Let’s Talk About Profiting from Your Reading and How to Do It

Let's Talk About Profiting from Your Reading and How to Do It

If you know that you could make money from your reading time, would you read more books? This is not a trick question. I really want to know what your answer is. I know that some people are saying, “Of course, profiting from reading, count me in!” And that’s great. But slow down for a minute.

I’m currently writing a book, Profit Reading. My hypothesis is that if you read the right books, apply the ideas, you can profit from your reading time. The important piece is that you must take action. You need to apply your newfound ideas. The profit is in the application of the ideas. Profit doesn’t always mean money. It could be a promotion, or it could be a shift in mindset that increases your productivity. It’s up to you how you define profit.

Three Reasons for Reading a Book

Reading the right books, what does that mean? You must have a compelling reason for why you decide to read any book. There are three broad reasons for reading according to Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren in their classic, How to Read a Book.

1. Information
2. Understanding
3. Entertainment

After you’ve decided which of the three reasons why you’re reading a book, then you have to be more concrete when writing your one-sentence purpose. Here’s one-sentence purpose I wrote before I read Opportunities by Eben Pagan. “I’m reading Opportunities because I’m looking for strategies to grow my business.”

However, as I got into the book, I had to refine my purpose for reading the book. The purpose now became, “I’m reading Opportunities by Eben Pagan to learn how to spot and act on opportunities to leapfrog my business through exponential growth.” Sometimes this will happen to you you need to refine your purpose.

Have you read?

Profit Reading: Make Money from Books Worth Reading

Profiting from Your Reading by Reading the Right Books

Now for the right books, how will you decide which are the right books for you to read? The right books will entertain or educate you.  They’ll align with your purpose for reading them in the first place. 

• If there was one skill, that if learned, would be a game changer in your life, would you take the time to learn that skill? Why? Why not?
• How will learning the skill be a game changer in your life? 
• What will you be able to do that you cannot do now? 
• In what ways will the skill make you more valuable and marketable?
• What is that one skill? 

This is one of the skills you should invest your time to learn. There are books that cover virtually any topic, so you should be able to find five good books on the skill.

Ask for Book Recommendations

Ask family, friends, colleagues, your boss, a librarian, connections on social media, for book recommendations. Make a list of the book recommendations that you received. You want to whittle down the list to five books. This will take some effort on your part. Are you familiar with the skill and want to learn advanced information? Or are you starting from scratch?

This will help you to decide which books to read. Here are some questions you need to answer when learning a new skill.

1. What is X? If the skill you want to learn is problem solving then the question becomes, what is problem solving? An online encyclopedia can answer this question for you. You want to have some basic understanding of the skill. You could even buy a children’s book on the topic.
2. What is the purpose of the book? This is the author’s purpose for writing the book. What is she trying to accomplish? Does it align with what you’re trying to accomplish by learning the skill? This will help you when you’re trying to whittle down the recommendations to five books.
3. What is the key question that the author is using the book to answer? In a nonfiction book, the author is usually answering a question or solving a problem.
4. What’s the most important information in the book? The most important information is usually any information that aligns with your purpose for reading the book. This type of information could be great ideas. Look out for information that:
   1. Will allow you to do something that you cannot do now.
   2. Help you to be more effective and productive. 
5. What are some important conclusions in the book? When you scan the book before you start to read it, you can learn these things.
6. What are the key ideas you need to learn to understand the skill? Every book, at least the well-written ones, has a main idea and secondary ideas that support it. What I’ve noticed is that the main and secondary ideas are usually found in the introduction of the book.

So, You Have the Right Books Now What?

So you have five good books on the skill you are interested in learning, what’s next? Above you have six good questions. What other questions do you have about learning the skill? Add your questions to that list of questions. You already have your one-sentence purpose for learning the skill. Now it’s time to preview the books to identify the chapters and sections that you’re interested in exploring more deeply?

Using your list of your questions, spend 25 minutes previewing each of the five books. When you preview each book:

1. Read the Preface, Foreword, Introduction, and read the Table of Contents.
2. Place a check mark beside the chapters and sections you want to further explore in each of the five books.
3. Review the index if the book has one. The phrases that have the more references tell you what the author thinks are important. Decide for yourself if they are also important to you.
4. Read the chapters and sections you flagged as important information.
5. Take notes as you read. Create a document with your questions and as you find the answers, write them below the corresponding question.
6. Review  your notes a couple of times. 
7. Pick out the big ideas from the five books.

When reading each book, read as much of it as you need to understand the text. If you only need to read 20 percent of the book to understand 80 percent of the book, then so be it. If you have to read 30 percent, then that’s okay as well.

Profiting from Your Reading: Applying What You Learn

You now have a pool of ideas to work with. Spend some time combining ideas from the five books to make them into bigger and better ideas. Is there a way to tie the more encompassing idea to a company and/or human need? Can you apply any of the ideas in the format that they are in, or do you have to work on them? Ideas you generate are seldom fully formed and you often have to work on them, so you can apply them.

How do you feel about this process? You cannot profit from ideas unless you apply what you learn. Make it a habit that when you find information in a book that you can apply to do immediately. That means stop reading the book and apply the idea. That way you won’t forget it. Yes it interrupts the flow of reading, but you are better off in the longer term.

Now, imagine for a second that the books you read were on different topics, how might the pool of ideas be different?

Let's Talk About Profiting from Your Reading: Systematic Approach

There are times when you’ll need some help with your reading. Perhaps you don’t know which books to read. I’ve got your back. If you’re an employee who loves to read and wants to take your reading to the next level, consider buying the Performance Accelerator Plan. You’ll learn the skills the World Economic Forum says you need to thrive in 2020 to 2022. And you’ll be reading the world. In the process, you’ll start to develop intercultural awareness.

In the event that you’re a senior level executive, I developed the corporate version of the Performance Accelerator Plan. The plan is for 10 high performing employees and you’ll get to customize some of the skills they learn from reading books. Lifelong learning is a must in today’s ever-changing world. Providing professional development as an employee benefit is part of a sound retention strategy.

According to The Achievers 2020 Engagement and Retention report:

“You want to have the most engaged and enabled workforce as possible.You enable your employees by giving them the right tools, the right training and the right coaching and mentoring to be able to do their job,” 

Michael Cohen, chief product officer at Achievers.

There are many reading and learning programs around, but they do not have an emphasis on applying the learned information. The Performance Accelerator does that and a whole lot more. Employees and the organization they work for will profit from an investment in the program.

If you’re an entrepreneur, your company will benefit from your time investment reading the books. You’ll also get an infusion of ideas to apply to your business.

Next Steps

1. Subscribe to my YouTube Channel
2. Join the Art of Learning Membership Site
3. Download Unlock Your Genius Power Reading Tips Sheet

If you want access to my Bookish Notes, please consider joining my membership site, the Art of Learning.