On Purpose with Jay Shetty - 3 Mistakes We Make Reading Books & 3 Techniques For Reading More and Faster
Episode Date: January 24, 2020Can one person read 365 books in one year?In this episode of On Purpose, Jay Shetty discusses how he read a book a day during a one-year period and shares his 4-S strategy to reading that anyone can u...se to tackle their reading list.Shetty also shared his insights on the mistakes people make when reading and how to avoid them. The key to reading more and enjoying it isn’t willpower or reading cover to cover. Watch now to learn Jay Shetty’s insights on reading more. Text Jay Shetty 310-997-4177Want to have YOUR best year yet?Join me for my Free Online Workshop: 5 Intentions for a Purpose-Filled Yearhttps://jayshetty.me/purposeA Word From Our Sponsors:Go to Gabi.com/JAY And for a limited time, if they can’t find you savings on your insurance, you’ll get a $10 Amazon gift card.Go to Zapier.com/JAY for your free 14-day trial.Check your rate in minutes and borrow up to $40,000. That’s LendingClub.com/JAYGo to ImperfectFoods.com/JAYSHETTY to get $10 OFF your next FOUR orders and enter JAYSHETTY at checkout.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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I am Dr. Romani and I am back with season two of my podcast, Navigating Narcissism.
This season, we dive deeper into highlighting red flags and spotting a narcissist before they spot you.
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You will find when you read if you know what you need, you will find the answers when you read. Hey everyone, welcome back to On The Purpose.
The number one place to be in 2020.
It is incredible to have you back for another weekly workshop and these workshops that we're
taking on together every single Friday or whenever you're listening wherever you are in the world right now
Whether you're walking your dog whether you're cooking whether you're commuting. I love seeing where you post make sure you tag me in an Instagram story
And let me know where in the world you're listening from. I love seeing you post all the incredible things you're doing some of you
Listening with your cats your dogs your kids
It's it's absolutely awesome. So thank you so much for being a part of this
community. Now, this is a really important one and one that I really, really want to take
with you because there was one year in my life where I literally read 365 books in one year.
Right? Literally 365 books in one year. I read a book a day. It was crazy.
It was absolutely crazy. But I'll explain how I read a book a day. I want to tell you that the reasoning behind it,
the truth behind it, how it actually worked as well. And I get so many questions for so many of you. Like, Jay, how do you read so many books?
How do you get through them? I don't read a book a day anymore. This was something that I did a couple of years back. Now I probably get through about a book a week,
a book every two weeks sometimes as well,
because I've been just diving deeper into a few areas that I've been wanting to
resit and study plus.
So I just wrote my own books.
So that was a big time investment and a big time commitment.
But a lot of people at that time were asking me like,
what's your strategy?
Like how do you even sleep?
And I'm going to share with you all the answers to that in this podcast. And I want to start by saying this because I know the
new year is a time when you want to learn more, you want to read more. And how many of you have a
stack of books that's taller than you, right? Ready to read for this year. And it's stuff that you
really want to read this year, this month, this week, and maybe even today, but that list just keeps growing. And then everyone shares their top 50
list and their top 25 list. And you're thinking, wow, like, how am I ever going to get through
this list? And you're thinking to yourself, I've got less time. And this week, then I had
last week. And maybe you're thinking, I don't even know where to start. Now, if you're thinking of any of those things, this is the right podcast for you.
And of course, I highly recommend audiobooks for those of you that like listening.
And I can't tell you how to read audiobooks faster because you obviously turn up the speed.
But when you're actually reading, if you're someone who still likes to pick up a physical book
or a kindle or an iPad, I'm one of those physical book people. I still like to buy real books. Whenever I'm traveling in an airport,
I'll pick up a ton of books. My hand-loving is full of books. I'm constantly buying books wherever
I am and I'm reading them on flights and journeys. And I find that reading is a super important habit.
It's one of the best ways to get centered, to find a new tool to play with, to experiment
with a new idea.
And I found it really fulfilling in my life and really useful and insightful as well.
And I want to share with you some of the most successful people in the world and what
they do with books.
So Warren Buffett says that he spends five to six hours a day reading five newspapers.
Right, that's a lot.
Bill Gates reads about 50 books a year.
His list is fantastic.
It's one that I look at as well,
and mainly business, health, engineering, and diseases.
Mark Zuckerberg says that he reads books to learn
and educate himself about different cultures and backgrounds. Oprah
calls reading her personal path to freedom and we know her famous book club. And Mark
Cuban says that he reads to learn about new industries. Now this one is going to shed light
on how old you are. But if you remember the Britannica encyclopedia, I remember this,
my parents had it for me on CD. Elon Musk said
that he read that by the time he was nine in total. And this is my favorite one, Phil Knight,
the CEO of Knight, or Nike, as you say in the States, if you've read Shudog, amazing,
if you haven't made sure you read that as well, said that he kept his library so sacred that when
people entered it, they had to take their shoes off and bow down and that's actually a big part of
Spiritual culture. That's a big part of monk life as well. We would never wear shoes in the same place
There were books of wisdom because it was considered such a
Such a rare feat to have those books of wisdom in the same room as well. So, Phil Knight's kind of thinking like a monk
There's three types of people.
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Now, there's plenty of good reasons why you should read, but you really need to know your own.
And that's my number one lesson.
You need to know why you're going to read a book.
Don't you read a book because your friends are telling you it's a good book.
Don't you read a book because you're like, oh, I've been told it's important.
You need to have your own reading.
Ask yourself, is it because you want to have your own read and ask yourself,
is it because you want to be entertained and have an escape? Is it because you want to learn
new information to grow in your career? Is it because you want to find new ideas about how to
improve your life? The closer you get to having clarity on your vision for why you're reading a book,
the more likely you're going to be a successful
reader.
It's like with anything else in life, if you don't know why you're doing it, if you don't
know what benefits it's going to give you, if you don't know where you're going to apply
it, you're not going to be successful at it.
So for me, I like to read books about behavioral science, I like to read books about the mind,
I like to read books about personal growth and self development because to me that's the most important thing.
If I'm always growing myself that will naturally impact my business, it will impact my relationships,
it will impact my happiness. And so to me, books that help you think, books that help you
craft the right mindset, books that help you with your thoughts are the most powerful books
to read because we spend all of our time in our heads
We spend all of our time in our thoughts and so if we don't have a thing if we don't have a process
Then we really struggle so for me that's the most important type of book and
It's really important that we figure out why we want to read right and and that's a good place to start
So hopefully I've given you an option of how to start as well. Now before we go into how I read a book a day or how I read a book a day
for 365 days, I want to talk to you about the biggest mistakes we make as readers because this
is actually half the battle. We make so many mistakes when we're reading that really lets us down.
One of the biggest mistakes we make is that we think
books need to be read cover to cover. Whether they're 200 pages or whether they're 400 pages
or whether they're 600 pages, we think they need to be read cover to cover. But this isn't
always the case. It's not always the truth. The interesting thing is that not all books are
written that way. Right? And one of my favorite analogies in this regard is like it's kind of like
saying when you go shopping for your groceries that you need to walk through every aisle just to find
the things you need, right? You don't do that. If you go to the grocery store, you don't go through
aisle one, then I'll two, then I'll three, then I'll four and then I'll five and then I'll six and
Seven and all the way to I'll 30 to find the four things you went for which was like bread and butter and I don't know something else Right like you don't do that you go to I'll three you know what you're getting there
You go to I'll seven and maybe go to I'll 13 and then you go to the checkout and
A lot of books and especially getting into books
I believe in reading in that way
makes it far more powerful.
So so many of us don't read that.
We read like we're in a grocery store in a shopping aisle as opposed to reading like we're
like, actually, do you know what I read that need right now?
I really just need some motivation.
Let me read the chapter on motivation.
Actually, you know what I need right now?
I need to reduce negativity in my life.
Let me just read the chapter on negativity. What I really need in my life right now is I really need,
let me think one of the chapters in my book that's coming out.
I really, really need to understand my purpose.
Let me focus on reading about that right now.
Because now that you have a natural intuition and instinct about something,
you're in your focus because this is what I want.
You don't just go to the grocery store to go, oh yeah, let's see what we find out. about that right now, because now that you have a natural intuition and instinct about something, you're in your focus, but you're like, this is what I want, right?
You don't just go to the grocery store to go, oh yeah, let's see what we find today.
And if you read a book like that, it's also the same experience.
You're like, I'm not sure if I'm going to find anything.
But if you know what you're looking for and you know which aisle to go to, just like you
know which chapter to go to, you find it straight away.
And that's what I find with nonfiction books.
This doesn't work with a fiction book, of course, but it does work with non-fiction
books. And this is what I'm talking about today. You can find what you need much
quicker and make it much more useful than going through every single page.
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willpower instead of lovepower.
If you're dragging yourself through a book, I'm trying to get through to the last page
and every page is a struggle.
And every page when you turn it over, it feels heavier than the last one.
And the words seem to get smaller and smaller
every single time. And your eyes get more tired and more tired every single time. It means
you're relying on willpower. You're not quite making it through with love power. So this
is the issue. We think that it's a willpower issue. It might take us. It's a love power issue. My take is it's a love power issue. The power of love is far greater
than the power of will. Just just write that down for me. This is the first time I've
ever said that. I need to check it out. The power of love is far greater than the power
of will, right? Love power is much stronger than will power. And we drag ourselves to a book
because you're like, oh, yeah, I've been told this is really good. How many times have you ever watched a movie or a
TV show and you've been told by your friends that it's really good? So you try and drag yourself
through it and you're just dragging yourself through it because they're saying right next to
you and you're hoping they're not going to see you being dragged right through it but then you
realize, well, that was just, you know, oh my god, that was, that wasn't a great TV show or a great
movie and we do the same with books and and really we should be relying on love power. If there's something you really love, something that you're excited to learn,
something that you're energized when you hear about, speak about it or read about it,
that's where you want to throw your energy, that's where you want to give your focus.
Don't just read a book because someone told you to, don't just read a book because it was number one
on the New York Times by Celilist, that's not the only reason to read it. Read a book because
you're passionate about that subject and sometimes we it. Read a book because you're passionate about that subject.
And sometimes we don't know.
But if you're passionate about a person,
you might be passionate about their book.
If you've like someone's podcast or content
or videos, then you'll like their book.
If you've like someone's TED talk, you'll like their book.
If you've, so an interview with someone,
and you like them, you'd like their book,
you can get passionate about the person
before you get passionate about the book.
Another big mistake we make about books is that we buy a book based on its cover.
We don't read the inside flaps. We don't read the testimonials. You don't take a look
at the first page and check it out. You're just writing it based on something very superficial
about it. So that's another mistake we made. So now that we've covered three mistakes,
you know, I'm now gonna show you and share with you
how I developed a practice of reading a book a day
for one whole year.
And it's not quite teaching you a new technique
that's going to take you a year to learn
before you even start reading or something
that you need to practice.
What I'm gonna share with you,
you can start actually applying right today.
So you don't need to like learn new language,
or learn a new process,
or your brain doesn't need to build an algorithm,
or you don't need to download a chip,
or any of that kind of stuff.
You're actually going to be able to read more
and read faster using these simple and practical tips
that anyone can do.
You're not learning speed reading.
I'm not trying to get you to learn a new process here.
So listen carefully.
The first thing I do before I start reading a book
is I find the TED talk or a presentation about the book.
I find the YouTube video that's going to tell me
about that person's big idea.
What I'm trying to do here is grasp the concept
of the book as quick as possible.
It allows me to understand the essential principles.
The underlying thought behind the book from the author without having to invest a week
or a month or however long it takes to actually finish a book, you may or may not like.
So if you already like someone and you purchase their book, you know you're going to like
it. But if you picked up a book and you don't really know it. So for example, Dan or
Riley, when I picked up his book, you don't really know, it's a, for example, Dan O'Reilly, when I built, picked up his book, Predictably Irrational, the, the first
thing before I picked up the book is I watched his talk and I loved his talk because I didn't
know who he was and then I loved his book. So it's easy when you've been following someone
online for a long time, but when it's someone who's new in your life, it's good to do that.
It's good to check them out and it's good to take a look at their profile. It's good
to take a look at their videos. It's good to understand what they talk about and how they communicate because chances are if you like them on a podcast
or an interview, you're like their book. So it's a great indicator for you and it saves you time
and energy because if you dive into that book and you don't get anything out of it, then you're
going to be feeling like you wasted more time or is watching a talk or an interview for 15 minutes
is a much easier way to start. So being able to watch that TED talk, what's that YouTube video, allows you to figure out
whether you even feel that the person on the topic is compelling, whether you feel attracted
to that subject, or whether you feel you understood it from the talk, it might not even need to
read the book.
That's where I actually believe that the amount of energy people put into a book is so much
higher than what they put into a talk, and so you will get more value.
But basically my point is, that talk should let you know whether that book is worth reading
for you.
It should inspire you, want to go there and order it straight away.
That's what it should urge you to do.
If that person or that story doesn't do that, then that's cool.
Cool.
Move on.
But to save yourself time and the money of ordering the book.
And that's the thing, you don't lose anything.
You just watch the 50 minute talk
and learn loads of new stuff.
So I'm going to talk you through a book
that I read about a couple of years ago now,
and it's called the organized mind.
And this can be any book, I'm just using this
as an example because it has some thoughts in it that I really want to share with you. So the first thing I do when I be any book, I'm just using this as an example because it has, you know, some thoughts in it that I really want to share with you
So the first thing I do when I get a book after I've watched the YouTube video a TED talk
I highlight the sections that I really find interesting most books today
Self-development books personal growth books are all split up into parts
Right so part one part two, but three or you've got chapters, and I dive straight
into this like shopping aisles. I'm going to the grocery store. I know I need to buy bread.
I'm not going to go into the aisle for milk today because I don't need milk today. So I'm
going to dive into it. So whether that's trying to reduce my negativity, whether it's trying
to improve gratitude, whether it's trying to become more service oriented, or you know,
whatever it is that I'm really searching
for in my life, that's what I'm gonna go to,
whether it's overcoming my fears,
whether it's dealing with my ego,
those are the things that I'm gonna highlight
which parts I want to focus on.
And so what I do is I highlight these sections
in that book and the ones that stick out to me
straight away.
It's almost like, like I said, the grocery store,
but it's also like going through a menu
at a restaurant and saying,
I really like the sound of that. I'd love restaurant and saying, I really like the sound of that.
I'd love to taste it.
I really like the sound of that.
That's what I want to learn about.
And actually that, I don't think I kind of need that right now.
And that requires you to be really conscious of what you're willing to gain from the book.
This is a really important thing for you to think about that.
When you're reading a book, you've got to be conscious of what you need in your life, right? You will find
When you read
If you know what you need
If you know what you need you will find the answers when you read that's that's the line. That's that's that's what I want you to recognize
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But you have to know what you need at that time in your life.
And you do that just by asking yourself a question right now.
What emotion, experience, skill, ability do I need to develop right now?
That's the question you have to ask yourself.
What emotion, what ability, what skill do I need right now in order to move forward?
And remember, it's not just like, oh, I need to apply for an interview. I need to practice interview questions. That's part of it.
But it may be I like, I need to build up confidence, right? I actually need to understand my purpose. I need to understand my passions.
It can be a deeper subject matter. So keep digging to that deep root.
So in part two of this book, I highlighted
organizing our social world because I was super interested in about how humans connect.
And so I've circled that. And I'm basically what I'm doing is just making a selection before I
even dive into the book. So this is before I've read the introduction, this is before I've read the
first page because it's setting me up to read with a plan. And when I read with a plan, if plan A
doesn't work, I have plan B. So I want you to highlight each section that is relevant to you at that time.
Obviously, don't highlight every chapter. And I always recommend reading chapter one,
because the author has put so much energy into that chapter. You definitely don't want to miss it.
But after that, make sure you're highlighting the spaces that you're really going to dive into.
And I recommend highlighting, you know, in a book or if there's 10 chapters in a book, you want to start with three.
Right? Because you may start reading one chapter and it may not work.
So you switch to the second one.
Now you might be thinking, do I start from the introductions?
Now some introductions actually teach you how to read the book or how to get the most value out the book.
And it is important.
And if an author has done that, that's incredible.
Make sure you read that introduction. Right? Apart from that, you can start each chapter
and then make your way through. So, so let's do this. Now that you've circled the chapters
of interest, you can dive straight into them. And as you get into them, I'm going to give you
a few quick trips on how you can make that process faster and more useful. Now, if you're somebody who loves audiobooks, there's really cool apps that actually speed
up how quick you can hear.
You already know that.
But now, if you're reader like me, there's a way of doing that too.
When you're reading, as simple as it sounds, it works.
You can use your finger as a guide.
The more you speed up your finger, times one, times two, times three, just like those apps,
the quicker you'll be able to read. It's the same thing as audio book apps are using right now. You listen
at speed one and then move to speed two and move to speed three. You're simply using
your finger as the ability to start reading faster and it actually works and I do that all
the time. I will just move my finger glide my finger across the page. I know it sounds
super simple but it really really does work. We have this fixation on reading every word, finishing every book and finishing
every page. The reality is most of us never actually achieved that. The tips I'm giving you
are going to help you read a book within two hours or a day and help you decide whether you
want to read the book covered to cover. Now imagine if you spent a month or two months reading a book and
afterwards you felt, well what did I gain from that? What did I learn from that?
If anything. But what if you read in two hours and then the opportunity to decide
to read the whole thing? I guarantee you when you did this way you were able to
read books that you really really value and you'll be able to retain more
information and understand the big concepts.
Another way to speed up the reading process
is to read the first three lines
and the last three lines of a paragraph
that you think you might be interested in.
If you're not sure when you do that,
you'll be able to quickly contextualize
whether that paragraph has insights
that you really want to know, top and bottom.
Authors place a lot
of emphasis in starting and ending paragraphs with key information. You'll have to grab
it and decide if you want to read the rest. The interesting thing is when we read, even
though it feels like we're flowing across the words, it's not true. Our eyes are actually
doing a stop start motion. And when our rise stop, we're able to grab information.
And when they start, we move to the next.
So that loses a bit of time.
Now when you're trying to look at the most important words,
you're probably able to grasp 90% of the meaning,
which is looking at 30% of the words.
It also stops your eyes from having to constantly do
a stop start motion, trying to make it flow,
when actually you're jumping to the most important words
in the sentence.
Right, if you think about it, we read paragraphs as a whole. Even if you've ever read one of those paragraphs,
you're lots of spelling mistakes in it. You read words as a whole, you don't read, eat, letter.
Similarly, in a paragraph, you don't read each word, so reading like this actually works.
Now, not all these tools are going to work for you straight away. Some of the more simple ones you can put into practice right away.
I also make sure that after a chapter I write down what I call the 3S formula.
I write down a story that really inspired me or moved me.
I write down a statistic that I thought blew my mind.
And the third thing I do is make a note of something that I want to share with someone
else. That's a great way of getting more out of the book, the 3S formula,
a story, a statistic, and something to share.
And I really believe that when you read something cool, tell someone about it.
You'll remember it and I'm more likely to apply it in your own life.
And the fourth S, I'm actually going to add a fourth S for you, is start. Choose something to
start doing. A habit, a practice, an idea, a thought, a practice start, four S formula right there.
Now, if you're not inspired by a book, drop it. Finishing a book is nowhere near as important as
actually learning from it and gaining from it. Our success metrics for reading book is how many we finished versus how much we've actually
learned.
So when I look at all the books that I've read, the ones that stand out are the ones that
I learned the most from, not just necessarily finished.
So try out whichever of these tips work for you.
Make sure you start off by watching the TED Talk, watching that YouTube video, to grab
the essence of the book.
The second thing you want to do is highlight the key chapters and areas that you really want to dive into.
Remember, it's just like going shopping or looking at a menu.
You don't need to go through every aisle, you don't need to order every dish on the menu, right?
You know what that ends up like, so you don't want to be there.
Remember, you can grab as much information as you need just from the first three lines
and the last three lines of every paragraph to decipher whether it's relevant to what
you're reading for.
And remember, when you're reading, if something's not inspiring you, it's not motivating
you, you're not learning from it, don't drag yourself through it.
Find the book, find the next book, sorry, and get working.
You know, for a long time, I actually thought I hated reading because we read so many
fiction books at school, we only read fiction books and I remember reading things like Goosebumps
and Harry Potter originally and I just couldn't get into fiction books even though I love fiction
movies. I don't know what it was, but I just never had been able to and I remember my father
then started buying me biographies and autobiographies and I remember reading The Rock rocks autobiography and I remember reading David Beckham's autobiography and I
remember reading all these autobiographies and falling in love with them
because I loved hearing about people who went from nothing to something and I
loved hearing about people who went through challenges and real life issues and
so really focus on finding learning that works for you. Everyone learns
differently. Some of you. Everyone learns differently.
Some of you will learn through movement.
Some of you will learn through classes and workshops.
Some of you through audio books, but do realize that there is value in reading.
There is so much value in reading that can make all the difference.
Thank you so much to tune in for today.
It means so much to me that you come back every single week.
I hope you're enjoying these new weekly workshops we're doing.
I'm absolutely loving what we're doing in this space.
I'm so excited to be sharing all this incredible work with you.
Thank you so, so, so much for being a part of this community
and keep living your life on purpose. I'm Eric Zimmer, host of the One-E-Feet podcast, where I interview thought-provoking guests who offer practical
wisdom that you can use to create the life you want. 25 years ago, I was homeless and addicted to
heroin. I've made my way through addiction recovery, learned to navigate my clinical depression,
and figured out how to build a fulfilling life. The One-You-Feet has over 30 million downloads and
was named one of the best podcasts by Apple Podcast Podcast. Oprah Magazine named this is one of 22 podcasts to help you live your best life.
You always have the chance to begin again and feed the best of yourself.
The trap is the person often thinks they'll act once they feel better.
It's actually the other way around.
I have had over 500 conversations with world-renowned experts and yet I'm still striving to
be better.
Join me on this journey.
Listen to the one you feed on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Hi, I'm Brendan Francis Nunehm.
I'm a journalist, a wanderer, and a bit of a bon vivant, but mostly a human just trying
to figure out what it's all about.
And not lost is my new podcast about all those things.
It's a travel show where each week I go with a friend to a new place
and to really understand it,
try to get invited to a local's house for dinner,
where kind of trying to get invited to a dinner party,
it doesn't always work out.
Ooh, I have to get back to you.
Listen to not lost on the iHeart radio app
or wherever you get your podcasts.
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