89. Read more mysteries

Now THIS topic is something I can get behind. I am an avid reader, of everything. In sales, in social selling especially, there is a formula called 4-1-1. Write, post, re-post, 4 “generic industry/technology” pieces for every 1 piece about yourself and 1 piece about your specific solution/company. I endorse, I recommend using that formula. But one of my many success mantras is that “sales mimics life, life mimics sales.” 

I read 4-6 books a week. I love self-development books (currently reading Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman) and books on psychology (currently reading Mindset, Carol Dweck) and I do enjoy my Sci-Fi mysteries as well. Not so much the bang-bang, exploding spaceships, but the political-sociological ones with great character development. And okay…some exploding spaceships too. And of course, my daily bible readings as well. This does NOT include my one-a-day readings: one customer success story, one sales article and one industry trend/challenge/development article a day.

I am firm believer that you are what you eat. (personally, I need to eat a skinny person) But what we feed our minds is equally important. We can learn much from reading OUTSIDE our professional readings. Why? It expands our minds, it opens us up to other alternatives and it allows our subconscious to work on our problems while we rest and decompress.

Today's chapter from the book 100 ways to Motivate Yourself by Steve Chandler reminds us all to read – for enjoyment – which will help us develop professionally. I make it sound like simple stuff but, consider this: “Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.” — Charles Mingus

Steve’s book makes motivating oneself seem simple. Today I challenge you to look at your day. Are you reading? Make a list: what would you like to know, what do you enjoy, what do you want to read? Then make sure you read, a bit every day. Every morning start with a bit of reading that’s my challenge to you.

I hope you enjoy each shared chapter at the start of your day –

Matt

89. Read more mysteries

My great friend and editor Kathy Eimers, to whom I first dedicated this book, and later married, has always been a devoted reader of mystery novels. When I first met her, I thought, how curious that someone so intelligent would be reading mystery novels all the time. It was especially interesting to me because Kathy is one of the most literate people I’ve ever met, a quick thinker and a skilled professional writer and editor. Her editing of my books was the one thing, in my opinion, that gave them the sparkle that people said they enjoyed. In my own ignorance, I assumed mystery novels were pretty light fare, and hardly a challenge to the human mind. But I changed my mind. Not only have I peeked into some of the mystery books she recommended (Agatha Christie and Colin Dexter), but I found out more about what good mystery does to the intellectual energy of the human mind.

Kathy has one of the most creative and energetic problem-solving minds I’ve ever encountered. I constantly marvel at her mental energy and perception because it stays clear and sharp—all day, and long into the night. I would often find my own mental acuity descending the evolutionary ladder as night approached, while hers stayed alive and creative. The person with the highest IQ ever measured—Marilyn Vos Savant—recommends mystery novels as brain builders. “Not only is this exercise fun, but it’s good for you,” she says. “I’m not talking about violent thrillers, or police procedural novels, but instead I’m directing you to those elegant, clue-filled, intelligent mysteries solved by drawing conclusions, not guns.” Vos Savant sees the reading of mysteries as something that leads to a stronger intelligence. “If you try to keep one step ahead of the detective in an Agatha Christie or a Josephine Tey or a P.D. James mystery novel, it will sharpen your intuition,” she writes in Brain Building in Just 12 Weeks, “The Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle never go out of favor, and rightly so. Holmes’s methods are brain-builders brought to life.” When people think of personal transformation, they don’t normally think they can strengthen their own intelligence. IQ is something our cultural attitudes have always said we’re born with and stuck with. But Vos Savant, whose IQ was measured at 230 (the average adult IQ is 100), believes strongly that the brain can be built as surely and as quickly as the muscles of the body. So, the next time you feel like curling up with a good mystery, don’t feel guilty or nonproductive. It might be the most productive thing you’ve done all day.