The Love of Reading
When it comes to reading, its hard to find commonalities between people. Some people love reading, some don’t. Some people read occasionally, some read daily. Some people read novels, others hate novels. Some read quietly, some produce funny noises. Some read quickly others read slowly. Some read for five minutes others read for hours. Some read of a screen others need to touch and feel a real book.
If you are convinced of the importance of reading, below are simple tips that can tremendously help you boost your reading habits:
- Select the book carefully
Spend some time in the library before buying a book. Read the title, cover, back cover, table of contents, introduction… try to know what is this book about before buying. Remember, buying a book means committing to reading it, NOT displaying it on the bookshelves. Make this as a rule of thumb. - Read one book at a time
Once you started a book, don’t stop until you finish it. Don’t even consider flipping through other book, if you are already engaging with one. If you read two, three books at the same time, you most probably won’t finish any. It takes some discipline but its worth it. - Write down when do you start and when do you finish
Before starting to read a book, write down on the book or your diary the date, hour and any memorable note you wish (on the airplane going to malaysia) and when you finish reading the book, do the same thing. Try to calculate how long does it take you to finish and what was your daily average. Feel free to play with the numbers, its always fun to keep record and count your scores. - Determine your perfect reading time
Make it a habit to dedicated an hour of your day to reading. Choose any hour the you feel comfortable with and isolate yourself to enjoy a calm peaceful reading hour. To me, it fits me perfectly to wake up one hour earlier and start my day with a cup of coffee and one hour of reading. - Keep it with you all the time
Once you choose a book, don’t leave it at home or at work or anywhere. Leave it with you all the time. Make it like your wallet, purse or cell phone. Your book is your friend. A lot of situations, you will find yourself waiting in a cue. At the bank, airlines, airport, government institutions, doctors appointments…etc. If you have your book with you, you approach waiting in a different temper yet keeping yourself calm and enjoying it at the same time. People will look at you differently and will appreciate the fact that you are an educated and intellectual person. - Make a shelf for the “unread” and another for the “read”
In your book shelves, create a shelf for the books you have already completed and the books you want to read. Try your best to keep the two shelves balanced, or the “read” shelf is more full. This will make you feel good about yourself and will make your target smaller and smaller with time, thus more achievable. - One page at a time
How do you climb Everest? One step at a time. Mount Everest may same a long and hard journey. If you think about how many miles you are going to walk and how hard it is, you may quit easily. The only way to climb it is one step at a time. Books are pretty much the same thing. You select a book that you like – “But God! its too thick!” you may say. No, don’t think how thick it is or how long is it going to take you to finish it. Start with it, one page at a time. It done before even you notice. Trust me. - Love your books and talk about them
Start loving your books and discuss them with your friends. If your friends aren’t interested, you may want to start consider finding friends who are. You can also share and discuss your books with your online friends or join a common interest group. There are a lot of readers social networks portals, I personally use goodreads.com. Be proud and enjoy the pleasure of being part of the intellectual community of readers. You may also want to take photos of your book shelves and appreciate the artistic value of the books handing around with all the different colors and patterns.
Discipline is a mandate…
We all have great aspiration on who do we want to become. The good news is that whatever your aspiration might be and however big your dreams are, it can be achieved. The human history has proven that our usage of mental & physical power can be utilized to achieve the impossible and that is only by the principle of “discipline”.
I couldn’t find any success of any kind without discipline. Whether in sports, business, leadership, science or astronomy, discipline is always at the center, it is the magic formula. You may notice it in your day to day activities. There are stuff that you do everyday that have paid off in fruitful results. If you practice any type of sports or if you just commit to yourself to hard working, you are in the arms of discipline.
I’d love to mention a quote created by Charlie “TREMENDOUS” Jones, when he says ”You are the Books you Read and the People you Meet”. I am not saying here that you don’t get information and knowledge from other sources in your life, of course you do, but the influence of reading is far greater and powerful than any other source. Let me explain why: You may watch TV, movies, listen to Radio, browse the internet, talk to people, go out and experience things. These are all vital sources of information that shapes your personality. The main problem of all mentioned, which is in fact the same reason why they are so successful, is that they treat the human brain from the outside not from the core. It has a similar effect of a chocolate bar to treat depression. The human brain memorizes and understands every piece of information or data in terms of pictures, sounds, smells & taste. Thats why we have five sensational organs in operation. So the reason why all these new media are so successful and addictive at one point is that they treat the brain in the level of which it can store & conceive data. This is all good, but, if this becomes our only way we store information in our brain, then the brain gets lazy in creating these imagery or sounds. Let me explain this more. Inside our brains there are millions of agents, you can call them powerful computers, who process the data coming from the senses and convert it into images, sounds, smells, and tastes. So, if we tend to give our brain the data in the same format of these senses, these agents have no more work to do. Its like almost every organ of our body. With time, these agents who are receiving data in the same format they store, become useless and their ability of creating images will be decreased dramatically, its when we loose our sense of creativity.
There is a fun exercise about the power of creating pictures, which is still being used on some TV programs. The exercise is meant to bring a bunch of people, put them in a room with drawing & painting tools, then getting a narrator to tell them what they should draw. Eventually, no painting would be similar, why, because no brain can convert data in the same exact imagery. And you ask why most advertising work we produce is copycats?
So, the reason why I am telling you all this is to demonstrate to you that creativity is a muscle that needs to be trained, and since creativity brings amazing stuff to your life that you can’t afford loosing. Luckily, we all can improve our creativity by the habit of reading. It is proven that reading is an active stimulant to the brain agents I was telling you about earlier. Our brain is always laboring to store all data coming through our senses, voluntary or involuntary. Meaning that whether you decide or you don’t, the data coming is being stored in the brain. Recalling the data however is a totally different process, but you should be assured that all incoming data is finding a place in your brain.
So what reading does, is basically keeping a space for the creative agents to convert information and words into images, sounds and activities. Thus keeping us more creative beings.
On the Door-Way… My final note at Leo Burnett
Deep in our hearts we know that the best things said come last. People will talk for hours, saying nothing much, and then linger at the door with words that come with a rush from the heart.
I am at the doorway today. It’s the end of something and the beginning of something else.
Yesterday I joined this place as a child thinking that I was the best in the world, only this morning I was a teenager so fragile, and suddenly the adrenaline of adventure tempts me to seek and discover what is out there in the jungle.
I am scared. But as I am feeling the fear, I am doing it anyway. I am trying to teach my fear a lesson. I wanted him to get of my back and never visit me again.
In fact, I am feeling alone. I will soon be separated from the people I was raised by. The people, who supported me, taught me, tolerate me and loved me.
I thought I am feeling all this because it was my first employment or because it’s away from home, but no, there is something about you that makes a difference in my life. You, the people of this place, are the difference. Your energy, your passion, your spirit, your support, your care, your love, your knowledge, your understanding, your faith, your good heart is the difference.
My final message to each and every one of you is to seek meaning to your lives. Life is truly meaningless unless we bring meaning to it. It’s up to us to create our existence. Unless we do something, unless we create something, it is as though we aren’t here. Do you wonder if you are strong enough? Sure you are. Get a little perspective. Look up at the stars and see how tiny they look. They are gigantic explosions, but from where we are, they are just these insignificant little dots. If you step back from things far enough, you realize how important and powerful you are.
Be bold. Let the strength of your desire give force and movement to your every step. When you embark strange places, don’t leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory. Be brave to live your life more creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by quite knowing what you are doing, but what you will discover will be wonderful. What you will discover will be yourself.
Fight for what you believe in and serve a higher purpose than yourself, a purpose bigger than life… It’s never too late and may the force of nature be at your side, hoping that one day our paths collide again…
My best wishes to you always. Don’t be surprised to get some telephone calls from me, asking for advice and perhaps a sympathetic broad shoulder. If I can return any of the many favors you gave me, all you have to do is pick up the phone, call me or send me an email…
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Fire your Web Developer!
Its the time ladies and gentlemen to Fire Your Web Developers! you don’t need them anymore.
If you have noticed, this decade the internet has been changing dramatically. Web Developers who used to show off as smarter than we are, telling us jargon than we don’t understand and trying to owe us and fascinate us are out of business today. Thanks to the Content Management Systems within the reach of each one of us, ordinary people can log in, design and develop astonishing websites without the need of you Mr. Developer.
Of course, I am not talking here about sophisticated eCommerce websites with high-tech functions (even those websites can be purchased of-the-shelf), but I am talking about the majority of websites you stumble upon over an ordinary internet browsing session. The thing is, you don’t only need those web developers anymore, but also it is better not to need them. The websites that are done using Joomla, wordpress and other CMSs are much better than those who are totally customized by an individual person or company. They integrate better with Search Engines, Social Media and Portals all over the continent.
What would the developers do, you might ask?
Well this is gonna be interesting. Developers today have a big opportunity to re-invent themselves to fit the new web 2.0 and 3.0. They shouldn’t be resisting the change, instead they should embrace it. Clients do not buy what they say anymore. Famous websites like MTV are done by Joomla. So their argument is getting weaker day after day. However, their chance is now to think differently and to ride the horse of web & mobile applications. Those internet geeks should drop their previous education and study the platforms of Facebook, Twitter, iPhone and others. Only then they would be able to respond to the global needs of clients in this era. Standing still and complaining about lack of business isn’t going to work anymore. Clients today need innovation in terms of technology, they don’t need a website that stays there and do nothing. They need widgets that provides beneficial services. They need Facebook applications that engages their people in their networks and entertain them. They need those iPhone cool applications that shake and shuffle. This is the future.
If you are a web developer who is still trying to sell ordinary customized websites, think twice. If you are a marketeer or a businessman, the doors are open to you today to do everything yourself. The website you are going to make for your company is going to be under your control between your hands and most importantly within the reach of your best customers.
