I love to read. Always have. I think I got that from my grandmother and dad. They always had a book in their hands. Didn’t matter what the book was (or if it was one you were in the middle reading). I go through at least 200 books a year. I love a good story. Get completely lost in them. Fiction. Science Fiction. Fantasy.
I have always struggled, though, getting through business and self-improvement books. For the most part they are so dry and boring. The messages are good, but the delivery is like a textbook. No hook. No story. With all the reading I have done, I have NEVER read one of these books all the way through. For the longest time, I felt guilty about that. Like I was less for not being able to make myself do that. Especially since I love learning.
One day, while watching the news, I had an epiphany. I didn’t have to read a book from front to back to hear the message and get the benefit. I could do what the news did… sound bites! All throughout high school and college, I never read a text book or an assigned reading book from cover to cover. I skimmed and highlighted it for what I thought was important. And for the most part that worked great!
“So, Adam, how the heck do you do this?” I’ll tell you! It’s simple. Instead of as a single cohesive piece of work, I treat a 300-page business book as 300 one-page newsletters with usable ideas in each that can be read independently, partially or even out of sequence.
I have hundreds of business and self-help books in my library. Every day I grab one whose title or cover catch my eye. Open it to a random page. Read that page (maybe two or maybe only half). And, walk away with one or two ideas… (or not). Then repeat with a different book the next day! That’s it.
The underlying key to understanding this is that a business or self-help book is only as valuable to you as what you do with the information in it. If I get one good idea today that I can do something with of value to me, then the book was immensely valuable to me. Even if I only read ONE PAGE OF IT!
BTW - Here is a list of my favorite business books (these all actually read like stories):
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
Make the Noise Go Away by Larry G. Linne
Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson
Get a Grip by Gino Wiccman
"Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled ‘This could change your life’.” - Helen Exley
“The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.” - Brian Herbert
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