Thursday, April 12, 2012

Starting The Day: Reading

What is the thing that can keep me on focus during the day, especially days when I feel completely off course? What can give me the power to visualize a possibility in the midst of day of drudgery? Reading.

Reading - specifically, reading for success - is for me the secret sauce that keeps me focused and going during the day. It is very hard for me to visualize moving forward in any aspect of my life without motivational reading, something to spur me on to success.

My reading is divided into two parts:

1) Spiritual: For me, the Scriptures. I've read "Through the Bible in a year" for many years now, where the Old Testament and New Testament is broken down into 366 segments. Mornings are my time for the New Testament, followed by a reading in Proverbs for the Date (31 days, 31 books). I also try to included a devotional reading as well: sometimes theology, sometimes biography, sometimes a true devotional reading.

The point? This keeps me grounded in what is actually important and what the purpose of life really is - and that no matter how much I flatter myself, I am not truly in control.

2) Motivational: For me, this varies tremendously. I've read The Art of War by Sun Tzu many times. I've read books by motivational writers: Brian Tracy, Jeffrey Gitomer, Orison Swett Marden. I've read books on success in writing and publishing. I've read books about businesses and business models that I admire, such as Raising the Bar by the founder of Clif Bars.

The point of this variety in book choices is that it helps to keep focused on things that my day to day existence tends to wipe clean. Things like self improvement, visions of things I want to do, stories of people who have done the things I want to do - all of these keep me looking towards the horizon of the future. I am very forgetful and easily distracted by life. I need these readings as a touchstone for what is possible.

I literally cannot imagine a morning without this kind of reading any more - to me, it would be as foreign as to start out the day without a cup of coffee. If I don't do this sort of reading for two or three days I can feel it: my world becomes shrunken and shuttered by the musts and have to's of my existence.

So read every morning. It's not just good for the mind, it's good for the soul.

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