In The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman, Carmine Gallo includes a chapter called Leaders are Readers. 

Color me intrigued. 🙂 

In this chapter, he shares three tips for reading with purpose, something I find a lot of people struggle with. 

1. Follow Leaders in Relevant Categories 

Did you know Amazon adds a new book about every five minutes? Wow! I didn’t. 

With over 30 million titles, it can be hard to narrow your reading list, to say the least. 

According to Gallo, successful leaders know they can’t read everything, so they try to read everything other successful leaders do. 

Make it a habit to ask other successful people to share the books they’ve found particularly valuable. 

(By the way, I started the Read to Lead Podcast as a tool to make non-fiction book discovery easier). 

Think too about what categories of books are relevant to you. 

As an example, for me, that’s leadership, business, entrepreneurship, speaking and communication, mindset, and a few others. 

Billionaire David Rubenstein says, 

“Leaders need to expand their knowledge every day—to exercise their most unique muscle; their brain. Nothing focuses the mind like a well-written book.”

So, identify the most relevant categories, identify leaders and entrepreneurs you admire, and read their books, blogs, interviews, and articles (and consider listening to their podcasts). 

2. Take Notes 

Surprise! Being an “active” reader, Gallo says, is a critical part of the process. 

I won’t go into a lot of detail here as Note-Making Mastery covers this concept at length. 

But realize when you take notes, it’s like having a conversation with the author. Not to mention it gives your brain more channels through which to encode the information. 

Put another way, you’ll remember and retain more of what you read when you take notes. 

3. Share and Talk About Your Favorite Books

One obvious way to do this is through a book club at your place of work, either in person or online if everyone is working from home. 

In fact, I used to facilitate my very own Read to Lead Book Club online (something I’m toying with bringing back in some form, by the way). 

Effective leaders read more books than others in the organization, and they share their newfound knowledge with everyone else. 

The single best way to learn to lead is through the power of reading. And here’s the best part: Never in the history of the printed word has the average person had such easy access to the accumulated wisdom of those who built the world in which we live. 

You can take those authors with you on your journey. They make great companions.

For more posts like this one, and to join in on conversations around this topic with other professionals and creatives, check out the Read to Lead Community here.