There is no one prescription for success. Human uniqueness adds to the complication in the path to success. However, there are some patterns in the life of successful people, big shots, or role models that can help us navigate success.
I have strong opposition to the idea of following. Individuals who choose to follow, are those who never get to lead. I might be wrong, but that’s what I have learned from years of studying and looking closely into the lives of the most successful people in the world. However, some tips can be used from their lives to help us find our path to accomplishments.
It might sound strange, but READING is one of the most advised suggestions by world leaders, entrepreneurs, and successful figures. At first, I thought reading means get as much knowledge as possible about your field, but to my surprise, these people advise just read to read. Read anything. Make yourself familiar with many topics, professions, ideas, areas and more.
Everyone has an area of interest that unconsciously impacts our reading selections. It is easy and expected to reach out for a book, magazine or article that inform us about our area of interest. As a result, we mostly read about what we like, perfecting one or two areas of our knowledge. However, this style of reading is NOT what successful people suggest or do.
I was recently looking at the personal web page of Bill Gates, the wealthiest person on the planet- Microsoft co-founder with a $83.9 billion net worth. Amazingly, his “Gates Notes,” and reading lists are not limited to his career. He has articles on education, energy, foreign aid, vaccination, history, philosophy, even toilets and sanitation!
Tony Robbins, the motivational life coach with $45 million net worth, says reading 30 minutes a day is one of his keys to success.
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer, and co-founder of Facebook and the fifth richest person in the world with estimated net worth of $58.6 billion, also identifies reading as the key to success.
Elon Musk, the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla Inc, co-founder and chairman of SolarCity, co-chairman of OpenAI, co-founder of Zip2, and founder of X.com with an estimated net worth of $13.2 billion, advocates for reading too. In fact, when asked how he learned to build rockets, he said: “I read books.”
There are tens of people, self-made millionaires who admit reading is the key to success. However, reading is not only getting more educated and up to date on their profession: the reading style that makes them different is reading about as many topics as possible.
Reading a variety of topics, helps the brain see other possibilities, create an adaptive style, integrates different expertise, increases creativity, problem-solving strategies and in general, it makes you much smarter person in all areas of life.
An addition to that, it enables us to connect and communicate with people from many backgrounds and professions. In other words, it expands our network which is another ultra-key to success.
So if you are taking one single message from this article, it should be read everything. Every time you see a book, magazine, sign on the street, or article on the social network make sure to take a look at it, especially if it is not your area of interest or expertise.