Kathmandu, 8th march, 2016: I’m not the first person to say this, and I certainly won’t be the last. But books can change your life. It can be a single book, a single chapter or even something as insignificant as a single sentence that turns everything around.
By not reading books, you seriously limit your learning, and prevent yourself from growing at an accelerated rate. It’s worth noting that not all books can change your life. We’re referring to books like 50 Shades Of Grey. Books of the fiction nature, have little to offer other than entertainment/fantasy, with the exception of the books written by the genius that is Paulo Coelho.
In this post we’ll show you 10 reasons why, reading can change your life.
How Reading Books Can Change Your Life
- You’re Probably Not The Best Ever
Regardless of how talented you are, how smart you are, or how much you think you know, there’s probably someone in human history who was better than you. This isn’t always the case, but for 99.9% of people it has to be mathematically true.
Books enable you to learn from those who were better than you, then add their good work to your own skill-set. Take Einstein for example. His theories are still being proven today, he was over 100 years ahead of his time. For any budding scientist, reading about Einstein, it could only benefit them. It’s very much as the quote says…
Call yourself tall by standing on the shoulders of giants
You don’t need to do the work when someone more talented than you has already done it, or at least given you a massive head-start.
- Entire Lives Have Been Lived Before You
Imagine the amount of life experience that has been amassed by people who have lived before us. There must be trillions of days worth of experience that humans have lived through already. Most of the smartest/most successful people have recorded their experiences in books. This enables the people living today, a chance to learn without living.
- Trial & Error
This follows on from the learn without living concept. Trial and error is a tiresome ordeal. Thomas Edison took years and multiple attempts to figure out the formula for the light-bulb. Yet by passing on his knowledge, it can take someone with half of his talent and intelligence 10 minutes to put together.
Books cut the learning curve of life. If you want to get rich, you’ll probably be able to do so, but you may be 80 years old when you finally get there. By learning from others, it shortens your journey and gets results quicker.
We only learn from mistakes, but they don’t have to be our own
- Multiple Ways Of Thinking
If I were to talk about Donald Trump, I can guarantee that everyone would have an opinion. However, not everyone’s opinion would be the same, since we all have different minds, with varied experiences.
This backs up the quote, two heads are better than one. But what about billions of heads? Well that’s just what you have with books. Imagine how many people the author has met in their life. Well their book is a reflection of their own thoughts and the people they’ve met. This means that you’re getting information from someone you’ve never met, about someone you’ve also never met, which could change your life.
No one is smart enough to think of every possible solution/outcome/idea. It takes the entire world to bring the best out of humans. In a single book, there might be one idea that never crossed your mind, but someone else, somewhere thought of it, and it turns out to be more useful in your life than theirs. This is exactly what can happen by reading books.
- Exposure
Not everyone is born to a celebrity/wealthy family, in fact most of us aren’t. So how do people ever rise up and make something of themselves? It’s simple, you expose yourself to the life you want to reach.
However you don’t have the right contacts to share in this life, or the wealth to buy your way in. Well books share these experiences for you. They can lead you on a rags to riches story, and tell you what’s possible. A book can let you know what changes when wealth comes your way, and prepare you for it before you make every mistake possible.
Imagine someone living in a small town, where the highest paid person is a Doctor. You’d grow up believing that Doctors were the wealthiest people alive. However, someone living in Monaco may be used to seeing luxury and wealth everywhere they go. Their expectations of life would be so big, that they’d have a far greater chance of making something of their life. Just knowing what’s possible is a huge advantage.
Luckily books can offer you this experience. You can read about a billionaire and how he lived. You can read about a famous sports-star and how much money they were offered for certain deals. Exposure to the highest level can be yours with the right books.
- Reincarnation
Reincarnation is a spiritual belief. A belief that when we die we come back as someone or something else. Well books give you this theory in reality. You don’t have to live thousands of lives, you only need to live one. Yet it’ll feel as though you experienced multiple lives by reading about the lives of others.
You can be walked through their journey, gather their experiences and have their tips passed on to you, all for around $5.
- Still The Only Proven Way To Contact The Dead
I’m in no position to say that mediums are liars. But a book is a guarantee. Some of the most successful people in history are no longer with us, yet their experiences and knowledge still lives on. Great minds like Will Durant, Dale Carnegie, Jim Rohn and Sam Walton are still improving peoples lives from the grave.
Just think about kids being born today. They were unfortunate to miss out on the greatness of Steve Jobs, yet through his books, they can still learn just as much as anyone who was around when he was still living.
- Top Experts
In school, the teachers were pretty low quality. This isn’t meant disrespectfully, since there’s obviously the odd teacher who makes a break-through discovery. However, on the whole, we all grew up learning from people that aren’t successful.
The average teacher brings home around $35,000 a year, hardly a role model for success. The average author however is highly successful, because not everyone gets published. Only the greatest minds, the best books and the highest quality findings pass the criteria for publishing.
Of course not every book is great. But the majority of books are written by professionals at the top of their industry. This creates a situation where you’re getting all of your knowledge from the best possible people.
- Understanding Of Life
No one in human history has been born independent. In order to survive we need someone to care for us, and teach us the way of the world in our earliest years. Books can help to speed up this process, and increase your level of maturity early on.
Do you think a 16 year old who reads everyday, about some of the greatest minds in history, is going to mentally develop at the same rate as his friends. Of course not, his brain will make connections that non-readers won’t receive. A good collection of books from the right authors, can give you the mind of the model man almost overnight.
- Humbling Experience
Once you begin reading your way through a couple of books, you soon realize how insignificant you really are. The world is a massive place with expert after expert, success story after success story and so on.
Some people truly believe that they know everything. They go through their entire life thinking that they’ve learned everything that they need to know. This is called TOM (Theory of the mind). TOM makes you think that you’re the center of the universe, and that no one else has lived as great a life as you.
But in reality, millions of people are living beyond your limits. The day I read that Warren Buffett was earning $37 million every day, my entire perspective of the world changed. People I once thought were rich, were now poor, and my own life looked pretty pathetic.
This kind of humbling experience is great. Knowing that there’s so much more in the world to accomplish, can lead to the greatest results of your life.
