Khuram

Why I’ve Stopped Reading Books

From a young age I’ve been an avid reader. I found most books rather captivating as a child. They would entertain me for weeks at a time. As I got older, I even found love with tech magazines. Remarkably, often finding some great writing in there even on subjects that weren’t necessarily completely tech. I have to thank Derek Cohen, Tom Arah and Jon Honeyball for inducing my love of reading. They always had an elegant style of writing that I admired, and (they) brought a very human side to geekdom.

But once I hit university, my fascination with print media completely dropped. Books became a serious chore, and as the Internet was starting to become the mainstay for knowledge acquisition, books and I started parting ways.

Once I made the decision to go into entrepreneurship, I quickly realised I would have to do plenty of learning, in many fields, so naturally I started with Google, albeit with very little success. You see, my problem was, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. So how would I know exactly what to search for? And ultimately, is it more important to acquire knowledge, or is it more important to have wisdom?

I remember, in the second year of business, going down to the local bookstore and browsing the books in the business section. I don’t know why, but I always walked out with the book that had the most interesting title, despite the fact that I would give the book a quick scan before purchase. I only read two books that year, and even then, I’m not sure I even finished them both. I was thoroughly bored by halfway through. I just assumed, that I was either not cut out for business, because most of the material made no sense, or there wasn’t any decent material out there. Sadly, and mistakenly for a long time, I assumed it was both.

In my third year of business, I decided to give it another shot and browsed the business book section on Amazon, purchasing the book with good reviews. I bought two just before the New Year started, and I remember finishing one book thinking to myself, “How in the world do these books even get published when they are so bad?”

That’s how bad it was. Always being the person harder on myself than anyone else. I just assumed, once again, that it was down to my poor luck, and rested no blame on Amazon or its review process.

And then late last year, I learned a very important lesson. It’s not that the right knowledge or wisdom wasn’t out there, nor was it that it hasn’t been captured in the books. It most certainly has. My selection process just happened to be deeply flawed. To be completely honest, I only stumbled on this by accident, and it may seem common sense to all of you, but I can assure you I was completely averse to it for a long time.

You see, late last year, I started mixing with more successful people; ordinary people that had been successful in their endeavours, be that business, health or any other goal for that matter. And only when I started to ask them what book or source they had gone to in order to acquire the relevant wisdom to understand and overcome their problem, did I finally start finding the right material. Ironically, it was all there in front of my eyes, the whole time, in the local bookstores and on Amazon. I just couldn’t ‘see for looking’ as they say.

Ever since then, I’ve had the mantra, that I will only ever purchase a book if either a) I’m reading a book by someone who I’ve previously heard speak or whose material I’ve already seen elsewhere or b) if a respected or trusted associate tells me the book they read was ‘life-changing’.

I have to say, this strategy is serving me extremely well, and I’ve read more than 5 books in the last 6 months that honestly have been life-changing or at least eye-opening (i.e. well worthy reads) and best of all, I have been able to get back into the enjoyment of reading once again.

What selection process do you use?
I’d love to hear from you.

What life changing, or eye-opening books have you read this year? (I’m always looking to add to my collection)

Do let me know in the comments.

Thank you.

PS. Yes, i know the blog title was a little sensational, but hey, headlines are everything