I like to read and spend time reading things relevant to the fitness industry.
But I also like to look outside of the industry for guidance – this is where I believe the real learning begins.
Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger (the owners of Berkshire Hathaway) didn’t get MBA’s but are probably two of the most successful businessman in history.
I was reading an article this week where they discuss how they’ve leaped ahead of their peers and competitors time and time again.
Here is a snapshot of that article…
Munger: We’ve learned how to outsmart people who are clearly smarter [than we are].
Buffett: Temperament is more important than IQ. You need reasonable intelligence, but you absolutely have to have the right temperament. Otherwise, something will snap you.
Munger: The other big secret is that we’re good at lifelong learning. Warren is better in his 70s and 80s, in many ways, than he was when he was younger. If you keep learning all the time, you have a wonderful advantage.
When you couple this with the fact that Buffett & Munger estimate that they spend 80% of their day reading or thinking about what they’ve read, a philosophy is born:
The way to get better results in life is to learn constantly.
And the best way to learn is to read effectively and read a lot.
The truth is, most styles of reading won’t deliver big results. In fact, most reading delivers few practical advantages; shallow reading is really another form of entertainment.
That’s totally fine, but much more is available to the dedicated few.
In a literal sense, we all know how to read.
We learned how to at school.
But few of us take the time to improve our skills from the passive, cover-to-cover reading into a skill set that affords us real and lasting advantages.
Those advantages don’t come from the type of reading that most of us employ most of the time.
Real learning stems from a deliberate reading process and a set of principles that are simple, yet challenging.
Simple principles like:
Some books demand to be read in their entirety.
Most don’t.
It’s your job to decide.
Deep, thorough reading doesn’t come naturally or easily to most people.
It isn’t achieved by passively absorbing content while reading at max speed.
But wisdom and deep understanding can be teased out when you know how to do it.
So in closing reading is important but don’t struggle through a book you aren’t generating any takeaway points from.
Get what you need and move on to the next book.
Happy reading.
