When I was growing up, there was a program in elementary school call RIF which stands for Reading Is Fundamental. The way that the program worked was that when you read so many books (I think it was 10), that you got a free pizza at Pizza Hut and your name was entered into a drawing to win a bigger prize. I think they call that technique dangling a carrot, and it worked because that Summer I read lots of books just to get the free pizza and also to have a chance to win the bigger prize. To me it was all about the prizes and not so much about reading the books, the books were just a means to something bigger. Fast forward to my high school days, where the RIF program was as far from mind as possible. In fact I was in a group I guess you could categorize as the "Cool Crowd" or the "Athletes," and reading was viewed as what the "Nerds" do and in fact it was viewed as not "cool." I took this same mentality into my college years, I read just what I needed to and mostly just for my classes, and mostly focused on playing baseball. In not so many words you can say that my body grew physically from working out and playing baseball, but mentally I did not grow as much because I did not push myself to learn anything more than what needed to so that I could graduate. Now fast forward into the business world, where people are less concerned about your physical prowess, but more concerned about your mental prowess. This is not to say that it is not important to stay physically in shape, because to this day I still full believe this, but I will write about that in the future, this is more to tell you that you have to find a way to do both.
When I was younger if you read alot you were viewed as being an outcast, in the business world it is the opposite. Whatever profession you get into, you are going to have to work with people that are older and people that are wiser than you, whether they are your co-workers, bosses, clients, or friends. When I stepped into the business world this was somewhat intimidating to me, and I marveled at how much they knew and to some extent looked internally at how little I knew. I am writing this to you to let you in on the secret that they figured out at some point in their lives. The secret is that they read more than I did. Not only did they read, but they read books on different topics, that is how they came upon all their knowledge. They read books on politics, business, investing, leadership, science, etc. Here is the key to reading, it is like anything you do in life, it has to become a habit, and the sooner you start the easier it will become part of who you are. The best piece of advice I ever got was to just read 15 minutes a day, and if you do that consistently, you will get through a book a month. Just imagine the knowledge you will have if you read 12 books a year on different topics. No matter what business you look at, all the most successful people read books, they are thirsty for knowledge, new perspective, and growth both personally and professionally.
So now that I am older and I look back on the RIF program, I understand what they were doing which is training us when we were young to develop the habits of reading. When I was young, the RIF program was about the prize, but now I truly understand what the program stands for and it was in the title of the program all along, which is READING IS FUNDAMENTAL !!!!!!
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