The act of reading

When I think of interesting people, great leaders I’ve worked with over the years, they have several things in common, chief among them is an overwhelming appetite to read wide and deep. I wonder about the correlation. Why are good leaders readers? Why is this endeavor so enriching? What’s the value? Why do readers read? How does it shape one’s approach to the mundane and extraordinary moments in life?

I surveyed a few friends about their reading life. Here are a few reflections:

I believe reading is a true form of mental nourishment. Words are my teacher and solace, often presenting themselves when I need advice, new knowledge, and support - the most.

I moved halfway across the world with 50 boxes of books. Not fine china, as my mum would say with dismay. But to me, it’s all priceless nonetheless.

Whether it’s advice or an escape from the mundane reading has elevated my thinking.

Reading has given me the knowledge that I constantly seek, whether its for work or for living the life I want to live. Reading also helps transport me to different worlds and perspectives and life stories, which is sort of like an escape for me, frankly.

Reading just gives my creative side a boost - I love art and language and music and poetry, as they are part of a creative expression I have to have in my life.

My reading journey defined my life and career journey.

I’ve been pondering these reflections and organizing my own thoughts on how reading widely, freely and constantly shapes us. A few ideas:

The more you read, the more you understand yourself

Reading is one portal among many to a rich inner experience. It’s a unique internal experience that invites us to voluntarily choose to side step our “actual world” and step into another world. When we enter this world, there are no promises it will bear fruit but when it does it stays with us long after the book is closed.

Reading allows us to explore the parts of ourselves that must be articulated. Books can be a gateway to be more visible to ourselves. It’s very possible to understand ourselves more after reading a resonant poem or story. Reading helps us fill in our missing parts while affirming us at the same time. In Plato’s Symposium, he describes humans as half-persons after Zeus split each person in half making two versions. He goes on to say we wander this Earth forever seeking our other half to help us be whole again. So perhaps over the course of a lifetime books leave a trail of breadcrumbs to our whole selves.

Reading makes you a more confident and sophisticated conversationalist

Reading allows you to be more likely to converse smoothly and confidently. Confidence is derived from a reading life that helps you understand your motivations, values, purpose, emotions, history. When we are clear on these dimensions we are able to stand with spine straight, chin up and heart centered. And when we read more sophisticated canon it deepens our language toolkit and our aperture widens which makes our conversations/outlook more reflective, worldly, mature and nuanced. This also lends to a more empathetic way of showing up in the world.

Reading spurs us to action

Over the years so many books have made me run not walk towards a new way of being. In 2009, on a train ride to the office I read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer by the time I got off the train I swore off meat and haven’t had it since. Maybe you have had a similar swift call to action or maybe your experience was more incremental. There’s research on this process, it’s called neuroplasticity. Reading has been shown to change the shape of our brains. Reading rewires our thoughts and helps us create new mental models and make new meanings. This leads to new neural pathways that changes our behaviors, habits or approach.

Reading makes the ordinary extraordinary

When we close a book and return to reality, something about the world to which we return feels a tad different. Reading remade the ordinariness to which we return a bit more extraordinary. Sometimes we return more patient with the world and ourselves. We might also return with more reverence and insights that influence our work, parenting, well-being, and/or self-leadership.

All of us are born hungry, but some of us seem to be born without an enzyme necessary to our digestive system and find only in books the supplement we need to live.” -Heather Cass

There’s so much more to articulate on the act of reading. I’ll continue my exploration on this topic and turn it over some more until then may you be nourished by a rich reading life. May it allow you to meet yourself and others in new ways.

-Janet