I’m excited to share with you these 9 secrets of successful reading because I know they can change the course of your entire life.

Bold claim right? 

Well, it’s true.

Have you ever heard that “All leaders are readers”?

I’ve been hearing that for years and often, wondered – why is that!?

As Jim Rohn put it…

“Every home over $200,000 has got a Library.  Why do you suppose that is?  Shouldn’t that tell you something?  Doesn’t that educate you at all?”

 

ha ha.. I love that man…

In any case – I think he’s right.

Communication – your ability to speak words that create worlds – both for yourself and others – is an indispensable step to “Living The Good Life”.

In fact, I was set back a bit when I read something in the New Testament the other day.

Something about people having some bad ‘spirits’ and guess what Jesus did?

In Mathew 7:16 it says the following…

…and he cast out the spirits with his WORD

Dang Gina!

The word – seems to be pretty powerful – AND – it seems to be through reading that we first get the POWER of the word.

To quote another line from the man. Mr. Jim Rohn…

Words nourish the mind, words nourish the soul.

Cool, so we know we need to read. 

The next question – HOW to get the most out of a book?

Are there some tips for good reading so we can understand, retain and USE the enlightenment that comes through reading good books?

You bet your buns there are!

And you’re going to get them in this post.

But first, one more little story.

You know, I struggled for years to make money from home.

YEARS!  

It was tough.

Then, back in 2009- after a prayer of desperation by the side of my kids bed

– I got the impression that I needed to read the book Think AndRich Grow .

Huh?

Why?

This was one of the first books I read when I got started in network marketing.

Why the heck read it again?

In any case –

…when your humble, and hungry for answers – you have a tendency to just DO what the inspiration is telling you to do.

So I did.

I read, I studied, I absorbed and I followed the information.

Within 6 months my business had turned around.

Within 12 months I hit an income goal that had eluded me for 5 years in network marketing.

The book had made the difference. 

But wait!

It wasn’t just the book.

It was my ability to understand and apply what the book was teaching that REALLY made the difference.

You see, I’d read the book 5 years earlier and allowed the information to be lost on me.

Why?

Well – According to Mortimer Adler – who literally wrote the book on “How To Read A Book” – He says there are 3 main goals people have when reading.

1)  Reading for entertainment

2)  Reading for information

3)  Reading for understanding or enlightenment

What’s your main goal in the books you read?

I think the reason so many of us read personal development books – and still sometimes fail to see results in our lives – is maybe, we’re reading with the wrong goal in mind.

And this is to be expected, because, as Mr. Adler points out –

the entire US Educational system is designed to teach people how to read – pretty much for the first 2 purposes. 

Read for fun – and read to get facts, figures & statistics.

The schools system spends ZERO time teaching people how to read for the most IMPORTANT goal – Understanding or enlightenment.

My first year in Network Marketing- I had read Think And Grow Rich for entertainment & maybe a little information.

Then, I tossed the book upon the shelf and eagerly sunk my brain teeth into the next mental candy bar.

The ENLIGHTENMENT had been lost on me.

Then – in 2009 – out of sheer necessity to learn how to make money –

I read think and grow rich and RE-read – and RE-read – and re-read for understanding.

Understanding is when you actually catch the MEANING of what the author has in mind when he/she writes something down.

Yes, words are powerful, but they’re also tricky little buggers.

More on that in a moment.

The point is…

Secret #1 to getting the most out of a book is to identify your purpose for reading it.

I’m hoping your interested in understanding and enlightenment because that’s what we’re gonna be tackling in this post.

Mortimer devotes his ENTIRE book to teaching how to do this and the remaining 8 tips will be centered around key ideas for doing this effectively.

Cool? 

Cool.

Let’s get to work.

OH wait, before we get to work I better tell you that in order to read a book well for understanding –

…you have to read it 3 times and in 3 different ways.

HOLD ON – don’t freak out on me like I did on Mortimer.

 

When you get the big picture – you can do all 3 of these readings at the same time.

The more skilled you get – the more these 3 readings will merge into a seamless flow of harmony.

As you’re learning though – it’ll be helpful to separate them.

Read #1 – Reading The Whole

If you can imagine that book is like a pizza – reading the whole just means you wanna get a grasp of what the whole pizza looks like together.

Read #2 – Reading The Parts

If the books is still a pizza – reading the parts means you wanna give yourself an idea of the individual slices that compose the pizza.

What do the slices look individually, how they compare to each other and how do they compare to the whole picture.

Read #3 – Critiquing or The Analysis Read

This is where you begin to eat the pizza and decide which parts you should swallow and make a part of yourself and which parts you should spit out into a garbage can.

DISCLAIMER – It’s possible that if Mortimer Adler could read this blog post – he’d be rolling over in his grave because I’m taking a 300 page book and stuffing it into a pizza sized blog post.  (sorry Mr. Adler).

In any case – you may want to read the whole book at some point to really get the full taste of Mr. Adlers Pizza.

It’s very scrumptious.

🙂

Ok – so not on to the next 8 tips which will be contained inside the chunks of Read #1 and Read #2 .

Reading The Whole 

Secret #2 to getting the most out of a book to categorize it.

Making finer distinctions is all about deciding where things fit into the big picture.

So – when reading a book – the first step is to decide where this book fits into the overall picture or scheme of knowledge.

Mortimer has 2 recommendations for doing this.

First – is this book Theoretical or Practical?

Second – What is the subject matter?  

So the easiest way to grasp this -is to imagine that you have 2 bookcases in your room or office.

The bookshelf on the left is Labeled “Theoretical” and the one on the right is labeled “Practical”.

Theoretical books aim to teach us fundamental truths of how things are – with no aim as to what we should do about it or how this should fit into our daily lives.

Practical books are all about teaching us something that can then be applied into our daily lives.

How to books – are definitely practical.

A tip Mortimer gives for helping us to decipher is this…

If what you’re reading can be largely understood and tested in your own experience or the laboratory of your daily life – then chances are, you’re reading a practical book.

If you need a scientific laboratory to test what the author is telling you – you’re probably reading a theoretical book.

So – Step #1 is decide which bookcase to put your book on.

This morning – I started reading “How To Win Friends And Influence People” – and I placed this on the practical bookshelf in my mind.

The next step in categorization is to imagine that each specific shelf has it’s own label or subject matter.

Things can be categorized a million different ways and this is largely up to you.

I memorized the 15 laws of success  a week or so ago – so I imagined that each shelf on the practical bookcase what labeled with one of those laws.

Where to place “How To Win Friends And Influence People”?

Could be placed in something simple as “Personal Development”.

For me, that was too broad. 

What kind of personal development, I wanted to know.

So – I placed it on the “Pleasing Personality” shelf.

It can also be placed on the “Cooperation” Shelf as well.

Now that we’ve placed the book on the right bookcase and on the right shelf….

Secret #3 to getting the most out of a book to define it’s purpose.

If you’re a student of success – you’ll recall law of success #1 being “Definite Major Purpose”.

A good life, business, family is organized with a definite purpose as the starting point.

Same with a good book.

What is the book about?

What’s the goal?

What is the Author’s Definite chief aim?

Great question to ask yourself BEFORE reading the thing.

What’s the definite chief aim of “How To Win Friends And Influence People?”

Well – I think it’s pretty much stated in the title – but I also re-stated it as such…

“This book is about teaching it’s readers how to have more success and influence with people.”  

You get the point.

Secret #4 to getting the most out of a book to define it’s parts.

Every book is organized as the human body, so to speak.

There’s flesh & bones.

The bones of the book – are the parts, the outline or “The Skeleton” that make up the book.

Seeing the parts of the book and how they relate to the whole – before you begin to read-

…will go a long way in helping you to understand the overall scheme of things.

The 4 parts of “How To Win Friends And Influence People” are as follows:

1)  Fundamental principles in handling people.

2)  6 ways to make people like you

3)  Influencing people to see your way of thinking

4)  Being a leader – how to change people without offending and/or arousing resentment.

Can you see how having a roadmap – before beginning the journey can be useful?

Secret #5 to getting the most out of a book to define the problem.

For the most part – books that endeavor to enlighten – are attempting to solve some problem.

It’s important to identify what this problem is BEFORE you read the thing –

…otherwise you can get all the way through and really have no clue whether the author solved the problem or not.

In the “Friends & Influence” book – Dale Carnegie states the problem he’s attempting to solve right on like page #3 or so.

He says – “Your biggest problem in business and life is people” 

So – I’m guessing he wants to help us solve this people problem.  🙂

So those are the first 4 steps to reading the whole. Now we’ll move on to Read 2 – reading the parts.

Secret #6 to getting the most out of a book is to come to terms with the author.

Earlier today, when I got to the office – I was talking with my friend about some things we were reading in Mathew Chapter 6 of the New Testament.

He was expressing concern that the book made it clear that you should not be self promotional.

I was like -where does it say that?

He said – well – it says when you do ‘alms’ do it in secret, or something like that.

I said – well – what does alms mean?

He proceeded to read a definition that was TOTALLY different than the one I had looked up earlier.

And hence – we discover one of the first major challenges with reading.

Words on a page – are intended to represent a specific thought the author had in his/her mind.

The problem lies in the fact that words have different meanings.

If we use a different meaning for a word – than the author had in mind – we totally miss the opportunity to really understand what the author wished to communicate to us.

Coming to terms – is all about the attempt to understand the authors original thought – and not something else that can be implied through another definition.

In doing this – we must identify important words the author used – and make sure we understand how the author is using them, lest we misunderstand.

Secret #7 to getting the most out of a book is to identify the authors propositions.

A proposition is basically a declaration or statement of conclusion that the author is making.

They’ll say something like – this IS the case – or this isn’t the case.

It seems you can also look at propositions as belief statements.

If we don’t do this –

…there is really no way to agree or disagree with the author because we will totally miss what they are saying to us in the book.

Secret #8 to getting the most out of a book is to identify the authors arguments.

An argument is the WHY the author believes their proposition to be the case.

It’s the proof, or evidence that supports their claims.

What we’re talking about here is critical thinking.

Most people believe things for a wide variety of strange and random reasons.

Identifying the “why” behind a belief – can help us to think critically about it and can be step towards discovering the “truth” of the matter.

Secret #9 to getting the most out of a book is to decide whether the author solved the problem.

DID the author solve the problem he/she set out to solve?

 

Did he/she create new problems in the process?

This is pretty much the SOLUTION part of the book – and really –

…could be the whole reason we wanted to read the thing in the first place. 

Isn’t it funny how many books you and I have both probably read without ever even stopping to ask ourselves this question?

Makes you wonder how much has gone in one eye and out the other.  😉

Bottom Line

I know these steps may not seem easy – and really, anything worthwhile should present us with a bit of a challenge.

I mean, if we don’t learn, if we don’t grow, if we don’t change – what’s the point in learning something new?

It seems to me – that following these 9 secrets of successful reading – can help us better organize our thoughts.

Napoleon Hill says that Success is dependent upon power, and power is a result of organized effort.

How can our efforts be organized if our thoughts are not?

Good question right?

Here’s hoping that, we can both apply these 9 secrets to successful reading –

1)  Identify the purpose (hopefully, it’s understanding)

2)  Categorize the book

3)  State the purpose of the book

4)  See the parts of the book

5)  Define the problem the book intends to solve

6)  Come to terms with the author

7)  Identify propositions

8) Identify arguments

9)  Determine, to what degree, the author solves/failed to solve the stated problems.

… We don’t have to be perfect, but at least, to some small degree we can do this –

…and continue to see ourselves going ‘from a state of understanding less, to a state of understanding more’  and making the world around us better in the process.

Thanks for getting all the way through this MONSTER blog post.

If you’re still reading – that means you are one special person!

Remember that!

Paul

PS – Did you like this post?  Would love to hear your thoughts below.