Blueprint >> Read

Disclaimer: This document is in raw form as I process and distill 4 years-worth of my personal development notes. Expect some typos and cryptic language for now. I will be updating frequently and polishing up.

Prescription: Read every week.
Related Concepts: Information Intake, Reading Self-Help, Life-Long Learning

What is it?

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Why is it Important?

Reading keeps your brain sharp, builds high-consciousness, introduces new high-quality ideas, and expands your understanding of people, the world, life, and yourself.

Read Videos

[coming soon...]

Read: Key Points

Read high-quality non-fiction books on a regular basis. Take notes and actively implement ideas.

When taking notes, don't focus on summarizing the text as much as jotting down your new insights. Those insights that pop up and make you go "Ahhhh!", those are the most valuable to write down. At the end of your notes, ask yourself "What did I learn?" and write down a list of personal takeaways.

What is the value of taking notes:

• Summary of the text so you can refresh your mind very quickly later in the future, once you've forgotten the entire book.
• To articulate your own insights.
• To see the work from a bird's eye view — to see the forest rather than the trees. Some books are complex enough that you need to summarize them and articulate the model behind it yourself using notes.
• Improves long-term retention of the information.

There is a huge difference between fiction and non-fiction. Non-fiction like self-help, history, science, auto-biographies, psychology, business strategy, nutrition, fitness, etc. gives you incredibly valuable how-to advice. You can learn from fiction, but it's not as concentrated, not as direct.

Read only the most relevant material for YOU. Stuff you are deeply interested in that aligns with your purpose, strengths, and values.

Accumulated knowledge, even if not immediately acted upon, will expand your horizons. Just by knowing that there exists some avenue, you are much more likely to take it in the future. The way it works is, you read a book today that's full of 10 new ideas. You forget about them. Then 3 years later when you're faced with a big decision, you suddenly remember one of those ideas and it changes the direction of your life. The more your read, the more you increase your chances of this long-term pay off. It's almost a numbers game.

Ideally though, you should act upon the information while it's fresh in your mind. You won't just get x2 better results. You will get x10, x100 better results. It's possible to really spin your wheels just reading books and this is where most people falter with self-help.

Find a source of ideas for which books to read. If you aren't actively reading self-help, and none of your friends are, you won't know where to start. Which books are the best? Which books are going to be most applicable and interesting? Think about how to get this problem handled. For me, Amazon reviews were great, and as I listened to self-help video and audio products, I picked up a lot of references to classic books like 7 Habits.

Make a habit of reading 1 book per week.¹

References

1. High Performance Academy, Brendon Burchard