The 6 Intellectual Superpowers You Get When You Read 52 Books a Year

12 Jan

Books are the cheat codes to living a successful life

“If you are going to get anywhere in life you have to read lots of books.” — Roald Dahl

The most successful people in our society are readers.

When Warren Buffett was once asked about the key to success, he pointed to a stack of nearby books and said, “Read 500 pages like this 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 do it.”

Physical training gives Olympians athletic abilities that look like superpowers to the layperson. This is why we stay glued to our TV Usain Bolt takes to the track or when Lionel Messi starts to dribble.

But reading books gives everyday people intellectual superpowers. As Epictetus once said, “Books are the training weights of the mind.” Or as Joseph Addison put it, “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”

We know that you don’t become a gold-medal Olympian by chance. But few recognize that you also can’t become successful by chance either. Reading is the foundation of your success in any goal you pursue.

Books are the gateway to learning and knowledge. Books are undervalued in a world that overvalues technology. Books are the worst kept secret to being successful, yet few people use them to their advantage.

Back in 1978, just 8% of Americans said they had not read a book during the previous year, according to a Gallup poll. In 2018, that figure had jumped to 24% — and that included listening to audiobooks — according to a Pew Research Center survey.

Less of the world are reading books at precisely the same time reading is becoming more valuable. You can use this to your benefit.

To quote Mark Twain, “if a person does not read, then they have no advantage over someone who can’t read.”

You know what you need to do. Read more books. Quit most of them and read the great ones twice. Here are the six superpowers you’ll develop if you do so.

Superpower #1: Reading allows you to learn any skill you want.

“Reading is a meta habit that improves all other habits in your life”. — James Clear

If you can learn to read effectively, you have all the tools to teach yourself any skill, mindset or ability.

Pick a skill you want to learn and triangulate the 2–3 thought leaders in this field and read their books. You can quickly become an expert in almost any field if you read 5 or 6 books related to the topic.

You don’t need to have a 3-year degree and pay $50,000 in fees for knowledge anymore. That’s old-school thinking. Pick up a book and start learning today. Rich people aren’t born rich. Most of them learn the skills to become rich.

And just remember, the important skills in life are neither degreed nor decreed. “Formal education makes you a living, but self-education makes you a fortune,” writes Jim Rohn

Superpower #2: You Can Start and Maintain A Conversation With Anyone

Have you ever met someone with irresistible energy? They just seem to be able to glide through conversations with ease and confidence. Making everyone around them feel comfortable and open in the process.

From my own anecdotal experience, these people tend to be readers. I have a close friend who seems to know a little about a lot of things and can always find a connection to engage a stranger she’s talking to.

Everybody loves to talk about topics they are passionate about. All you need to have is enough information to ask informative questions and be genuine about your curiosity.

Research suggests book reading improves your vocabulary. And possessing a broad vocabulary isn’t just useful for knowing big words and sounding smart. No one likes a no-it-all anyway.

But the ability to articulate yourself helps you to describe your experiences and emotions to others in an empathetic way. Empathy leads to connection and may help you form and maintain close relationships.

My friend’s energy is infectious and everyone always comments on how easy it is to talk to her. You immediately feel like you’re talking to an old friend.

Reading provides the ammunition to keep every conversation firing.

Superpower #3: Your Mind Is Permanently Upgraded

“I do not recall all the books I have read any better than I can recall all the the meals that I have eaten, even so they have made me” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

People are more concerned with upgrading the software on their smartphones rather than improving the software between their ears.

Reading permanently upgrades your mind better than any drug could. You’re like Bradley Cooper in the movie Limitless after he takes the mind-enhancing drug NZT.

The best part? You have no side effects from reading besides improved thoughts and thinking patterns.

Reading makes you see problems differently. You appreciate the complexity of the world and acknowledge nuance in every debate. You notice patterns and can easily pick out the signal from the noise.

Books aren’t just great for the knowledge you learn but also for the critical thinking skills you develop. Every book can provide new mental models to apply. Every book adds another tool to your cognitive arsenal.

Mental models are how you understand the world. They shape how you think and the connections and opportunities you see. They are the filter you use to interpret the world around you.

Mental models help us to think better and make better decisions.

Once you can learn to apply mental models broadly, you start to see them in everything you do. You can learn the basics of any field quickly by understanding universal laws and shortcuts to knowledge.

“Well, the first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang ’em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form,” said Charlie Munger

Superpower #4: Reading Creates a Better Relationship With Yourself

“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us” — Franz Kafka

By reading, we train and program our minds for what is arguably the greatest human challenge of our time: delaying gratification.

Blaise Pascal once said:

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

We live in a world where we are inundated with information and distractions. Very rarely do we have the time to just sit with our thoughts and engage in critical self-reflection.

“Reading helps us to take the perspective of characters we normally wouldn’t interact with, and to give us a sense of their psychological experiences.”
— Ken Pugh, director of research at the Yale-affiliated Haskins Laboratories

Books make you reflect. They expose you to new perspectives and experiences. They can reveal the stories you’ve been telling yourself and teach you lessons through characters in the book.

We know the old adage that knowledge equals power, but I would argue that knowledge equals freedom.

Freedom from being stuck in old life stories. Freedom to create yourself into a new person. Freedom to author a new story for yourself.

I have read books that have literally changed how I viewed and approached life. Books have made me more aware of my own shortcomings and my unhealthy attachment to success, achievement and control.

I can often re-read old books and get different lessons from the book. What I learn from a book is often a reflection of where I am at in life at that moment. Through reading, I have a higher IQ as well as EQ (emotional intelligence).

Superpower #5: You Are Less Ignorant and Self-Aware of The Limits of Your knowledge.

“Reading is the way out of ignorance, and the road to achievement” — Ben Carson

There is nothing more off-putting than someone who speaks from a place of ignorance. They vomit their opinion about topics they know very little about and try to the dominant conversation.

Every dinner party has one of these people. I avoid them like the plague. You can’t really have an honest conversation with them.

Reading makes you painfully aware of your ignorance. Reading a good book will make you see how limited your knowledge is. People who read are self-aware of their own ignorance and are not afraid to admit it.

People think that being successful means always being right. I would argue that successful people are experts in doing less of the wrong thing. You can become successful just by avoiding the usual pitfalls that most people fall into.

Avoid being wiped out and allow compound interest to improve your life for the better.

As Charlie Munger once said,

“It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be intelligent.”

Superpower #6: You Can Learn A Lifetime of Lessons

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one” — George R.R. Martin

You only live one life. But through books, you can gain wisdom from thousands of people who have lived and died.

The dead outnumber the living 15-to-1. There is no experience or challenge that you’re going through that hasn’t been experienced by someone else and written about in a book.

You can shortcut the learning curve by reading their books and applying the lessons and mindsets they used to overcome the obstacles in their life.

“One glance at a book and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you.”
- Carl Sagan.

Summary:

Reading books is the highest-leverage activity you can do to build your superpowers.

“My brain gets stronger every day because I exercise it.” — Robert Kiyosaki

Whenever I feel guilty about buying a new book I remember that for the price of lunch or dinner, I get access to wisdom that someone spent most of their life learning.

There is no better return on investment than that.

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Michael Lim