A short motivational talk arguing that learning continues beyond formal education and that books are a practical way to access others' experience. The speaker emphasizes protecting limited time and recommends an efficient reading method (read the first chapter to gauge the book, the last chapter for summary, then select chapters most relevant to you).
Learning more, learning, everyone knows, is very important. Unfortunately, we have a culture where we think learning happens in school. So the moment you're done with school, oh my God, I'm free. I don't have to learn anything else ever again, which is a terrible attitude. We have to keep learning. It keeps us fresh, it keeps us growing and it's so beneficial to our everyday. So firstly, one of the places people always encourage us to learn from our books. It's very easy to learn from books because you can do it at your own pace and you're learning from someone else's experience. Experience. Human beings are different from animals because we can project in our minds, we can imagine how something will be played out and try and do it. We can visualize. We don't have to learn everything ourselves physically. So books have a huge advantage because you get the experience, the wisdom, the knowledge of so many people compressed in a nice compact way for you to learn at your own pace. Tai Lopez has a very interesting TED talk about reading a book a day and how it changed his life. And he also has a very simple method of how he reads books because don't forget, you have to protect your time. Time is a finite resource. You're not going to get more of it later just because you squandered it earlier. So what he says is read the first chapter, the beginning of the book, the introduction of the book. That way you get the vibe of what the book is about. You get to understand the credibility of the author. It's their big entrance. Even when you make speeches, your opening line is always very important because that's how you capture the attention of the audience. So read the first chapter properly. That's how you know what the vibe of the book is. Then he says, read the last chapter because that usually has a summary of the book and the most important points of the book. Then you go to the contents and look at the things that are most interesting to you or relevant to you. A lot of self help books, for example, have many different like chapters for your health, for your relationships, for this, for that. You don't need to use all of them all the time. You, if it's a good book, you'll probably want to read every single page and every chapter. But first choose the most important parts to you. Especially if you don't already have a reading culture and you're not used to it. You want to get as much information in the easiest way possible. So read what's useful to you, what you find interesting.
