Happy Friday! Here are my May 10 Hot Topics and how they relate to advancing leadership or culture.
Hot Topic 1: Read 500 Pages a Day!
Source: Inc.
What it’s About: We should read much more than we are currently. The average person reads four books per year. Famous investor Warren Buffett, is quoted: “Read 500 pages every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will.”
Why it’s Important: There is ample research on the many physical and mental benefits of reading, and not just on your iPad or Kindle, either. Reading is different, and has additional and unique benefits not available from listening to podcasts or Audible books at 1.5x speed. Read more! Some tips: 1. Read physical books. 2. Set a reading goal and stick to it. 3. Read between the lines. 4. If the book sucks, move on. 5. Read several genres at once. 6. Make reading an experience.
Hot Topic 2: Ditch Netflix for a Novel.
Source: New York Times.
What it’s About: Did you ever play the game as a kid where you search for a certain color of car? After you find it, when you really look, they seem to be everywhere. This applies to the “read more books” theme. As I was finishing the Inc. article above, another showed up in the Sunday New York Times: “I had accidentally discovered one of the great disadvantages of books (a medium that is not exactly short on disadvantages at the moment). There is no team of brilliant and vaguely sinister engineers, cooking up ways to get you binge reading.”
Why it’s Important: Look, the fact is that most of us are just too darn screen addicted. As novelist Ben Dolnick emphasizes: “When I’ve found the right book, and I’m reading it the right way, reading is fun — head-tingling, goosebump-raising fun. It’s a vivid and continuous dream that is somehow both directed from without and cast from within, and I get to be awake for it… Netflix can wait.” I hope you read more. Your brain and body will like it. P.S. this is a tribute to my wife Kathleen, a ferocious physical book reader. She is the most read and best writer in our family.
My Weekly Wine Recommendation (Thanks to Vivino):
Stags Leap Wine Cellars Hands of Time Napa Valley 2014.
[Picture and ratings provided by Vivino.]
And finally! Here’s Cecil’s Bleat of the Week!
“You’re never as smart as you think you are when you are winning and never as dumb as you feel when you are losing.” – Michael Hyatt
Bye for now!
– Lorne Rubis
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