are doing, and what's happening in technology, fashion or whatever other field they're interested in.
For example, a keen trend curator might notice that social media, increasingly advanced technology and personalized adverts are pushing us towards a future in which people will have a stronger desire to be the center of attention.
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What is Non-Obvious about?
Non-Obvious is all about detecting important trends, an essential part of running a business. You can't accurately predict the future by looking at obvious, surface-level influences – the important ones are hidden underneath. These blinks offer advice on identifying meaningful changes, while outlining some prominent trends we're likely to see in the future.
Best quote from Non-Obvious
The first thing I realized was that if I was going to develop ideas that others werent thinking of, I couldnt do it using the same information they did.
—Rohit Bhargava
Who should read Non-Obvious?
- Anyone who wants to learn about spotting trends
- Movers and shakers searching for an investment with high potential
- Curious readers who want to know what tomorrow's trends will be
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