SUCCESS HABITS
Reading: A Common Habit of the Highly Successful — Do You Read Enough?
Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett are avid readers
Reading for Pleasure
According to a Pew Research study, 75% of Americans read about four books a year on average. This is good but the reading habits of the super successful tend to be on a greater scale.
Reading for pleasure can mean different things to different people. For instance, some people may find reading fiction and poetry pleasurable while others may choose from a variety of topics like science, technology, romance novels, textbooks, personal essays, history, philosophy, psychology, or any other subjects either online, with an e-reader, or physical books.
It’s all about preference but the main idea is just to read.
Reasons to Read for Success
Reading gives knowledge to the reader and opens up the mind to the ideas, wisdom, thoughts, and experiences of the authors. Here are 15 reasons why successful people are readers.
- Sharpen the mind and imagination
- Reduce stress
- Improve decision making
- Become a better leader
- Increase intelligence
- Enhance focus
- Spend time wisely
- Shape perspective
- Contributes to reflectiveness
- Improve writing and speaking skills
- Increase memory
- Improve sleep
- Become educated and informed
- Induce relaxation
- Stay up-to-date on trends
I enjoy reading and I make it a point to read every day. The old saying that you learn something new every day has proven to be true for me, and most of what I learn each day is from reading.
The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go. — Dr. Seuss
Reading Habits of Popular Successful People
A common trait of many successful people (famous or not) is that they have made reading a habit and agree that it has served an important role in their success. They also understand that reading opens up opportunities for learning and increasing wisdom.
Here is a bit of information on the reading habits of some of the ultra-successful of today.
Oprah Winfrey
Reading is an essential part of Oprah’s brand that she enjoys along with her book club members, by suggesting and reading one book every two months and hosting book discussions on Apple TV+ with the authors in front of a studio audience.
Oprah refers to a good book as reaching the marrow of the bones, settling in, and staying forever.
Elon Musk
When asked the question of how he learned to build rockets, Elon Musk said it’s because he read books, which he started to do regularly from 12 years of age. Two of his favorite reads are:
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future and Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies about artificial intelligence.
Mark Zuckerberg
Like Oprah, Mark started a book club with the challenge of reading one book every two weeks for a year. He says that unlike most media, books allow the reader to explore and become more deeply immersed in the reading.
Mark’s challenge caught on with former NFL star, Martellus Bennett, who took up the challenge, stating that if Mark Zuckerberg, who runs a trillion-dollar empire is doing it, then he could do it. Martellus now owns over 3,500 books and has written and illustrated 4 children’s books, so far.
Bill Gates
His reading habits include reading 50 books every year and says that reading for over an hour every day is the key to his success. He says that reading fueled his curiosity and pushed him forward on his career path.
He also says that people can’t afford not to read and that it tests his understanding and allows him to learn new things.
Warren Buffett
The time and focus it must take to read 500 pages every single day boggles my mind. But this is what Warren Buffett does and he says it’s how knowledge works. You read voraciously like this and it will build up, like compound interest, he says.
When he first started out, he would spend 80% of his day, every day, reading, which made him knowledgeable of many industries and gave him an advantage over his peers. Even today, he says he reads for five or six hours a day!
Takeaway
Well, I would certainly say I have learned some new things from just writing this story. But the main takeaway is to increase reading and thereby increase learning. Seek out information on any subject and read up on it, study, and research to uncover even more knowledge.
Successful people read to expand their minds and nurture their imaginations, which helps to manifest intentions and reach goals. One can go to school on any subject by being self-taught through looking things up and reading.
Sounds like a plan for success to me. What about you?
Thank you for supporting my passion for writing! You are appreciated.
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