Warren Buffett's Book a Day Diet & Making War with a Multitude of Counselors
Why billionaires read a lot
What is the difference between a rich man's house and a poor man's house? Well, according to Jim Rohn, the difference is that the rich man's house almost always has a library. But is that it? All you need is a library at your home and you'll be rich? As we learned in previous steps, life isn't that simple!
While poor people spend their time watching 2-3 hours of tv per day a, the rich are reading and getting their knowledge up on subjects they either don't know or would like to become more proficient at it. Truth is, you will never know everything and the rich know that but still they try to get as much information they can every single day. Take Warren Buffet, for example, he spends all day trying to get out of meetings so he can read! Bill Gates takes 2 weeks off from work just to read.
When you observe the pattern between rich and poor people you will see what makes each that way: the rich has a hunger to learn and the poor is satisfied with what they know. As kids in school we were told that reading is great and we should read more but yet I remember I was given books to read that were absolutely lethargic! I had no interest in reading "Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare" in 9th grade and Thank God I wasn't in America for when kids have to read "To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee". My mother always influenced me to read, bought books I liked and frequently took me to book fairs, which might be the reason why I didn't give up on reading.
However, most people totally neglect reading once they are out of school, some people even refuse to read a manual .My husband was like that until he learned it takes more time taking everything apart and building it again than to just simply read the manual. That's exactly how the rich treat books, as a manual. The right book can guide you in the right direction by giving you ideas of situations that have happened and have been successful or not, so from that you can learn with the mistakes and successes from others.
Richard Dawkins talks about learning from trial and error and how troublesome it can be. Overt trial takes time and energy and error is often fatal so why go through that when you can read what others have done and learn with their mistakes. Read so you can simulate your results. By reading biographies you can mask what others have done as you know they succeeded or you can also avoid certain situations because you know others have tried and didn't succeed.
Yes, we all do learn from our mistakes but isn't it better to learn from other people's mistakes than your own? You get the same sense of what would happened if you had done what they did without going through the same consequences they went through. That's where the idea of making war with a multitude of counselors comes from. When you read, you end up learning about the ideas, visions and strategy of others, While one may not be better than the other, you might find that certain ideas and aspects work better for you and your life.
Tai Lopez gives out a simple yet powerful formula on how the rich get their knowledge from books:
1-Read the right books
2-Don't get sucked into consumer advertising such as cover and title
3-Don't focus on speed reading
4-Become a gold miner; set a time to look for the gold each and every day.
Finally, I believe it is safe to say that knowledge after all is power, as the more knowledgeable you get the more proficient you get at life. When you read you are literally capturing the ideas of thousands of other people, so ready your brains, my friend, because as Doctor Seuss says "The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you will go".