To be a leader you first must be a reader. 50 books a year is the minimum, it is doable at 1 hour a day

You are probably familiar with the sentence Leaders are Readers. This jpg below seems pretty straightforward, doesn′t it ?

However there is much more to it. Forbes magazine hit the nail right on the head with this article in 2012 "Why Leaders must be readers" https://www.forbes.com/sites/85broads/2012/08/03/why-leaders-must-be-readers/ which is worth reading entirely.

When I say there is much more to it, it is because Harry Truman said it himself i.e.

I feel the sentence from Truman sums it up very well, doesn′t it ?

I have just finished reading the book The Leader in You by Stuart R.Levine. https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/stuartlevine. Whereas the book is well known, it was written in the early 90s when he was the CEO of Dale Carnegie Associates, what amazes me is that the lessons contained in this book are conceptually identical to what I read three years ago in the book published by Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIN, The Start up of You. Both gentlemen, come to say, at a very early stage of the book (even though both write with a 2 decade time lapse which evidences that history always repeats itself), that the business environment has changed so dramatically that leadership is all about

a) dealing with people

b) adapting and changing constantly

c) having an entrepreneurial mindset.

This image would support this idea

The point I am trying to make, the message I am trying to convey to the reader, is that you do need to apply the Golden Hour principle of Brian Tracy. This principle says is that you do need to get up 1 hour earlier (i.e. 2 hours before reaching your early morning destination) and spend 1 entire hour reading a high quality book (and after having prepared the current day the night before)

The concept is fantastic because it gives you full control of the day ahead which this image epitomizes very well indeed

I know you will kind of say "Well everyone knows it but it is hard to do". I would kindly tell you that Goethe said that everything is hard before it becomes easy. The leadership principle that everything is simple but not obvious is key to understand this. People assume they are too busy and fail to invest in themselves.

The ratios given by Brian Tracy above are truly achievable. I share below my modest reading list to date. However if you look at this image

You will realize that I have indeed kept a log monthly. Therefore for each area of expertise I am way ahead of the average exactly as Brian Tracy says in his video. I am telling this to you lovingly. Just listen to what Brian says and you will realize how true it is because reading, like no other single activity, levels the playing field of life It is the great equalizer.

Reading transforms us from who we are right now…to who we can become in the future. And when we are transformed even slightly, we are richer than we were the day before.

When we read inspiring, thought-provoking books, we grow richer in all phases of our lives. In short, reading has the power to transform us from what WE ARE right now to what WE COULD BE in the future. In my case it has transformed me from WHAT I WAS to WHAT I AM and will still transform me to WHAT I MUST BE in the future which is a conference speaker.

Reading even changes the shape of our brains! When we stop to really think about the impact that reading has on our lives, we’re left standing in awe. That is factual. The below list might impress you but the thing is that The Leader in You is the first book that I have completed in 2015 which is poorly unacceptable for my standards while accepting that the previous one (Learned Optimism) was started in December 2014 but not completed till late January 2015. But even so that is well below the target set by Brian. If I can do better, you can do it too.

Here is my list to wish you a nice Easter Holiday. If you ask me where you ought to start, you should start with the Leader in You from Stuart R.Levine and then read The Start-up of You from Reid Hoffman, right after it. You will be on the right track to success. Because remember: To be a leader you must be first a reader. I myself still have a long way to go until I read 4000 books as Ronald C.Stern https://www.dhirubhai.net/profile/view?id=1747908 has done. Happy Easter Everyone!

In 2016 after the publication of  this article during Easter Holiday 2015 the following was published in early 2016 which is the same I learned from Brian Tracy in 2006. WOW