I Used to Hate Reading. I Also Used to Be Very Poor.

I used to hate reading. I also used to be very poor.

I do not think that is a coincidence.

Over the years I learned to learn from books even though I still genuinely dislike the act of reading. I could not tell you how many I have gotten through because it was not something you talked about in the circles I came up in. I could not even tell you which one changed my thinking about learning that way. It just happened slowly and then all at once the way most real changes do.

What took even longer was learning the value of reading things I disagreed with. That one took an embarrassing amount of time to figure out. Reading only what confirms what you already think is just a more expensive way to stay exactly where you are.

Malcolm Gladwell is one of the writers who genuinely changed how I see things. His approach sounds dry as a description — fact based, research heavy, thorough. But the way he looks at every perspective instead of just the obvious one gives you insight into how the people around you actually think and make decisions. That knowledge has been more useful to me in business and in life than almost anything I learned on a job site.

I cannot give you a reading list. I cannot tell you that books are better than audiobooks because I do both depending on what the day looks like. What I can tell you is that if you do not carve out significant chunks of your time to become genuinely exceptional at something then you will not become exceptional at it. That applies to reading. It applies to everything.

The investment is the time. Everything else is just the format.

If you want to talk reach out.

📅 Book a free 15-min strategy call: calendly.com/jeph-reit