| Five years ago, I had big insight about how I read | | | | If there is an inspiring passage, highlight it and then |
| books; it was like I just gobbled them up! In | | | | write the words in your personal notebook or |
| talking with clients, I have discovered that I am | | | | make little cards and tape it around the house. |
| not alone in this gobbling! | | | | Try to digest it slowly. Now let me offer a |
| Every so often, I tell the following story to clients | | | | caution here. I don't want you to walk thru your |
| because it really shifted me: I was reading a | | | | day "trying" to live that insight! |
| powerful book called The Millionaires Course by | | | | Don't turn this into a personal growth treadmill. |
| Marc Allen, who is the owner of New World | | | | Just let yourself be gently reminded or become |
| Library, a big spiritual publishing house. I was | | | | conscious of what you got from that passage. |
| flipping thru the pages and something dawned on | | | | Perhaps, you got an insight about how everyone |
| me! This is the same stuff I have been reading | | | | is in a separate reality and that we can't change |
| for 20 years: Napoleon Hill, Andrew Carnegie, | | | | the way another person thinks. Then you get into |
| Stephen Covey, etc.. And then I asked myself a | | | | a small conflict with your wife and suddenly you |
| curious question: "If I have been reading the same | | | | are conscious you are "doing it again", you are not |
| stuff for all these years then why am I not | | | | remembering she is in a different reality than you. |
| getting it?" The obvious jumped out at | | | | You saw yourself suddenly! Which is a long way |
| me--what's missing is the "doing"! I gobbled up | | | | from being caught in the behavior and not really |
| these wonderful books then moved right onto the | | | | conscious of how you are acting. |
| next one. I was not getting inside the book and | | | | Like me, I am sure you have a few hundred |
| applying what they are trying to teach. | | | | self-help books on your shelf. You could take any |
| When you read spiritual or personal growth books, | | | | one of those books and study it for a lifetime and |
| you feel good; you feel what's possible; you feel | | | | not get all it has to offer. I often joke that if I |
| an opening to the life you dream of. You read an | | | | truly understood just ten percent of my own |
| insightful passage and yell to your wife in the next | | | | book, The Woodstock Bridge, I would turn into a |
| room, "Sweetie, this is it! This guy knows me! This | | | | ball of light! |
| is exactly what I need to do!" And then in a | | | | All these books have one hidden purpose: to guide |
| matter of days that insightful book is residing with | | | | you to your innate wisdom. So slow down, |
| the other insightful books on a shelf or under the | | | | brothers and sisters, the wisdom is really not in |
| bed (my thing) and you're onto the next one! | | | | the pages but inside you. The pages are just |
| So what do you do? Slow down! This is my | | | | fanning your own wisdom! Now, this doesn't mean |
| prescription to clients: Read one or two chapters | | | | to stop reading my "stuff"! More fanning is always |
| a day. No more! And if there are exercises or | | | | good! |
| instructions of some kind, do exactly as they say! | | | | |