Tai Lopez: On Reading a Book a Day

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Why I read a book a day (and why you should too): the law of 33% has had 12.7 million views as I write this.  I am not surprised.

When I first encountered the title, I was wonderstruck that a person could read at such an amazing speed.  I mentally calculated how many books such a person would be able to read over a lifetime.  Once I dove into the video, however, I realized that my initial interpretation was completely wrong.  

According to Tai, books, especially non-fiction works, are not meant to be read cover to cover and tucked away. 

Books are like mentors, to him.  Sometimes he may read a page a day.  Other days, he may read much more.  According to him, we ought to cultivate the habit of reading.  We ought to read and reread books until we have digested and internalized their messages.

This was a wonderful message for me.  I had given up on reading and wanted to pick up the habit.  Before internalizing this message, I used to give up on books easily.  With this message in mind, I taught myself to apply effort no matter how daunting reading seemed.  It never got much easier, but I discovered I was learning more with each experience.

The best I can express this is through a video that blew me away when I first saw it.  In the video, players were passing basketball around.  The viewer was instructed to count the number of passes.  At the end, the presenter asked whether the viewer saw the gorilla that passed through court.  I discovered that I am amongst half of the viewers who completely missed the gorilla.  I was stumped when I rewound and actually saw the gorilla.

Reading, no matter how small a dose, will let you spot the gorillas.  I remember watching a video by Jonah Lehrer a couple of times.  Before reading Angela Duckworth’s Grit and watching her on videos, I completely missed the part where he talked about her work.

One way to explain this is the more you read the better your metal scaffold and the more information you can contextualize and absorb.

Encouraged by Tai’s powerful simplicity of his insight into reading, I have managed to coax myself to read a little more than I am used to.  Watching this video has, in fact, completely altered the way I view books - as approachable guides rather than intimidating tomes. 

 


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