According to research from Thomas Crowley, 85 percent of self-made millionaires read two or more books per month, while most poor people read nothing. I’ve read biographies and stories about several successful people and one thing is obvious, every successful person reads a lot. But wait! If successful people read, what kinds of books do they actually read? In this blog post, we’ll be sharing with you 5 of the most common types of books successful people read.
- Books about human relationship
I read a book by David J. Schwartz in the year 2007. The book is titled, “The Magic of Thinking Big”. In his book, Mr. Schwartz explains that as humans we’re all scientists and the laboratory we’re working on is other humans. We just have to understand other humans and how to deal with them or else we won’t go far in life.
Yes, we all seem to know the importance of having meaningful people around us. At least, many of us believe that the reason some people are rich is that they are lucky to have connections. Well, what we’re not told most at times is that successful people don’t just have connections. They build and nurture connections.
According to findings by Tom Corley, 79% of wealthy people network five hours or more each month vs. 16% of the poor. Successful people read about human relationships because it’s probably the most important skill you can ever have. You think about it. Every day of your life you’re relating with people. If you have a business, you’ll have employees, customers, suppliers, and probably some creditors. All these are human beings with emotions. Your ability to deal with these different kinds of people determines how far you’ll go in life. Hence, the need for you to read about human relationships.
- Books about Negotiation
About 11 years ago, I read a little book called “You Can Negotiate Anything” by Herb Cohen. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life because this book has made me hundreds of thousands of dollars ever since I read it. Successful people read about negotiation because life is all about negotiation. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re negotiating every day. It even becomes a job when you have a business, you’re into politics, or you want to achieve anything significant in life. You’ll meet with so many obstacles, and the only weapon you ever have is your ability to negotiate your way out.
Because I read and know about negotiation, I’ve been able to get resources for my business, again and again, get people to do what I want to be done, and overcome several obstacles just by negotiating my way through them. If you want to go far in life, read books about negotiation.
- Books about Leadership
If you want to live the rest of your life as an average person, you may not need to know much about leadership. If, however, you want to go far in life; I don’t know how you can do that without leading people.
Successful people read a lot about leadership because they have to get others to do things and make sacrifices for a common objective. Martin Luther King Jr. had to motivate hundreds of thousands of people to believe in his ideology. Mahatma Gandhi had to do the same several years before Luther. Richard Branson has over 400 companies. Sam Walton’s Wall-Mat has over 2.5 million employees.
If you think it’s very easy to lead such great numbers of people, try and lead just 10 adults. If leading only 10 adults is a tough job, imagine what it means to lead a thousand or a million people. That’s the reason successful people read a lot about leadership. If you want to go far in life, read some good books about leadership.
- Biographies
Larry Page has always been dreaming of being an inventor. At age 12, Page was reading the biography of Tesla. From reading Tesla’s biography, he discovered that Tesla made some very costly mistakes. Though he admired him, he decided he was going to do something different when he grows up. Martin Luther King Jr. credited his successful activism to the methodologies he learned from reading about Mahatma Gandhi. Some of the best books of my life are biographies.
Reading biographies of successful people is like having exam questions before the examination day. Successful people read biographies because it’s an account of someone’s mistakes, failures, and successes. By knowing how someone else failed, fell, and rose, you can know how to navigate life better.
- Books about Entrepreneurship/Money
Yes, you don’t have to become the richest man in the world before you’ll be called a successful person. In fact, you don’t need a billion dollars. But of course, you need a reasonable amount of money to keep you and your family from poverty. And yes, you don’t necessarily have to be an entrepreneur, but you need to know about money. Truly successful people may not be millionaires, but they are not broke either. For you not to be broke, you have to know how money works.
If you want to build companies, you have to read hundreds of books about entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs. If you don’t care about building companies, you may not read about entrepreneurship, but you still have to read about money because the more you know about money, the better your financial life will be.
In conclusion, successful people read because reading is the best shortcut to success. By reading good books about money, negotiation, human relationship, and biographies, you can improve your mind, become smarter, and know several things other people don’t know. This way, you can achieve great things in your life.
Thank you.