The Most Successful People Are Usually High-Volume Readers
Many people think of success as a result of luck, circumstance, or good fortune. While luck plays a role in success, the people considered the most successful have many habits in common.
For many of the most successful people alive, reading is not just a hobby; it’s a way of life. From business leaders and political figures to celebrities and regular Joes, the world’s most successful people are high-volume readers.
Warren Buffet spends about almost 8 hours a day reading. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is one of his favorite books.
Mark Cuban reads for more than three hours almost every day.
He said in his book, How to Win at the Sport of Business: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It, “To this day, I feel like if I put in enough time consuming all the information available, particularly with the internet making it so readily accessible, I can get an advantage in any technology business.”
Albert Einstein read books on maths and physics for hours every day. Abraham Lincoln was a self-learner. “All I have learned, I learned from books, he once said.
Jane Austen, Theodore Roosevelt, and Queen Elizabeth I are a few of the most famous readers of all time.
Today Barack Obama, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Brené Brown, Sheryl Sandberg, Oprah, Mark Zuckerberg, Reese Witherspoon, J.K. Rowling and many successful people share what they read in public. You can find some of their recommended books here.
When you think about it, reading a lot makes sense. It can be hard to become successful if you don’t know anything about other successful people.
A growing body of research shows the importance of reading for knowledge, improvement, and personal growth.
Reading helps you develop new perspectives and exposes you to new ideas and ways of thinking. It also allows you to build your skills, improve yourself and accelerate your growth.
Not everyone has the time or the motivation to read every day, but reading regularly is one of the best habits you can develop.
Many successful people have time to read because they choose to.
They don’t have to; they are voracious readers because that’s what they want to do. They love to read, and they make time for books.
They may be interested in specific topics or industries, but they tend to be avid readers in almost every area.
They know that reading good books and developing a broad knowledge base is one of the most effective ways to improve their lives and careers.
Becoming a voracious reader doesn’t just make you more intelligent. It also makes you more empathetic, curious, and better able to see the world from other people’s perspectives.
Many of the most successful people you know are lifelong learners — they are cross-domain readers interested in finding knowledge that connects better. Many of them are particularly interested in improving their skills to stay ahead of stay competitive.
“The rich are voracious readers on how to improve themselves. They’re reading self-improvement books, biographies, books about successful people, things like that, says Tom Corley, the author of “Change Your Habits, Change Your Life: Strategies That Transformed 177 Average People Into Self-Made Millionaires.”
Many successful people learn from people who have come before them. They may not always remember everything they read, but they still read as much as possible to expand their knowledge and broaden their worldviews.
“Am reading a great biography of Ben Franklin by Isaacson. Highly recommended,” Elon Musk once tweeted.
Successful people are constantly learning from the masters, reading and absorbing nuggets of wisdom from the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci, Thomas Alva Edison, and Warren Buffett.
You see, it’s not that you don’t have any ideas about what successful people are doing or how they’re doing it.
Be intentional about building a reading habit
“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” ― Mortimer J. Adler
You’re probably just too busy or overwhelmed by the amount of information out there to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
And life and living it can also get in the way of building a better reading habit. You don’t have to read many books to build a successful reading habit in the beginning. You can start small and improve as you get better.
List some of your favorite books to get you started.
“If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all,” says Oscar Wilde.
Aim to read daily — it’s a better goal than aiming to read 100 books a year.
Read slowly for knowledge. Read a few pages of your favorite book daily — it also trains your concentration skill.
You can build a motivating reading environment to encourage you to read daily: read every day at the same place and time. And remember to write down the best ideas for reference later.
To achieve extraordinary success, make knowledge acquisition a daily routine — a way of life. Don’t miss out on the best ideas for a better life.
