Leaders are Readers. And there is proof for that. The number of read books per year correlates with the income of a person: The more books, the higher the income. And then there is the example of Bill Gates who retreats once a year for two weeks with the sole purpose of reading. Here are some book reviews for his and your reading list.
Reader's Knowledge is (potential) leader's power
Knowing is not doing. Only by reading we won’t get better. Yes, we will better informed, know more, have new perspectives. But does the book change your living reality? If this was true we would all be millionaires with perfectly trained bodies, right? Knowledge is only potential power. Only by applying the knowledge, we will get better. And this is the hard part where we mostly fail.
More books,
more (potential) power
Consequently, in order to increase the potential power through knowledge we should read more. But how to cramb this in our already overloaded days? Usually, you will always find the tip of learning and applying speed reading. Personally, I only found it helpful for articles and books of lesser quality. Instead I prefer to use the following two approaches. And even with second option I prefer the auditive version. In other words I am inseparable from my Bang&Olufsen E8. They are either in my ears or the pockets of my trouser – ready to be taken out for any time to bridge or non-computer time like sports, walking, commuting etc.
Audiobooks
It comes without saying that I am a big fan of audiobook. It started in my student years when I earned my living as a cab driver. There was no smartphone, no audiobook apps etc. back then. So, I went each week to the public library and borrowed CDs, which I could listen to while dring through all those nights.
Today, I have an Audible subscription. The advantage for me as frequent listener is that when you want to surpass the monthly one one audiobook you don’t pay the full price.
Blinkist
What is Blinkist? This is an App of a German start-up company. The App is available in all stores: Apple and Android. In the App you find so-called blinks, i.e. short summaries of the relevant content of books on all kinds of subjects. The number of available summaries / books is growing weekly. No matter what Interest I am sure you’ll find something according to your taste. Thus, you are able to consume a huge number of books per year.
You can even increase it by listening to the blinks. All the book summaries also come in Audio form, which you can download on your smartphone. So, it doesn’t
In most cases it suffices to know the basic idea of a book. Sometimes, however, I got so intrigued that I bought the full book in order to devour in full.
Furthermore, Blinkist offers also a very entertaining and enriching podcast called “Simplify“. You always can get new ideas out of the conversation. And you’ll always have a number of book recommendations.
Inspirations 3C book reviews
In the internet of course. You can research “best books in…” However, this is not always a guarantee for quality. Accordingly, I like to get inspired by recommendations, e.g. based on my previous purchases on Amazon and Audible, as well as on Blinkist.
Furthermore, there are excellent podcasts. My favourite one for books is also called Read to Lead by Jeff Brown. Each time he interviews with his sonore and comfortable voice an author of an interesting publication. Sometimes, this suffices for getting the basic idea. In other times, I will look up the book in one of the above-mentioned sites.
For books in German language, please have a look at 3C – book reviews on the German version of this website.
3C book reviews: Leaders are Readers
Additionally, you can get inspired also on this page. Subsequently, I’ll review books and audiobooks in here. I will tell you my honest view. That means, even if the books are linked with the Amazon partner program and I might get a commission in case you decide to follow the link and purchase it, I won’t bow down for the money. If a book is not good, not suitable for certain purposes or not recommendable in general, I will openly state so.