Read to Learn, Not to Boost Your Ego

0:09

Yo, yo, yo, what is going on, everybody? Isaac Mashman here, and welcome back to another episode of Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman, the podcast, the show that is all about helping you become a more capable individual through the means of personal and self development. So today I have a very short episode that is going to start you off on the right path this week. Today is Monday. If you're watching this or listening to this on another day, then just know that this information is still going to help you if you apply it. So I don't know if you've been following me on Instagram, but I did a story the other day, and it was a quick video of a book that I recently picked up from Books-A-Million. Now, I'm normally not the guy to go inside of a bookstore.

1:02

I love bookstores, don't get me wrong, but it's been way too long since I've been into a Barnes and Noble or Books-A-Million or a [book mine] or a thrift store, something like that. But I originally went into the store because I had an appointment at the dentist office, and I was like, you know what? There's a Books-A-Million right here, so I'm going to walk over here and see what I can find. I was going in to find a book by Robert Kiyosaki called Fake. But what I did is I walked over to this section, and the ladies were helping me out. They said, we don't have that book. They went and put it up on their computer. So I'm browsing the business section. I'm looking at some other works by Kiyosaki.

1:35

I'm looking at Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. They have literally six different copies from six different editions and six different publishers. But I see this other book. I'm looking at it, and I'm like, you know what? What is this book? It's Law of Success by Napoleon Hill. I've never seen it in physical copy. I've heard of it. The original text was published in a series of 15 different volumes. This was the precursor to Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. I pick up the book, and it's as thick as a textbook. It's actually thicker than a textbook. It's 600 pages long. I flip it over, I look at the price tag, and I'm like, wow, it's literally only 20 bucks. I'm like, this is a gold mine.

2:17

I would personally be okay with paying 40 or $50 for that original text. But for 20 bucks, I'm like, I'm going to steal this. I'm grabbing this. So I walk up to the counter and I pay for it. I go home, and I'm thinking to myself, what is the best way for me to go through and actually understand this information, to actually apply the principles and to retain the knowledge that Napoleon Hill has in the text? I grab an extra composition notebook. Going through my office trying to find extra pieces of paper, I grab an entire composition notebook that is blank specifically for this study. I pick up the book, and within the first three pages, before the author's note, I'm already getting value.

2:59

I'm thinking to myself, imagine if I just read this through and didn't take notes. I [wouldn't] understand half the things that he's talking about, and it would just go right in one ear and out the other ear. That's what a lot of people do whenever they're reading, whenever they're invested in personal development. They do something to say that they did it, but not to actually understand it or apply it. What's the point in doing that? To boost your ego, to look a little bit better in the eyes of other people? To say, oh, I read this book? Yeah, I read Rich Dad Poor Dad, but I can't tell you the first thing about it. Oh, I read Think and Grow Rich, but I can't name off one chapter or one principle that he talked about in the book.

3:40

Oh, yeah, I listened to that podcast. I couldn't give you one guest that he had on or one piece of information that I learned, but I listened to it. It's to boost their ego and make them feel better about themselves. But at the end of the day, your ego means nothing if you don't have anything to back that ego up with. There's a level of ego that's healthy, and this ego is backed by confidence and it's backed by action. It's backed by the knowledge that you have actually done something that's worth having a slight ego for. Now, I'm not saying get cocky, again going back to confidence versus cockiness, but [there's] the best way and the right way to learn.

Now, obviously there are different learning styles. Some people are more visual, some people are auditory, and some people are the kind of guys to sit down and read a book, and they have that photographic memory that can memorize every single aspect, and I'm not one of those people.

4:31

Now, I can read the text and get a good grip of it, but am I actually going to understand it? I might want to go break down the information. I want to take and highlight specific notes and specific sections. But 80% of the information you hear, you forget within 24 hours. That number skyrockets to over 90% within a week. That means that you're spending all of this time: one, this investment of time reading the text, and then you have the investment of money where you're actually buying the text. Then you have the investment into this book taking up space in your home, and you don't even understand what that book is saying.

You don't even remember the information. You don't even remember some of the principles. That's a waste of time, money and space. Now, if you're wanting to actually understand the knowledge and be able to apply it in your own life, that's when you need to take the time and highlight the pages of the book.

5:24

Now, I used to hate highlighting and writing in books. I was that kind of guy where I'm like, you're hurting the books, you're damaging the books. Then I recognized that at the end of the day, you're actually respecting the book, and you're respecting the author of said material, because you're taking the time to appreciate and understand it. So take a highlighter, take a pen, mark the pages up, and write little notes down about the text if something's standing out.

6:12

Teachers wanted you to write things down and take notes so you would retain the information. Now, that doesn't mean that the information you were learning was necessarily important, but in this particular case, you as a grown adult, you as a business person, you as somebody who is trying to become a better and more capable individual (at the center of all success is personal growth, at the center of all achievement is personal growth), you need to take the time and go out of your way to not be some lazy dude who's [just doing] something to say that they did it.

6:42

Take a pen, take a piece of paper, and mark up the pages. Take bullet points. What did you learn in this chapter? Can you talk about and discuss that chapter just like you would have had to do in a book club, sitting with other people, discussing the information that you learned, discussing the plot, just like a [fiction] book club? But can you do that for a nonfiction book? Can you do that for a piece of material or a piece of information that was on the pages of a book written 150 years ago? You have to treat this like it's something that is serious, because without treating this knowledge, or I guess you could say the discovery or the pursuit of knowledge, as something that you take seriously, you won't ever really digest the things that you were going out of your way to learn.

7:30

It's important, too, that you take the time to make it easy for you to understand. When you're going back through, can you explain this concept to a six year old? If you cannot explain the concept to a six year old, then that means that you do not understand it. [Break] down that information to a point where you're able to give a keynote speech on it. If they were to come to you and be like, TEDx, I want you to give this speech on this particular subject on this particular day with no time to prepare, would you be able to have that discussion? Now, I'm not saying (some people would say this) being so aggressive that you're able to recite every single chapter in the book. I'm not saying that you have to be that aggressive, but you should at least be able to write a paper on it.

8:09

You should at least be able to talk a couple of minutes about the top key points in the book. What was the purpose behind writing that material? Then at the end of the day, if you do those things, and you actually learn this information, and you treat this information with respect, you're going to be able to apply it. Now, I've read Think and Grow Rich three times, and there are people who have read it a hundred times, 200 times, and who are continuing to study it. Bob Proctor literally treats Think and Grow Rich like his personal Bible, and it's crazy to me. That's a level of dedication and commitment that I can never really be committed to.

But in this particular case, I've read Think and Grow Rich multiple times, and I've listened to the audios. I've been invested in Napoleon Hill as the author, in his work, in his writings, to where I would go out of my way to buy another book, which is Law of Success, which is a huge, huge book.

9:01

But now I'm going to take the time to understand the material and apply it. Now, I've applied a lot of the principles in Think and Grow Rich, and they've helped me when it comes to positioning. They've helped me in the way that I'm speaking. They've helped me in some of the conversations I've had with my clients, because I understood what I was learning. Sometimes it takes longer to understand certain principles, and that's perfectly okay. But just understand that the return on your investment of time, money, commitment and space is going to be a million times worth it. It's going to be 10 times over what you initially put into it.

That's also how you can prevent yourself from sounding like an idiot if somebody were to ask you about what you learned. Now, this goes to anybody who might be listening to this who, let's say, is doing things more out of ego and out of a pursuit of feeling better about themselves, versus an aura and an energy of doing things to better themselves or better those around them: have you ever been asked to give a conversation or give a talk on some of these books?

10:00

Say you're in this Clubhouse room talking about your favorite personal development text, and they ask you a question, and they're like, so what was the biggest thing you learned? You're just sitting here like, I don't know. You're preventing that from happening. You're preventing all of these different things from happening by being genuine and by acting out of self respect. Guys, it's not that difficult. The best commitment, or the best investment rather, that you can ever make is in yourself. The best commitment you can ever make is in yourself. Because the more committed you are to your process and your growth, the more everyone outside of you and surrounding you is going to benefit from how much you were doing for you.