The Power of Reading it Again
Years ago I wrote an article about how important it is to re-read certain books on a regular basis. I’ve lost track of that article, but the essential message was this: Things change as time goes on. You change. And what you get from a fantastic book this year may be different than what you get from it two years from now. As you grow and become more successful, each aspect of a given teaching is seen in different and new lights.
Back in 1996 or 1997 I bought and tried to read “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill because it was highly recommended by many experts. Unfortunately I was brand new to the business world and most of what was in that book went way over my head. It wasn’t until I read it again two or three times–many years down the road–that I was finally able to grasp more of what I was reading.
Reading “Think and Grow Rich” more than once helped me fully grasp the wealth concepts that are conveyed in that book, and once I finally realized how much more I could gain by reading it a second and third time I created one of my personal favorite success habits: Reading it Again.
This success habit isn’t restricted to just that one book either. I have a small library of self improvement, personal finance, and classic wealth building books that I habitually read every one to two years. This habit is something that I’ve grown and nurtured for so many years that I didn’t even realize how important it was to me until I bought an Amazon Kindle and put all of my print books in storage.
When the end of 2009 came near, I was ready to do my annual reviews and reflections and start making plans for the new year. Part of that process involves making use of my success library. One book in my annual tool shed is “Getting Things Done” by David Allen, but when I was ready to break it out for the New Year I was suddenly reminded: My books were in storage in another state!
Thankfully most of my favorite self improvement and success books are available on the Kindle, so I’ve made it one of my priorities this year to build a digital version of that particular library. The power of reading certain books again is important enough to me to spend money on the exact same book multiple times.
I’ll be getting Kindle versions of all of my favorite books as time goes on, and I plan to write about key points, chapters and thoughts on this site as I go.
I have a full fledged personal budget developed this year that I plan to stick to as well, so I’ll only add one or two of my favorite success books each month because I want to have money left in the budget for new discoveries as well.
For the month of February I chose to buy the Kindle edition of “The Power of Focus” by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt. My print version of this book is dog eared and bursting at the seams with sticky notes, so having another copy to mark up is probably a good thing :)
