I’ve never been much of a reader.

Throughout my entire school career, the only books I ever read were those required to read.

I never read on my own.

I was a gamer to the core.

If I got assigned reading, my strategy was simple.

I would wait until the last day before the assignment was due, skim the book, take notes, and be on my way.

That’s how I did my homework.

I wanted to spend as little time on school work so that I could get back to quick scoping noobs on COD.

This went on until I turned 23.

I'm 26 now.

Recently, I started picking up more books.

None of it required reading for school.

All to learn more about certain topics.

So, in today’s e-mail I’m going to share with you how I started reading books.

It’s a mega slow process, but it's a fun process.

Are you intimidated by books?

Are you willing to sacrifice some phone time and replace it with reading time?

If you are, great.

Let me explain...

Picking Out Your Book

I’m a non-fiction reader.

If you read fiction, that’s great.

I'm not one of those people that bashes on fiction.

As long as you read something, it'll do wonders for your vocabulary and your thinking.

There are countless ways to find amazing books out there.

These are some protocols I follow to pick out my book.

Option #1: Go to your favorite influencer and find out what books they read.

This is one way I find books that are worth reading.

If they read it and recommend it, then I'll add it to my list.

Option #2: Explore your curiosity.

What are you thinking?

What topics or ideas do you want to explore?

For the longest time, writing was something that was buzzing around in my head.

6 months ago I plunged into the world of writing.

And now, writing has become a staple in my life.

As of me writing this e-mail, I’m reading Stephen Kings “On Writing”.

Option #3: Learn a skill or a concept.

What skill or concept do you want to learn?

Is it the skill of writing?

Or is it the concept of 'Deep Work'?

There are people out there who have decades worth of experience with a skill or a concept.

And they put it into a book that only takes a couple hours to read.

That is mind blowing to me.

The Essentials

Now that you’ve picked out your book, before you open that first page, there’s a few things you want to make sure you have.

1. A highlighter

2. A pen

3. Sticky notes

Now that you have your items ready, let’s dive into our reading process.

The Reading Process

As you read your book, you'll notice something.

There are concepts, ideas, paragraphs, pages or sentences that will stand out to you.

Those sentences might stop you in your tracks.

This is where the pen comes out and plays.

If there’s something that is good to know, underline it.

Remember, there’s a reason it stuck out to you.

And if the point the author is trying to make is so good, bust out your highlighter and sticky notes.

You know it's so good when it provokes you to think.

You know it's so good when you have to reread it again and again.

When it’s that good, highlight the sentence, phrase or idea.

And then, on a sticky note, jolt down what it made you think.

This is how I read my books.

Yes, it’s a very slow process.

But it’s a fun process as well.

And if I'm honest, it’s actually the process I use for generating tweets.

Anyway, I hope you'll give this a shot.

Since learning and using this method, I’ve read about 3 books so far.

It's not a lot, but I've enjoyed every single one of my reads.

Lemme know what you think.

P.S

If you want to check out the video where I got this method from, you can watch it here.

Myron does a much better job explaining the process than I do.

Now go out there and start reading some books.

It’s your brother Alex signing off.

Until next time my peeps.

Peace.