Reading is one of the most powerful single things I can think of for changing one’s life for the better. If someone held a gun to my head and said there’s one thing and one thing only that you can tell every man in this world to do, what would it be? I’d say reading books, both fiction and nonfiction. Books are a deep knowledge well and are very powerful. I think if everyman took the time to read one nonfiction book and one fiction book a month this world would be changed for the better.
I’d choose reading as my one thing to push over fighting, over working out, over even spending time in nature, though honestly that was a close second, that’s how important I think reading is to a man’s development and success in this world. There’s an old cheesy saying that readers are leaders but like many old cheesing sayings there’s a lot of truth to it. Reading is life changing.
I don’t have space here to enumerate all the benefits but just type in benefits of reading on Google and you can spend hours figuring it all out and that doesn’t count everything. Reading expands your mind and a mind once expanded cannot go back to its old smaller dimensions. Look if you want to live the best life possible, in every way, but you refuse to read then you’re kidding yourself and your not serious about any of this.
You need to read.
Why Doesn’t Everyone Read If The Benefits Are So Numerous & Powerful?
Well laziness and human nature for one. Most people don’t want to improve, become more, live their best life possible. Most people just want to get through the week without driving their car off a cliff or into a telephone pole. However for anyone who wants more out of life you’re going to need discipline, discipline to do things like read and stick to things when others would have given up. There is no success without discipline and consistency and I would say in ninety nine point nine percent of cases without reading.
Most people say they don’t have time to read. Now we all know that’s a lie, we have time for whatever we make time for. You think crackhead doesn’t have time for crack? It doesn’t matter what’s going on in their life if they get an opportunity to do crack then come hell or high water they’re going to do some crack. Nothing is going to stop them, they make time for crack. You should do the same with things that are important, like reading.
You have to have the discipline to MAKE not find time for reading. You’ll never find time, it’s only made. So with that being said where are you going to make the time to read? In the morning before everyone else is up? When I first was making the habit of reading, and that’s what it is, a habit. I’d get up a half an hour early before work and read a chapter of a non-fiction book before getting ready for work.
I made time and it became a habit. Looking back I had no idea that what I was doing would end up becoming life changing, it was just a nice habit I’d thought I try. Now seeming lifetimes later I can only shake my head and thank God that I picked it up. Life changing doesn’t even begin to describe it. Regardless find time, when you go to the bathroom, before you go to bed at night, on your lunch break, before everyone else is up in the morning, picking the kids up from school, whatever.
Just make time.
How To Double, Triple, Or Even Quadruple How Many Books You Read
Now let’s say you already have that down. You already have a specific time that you read or at least make it a daily habit. Your getting benefits from it and you want more and you want to know how to do this without burning yourself out. A quick note, if you haven’t even made time to read and made it a daily habit don’t worry about this advance stuff, stick to making it a habit first then move on to the more advanced stuff.
Here’s how I increased my reading two to three fold depending on the time. I was reading a book by James Altucher, whatever his biggest one was that every entrepreneur guru raved about. Anyways frankly I didn’t find the book all that helpful for me personally, however there was one concept that James talked about that did end up making a big difference in my life. James talked about how he read from I think 5-7 different books at once.
My first thought was you’ll never get anything out of books like that, sort of like those speed reading dorks. However I started it and I found that my pages read per day went up and my retention didn’t go down. However I had to vary the books. So one might cover a self-improvement related topic, another a fiction book, and a third a book about history or something. So long as I varied the topic I was able to read far more than I had been before.
Not Rocket Science But Still Potentially Life Changing
So yeah not rocket science but still will get you reading more books and filling your head with more and more knowledge, expanding your brain and mind at a faster rate. It works with human nature, we don’t have great attention spans and we get bored rather easy. By switching it up we can can skip over the monotony that can come with reading while still getting all the benefits. Try it out and see how it works for you.
If anything I said here interests you I’d highly recommend you check out The Ultimate Alpha Collection which is a compilation of 16 of my books for the price of 5. It covers everything from being a man to making money to getting the right mindset to getting girls to fighting and more and is a resource no man should be without. Pick up your copy today!
-Charles Sledge
