I don’t know if there’s a magic number for the books and articles you should read each year. I don’t know if people who read more are liked more. Or if they get more done.
There’s a lot I don’t know about reading.
But I know one thing – people who read a lot are exposed to more ideas and concepts. And that exposure helps them hold some of their own notions with less of a grip. They’ve been exposed, after all, to a lot of other ideas.
A college mentor introduced me to the idea of blind spots – similar to the challenges cars have with their rear view mirrors. People have internally-held beliefs that may not help them. They may have blind spots in their beliefs and opinions.
And you know what helps them? Reading. Exposure.
Leaders read.
Today I was reading an article about a research study done in the eCommerce field. Given that I just launched an eCommerce product, the research was helpful.
But it wasn’t just the study’s results that were helpful. The study itself gave me a lot of ideas.
And it opened my mind to new ways to think about doing this kind of research – research that will help me at work. All because I read this article.
If you’re not reading 15-30 minutes a day, I highly recommend it. If you read an hour a day, only on weekdays, at the average of 300 words per minute, you could read 46 books a year (of roughly 100,000 words, which is a reasonable estimate).
That’s not bad.
Looking for something new to read? Check out my ebooks.