Make Time To Read

?

“The man who does not read good books is no better than the man who can’t.”

Mark Twain

On the morning of 14th September 1901 Vice President Theodore Roosevelt and a few friends ?climbed Mount Marcy which is the highest peak in the Adirondack Mountains in the State of New York. In the afternoon as the mist rolled in they descended cautiously. They stopped for lunch at 1.25pm. As the Vice President ate his sandwiches his attention was drawn to a ranger who was running up the mountain towards him. The ranger was clutching the yellow slip of a telegram tightly in his hand. Instinctively, Roosevelt knew what the contents of the telegram contained. President Mc Kinley had been shot a few days earlier. He had been expected to recover from his wounds. However, this was not to be. The President had succumbed to his injuries and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was now President. Roosevelt was only 42 years old. He became the youngest ever?President of the United States. (This record still stands)?Roosevelt could not have?anticipated that the President would be shot and fatally wounded. ?However, in any event he was ready. He was ready to lead. All his life Roosevelt had been a ferocious reader. On average he read a book a day. Now, all that knowledge that had been accumulated and?digested into insightful lessons would be used by Roosevelt to meet ?whatever challenges?lay in store, and there would be many in the eight years to come. ( Morris, 1979)

“Leaders in every field, Roosevelt later wrote need more than anything else to know human nature, to know the needs of the human soul: and they will find this nature and these needs set forth as nowhere else by the great imaginative writers, whether of prose or of poetry”. (Goodwin, 2018)

“If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you”

Jim Mattis

James ?Mattis is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general who served as the 26th US secretary of defence from 2017 to 2019. Like Roosevelt he is ?a ferocious reader. He has read thousands of books. In a 2003 email to military historian Jill Russell (which went viral) he wrote “thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed before. It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead”. ?As an army leader Mattis argued that intellectual rigour was just as important as physical rigour. Throughout his military career he issued a list of dozens of books to those who served in his command.

“Not all readers are leaders but all leaders are readers”

Harry Truman

At approx. 5pm on 12th April 1945 Vice President Harry Truman walked into the offices of Sam Rayburn at Capital Hill, Washington to join him for a “libation”. Sam Rayburn was the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Truman had just missed a call from the White House. Truman dialled the number and waited. Steve Early the Press Secretary to the President answered the phone. A cryptic exchange of words took place. Truman put down the phone and muttered the words “Jesus Christ and General Jackson”. Immediately, he left for the White House. At 5.25pm he arrived at the White House. Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the President greeted him and gently put her arm on his shoulder. “Harry, the President is dead” she said. Truman replied “Is there anything I can do for you”. “Is there anything we can do for you,” she said, “For you are the one in trouble now”. (Mc Cullough, 1992) Truman was now President of the United States.

Truman had not expected President Franklin Delano?Roosevelt to die in office but in any?event Truman was ready to take charge. Throughout his life he read “everything I could get my hands on”. (Mc Cullough, 1992) Just like the former President, Theodore Roosevelt. Truman would call on all his accumulated knowledge of history and leadership to make decisions that no?former President had ever to make, such as the fateful decision to drop the atomic bomb.

When you get the call to say that you have been promoted, are you ready to take charge? Are you ready to lead? Or, are you functionally illiterate? Have you read books on leadership or books that will be relevant to your career. If not, why not? As Jim ?Mattis highlights, your personal experiences of life to date will not be enough to sustain you.

Abraham Lincoln

?When Abraham Lincoln was 21 years old he decided that he needed to brush up on his grammar. He was just about to enter politics. He heard of a book that perhaps he could borrow to study. Unfortunately, the owner of the book lived 6 miles away. Lincoln walked the 6 miles and returned with the book. Such was his intent to educate himself. (Goodwin, 2018) According to his biographer, Doris Kearns Goodwin he studied “philosophy, astronomy, science, political economy, history, literature, poetry and drama”. (Goodwin, 2018) This cross-fertilization of rich knowledge would sustain him in the very trying years of his Presidency.

No matter what you want to achieve in life, whether it’s?career success, being a better parent, running a marathon, investing , starting?your own business or traveling around the globe, there is a strong chance that someone has written a book on it. There is an abundance of information on said topic. Someone has spent hundreds if not thousands of hours researching and writing on this?topic that you have a keen interest in. Robert Caro has been researching and writing about President Lyndon Johnson since 1976. He has written 4 volumes to date. Each contains ?1,000 pages of rich knowledge. He is 87 years old and is currently working on the 5th volume. Such is his work ethic and his?capacity to research that his name had now entered the lexicon of the English language:?“Caro-esque”. We owe it to authors like Robert Caro to read and apply?their material. ??

But I don’t have time to read

?

When I mention my love of reading books most people say that they don’t have time to read. Have you time to eat and sleep? Have you time to scroll endlessly on your phone? Do you go to a doctor’s appointment? If so, bring a book to read whilst you wait in the waiting room. Do you have any other regular appointments? Do you use public transport? Do you have a lunch break at work??Do you have 15 mins before bedtime that could be devoted to reading or any other free 15 min period during the day?

A few weeks ago I inflicted a bad wound on my hand whilst cutting up some vegetables?in preparation for dinner. I went to the Accident and Emergency Department at my local hospital. I took a book with me. It was the most blissful 12 hours that I had spent in a long time! I spent 12 hours in a row reading! The waiting room was packed to capacity. As time went on and the waiting endured the atmosphere got more heated and turned to hostility. This was generated by the minority. The majority stoically waited in silence. I, on the other hand was barely aware of my surroundings such was my focus on the book that I was reading. Finally, when I got to see the doctor we spent a pleasant 15 mins discussing my book which by coincidence he had already read.

Reading books will sustain you on life’s journey. Don’t waste this valuable opportunity. Make the time to read them and apply the rich knowledge to your one and only life.

?

Sources

Goodwin, Doris Kearns, Leadership in Turbulent Times: Lessons from the Presidents, Penguin Random House, UK, London, 2018

Ingersoll, Geoffrey, May, 2018, General James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis Email about being too busy to read’ is a must-read, businessinsider.com, 18th March 2023???

Mc Cullough, David, Truman, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1992

Morris, Edmund, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. Coward, Mc Gann and Geoghegan, New York,?1979.