I read every day.
There, I just told you how to become extraordinarily smart in a matter of months. No pills, no hypnosis, no motivational tapes, no speed-reading course, nothing needed but this. Read every single day. No matter what day it is. Seven days. 365 days per year. Different books. Variety of topics that interest you but read, like your life depends on it.
I read all kind of books. I read different kind of books simultaneously, the same way when you go out to eat, you order salad / soup, entrée, and dessert. Nobody, unless you are in LA, just orders salad. Currently reading Personality Not Included by Rohit Bhargava; Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman and The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. Blogs and newsletters that I subscribe to and read don't count toward this neither does a speed-reading of Detroit Free Press and NY Times early in the morning.
I have been reading since I was may be 5 or 6 years old. A lot of things, people and relationships have come and gone in my life since then - my love for the written word stays as a constant. Some people read books because they have to - students in school or grownups in order to get a promotion.
Some read books as a shortcut to gaining some specific skill or knowledge - Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Building Websites for Dummies, Bobby Flays Boy Meets Grille. Some even want to be seen carrying books in their hands to feel and look smart. I had a friend once who told me that in order to get what was in any book, he just had to read the first few and the last couple of pages and he got it. I, fortunately, am not that smart. I want to flip each page, one by one and read the whole book.
Has it ever happened to you that you were reading a book that was so good that you slowed your reading down because you did not want the book to finish? Is it not just the best feeling in the world? I read books because I simply and utterly love the idea of travelling without moving an inch. I read them cover to cover, line by line, word by word.
Two shortcuts for you: If you want to become good at writing, really really fast - blogs, letters, advertising copy, whatever - read and read lots and lots of fiction. There is an old saying in computing - Garbage In, Garbage Out - GIGO - from the good ol' mainframe computing days. You feed a machine, garbage; out comes stuff that looks and smells like garbage. You feed your brain an elegant, beautifully written paragraph - out come words from your head that spread and influence.
This is also the place where 90% of aspiring copywriters and bloggers get upset. They want to read business books, marketing books, serious books. The kind of ones they can talk about in polite company and feel good about themselves. The Dark Knight Returns? The complete Ian Fleming 007 collection? Harry Potter - WTF???? Equally funny is their belief that once they have read two books of fiction - their writing will improve immediately. Try 2000 books if you are thinking any significant different.
Shortcut #2: If you want to become really good at conversation with anybody at everything and be able to say the last word, all the time. Read books, lots of them. Don't worry about the topics. Pay more attention to the quality of the writing. There are books in every topic that pretty much define the genre and more importantly, unlike blogs and newspaper stories - great books don't come with an expiry date on the back.
Emerill credits The Magic of Thinking Big (published in 40's) as pretty much the sole reason besides bone crushing hard work for his success. I credit Rich Dad, Poor Dad as the cold-water-slap-to-my-face that woke me up to start looking around in Michigan to find something better to do than work for somebody for the rest of my life. Ask anybody who is anywhere in life right now and not just money wise - satisfaction with just sun rising in the easy every day type of thing - and I can bet you that there is a book, somewhere, some place, that triggered that journey.
Here is the real recession in our country... 80% of all books sold at Amazon.com are gifts. 75% of adult Americans admit that they have read 2 books since graduating from high school. Very few things depress me. This is one of them.
