GUEST POST from Robert B. Tucker

In my 40-year study of the habits of leading innovators, I’m constantly struck by a little-discussed trait. I call it a superior information diet. They work at keeping abreast with uncommon passion. They pour over data. They do deep dives into new subjects they want to understand better. They are eager and voracious readers and highlight passages in books. They subscribe to a wide variety of publications. They ask questions, probe deeply, and open their minds to what the answers might mean. Wherever they are – at conferences, attending social events, while walking through airports, they are alert for news they can use.

We are suddenly living in an era when the news is treated as entertainment, where pundits are distrusted, where misinformation, disinformation, and extreme content are considered normal, and where conspiracy theories sprout like mushrooms after a summer rain.

Yet, we are also living at a time when one of the most important aptitudes you can develop is the ability to stay abreast of change and make your information intake the lodestar of lifelong learning.

Here below are my favorite strategies for developing a world-class intake valve:

1. Audit your information diet. Is the news something you consume while in line at Starbucks, or do you actively work at keeping informed about technology, politics, and the changing climate? Has reading non-fiction books dropped off your schedule? In the past 24 hours, how many articles, books, documentaries, substantive podcasts, and serious television programs have you “consumed”? By auditing your information diet, you will determine whether you are “being informed” (passively) or are “getting informed.” Your audit will help you to decide to upgrade your diet.

2. Be willing to pay for information. One of the key questions I pose when discussing someone’s information diet is: “What information are you currently paying for?” In other words, I’m looking for subscriptions, rather than free information used as marketing bait. To be sure, reputable research organizations like McKinsey and Pew give away some of the best strategic information available.

But if we assume information is free, the corollary is also true: you get what you pay for. If you are reading and subscribing to the New York Times, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, The Economist, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, you are paying professionally trained journalists, writers, columnists, and editors to serve you with information that is fact-checked, reliable, and objectively researched. This type of information fuels your perspective and gives you a heads-up on developments and social trends. This comes back to the issue of the decline in social trust. We are in a period of acceleration where information and insight are the fuel of responsiveness.

3. Don’t rely on social media for a nutritious information diet. When Facebook launched in 2007, it gave us a new way to connect with friends, share photos, and keep up with daily life. Users “liked” and “loved” each other’s posts, and the platform felt like a digital scrapbook. At the time, few considered it a legitimate news source. But over the past decade, that has changed. Today, many people scroll, share, and debate the “news” they encounter on Facebook, often without verifying its accuracy. This shift has eroded our collective ability to discern fact from fiction. Misinformation spreads unchecked, fueling confusion and division. That’s why it’s imperative to audit your information diet. Be deliberate about where you get your news, seek diverse and credible sources, and cultivate a mindset of critical inquiry. Your success depends on it.

4. Look for reputable analysis and support knowledgeable analysts. In an age when everyone is a publisher, and with so many good columnists out there, why opt for junk food just because it caters to your bias? Junk food – Twinkies, donuts, candy, and other processed, sugar-saturated foods – are available to us from hack writers, those paid or free who post opinions based on hot air, or poorly paid staff writers who produce low-quality, rushed, biased, and unchecked work under crushing deadlines.

When I was growing up in the ’60s and ‘70s, reporting the news was a sacred duty, and journalists were respected for their hard work and objectivity. During Watergate, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein became my heroes, and I launched into a career as a freelance journalist because of their example of doggedness and courage under fire.

Back then, Americans read local papers filled with articles written by Associated Press and United Press International reporters, and we watched Walter Cronkite anchor the news.

But that was then, and today, as many local newspapers and magazines have disappeared, what has been lost is the strategic value of information and its impact on our lives and fortunes.

As the great motivational authority, Zig Ziglar used to say, “You are where you are and what you are by what has gone into your mind.”

This article originally appeared in Forbes
Image credit: Gemini

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