Transcription
I used to hate reading books. I didn't read a single book outside the class textbook until I was 25. The main reason was that I didn't understand the benefits and nobody could explain them to me. Finally, once I understood, I couldn't stop. I went from zero books per week to sometimes finishing even two books. So far, I've read around 350 books in the last 7 years. Here are three benefits I discovered.
First benefit, reading is like exercise. It improves all areas of your life, and all you need is 2 minutes a day. Many people think that making significant changes in life requires big decisions or actions. But this isn't true. If you wait for the right time to make that big decision, it might never come. For example, when I was studying at the university, I always said, "I can't exercise now because I have so many classes, plus I have a full-time job. But you know what? Once I graduate, I will do it. I will go to the gym regularly, eat healthily, and read books." Guess what happened? I had even less time once I graduated. And what did I do? Of course, I found another excuse. If something is important to you right now, but you're waiting for the right time or the completion of something so that you can start doing it, then you might never do it. The paradox here is that even if the right time comes to take those massive actions, you'll still need to start small anyway. If you have read Atomic Habits, you already know that to build a long-term habit, you start doing it for just 2 minutes a day, not 2 hours a day. Whatever habit you want to build, you have to shrink it to its tiniest form and start from there. This applies to everything in life, not just reading books. You get in shape by doing 10 push-ups every day. You change your diet by choosing simple water instead of cola. You learn to meditate regularly by taking one conscious breath each day. So find small gaps in your day where you can incorporate reading into your life. Find a routine you repeat often and use it as a trigger. For example, I used public transport almost every day. So that was my trigger. I said to myself, "Every time I'm on public transport, I'll listen to an audiobook just for 2 minutes." And I know many of you watching now think that reading for 2 minutes is insignificant. And you're right. It is insignificant. If you choose to read for a few minutes instead of scrolling online, it isn't like you'll be smart. It's so small. But on the other hand, success doesn't come from big transformative actions, but from small, seemingly insignificant, repeated daily choices. These choices compound and lead to significant results. So we have another big paradox here. On the one hand, small choices don't matter much, but on the other hand, small choices repeated daily are the only things that matter. Here is an interesting fact about those small daily decisions and choices. They're easy to do. And when something is easy to do, it's also easy not to do. When waiting for someone, it's easy to pull out your book instead of your phone. Since it's easy to do, likely you will not do it. But for a moment, let's assume you do the right thing. Whenever you're on public transport, you pull out your phone and listen to an audiobook instead of music or read your physical book. What would happen if you did this 100 seconds a day and kept improving by just 1%? I did the calculation and here's the result. You would finish 20 books in one year. Imagine doing this for 5 years straight. That is 100 books. Reading 100 business books is like spending time with the 100 smartest business minds on the planet and learning everything they know about business. Imagine how much more money you would earn compared to your friends. Imagine how many more employment or business opportunities you would have. How fit you would look both mentally and physically. Again, it is easy to ignore those small daily choices. But your life in a year will be the compounded result of those small choices you make every day. Success is built through seemingly boring and small daily choices, not through massive actions. Okay, to recap, waiting for the right time is wasting time. Don't wait for the graduation, promotion, or the kids to grow so that you can finally start reading or doing the things that are important to you. Pay attention to your daily choices and find small two-minute gaps in your day to read and see how all areas of your life improve.
The second benefit is that books are the solution to your problems. Here's what I mean. Do you want to create your own business? Do you want to be able to have small talk? Do you want to be more confident? Do you want to stop negative thoughts? Guess what? There's a book for each of these problems. This sounds so simple, but nobody explained the benefit of books to me this way. Growing up, I always heard about the importance of reading. My teachers and dad told me that reading was important, but nothing convinced me to start reading. I only started to show interest when books were introduced as solutions to my problems. The first time I realized this was when I was doing an internship in a small company. The owner was a 40-year-old man with amazing people skills. Everybody around him loved and respected him. He would sometimes invite me to his office and we would just drink tea and talk. He always made me feel special and appreciated. I remember one day asking him how he had become so good with people. He smiled, picked up a book from the shelf, and handed it to me. The title of the book was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. This was the moment I realized that books aren't just those annoying things you have to read for school. I could also use them to improve my people's skills and stop being shy and insecure. So, Dale Carnegie's book became one of the first books I read, and I was hooked from that moment on. I couldn't believe you could learn so much useful and practical information from a book. After that experience, I kept picking up books for every single problem I had. Even now, whenever I have a problem, the first thing I do is pick up a book on that problem.
Third benefit, the book is a mentor. When I wanted to learn how to make more money, I looked around and saw no one who could teach me. You know how they say you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with? Well, I thought I need to find friends who are good with money. At first, I was disappointed because I didn't have those kind of friends. But once I started reading, I realized that I didn't need, let us say, rich friends to learn about money. The authors of the books I was reading became my rich friends. For example, you can't ask Robert Kiyosaki to hang out with you in a park and chat about money. But guess what? He has a book titled Increasing Your Financial IQ. The audio version is 8 hours 32 minutes. You can walk in the park for just a few days and finish it. When you read powerful books, they start to change your beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors. You become the average of the books you are reading. After a while, you realize you're thinking and acting differently. This happens subconsciously. It's almost impossible to read a lot about the mindset of millionaires and then act like a poor person in real life. Success is contagious, just like failure or sickness. The more time you spend with successful people through their books, you can't help but start behaving like them. You get positively infected. For example, before I got into reading, I would go from store to store just to save a few bucks on my shopping. Or I'd try to do everything myself because I thought paying someone else was a waste of money. I said to myself, why pay somebody else if you can do it yourself? But then I would end up taking forever to complete a small task. Someone else could probably do it for five bucks in just 20 minutes with much higher quality, but I always did it myself. Then I read Secrets of a Millionaire Mind. It taught me that if you spend 2 hours on a $5 job, you're basically saying that the value of your hour is $2.50. You would probably earn two times more if you just delivered pizza for an hour. Successful people would never spend an hour just to save $5. Instead, they think about how to make that hour bring in $5,000 or even $50,000. This helped me to focus on big things even though I didn't have a lot of money. I started to hire people on Fiverr for 5 or 10 bucks to complete small tasks for me. Okay, I feel like I'm getting off track here. The point I'm trying to make is this. The book is your mentor. You don't need successful friends or parents to teach you. You don't need your mentor to be next to you. You don't even need your mentor to be alive. Many great mentors are no longer with us, but they've left amazing books behind.
Okay, to recap the three benefits we covered in this video. Number one, reading is a cornerstone habit that positively impacts all areas of your life. Find small gaps in your day to read regularly. Number two, a book is a way to solve your problems. Number three, the book is your mentor. Finally, I would like to answer four questions I get asked all the time about books.
Question number one, I'm interested in starting to read. Which book should I start with? Pick a book related to the biggest problem you're trying to solve right now.
Question number two, what is the best way to read a book? This changes from person to person, but here's how I do it. I don't read. I use Audible and listen to the audio version first. If the book doesn't hook me within 45 minutes, I stop. Just because I've started a book doesn't mean I should finish it. Some books are a waste of time. If a book is really good, I listen for the second time. However, the second time I scan it as well while listening. This involves both ears and eyes and increases understanding.
Question number three, I would like to try audiobooks, but I lose focus fast and can't concentrate. Here are a few tips that might help. One, don't stress about understanding or catching everything you hear. You're not in school, and this is not a school textbook. Relax. Understanding 30% of audiobooks is better than 0% which is what you get with physical books because you never have the time to sit down and read. On the other hand, audiobooks are on your phone and that means you have many opportunities during the day to read. Two, change your perspective on what reading a book is. Imagine you are walking in the park and listening to a really smart friend. Three, pick a book that is in story format or at least not too complex to understand. Most self-help books are quite easy to understand anyway. Four, increase or decrease the speed of narration according to your needs. Five, make sure the book you pick is related to the biggest problem you want to solve right now.
Question number four, what is the one personal development book that everybody on the planet needs to read? In my opinion, it's The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Here's why. Our mind is the most powerful tool. When a tool is powerful, you must be very careful with it and spend a lot of time learning how to use it properly. But we all leave school without learning how the mind works, how to control it, and how to switch it off. Right now, humanity is at a critical crossroads. We will either learn how to control our minds and thoughts, or we will get lost in our thoughts and destroy ourselves. Human evolution hasn't finished yet. We are a work in progress. We are not a finished product. And thank God it is not finished. Can you imagine this was our final state? I know right now I might sound like I'm talking about some spiritual nonsense, but it's not. Check out The Power of Now and you will see how serious the problem is. You will see that every single problem in your life can be traced back to that voice in your head that never shuts up. You will realize that you have a crazy roommate living on the second floor of your house, in your head.