In addition to the video above, there is a very important supplemental article below that goes with it. Enjoy.
Last week, I gave you an overview of my Basic Success System. The first part of this system is to read at least 10 pages a day of a good book. 10 is the minimum, but if you want reach success faster rather than slower, I would blow past 10 pages a day. When I first learned what many of you may be learning for the very first time right now, I would read for HOURS every day! But it wasn't always that way.
Back in the day (when I was really “cool” and really broke), I never read. I couldn't stand it. And, as a result, I couldn't stand my bank account either, or how my life was turing out for that matter. But once I realized what reading could do for me, I began to like it… even love it, and have read who knows how many books over the past 12 years.
One of the greatest benefits of reading is the shedding of ignorance by learning from those outside your tribe. Your tribe is your family, friends, teachers and those living in your geographical proximity. As kids we assume that because daddy said it, it's true. Well, what if daddy was ignorant, racist and flat out wrong? This is how racism, prejudices, religious bigotry and ignorances of all kind continue to propagate… from father to son and mother to daughter.
My tribe taught me some great stuff. I am so thankful for a father who read the book, Psycho Cybernetics, wherein he learned Napoleon Hills most famous quote, “What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” Outside of the spiritual tutelage my dad gave me, this was the most liberating philosophy I can recall from my childhood. And I'm so thankful for it. This truth was injected from the outside. It was not a naturally occurring philosophy in my fathers tribe. And it came from a book.
So, though my tribe had some good stuff, they also had some bad stuff. Terrible. Really terrible. And for many years of my life, I believed it. And consequently, I was getting about the same results as any in my tribe were getting. That is, until I started exposing my self to other tribes, learning their thoughts, their habits and their philosophies, through reading good books. And you know what? Life began to get better, almost over night.
One of my favorite books is Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. In it, he tells the story of being a slave, and how he observed and made the distinction that those who could read were free, and those who could not, were not. So he became determined to learn to read.
At the time he was a “houseboy” and mainly did mild chores in his masters home. Sophia, Mr. Douglas' masters wife, began to teach him his letters, and the basics of reading. When her husband Hugh found out, he was outraged and gave what Mr. Douglas would later call, “the first anti-slavery speech I ever heard.” Hugh said: (Brace your self for evil and ignorant language.)
If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master – to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now if you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and happy.*
I would love to just leave you alone with this quote reverberating in your mind, so as to leave a deepening effect on you, but there is more that needs to be discussed on this topic.
Master Hugh said, “If you teach [a man] how to read, there would be no keeping him. He would forever be unfit to be a slave.” I don't know about you, but I don't want to be “fit” to be a slave. I want to be free. That's one of the main reasons I read. Mr. Douglas said about his masters tirade, “From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.” READING!
Mark Twain put it this way, “The man who does not read good books, has no advantage over the man who can not read them.” If you can read, and you don't read, you are a volunteer illiterate. And, you are a slave, and, you do not know it.
What if your tribe was in deed ignorant, racist and flat out wrong? The only way you can know, is to get outside of your tribe and learn from other tribes. And the best way to do that is to read. But I would caution you, don't just read the books they tell you to read. It's my belief that when slavery was outlawed, the slave master mentality continued unharmed and undeterred. They just adapted. The mantra before slavery's ban was, “DO NOT TEACH THEM TO READ!” After slavery's ban, the mantra became, “We can not keep them from reading, so let's control what they read, and convince them that they are free.” After all, if you can convince a man that he is free, he will never try to escape.
Don't believe the hype, don't assume your tribe is the final voice, and don't just read what has been handed to you. You see the results you have gotten in your life up to this point by reading the list of books they gave you. Try this list out, 10+ pages per day, and see what happens.
- As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
- Dumbing us Down by John Taylor Gatto
- The Making of a Slave by Willie Lynch
- The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles
- Power -vs- Force by David R. Hawkins
- You Were Born Rich by Bob Proctor
- Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
- The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglas
- And I could keep going, but this is a good start.
As I close, I have a question for you to ponder. What if what you thought was, actually wasn't? And what if there were a way for you to get everything you ever wanted, and that that way was totally different than what you have been told? These are questions for your pondering. Reading, and reading the right books will lead you to answer these questions in a way that is will prove liberating.
* Note: It was a struggle for me to type “that word.” My wife and I had a discussion about whether or not to include it in the quote above, and both agreed the evil of his masters words needed to remain in tact to deliver its full effect.
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