Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
Happy Saturday morning to you welcome or welcome back to success with Srini. Today on the podcast, I want to go back to the event that I was referring to yesterday. So I was at a conference, the past Sunday, and I was briefly put on the stage. And I was introduced there and I to speak a few words in one. And that will vary for just a few minutes. And one of the things, I told the people, I mean, there were about 600 people in the room. And the very first message, I only spoke for a couple of minutes. And the very first message was, I said, take notes. Take notes, not because you want to learn something later. But take notes, because when you go home today, you can enlighten other people in your home or at your house. So so this was an annual wealth conference. And everybody who was attending there was there to learn the latest and the greatest wealth strategies, how to invest how to make money, how to save money, and look for business opportunities and things like that. And the majority of them were attending, not as a couple. So they’re married, but they were in either the wife or the husband was attending the event.
So my message to them was when you go home, make sure that you enlighten your spouse about investments, about wealth about money, don’t make singular decisions, unilateral decisions, and make sure that when it comes to making any money-level discussions or decisions, it’s always collective. Everybody, all the responsible parties are collectively making decisions, in this case, the wife or the husband, or spouse or significant other or partner, all everybody involved as a household, you need to make decisions about where the money is going and how it’s going to be invested or spent and all that. So that was my message. Now, what I want to do today on the podcast is I want to quickly share with you a note-taking mechanism. Because this is something that I have been asked multiple times I’ve done many seminars, and workshops, specifically on how to take notes. Because at the moment, whatever is being shared from the stage may look great. But sometimes when you go home and reflect on what you learned at an event, you will have bigger aha moments as a result of you just simply processing all that one more time. And for you to process one more time, it’s important that you collect the data at the source in a good way. So I have been telling this in all my seminars, every time any attendee, whoever came in to take meticulous notes about everything that they are listening to in the room. So I want to share with you and consider today’s podcast episode as a masterclass in note-taking. I’m not a good note-taker, but I’m going to share with you how I do it. But I see my daughter, I see the new generation I see, you know, I don’t know, it’s amazing how these kids are taking notes and how they color code the notes and, and amazing when they go when they take tests, then they just refer to the notes and they’re good, they don’t need to go back to the books and read and all that. So it’s amazing that these are beautiful times we are in. And as grownups and at least if you are my age and I’ve been around for a long time now hitting a pretty old it’s important that we also acquire the skills that are important doesn’t matter how old you walk, or you have gone through doesn’t matter. The earlier you get the skill, the better you’re off, but there is never a bad time to learn to get the skill into the system.
Now there are so many note-taking systems that are available. And if you have gone through primary, middle school, and high school in the us, I think in any country for that matter. I mean every school system, in general, has its own method on how they teach its students how to take notes. There are three things I do when I’m taking notes. My goal is To capture ideas,, whatever the message is, I want to capture the message, that’s the right word message. To capture the message, whatever that message is. And inside that message, there are a few key points. So I want to capture the key points. Now, I’ve seen people take photos of slides at events. That’s not the key point. The key points are when the speaker is speaking. Now what is there in the slide is more like a queue. So at my events, I don’t use text on the slides anymore, I just use images. So people are like, Okay, I’m gonna take a photo of the image. Now the image is a cue for me to, to drive a point. So whatever I’m saying is the key point, the key point is not on the slide. Now, that is not true with other speakers. But as a listener, as a student, and as somebody taking notes, your job is to capture the message and the key points in the message. And that’s what I do myself. The second thing I do is I, take the key point, not for me to just read, but I take it in a way so that I can reproduce it if need be. once for all, as if I’m like, as I’m writing, I’m taking notes, I’m also cementing what I’m writing into my mind, so I can reproduce. And I don’t need to reproduce exactly what I’m writing. But I want to be in a position to reproduce the learnings of that key point. I hope I’m clear. So not to exactly produce the key point but to produce the learnings of the key point. And not only immediately, but 12 months from now, I should be able to reproduce whatever the lesson or the learning is in that key point. That’s the second goal I have or the second thing. And the third thing is I want I don’t write too many notes. I usually go off of the visuals. So I’m drawing, I’m making circles, lines, squares, arrows, all that dots. You know, sometimes if I have the liberty and the luxury, may use some color codes here and there, but I’m not into it as much. I just have one pen, one notebook, I just go and write down, whatever. So in my seminars and workshops, I tell people that when they’re taking notes, make sure the left page is all that they are listening to from this page. And the right page is all the ideas you’re getting as a result of what you’re listening to from the state. So left page, everything the speaker is sharing, right page, everything that your mind is telling you.
That’s how I structure it in the room. If you go and research note taking one of the most outstanding note-taking methods or mechanisms that exist today is the Cornell note-taking system. Cornell University is where this was this, this was kind of put together. And the Cornell note-taking system is very simple. You take a piece of paper, you draw a line in the middle vertically. On the left side, you take notes while you’re listening. On the right side, you write down all your reflections. Similar to what I just said, about the way I was suggesting my seminar attendees use two pages. Cornell system uses one page. And as a part of a reflection, you’re writing down questions, you’re writing down summaries, you’re writing down any concepts that you are either listening to or you are generating in the mind. And then there are many other methods like outlining method. The other one that I tried in the past, is speaking a large concept, identifying sub-concepts, and structuring all the sub-concepts under the large concept in the hierarchical model, and I’ve done there are many other things that are other things but the key point is this. The point is, you got to follow that which you are comfortable with.
And I’m just sharing with you what I’m comfortable doing and why I do it. It is an understatement. If you’re a smart listener of this podcast and you’re a regular listener of this podcast, you should be knowing by this time 10 minutes into today’s podcast episode that Like today’s podcast episode is again happening from notes. So I wrote down the notes before even recording this. Not because I want to script this or at reading from word to word none. But I was conceptually drawing how today’s podcast should sound, and what are some of the key points I’m going to drive today, as I was thinking that I was writing, writing down on a paper, and I did exactly the same thing, I used visuals, I was drawing lines and squares. And if you listen to any of the podcast episodes here, I say, hey, imagine a triangle, imagine a square, because I know you’re listening to this. And you’re listening to this while you’re walking or driving, or running. And there is no way that there is any visual there. Other than your own mind’s eye, some use your mind’s eye, to drive some images in your mind. So I can convey some concepts. Now, all that through notes, as I’ve taken the notes, and I’m conveying those notes through this recording to you.
So figure out what works for you. But here’s what I know, if you’re reading books, and you’re not taking notes, you’re missing out. There’s something incredible that happens when you write down something that is magical. That is ideas, concepts, you see something and the brain processes that, and then it transfers that through the hand into your fingers into a pen onto a paper, this mechanism, this it actually completes a loop, where you read something from my paper. And imagine reading a book from a paper you’re reading, and then you’re transferring something back to the paper. That loop is a is I don’t know how to even describe this. It’s an incredible loop. There is no substitute for this loop. And this is the best thing ever to happen to humans seriously. But it is the best thing that ever happened to you know, this is how incredible people are created incredible minds are created such a powerful thing. People who don’t take notes, they can’t get ahead and tell you, they can’t get ahead. Okay. I’m going to stop here you go. Enjoy your Saturday. This is helpful. And before you know it, I’ll be with you as early as tomorrow. And we’re going to continue Thank you.