How To Be Smarter Than 99% Of People

“Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary.” -Jim Rohn

How To Be Smarter With One Simple Habit

We all want to know how to be smarter, but what if I told you there was a single habit that could give you leverage over the majority of other people in the world?

It will boost your creativity and problem-solving skills. 

It will inspire you. 

It will help you relax. 

It will help you empathize with others.

It will make you smarter, richer, happier, and more interesting.

It’s a habit billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet credit for their immense success. Yet it is also something most of us claim to not “have time for”. 

What is this high-leverage habit?

Reading.

I know what you’re thinking. 

You are busy, and you don’t have the free time and flexibility of a billionaire. It would be nice, you say, but it’s just not realistic.

In most cases, people know why reading is beneficial. 

It’s like going to the gym- you want to, you intend to, but life always gets in the way. It’s just one of those things. 

So today, my goal is not to tell you why you should read, but how. 

I will share the lessons I’ve learned to go from reading almost nothing on a daily basis to easily reading over ten hours a week. 

My goal?

To give you the single most powerful tool possible to generate creative interdisciplinary solutions.

Step #1: Pick Material You’re Excited To Learn About.

One of the big mistakes that get people disillusioned with reading is simply picking a painfully boring book, and then refusing to break up with it. 

There are two ways to avoid this. 

One is to only give a chance to the books you’re excited about.

Don’t be pressured by what everyone else is reading, what is (or is not) a New York Times bestseller, or what you think is a more “impressive” book to say you have read. 

Remember, you don’t have to justify your reading to anyone.

Two is to put down a book once you realize it’s bad.

Don’t fall prey to the mindset that you need to “commit” to a book, even once it becomes apparent that it’s a waste of time for you.

If it bores you, you will probably not be able to retain the information anyway. 

Use ChatGPT to help you. 

Once you find books you are genuinely excited about, put them on a list so that you remember to order them

Feel free to use the following ChatGPT prompt below to help confirm this is a book you will love.

You can follow up this prompt by asking ChatGPT to recommend additional titles based on what your interests are.

Just copy and paste, then personalize it for yourself: 

I am interested in [insert here some ideas, authors, concepts, hobbies, or genres you are interested in exploring], and I typically enjoy content like [insert here books, movies, articles, podcasts, or YouTube channels you have enjoyed in the past]. Based on this, please help me decide whether to read [insert here book you are considering].

Step #2: Make it into a game. 

Now you have the book, and the question is how on earth to make the time to read it. 

The first thing is to realize that you have the time, but not the priority. 

Ouch.

If you, like many of us, spend more time on Instagram or Netflix than with a book in your hands, this is the uncomfortable truth.

Not to fear!

There is hope because now you can see that it’s possible to fit reading into your life if you want to. 

In fact, the trick I use to read more is the same trick social media apps like Snapchat and language-learning apps like Duolingo use. 

It’s gamification!

Use a habit tracker!

To gamify reading, I downloaded a habit tracker onto my phone to log my reading hours and see how I was progressing each week. 

Once in the habit tracker, create a new habit and log each reading session’s time after completion. 

Below is a picture of my habit tracker. 

Start small, and gradually build up. 

Another big mistake people make when building new habits is to go big all at once. 

This is a noble goal, but it often ends in failure because it creates an “all or nothing” mentality with no room for error. When error does inevitably occur (and life happens), you might end up just giving up. 

Want to avoid this?

Start small and build up slowly. 

Start with 15 minutes daily, then increase by fifteen-minute increments once you have managed to comfortably find the space for the given amount of time.  

Step #3: Take notes. Test ideas. 

So you have a habit, now what?

If you want to stop here, that is perfectly fine, but if you are reading a more informational book whose contents you want to somehow implement in your life, I have some ideas. 

Reading time is learning time, after all, and one of the best ways to retain knowledge is to apply it. 

First, flag the information that stands out to you. 

The simplest ways to do this are underlining sections of text, and taking notes- in the margins, on your phone, using voice recordings, or on your laptop are all fine.

Anything you want to explore later or remember in a conversation is fair game.  

How To Test Your Ideas

Now that you’ve got some ideas down, you can test them by asking what others think and engaging in discussions to strengthen your reasoning. 

This will give you external feedback to work off when you then continue to engage with what you’re reading. 

Step #4: Maintain the habit. 

To make sure the habit sticks, track your progress. 

It’s easy to maintain a new habit for a day or a week, but once a month passes, it’s tempting to quit.

One approach I have been using is setting a goal of 500 hours reading for 2025. Every week, I can see if I’m on track or not, and this motivates me to keep going. 

You can try this approach by setting targets for how many books to read per three-month window, for example. 

Thought to Action 

1. Conversation: Engage in curiosity-based conversations with more people from outside your area of expertise, your industry & your culture. 
2. Journaling: Use journaling to track your progress in all areas of your life, including ideas you have while reading. 
3. History: Learn from the creative geniuses of history how to leverage the tools we have today to generate impactful solutions to the world’s biggest challenges. 
4. Self-educate: Don’t stop at reading. Leverage the plethora of free podcasts, YouTube videos, Coursera courses, and more to expand your mind and empower you to solve the problems you care about. 
5. Habits: Apply these 3 methods to start thinking outside of the box by switching up your routines and changing the way you look at the world around you. 

Sources

No external sources were used for this post.