Why Read?

"Leaders Read, Readers Lead".  

"Where you will be in 5 years depends on who you associate with now and what you are reading". 

Those are a couple quotes I like and have found to be accurate regarding reading.  When I hire a new employee and conduct an orientation, I tell them that there are two personal disciplines that I have found to be very important.  Those two disciplines are physical exercise and mental excercise.  Earlier I wrote a few posts on Why I Run.  Well, I'm finally getting to Why I Read. 

To put it simply, reading is the easiest, most efficient, least expensive and least painful way to learn that I have found.  So, why learn?  If you want to grow, develop, progress or get better at anything you must learn.  Continuous learning is critical for continuous living.  Without learning, the world will literally pass you by.  How can you have a positive influence on others without learning yourself?  What lessons can you teach that you haven't learned yourself?

Reading allows you to learn pretty much anything you want.  You can go online or to a library and find a book about anything.  It is so easy.  Sitting and reading.  It's that simple. 

The nice thing about books is that they are written by people that have already done the research.  It can take years for a book to be researched and then written.  It can take days, maybe even hours, to read the results of all that research.  That is some efficiency.  The life of Abraham Lincoln spanned 56 years.  I've read books about him.  He was a great leader and I was able to learn the leadership lessons from him in less than 31 days.  Plus, other than some documentaries, how else would you learn those lessons?  He isn't around to share them. 

With the internet and libraries, it is almost free to read.  The biggest costs would be the opportunity cost.  What could you be doing if you weren't reading?  Well, if learning is so important, what could you do with the time you are reading that would be more valuable?  It's hard to find something that could fill that 30 minutes that could be more valuable to your life.  More enjoyable, maybe.  But, more valuable?  Well, running/exercising, but lets assume you are doing that already.

So many of the lessons we learn come as a result of failing and suffering the consequences of not doing something right the first time.  These are great lessons and well worth the pain associated with failing, sometimes literally.  But, with reading, you can learn from other people's mistakes.  That is alot less painful.  I mentioned Lincoln above.  He wasn't perfect and didn't do everything right the first time.  I'd rather learn from his mistakes than have to learn from my mistakes that others have already made before me. 

Those are the practical reasons that I read but not the only reasons.  Just like running, I find reading to be a nice break from the day.  While I am able to think things through when I run, reading allows me to get away from those things I have been thinking about all day. 

I have also read the results of studies that indicate that people that read or regularly do other mental exercises such as Sudoku or crossword puzzles are less likely to develop mental illnesses such as Alzeheimers as they age.  Or, if they do contract those mental illnesses, they are less severe than in people that have not been regularly challenging their brain.  Makes sense.  If you want your arm to stay functional, use it.  If you want your brain to stay functional, use it.        

Why Read?  Because I want to truly live.  Because I owe it to my family, my business, my friends and those that I don't even know yet that I may have the opportunity to influence in a positive way.