“To read without reflection is like eating without digestion” – Edmund Burke
I love that quote. All highly successful people are highly knowledgeable. You should never stop learning. Reading is the best way to learn. You should read more and more non-fictional books to improvise the quality of your life.
Reading is a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols in order to construct or derive meaning (reading comprehension). It is a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of sharing information and ideas.
But a person who actually applies his knowledge in practical life is the one who creates an extraordinary life for himself. Reading is cool; it broadens your mind and takes your creative powers to a next level.
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. Everything you read fills your head with new bits of information, and you never know when it might come in handy. The more knowledge you have, the better-equipped you are to tackle any challenge you’ll ever face. Through reading, you expose yourself to new things, new information, new ways to solve a problem, and new ways to achieve one thing. Who knows – you might find your new hobbies within it. Who knows – you might actually explore one thing you really like and it may end up becoming your career and success in the future. Exploration begins from reading and understanding. Reading does help you form a better you, doesn’t it? Through reading, you begin understand the world more. Through reading, you begin to have a greater understanding on a topic that interest you; for example: how to build self confidence, how to make plan better before taking action, how to memorize things better and more. All of these self improvements start from the reading; through reading, you create a structured path towards a better understanding and better actions to take in the future.
When you are reading, you are actually gaining the knowledge and experience of someone. It can hasten your success towards a goal, as you don’t need to repeat the same mistake while focusing on the right path in achieving one thing. It’s like a mountain of gems for you to discover in books, which contain people’s successes, failures and advice. Life is too short for you to keep repeating the mistakes that had been done by other people in the past, in order for you to reach the results that someone might already reached. There are more than four thousand billionaires and 12 million millionaires today. To become one of them, the first thing is to learn and get to know their past, what they did in the past that makes them where they are today. Reading is a great path to get to know them, and learn from these great people.
Reading exposes you to a world of imagination, showing you nothing is impossible in this world. By reading, you are exploring a different angle to see a thing you’ve known, on how different action leads to different results. Books are beyond imagination. It’s like a huge spider web, where you keep linking to more and more to things you knew, and things you just learn, structuring new solutions and answers.
C. S. Lewis once said, "We read to know we are not alone." What this means to me is that, through books, more than through any other medium, I can have conversations with the minds of other people - how they think, what they believe, what they value. And more important, I can find out more about myself. There is something identifying and affirming to realize that other people have thought the same thoughts, had the same struggles, felt the same longings.
Benefits of Reading:
Another great way to learn and develop knowledge is to share your knowledge through books, articles, speeches or magazines.
“Sharing will enrich everyone with more knowledge”
We all hear the phrase “Knowledge is power” get thrown around quite a bit. Our teachers told it to us when we were growing up in order to inspire us to want to learn, business leaders and authors instilled that principle over and over again, and maybe even our parents told us it a time or two.
The truth is, knowledge really does have a lot to do with the amount of success we achieve. It really does contain a lot of power. But the thing is, the knowledge part really isn’t where the power lies. Knowledge is pretty much useless unless you apply it to your life.
I’m not sure where I first heard this principle, “Application is power”, but I think it really challenges what past gurus have taught the past thousand years. Everyone thinks “knowledge is power”. If you have certain knowledge that automatically makes you more powerful. But unless you have a way of applying that knowledge to the world or to your life, that knowledge is useless.
So I’m here to pass on this brand new concept. “Application is power”. Applying your hard earned knowledge and expertise is where the true gold lies because until you take some action and allow that knowledge to flourish, it’s useless.
You must put yourself out there and apply your expert knowledge in order for it to make you successful and powerful. The power lies in your ability to apply your knowledge, not in the knowledge itself. So when you start doing something with your expertise, and making things happen, that is when the true power will come your way.
“A fool hates Knowledge”
How much do you score in this area from 1 to 10? ___