I had the pleasure of meeting Rex Houze in 1980 when he was the President of a professional leadership company. His influence on me was profound, and it sparked my desire to read. Ask me what I am reading today and it will be different than what I was reading last week. My car has become a mobile library, with audiobooks and podcasts expanding my horizons of knowledge in all areas of life and business. I’m a firm believer in the power of knowledge, and Rex’s insights on reading have been nothing short of transformative. This post by Rex in particular stood out and I wanted to share it with you.
-Jim Brewer, MasterThink CFO
Reading has changed my life and boosted my career.
At the end, you’ll find a system that has worked for me to read a book a week for 50 years.
It saddens me to meet businesspeople, especially younger ones, who are not book readers. Listening is better than not reading, but not the same. When successful people are interviewed, many times they’ll comment about the importance of reading.
Harry Truman once said, “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”
I “know” hundreds of leaders because of reading their books.
Here’s the system I stumbled onto 50 years ago. It continues to work for me.
Make a commitment to read 10 minutes per day. No matter what you are doing set aside 10 minutes. The busiest person can set aside 10 minutes if they see the importance. Carry your current book with you, tear out pages — whatever it takes. 10 minutes per day = more than 50 hours per year. You can read a lot of books in 50 hours.
When you live up to that commitment what you’ll find is on days when you don’t have a hectic schedule, or on weekends, you’ll get engrossed in what you are reading and maybe read for an hour. When that happens once a week you add an additional 50 hours and you can read an amazing number of books in 100 hours.
The key is the commitment to the 10 minutes. Make this commitment and you’ll be an even better reader and an even better leader. Like this post if you share my enthusiasm for reading or if you are willing to make a commitment to read more. Even a book a month is better than what most people do.
– Rez Houze, Improving Performance and Results, Inc.