Reading – The Best 15 Minutes You will Ever Invest
View Freedom Personal Development’s Recommended Reading List
I recently was made aware of two comparative statistics that I thought you might find extremely valuable. I learned that the average American reads less than 2 books per year, one and a half to be exact, with almost two thirds of those going unfinished. On the whole, Americans have lost the habit of reading good books.
There is a notable exception, however. CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies read, on average, roughly FOUR BOOKS PER WEEK! That equates to about 200 times the average for the rest of America, and I can guarantee that the vast majority of those books are good, meaty stuff that causes them to think about their business and/or their Life in a very healthy way.
Now I am not saying that you yourself need to start reading 4 books a week, but I will tell you this, I have personally seen that there is a direct and positive correlation between the amount of good reading an individual does and their influence and income. Unquestionably, the most life-changing habit you can develop is to systematically read good books.
Charlie “Tremendous” Jones coined the phrase that “Leaders are always Readers”. Our friend Brian Tracy has seen it happen many times where an individual went from zero to 30 minutes a day of good reading and saw their income double, and we’ve seen it too. If you do not currently make positive reading a regular part of your life- DO SO IMMEDIATELY!!!! Along with changing who you spend your time with, it is absolutely the most powerful way to change your life for the better.
Don’t get me wrong, I realize that you need to work, spend time with your family and engage in all the great activities that you engage in, and you should. You don’t need to become a full time student or some kind of hermit bookworm crazy person. All you need is 15 minutes a day, preferably right in the beginning or right at the end of that day.
And don’t give me any crap about not having 15 minutes a day. If I followed you around for one day, I’d bet $1000 that I could find a whole hour that could be better spent reading and you wouldn’t even miss it. Watching TV, surfing the internet, eating lunch, just zoning out, the list goes on and on. I dare you to take just 15 minutes out of those kinds of activities each day and invest it in a good book. I promise that over a very short period of time, you’ll find it’s the best 15 minutes of your entire day.
Be Free!
Roger Seip
Instructor
PS – I would love to hear your book recommendations – post a comment below.
Here are some of our favorites: Freedom Personal Development’s Recommended Reading List
Recommended reading:
(an essay) by Henry Drummond: THE GREATEST THING in the WORLD
As a 20 year old, heading off to nursing school, it guided my thoughts into how I could be sharing God’s love through nursing.
THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED by Scott Peck- practical advice about handling life’s problems.
the BEST SELLER of all time: THE BIBLE is still relevant. Sometimes in even reading it for 10 minutes a day, I may find something that speaks to the difficult situation I’m in. Psalms and Proverbs are prayers, praise and words of wisdom. Sometimes the words of Scripture also speak thoughts of gratitude for a blessing that I’ve experienced that day.
Comment by Eila Shea — November 6, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
I personally like Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. Yeah, it’s fantasy, but even as someone who avidly hates that genre, I get into it. A tremendously well-written story that starts off as a standard Lord of the Rings clone, and morphs into a story of political intrigue, romance, and so much more. I read the whole 12+ book series once a year at least.
Comment by RDW — July 22, 2009 @ 8:09 pm