I don’t get much time to read books these days. Between work and training, there is barely some time left to have a nice dinner with my wife, so generally no time for reading, or most other leisurely activities for that matter.

However a few months ago I came across Audible, an audio book subscription service from Amazon, which became a game changer for me. Now I can fill the time during the movements between home, office, and my BJJ academy with quality audio books. In the past several months I managed to get trough some of the absolute hits like The Selfish Gene, Principles, Shoe Dog and many others.

My most recent listening though, was a masterful non-fiction trilogy by Prof. Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. I guess you didn’t come here for the book reviews, so I will finish with a strong suggestion to read/listen to these.

I will, however, focus on one particular topic of 21 Lessons for the 21st Century – the Four C’s:

• Critical thinking
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Creativity

These, Harari and number of experts believe, are the key life skills that schools should teach youngsters in the coming years to help the new generation adapt to the fast-paced reality, where the only certainty is the certainty of big changes. Technical skills are downplayed due to the notorious rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which, to summarise the general sentiment, will wipe out most jobs in the next couple fo decades. The book makes a good argument that the Four C’s will promote resilience, adaptability and mental stability for the members of our society in light of the never-ending changes and redundancy of existing skills.

As a spin-off for this line of thought, I am arguing that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu can be amongst the best tools to acquire these critical skills, but it can also make you oblivious to them. Let’s discuss each of the Four C’s from BJJ perspective in four parts over the coming weeks, to make the reading a bit easier!

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Peter

Cover photo by Orla Keogh