Knowledge is power, learn how to use it

Children reading at the National Library in Kigali. I am a book fanatic and I don’t hide my love for reading. However, I bump into people who tell me how they read a book and nothing changed. PHOTO | FILE  

In Summary

• No one can develop muscles by reading a book on how to develop muscles. Muscles are developed in the place of execution.
• I am a book fanatic and I don’t hide my love for reading. However, I bump into people who tell me how they read a book and nothing changed.
• Ideas don’t change the world. Ideas that are executed do. Information doesn’t change the world. Information that is converted into action does.

By WALE AKINYEMI
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I meet a lot of very intelligent people every day. People who are loaded with information but then when you take a closer look at their lives, the information has not really been a benefit to them.

Thinking a lot about this I cannot but conclude that its not the information you have that makes a difference. It is the application of the information.

Every athlete or person involved with physical fitness knows that every workout begins with a warm up.

This warm up includes jogging, stretching and doing exercises to increase the heart rate before you start. A friend of mine who is a fitness trainer gets to the gym every day at 3am and trains from then till 5am. He has the physique and stamina to show for it.

Such results are never the product of information only. No one can develop muscles by reading a book on how to develop muscles. Muscles are developed in the place of execution.

I am a book fanatic and I don’t hide my love for reading. However, I bump into people who tell me how they read a book and nothing changed.

HOW TO READ

That is why today I want us to discuss how to read a book. Many people read books for the sake of information gathering and if information is all you desire then that’s fine. However books serve a much greater purpose.

For some a book is a source of information and for others it is a tool for education but only when a book becomes a form of transportation  and transformation will you fully realise and maximise the potential that a book has to offer.

A form of transportation and transformation? Absolutely. A book can transport you from where you are to a totally different place.

Think of the number of children in Africa who have never left Africa but who are well schooled in cultures that exist thousands of miles away simply because they read books. A book can make you laugh. A book can make you cry. A book can take you to places that you did not know existed.

Similarly the transforming power of books has not been fully utilised simply because of the way people read. Following, is a simple and practical suggestion for effective reading.

First, determine what you want to achieve from the book. I will take one of my favourite books — How Toyota Changed the World by K. Dennis Chambers. This is the book we are studying this month in our book club.

The first thing to do is to determine what your expectation from the book is. For me, when I read a book like that my expectation is that I will develop a mindset of someone who can change the world. I also look at the things that I am currently doing that can work against that vision and the things that I am not doing that I need to begin to do.

Once I start, I don’t just rush through the pages. I take each line in.

Remember that the expectation was set from the beginning that at the end of the book my thinking should have been influenced.

EXECUTE IDEAS

So, I underline things that challenge me, I underline things that reveal gaps in my life or operations, I write notes at the side of the page with messages to myself. I write the action points that I am going to take as a result of what I have read.

Once I get to the end of the chapter, I then close the book and then think about what I have read.

I have a little black notebook that I carry around with me and I write everything I remember about the chapter in that notebook with my action points.

In essence from every chapter I build a to do list that I commit to be faithful to. Once I begin to execute my to do list, I realise that over a period of time, my thinking begins to align with what I read and this was my expectation from the beginning.

This is a very simple procedure and I am sure there are so many people who have better reading plans so don’t feel bound to this one. I share it because it is what has worked for me.

May we not just be information banks but let us do what it takes to become information processors.

Ideas don’t change the world. Ideas that are executed do. Information doesn’t change the world. Information that is converted into action does.

The degree to which you execute what you know or think is the degree to which you will determine your legacy on earth.

Some pass through and some make a difference.