Reflections on Reading
I was not always a voracious reader.
Now that I am, it’s easy to look back and see why this was not always the case. Grade school put a bad taste in my mouth for reading. I always wanted to be well-read, but I have never had much interest in fiction and classical literature of the type that I was assigned to read. I made it through school on Cliffs Notes.
Now that I read a lot, I do it because I enjoy learning. Not the school type of learnin’, the real stuff.
The books I choose, as you may have noticed, are nonfiction on topics I am interested in. These are not the type of books teachers assign to their students, which is a shame. While I know there is much to be gleaned from classic literature, there is something to be said for reading books from people who may have spent their entire career in a field and then generously translated everything they have learned into a 300-page book for our consumption.
My reading habit was inspired by a book. Several years ago, I read The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines into Massive Success. The book made the argument that habits, including reading, compound just like your money does. If you read 10 pages every day, that’s one book a month, and 12 books a year – which is significantly more than most people read.
I took on the challenge and began reading 10 pages a day. After a few months, I upped that to 20 pages a day. For several years that was my reading habit.
Then about a year ago, I was introduced to the entrepreneur Naval Ravikant on a Joe Rogan podcast. He was making some insights on several topics I was interested in, from money to mindfulness. I read a book, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness, which is a compilation of his quotes and tweets over the years. One that stood out was:
"Reading science, math, and philosophy one hour per day will likely put you at the upper echelon of human success within seven years."
It occurred to me that my 20-page per day habit, while admirable, was just skimming the surface. It’s like going for a long walk every day and saying you exercise. That’s fine, maybe good, but not great. I have the time and the interest, so why not go deeper?
So over the last year, I have been reading an hour a day of almost exclusively nonfiction. Mostly in the areas of philosophy, education, and personal development (derogatorily referred to as self-help). I only started tabulating how many books I was reading each month in March, but from then until now the number stands at 40.
During this time, I have also changed how I read, inspired by Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain. The book teaches systems for capturing the important parts of the volley of information we are bombarded with each day. It inspired me to switch from paperback books to a Kindle, where I can migrate my highlights and notes easily to my Google Keep, then quickly search for them as I write blogs or simply want to reflect on something I was trying to remember.
The growth in my reading habit has been terrific. If you search for the benefits of reading online, you’ll find intangible things, like it’s good for “mental stimulation” or it “enhances your focus”.
I believe in these benefits, but the greatest reward I have noticed is that I just feel much, much smarter. I now find myself with a wealth of information to dig from in many day-to-day conversations, and the information I absorb leads me into new paths and exploration as I try to tie things together.
I don’t get the sense that most people read very regularly, which is a shame. I came across this quote in James Clear’s newsletter, who is the author of Atomic Habits:
Business professor and writer, Charlie Becker, discusses the value of reading one good book per year: "I have a friend who makes high six figures as an engineer. I once asked him his secret and he was like, “Honestly man, I just read one engineering textbook every year, which is one more book than everyone else I know reads."
Reading is great. Reading is valuable. So read. Now. It just takes 10 minutes.
Bonus:
A Few Books That Have Influenced My Life
The Power of Now: Understanding the importance of presence is life-changing and feeds into everything else. The quality of your future is actually shaped by your actions right now in this moment. To do everything in this moment at your best, you need to silence the mind and be present. So, worrying about the future now actually makes the quality of your future worse. There are a ton of profound insights in this book. It also makes you realize that 98 percent of people are just walking around unconscious all day, totally consumed by thoughts about the past and future.
The Slight Edge: I read this several years ago and it helped instill in me the importance of small bits of progress every day to benefit long-term goals. Essentially, it helped me understand that compound interest isn’t just a financial term -- daily disciplines over time reap dramatic results.
The Charisma Myth: This book taught me some basics that are very useful in professional and social applications. I had never interviewed for a job well, but I read this before interviewing for my current job, applied the lessons, and killed all four of my interviews. Essentially, the book describes the power of charisma and argues that anyone can develop charisma with the right combination of presence, power, and warmth.
The 48 Laws of Power: The first time I read this I thought it was a joke. Then I noticed some have truth to them. Eventually, I realized it’s all pretty profound and helps one to understand human nature and various power dynamics that exist around us every day. Note that some of this is fairly Machiavellian and up to the reader in how they use the information. I’ve read a couple of other Robert Greene books too and they are all pretty fascinating and thoroughly researched.
The Elements of Style: A short, concise, invaluable guide to writing. I had forgotten about this book until I recently started reading Steven King’s memoir on writing, and he pays special tribute to its value. I couldn’t write worth a darn until I read this in my own time in my early 20s. Pick it up and tighten up your writing. Maybe one day you too can run a world-class blog.