“Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.”
— Oprah Winfrey
Across the 14 entrepreneurs profiled in this Forbes article, they read on average 2.6 hours per day. By contrast, the average American reads only 19 minutes a day.
How much do you currently read? If you really desire an exceptional life with extraordinary success, you gotta read more so that you can “stand on the shoulders of giants,” expand your horizon, and accelerate your growth!
Reading extensively has transformed how I think and operate. In 2016, I read (or listened) 30 books. My goal for 2017 is 52 books – one book per week. As of May 20th, I have completed 22 books – on track! 🙂
- Set up a reading goal! How many books will you read per month? Researches shown that publicizing tangible goals will help you to work harder to achieve them!
- Whenever you finish a book, share with others what’s the ONE biggest takeaway from that book you just completed. Check out my list HERE.
Simple, right? But it will be the most powerful Internet challenge you will ever do!
Haven’t developed the habits of reading? Try audiobooks (get a membership from Audible or borrow FREE audiobooks from local libraries via Overdrive), or double your reading speed using using speedreading techniques!
Speedreading
A student once asked Bill Gates and Warren Buffet what’s the one superpower they wish they had, Gates answered, “Being able to read super fast.” And Buffett echoed him, adding, “I’ve probably wasted 10 years reading slowly.” So how do you read fast?
Check out a speedreading presentation I did at a Toastmasters club:
Why so many successful people read?
Tony Robins: “It all came from reading. I had no role models. I did love reading. I started reading Emerson’s essays, [James Allen’s] As a Man Thinketh, Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning—they rocked my world. They made my problems look like nothing. I get emotional thinking about it today, all these years later. It made me believe that, a) anything can be changed and made better, and if you couldn’t change the physical circumstance you could still change your experience of it; and b) it made me think that reading could transport me to another world where I could find the answers. So I took a speed-reading course and read 700 books in seven years—all on psychology, physiology, anything that could make a difference in life.”
Warren Buffett: “I read and read and read. I probably read five to six hours a day. I don’t read as fast now as when I was younger. But I read five daily newspapers. I read a fair number of magazines. I read 10-Ks. I read annual reports. I read a lot of other things, too. I’ve always enjoyed reading. I love reading biographies, for example.”
WeZBest 