Why You Must Read Broadly

Why You Must Read Broadly – Tip 3

Reading broadly helps to think critically

What you read is more important that how much you read. Ensure that your reading material is diverse, and vary in the level of difficultly to read. The “menu” of books should include a selection of not just bestsellers, but also books that are off the beaten tracks. In fact, the great thinkers who have transformed the world did not read bestsellers.

As an aspiring leader, or someone who wants to be on the fast track, if you focus only on what others are focusing on, how can you stretch and expand your thinking to develop the intellectual power required to respond with agility to opportunities and challenges in the workplace? Books featured on bestsellers’ lists are unlikely to give your mind an intellectual workout.

Keep track of what you read so you can review to make sure that you are not reading too much of one type of book. Reading broadly helps you to think critically while at the same time build intellectual power.

As English novelist and essayist E. M. Forster says, “The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.”

Do you agree or disagree that reading broadly helps you to think critically? Why? Why not? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.