Month: November 2019

The way I came up with the idea of reading about self-improvement as a blog topic is for two reasons. For one, I myself have read a bunch books about general self improvement and certain topic such as wealth development hoping that it will help me be a better version of myself. Secondly, I have been listening to the famous entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck. Gary Vaynerhcuck, who is more commonly known as Gary Vee own a multi million dollar company known as VaynerMedia. He is an early adopter of social media as a form of social influence. He focuses on ‘providing value’ to his followers not always looking to make a buck. This idea of providing value means that he is constantly providing opinions and advice that he thinks that can help others. One of example of this is his quote, “You can’t read about push ups, you gotta do them.”

He is clearly making the point that reading about something will not make you good at it. He later clarified that he meant inspirational quotes and people always looking for ‘that inspiration’.

This is very similar to something Elon Musk did when someone asked him what his number one piece advice would be for young entrepreneurs looking to get started in business. His response was, “If you need inspiring words, don’t do it.” This was reported in an article from Business Insider.

Now for my opinions on the topic. I disagree for the most part. Now to give them the benefit of the doubt these guys are specifically talking about a situation where someone is stagnant because they don’t have the motivation they think they need to get started. Personally I believe that reading self-improvement books or even something as “trivial” as inspirational quotes can be extremely beneficial for people. I personally have read self improvement books and totally watch motivational videos if I am lacking motivation.

I think reading is such a powerful medium and that its strength should absolutely be valued in all aspects even something as simple as a motivational quote has the power to give someone the strength to complete a task. Reading as always had a way of empowering people, in order to find success I agree that this motivation must be followed by action but I think that reading is always a good place to start.

Along with probably about 7 billion other people on the planet I have been known to use the oldest excuse in the world when it comes to not being able to read. I am busy. I have a lot of tests in school or I have a lot of homework. I have to go to the gym or I have to go on a run. Regardless, whatever I end up doing is not sitting down and reading. Maybe others can relate to the fact that I kind of go through periods of making time for reading where I will read a book or two in a very short amount of time, then I will stop reading for weeks on end. Although I have talked in the past about how all reading should be considered such as reading for class, or reading your own writing, in this case I am considering reading in a more classical sense of sitting down with a book.

In my quest to find a better system to ensure more consistent reading I stumbled across a Youtuber. Enter John Fish:

Josh Fish has some really interesting videos and I suggest you check them out here. He is a Computer Science major at Harvard and it wicked smart. He makes videos going over how he studies, his mindset, and a bunch of other super helpful things for students. One of these videos is linked here. In this video he talks about a year long project for him where he read a book every single week for an entire year. In this video he talks about the struggle of finding time between running (he is a huge running guy), having a social life, and oh yea, being a student at one of the most difficult universities in the world.

This main strategy is to find the time throughout the day of the ‘in between’ time as he describes it. He does a lot of his reading on the bus, sure it is only about 15 minutes but he claims that this seems to add up. I hope to begin practicing this because reading does not have to be a super formal setting. I think that I have been guilty of wanting the moment to be ‘too perfect’ in order to start reading. I have a hunch that I might not be the only one. So toss your book in your bag and lets not make any excuses, lets get reading.