We can be whatever we want if we read a lot. Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX who is now the richest person in the world, when asked how he understood the world of rocketry, his answer was, "I read books."
Almost all billionaires in the world are people who really love to read books. Warren Buffet claims he reads 500 pages per day, Bill Gates reads 50 books per year, and Mark Zuckerberg finishes one book per two weeks.
That's a lot. I guess it's time for us to start to love reading, too. Especially in this age, almost all books already have their digital version, and we can read it anytime, anywhere, as long as we hold our cellphone. It's not just books. There are also lots of cool articles that we can find on the internet. It's just a matter of whether we want to read them or not.
But, there is one common excuse for all of us, which is "I don't have the time". It's true, besides that it's just us who don't want to spend the time, no matter what, our time in this world is indeed limited. We can't read all the books or articles in the world.
So we have to make the best use of the time we have by reading what we really need, at the present time, not later. Don't bait the cool article title and think, "Who knows, I might need this later, let's read."
Prioritize looking for any information that can provide the greatest benefit to us now, not tomorrow or the day after. Because of the many streams of information available on the internet, the information "we'll need later" is countless.
We don't need an investment guide if we are still students and have no income. It's better to find out how to get the maximum possible outcome at that time.
And if, for example, we find an article or book that relates to us, but it doesn't meet our expectations, just leave it. If the first paragraphs are not interesting enough, don't expect the rest will be good.
Charles Munger, Warren Buffet's partner, once said,
"Most books I don't read past the first chapter. I'm not burdened by bad books,"
And this is true. We can find many other books that can satisfy our thirst.
However, some people say that if we only read books that most people read, we will also have thoughts like most people. So maybe we should open our minds and don't limit our input, but still, because of our limited time, we also need a strong filter to choose what we will finish.
It's not "we can't read everything," but "we can't finish everything". It will be an advantage for us if we can know not just one, but from many points of view. And we also need to filter our reading so that our time is not wasted.
Increase the input, strengthen the filter.
This article was written with the initial idea from here and here.