Now that you are here, I presume you like to read.
That is awesome. We are not too many of us left. In his legendary Stand Up Comedy, Tell ‘Em I Said It, Eddie Griffin gets emotional and in the middle of a smoke tells young people, ‘Read! It ain’t illegal yet! But they working on it!’
What a powerful way to bring the reality out humorously.
I will make use of quotes to bring out the importance of reading.
- Readership is Leadership
There is something in a book that you will never find in a movie or a T.V Series. Neither will you find it on Twitter, Snapchat or WhatsApp. What is that one thing? The lack of fun. Everyone is on Social Media. Everyone seems to have a ‘Movie Guy’ or a Netflix subscription. Well, isn’t it fun to play C.I.A and F.BI trying to solve the conspiracies, episode after episode? Or scrolling through a gallery full of memes? Not everyone gets to read because reading requires you to actually concentrate and absorb the transfer of knowledge from those lines to your mind. That, is simply what makes a leader. The act itself of reading, demonstrates leadership in a sense that you already know how boring reading is yet you actually grabbed a book and opened it. The discipline to open page after page at the expense of opening New Tab after New Tab demonstrates focus and self – drive. Simply, before we even discuss what you are reading, you are a leader to begin with. The kind of leader you become is highly dependent on the kind of reading you practice, as described in the next point.
2. A man who does not read good books has no advantage over a man who cannot read them – Mark Twain
Please go back to the quote again and focus on the word good.
It is not enough to just read. To get the most of out of a book, you have to be reading good books to begin with.
So what are good books? They are books that fill in gaps and enable you to grow career-wise and as a person.
Therefore, if you are a line manager in your early thirties with a young family of two children, good books for you would be those that fill in the gaps in your management career and those that enable you to have a better connection with your spouse and children. If you are a university student winding up on their studies, a good book would be that which opens up your mind on the possibilities in the real world out of school and that which moulds you to a better leader in the future. If you are a Title Leader (What’s this? – Read Robin Sharma’s The Leader who had no Title) at a global multi – national, a good book for you would be one that is more like your job – a global multi – national; a book that will make you travel the world from your desk, learning about other multi – nationals and what they did (or are currently doing) and using the judgement that got you into that position to determine whether that would work for your organisation or not.
The bottom line is, my good book could be a waste of time for you and vice versa. On the other hand, my good book could be an even better book for you. It is all tied down to where you are now and where you want to go. Books will take you there. We have thousands of platforms where you may download these books, buy them or even listen to them. However, nothing beats the verbal dissection of a book from someone who objectively read it to understand and not just complete it. We have a Readers Club where our sole purpose is to dissect books on behalf of each other.
We meet once every month. We vet every member of the club to only ensure we bring to our circles positive – oriented leaders. Should you be interested to dissect books for fun with us, write to us here: kiiru@kiirumacharia.com.
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