Do you read?

Do you have a book-list? Do you feel overwhelmed by how many books others read? Are you concerned on how much knowledgeable others are? You don't have time to read? You want to read but ended having a shelf full of unread book? Please allow me to share a quick story before we go on this journey.

I was never very good with reading in my younger days and lacked interest in studies and others common practices and common interests. Dreaming and asking myself questions was my most enjoyable way of understanding about life and my surrounding. Whenever I had to read books for homework it was really though unless I enjoyed the story, and even if I did I would always fall asleep multiple times, my imagination would always start playing a video on what I was reading for my mind to quickly start wandering. Lack of focus? Lack of goals? Wasn't I mature enough? One thing was sure, I wanted to do as I wanted, I wanted be free. There was one thing I would read passionately comics and cartoons.

1. What triggers our interest to read books again?

Overtime, they say that priorities changes, but people don't change, we learn, we keep learning. We learn trough listening to others experiences, living our own ones, we try new things, we learn trough failures. Years pass, time flies, I was able to answer some questions, I was almost able to answer some other questions, I had to let go some other questions and I had been adding new questions. All those questions and here I am in front of the mirror, got my first white hairs, I don't feel old but I am asking myself what have I done during the past decade?

This one question lead me to take a step back and tell myself that it's time to look outside the garage. Many successful personalities have gone trough the same, some did researches around it during multiple decades and consolidated those lessons in books. Some information confirmed my own answers but many times I learnt new things, years worth of experience has been accessible all this time. And the best part is that I get to learn it many times as I like sharing.

The more I realized that there were so many similar minded people out there, similar ideas, similar values out there, the more I got curious. Once the this curiosity started rising, I had to deal with the following excuses or virtual barriers I have been tricking myself with. And maybe many of us do.

2. I don't have time to read

Working hard or being busy are not always the fastest way to reach one's goal. I always tell my family, friends and other dear ones that if we don't have time, we need to take it.

Here a couple of short stories to illustrate this.

• When TV came out, Radio channels were convinced that they had the advantage over TV because no one would sit doing nothing in front of screens for hours. You know the rest of the story where we were able to schedule over 20 hours in our "busy schedules".
• The same goes for social medias.
• I understand that you are really busy, maybe an executive, maybe a CEO/Founder, maybe a personality, maybe a mother or a father with toddlers... the list can keep going. But imagine in that tight schedule, you come home one day, completely exhausted from your day, you look for food but find nothing. Would you at some point find time to find a way to eat? Of course you would find time to order, go the restaurant/fast-food or just go and do your groceries.

Reading can become like food, a necessity more then ever in the modern world. I challenge you to read 1 line a day. Then slowly increase that to 2 lines, 3 lines, a page. Who knows, you might replace TV by reading.

3. I don't read fast enough

With consistency your brain will start to read faster and faster.

Of course this is not a speed reading blog but there is a multiple number of resources and techniques out there, some may work better then other, some may require patience, consistency and practice, here's some examples:

• Put the book far enough to see the whole page and you don't have to move your head while reading.
• Use peripheral vision, no need to start with the first words of the line and no need to read till the last words of the line, your peripheral vision should be able to catch more words the more your train this capacity. It's like seeing a sign on the road while driving, you don't stop, read and keep driving.
• I also invest in audio-books that I switch on while reading the actual paper book. This improves the focus radically
• Finally, try to read fast to focus.

And don't blame yourself for reading slowly, it's OK to read slowly. "Fast is not the new smart".

4. I'm already overwhelmed by information

Yes, we read everywhere, access content all the time in forms of news, tv broadcast, podcast, social media, Internet, emails...etc. Why would be add books to all that?

I will not debate which is the best method to access knowledge as they all have their benefits and drawbacks. But one thing is sure, too much is better then not enough.

Step back, think, focus, re-think, re-focus, always step back on incoming information. As some point of ours lives we get so exited that we want to do and learn everything which is not a bad thing, but how many of these projects meet an end or become an habit?

I always ask myself these questions to focus myself:

• Do I want to do this ? If yes, do I really want to do this?
• Why am I doing this? Why did I say why I was doing this?
• Is this the shortest way to bring me what I want or to where I want to go?

Don't read what's not interesting. It's OK to stop reading a book that doesn't interest you

5. Which is better theory or practice?

I'll admit that this last excuse is a though one. You can keep learning and be someone very knowledgeable but what if you never take action, what is all that knowledge worth if you don't do anything with it. It's like having lots of money what do you do with it? What value does it brings you? You only live once as far as we know and all that knowledge, those resources, we don't get to keep any of those after life is done with us, we only leave memories...if any.

On the other hand, doing without knowing brings lots of mistakes and failures before bringing success, I don't believe practice only brings immediate success. Don't get me wrong this is still better then doing nothing and one of the most mandatory things in projects we have in life, that's also the attitude that bring a project to the finish line.

Here's a quick illustration. When you take the highway, imagine you have lots of rocks and obstacles on your road, how long would you it take you to reach your destination? Dealing with the obstacles one by one by yourself or with the external help.

What if you knew a better route? A shortcut? Or just just drove the appropriate car for the situation? Either way you need to be able to anticipate those situations, to do so you need the right tools, to find the right tools you need the knowledge. You probably understood where we were going. Yes, books allows me to start clearing the road in this journey step by step, stone by stone.

CONCLUSION

Each author or group of authors brings us decades and centuries of experience consolidated in books, they often also bring a success formula with it.

Like anything we learn, we all learn differently and have a some methods that work better and faster than others. In other words, you can screw a screw with a screwdriver or just hammer it, what will faster to do? what will last longer?

"Hard decisions show results better results on the long term"

That's the reason, the biggest take away from this blog to you is: Get as many tools as possible and look to build your own formula that works best for you!