We are spending too much time just reading books. We live in the information age and have more information available to us that any other time in history. We are practically drowning in information. And we need to stop it, NOW!
Please, hear my heart on this. I absolutely love to read because I love learning. I love reading books, articles, and blog posts. I listen to podcasts on business, entrepreneurship, and leadership during my morning runs. I’m just as much an information junkie as the next person, but we are really missing it here folks.
What are we missing? The application.
Chances are you’ve heard the saying “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” And with good reason. When you read you expose yourself to new ideas, ways of looking at things, and new information.
Unfortunately, it’s almost becoming a competitive sport. How many books have you read in the last year or month? I’ve fallen into the trap myself plowing through two or three books in just four or six weeks. It wasn’t unusual for me to be reading at least two books at once.
Here’s the problem: We read a new book, say that was good, toss it aside and dive into the next one. Yet, look at books like Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, Linchpin and Tribes both by Seth Godin, Crush it! by Gary Vaynerchuk, Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, and Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh. These books are a culmination of the authors’ struggles, successes, and resulting experience and we graze through them like a summer novel.
I think we need to stop reading so many books. Instead, we need to start applying what we are reading. It’s in the application that we are falling so woefully short. So what if you’ve read 12 or 15 books this year or even 5 if you’re not doing anything with the information in those books. The person who reads just two or three books a year, but studies them, takes notes from them , and then actually goes out and applies what she has learned will be much further ahead at the end of the year than the person who read 12 books but didn’t apply any of it.
In an effort to help walk this out, I’m going to start blogging on how to apply the principles in these books in addition to my usual blogging. Want to join me? I’m going to start with Seth Godin’s book Tribes. (I just picked this book up a few days ago.) Go get the book from the bookstore or the library and start reading with me. Next week, I’ll have a post on how I think businesses and entrepreneurs should apply the concepts covered in the first few chapters. You need to give me some feedback on how you are going to apply the concepts in your work environment in the comments section.
Let me be clear on what this is NOT. First, this will not be a book review – book reviews are for sissies, we are getting our hands dirty here folks. Second, this is not going to be some let’s sit around, sip wine, and discuss the theory of these concepts book club. Now, I may have a glass of wine while reading, but we are going to be applying what we read and talking about what works in which environments and what needs tweaked. I want to hear about your successes and what you’re struggling with. That is how we are going to change and transform our businesses to be better tomorrow than they are today.
