How I Started Reading

I didn't read books when I was growing up. I could have, but didn't. If you've ever met someone who managed to graduate high school without reading a single book—that was me. I saw reading books as a useless activity. “Why would anyone read a book when there are like millions of better things to do?” “Why sit and read when you can go out and do something?” Such was my thought process at the time.

It wasn't until one month before my 20^th birthday that I completed my first book. It was Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People. I remember hearing the title of the book for the first time. “How to what?” “Pffff! “Please—I don't need to 'win friends'—what does that even mean?” I was definitely a skeptic. But I had just heard a speech by a wealthy businessman who promoted the book, saying that it had helped him tremendously, and that anyone who wanted to be successful should read it. “Well jiminy crickets!” “I want to be successful!” Needless to say, I ended up buying a copy.

Despite the fact that it was first published in 1936, I found the book unbelievably interesting. I even noticed that I didn't need to force myself to sit down and read it. This was probably my first experience wanting to read something, and it was pretty weird. I didn't get very far, however, before I realized that almost everything Dale Carnegie said not to do—I was doing. It slowly began to dawn on me that when it came to dealing with people, I was a total jerk. I was blown away. I didn't know I was a jerk, I didn't want to be a jerk. And here all this time I had thought I was perfect!

As a result I quickly adopted many of the suggestions from the book. To my amazement, they actually worked! My ability to have conversations with people dramatically improved (I stopped starting arguments), it was like I could suddenly “get along” with almost anyone. Tense situations in the workplace seemingly vanished. It felt like I had learned a ton, and when I changed, it seemed like so many things around me changed as well. “Wow” I thought. “There might actually be a benefit to reading books!”

No sooner had I completed my first book than I was out buying more. Each book I read seemed to lead to more books. For the first time in my life I was excited and thrilled at the prospect of learning something. By the time my 21^st birthday rolled around a year later I had read more than 60 books. Not long after I started buying bookshelves.

A little over a year had gone by and my paradigm of reading and learning had turned upside down. I remember getting phone calls from friends asking what I was doing and if I wanted to go out and do something. When I told them that I was reading they acted like I wasn't doing anything, so obviously I was free to go out! Sometimes I did go out, but I often found myself thinking that I could have been back home doing something useful. I had become the exact person that, only a few years before, I would have viewed with disdain. And to add to the irony of the situation, one day my mom barged into my room while I was reading and exclaimed: “all you do is read, why don't you go out and do something useful!”