Read Books That Challenge Your Mind — Transcript

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1. 0:00The main thing is to always finish books
2. 0:03and don't just choose things that you
3. 0:05think are entertaining and fun because
4. 0:07that's going to make you lazy and it's
5. 0:09going to make you weak and it's make you
6. 0:10always [music] look for things that are
7. 0:12entertaining, fun, and distracting. You
8. 0:14want things that are going to challenge
9. 0:16you constantly.
10. 0:23How to read more books? [music] I think
11. 0:25a lot of problems that I'm reading about
12. 0:27in the papers and then online is that in
13. 0:30colleges, etc., young people are not
14. 0:32taught to read entire texts. They're
15. 0:35given passages, citations, chapters, but
16. 0:39they're not reading the whole thing
17. 0:40because it's so difficult to get through
18. 0:42an entire text. And what you want to do
19. 0:44is you have to do kind of resistance
20. 0:47training. And what I mean by that is the
21. 0:49following. If everything in life were
22. 0:52easy and pleasant and fun, we would
23. 0:54never get anywhere. When you go to the
24. 0:56gym, if you use weights, it's creating
25. 0:59resistance. And the more resistance you
26. 1:01have, the stronger you get. And it's not
27. 1:03necessarily fun in the moment as you're
28. 1:06lifting weights, but slowly you start
29. 1:08developing muscle, you start developing
30. 1:10confidence, you start looking good,
31. 1:12feeling better, and it does become kind
32. 1:14of pleasant. But the resistance is what
33. 1:16makes you stronger. If you could press
34. 1:19that 200 lb and it was like that, it was
35. 1:21so easy, there wouldn't be any value.
36. 1:23But the fact that it's
37. 1:25the more resistance, the stronger you
38. 1:27get. Everything in life is like that.
39. 1:29So, reading is a form of resistance
40. 1:33because when you enter a book, you don't
41. 1:35know what it is, you don't know exactly
42. 1:38how much fun, how entertaining it will
43. 1:40be. There's an element of boredom. I can
44. 1:44even say that about my own books. There
45. 1:45are passages I find that are probably a
46. 1:47little bit boring and slow. But you want
47. 1:50that. You want the slowness, you want
48. 1:52the boredom, you want things that don't
49. 1:53interest you, and you want to push
50. 1:55through, and you want to read the entire
51. 1:57book. And so, you want to train yourself
52. 2:00to finish books and not constantly be
53. 2:03going from one to another to another.
54. 2:05That will train you so that you will
55. 2:07have like a reading skill, and you will
56. 2:09have the patience. And what I often do,
57. 2:12when I read a book that I hate, that is
58. 2:14boring, and I make myself read all the
59. 2:15way through, I kind of take angry notes
60. 2:18about it. Go, "God, this is ridiculous.
61. 2:19This is so stupid. I hate this. This guy
62. 2:21doesn't know what he's talking about."
63. 2:23You can react to the book. You can have
64. 2:25a dialogue with it. But, you want to be
65. 2:27able to have the patience to get through
66. 2:30a 400, 500, 600-page book. So, think of
67. 2:33it like you're going to the gym. So, a
68. 2:36200-page book will be kind of easy, and
69. 2:39it could be in a subject that interests
70. 2:40you. Choose something that's a little
71. 2:42bit difficult and a little bit
72. 2:43complicated, so it's more like pressing
73. 2:462 or 300 lb. It's hard. It's not easy,
74. 2:49but it's training the mind to be
75. 2:50patient. Also, look for books that are
76. 2:53going to challenge you. They maybe it's
77. 2:55not your It's not how you feel
78. 2:57politically about the world. It's not
79. 2:59how you feel spiritually about the
80. 3:01world. It's something that's a little
81. 3:02bit outside what you would normally
82. 3:04encounter. It's not something that other
83. 3:06people that your friends talk about. So,
84. 3:08you're challenging yourself with content
85. 3:11that is difficult or that is not what
86. 3:13you normally believe in or not from the
87. 3:16circle of friends and influencers that
88. 3:18you normally pay attention to. That's
89. 3:21also resistance. It's training you to
90. 3:23open your mind to different ways of
91. 3:25thinking. I often, when I write a book,
92. 3:28I deliberately read a book that
93. 3:29completely contradicts what I'm saying,
94. 3:31so that I can open my mind to other ways
95. 3:34of thinking. The main thing is to always
96. 3:37finish books, and don't just choose
97. 3:39things that you think are entertaining
98. 3:41and fun, because that's going to make
99. 3:43you lazy, and it's going to make you
100. 3:45weak, and it's make you always look for
101. 3:47things that are entertaining, fun, and
102. 3:48distracting. Right? You want things that
103. 3:50are going to challenge you constantly.
104. 3:53All right? And the longer the book, the
105. 3:55better. I mean, take one of Robert
106. 3:57Caro's books about LBJ. They're about
107. 4:00800 They're over some of them I think
108. 4:01some of them are over 1,000 pages long.
109. 4:03They're very exciting. They're very
110. 4:05interesting. But if you read one of
111. 4:07those books, you have to maintain your
112. 4:09patience, your concentration for a quite
113. 4:11a long time go through that entire book.
114. 4:13That will train you. Reading is a
115. 4:15process of slowing down, right? Your
116. 4:19mind is moving too fast right now.
117. 4:21You're kind of going
118. 4:23all these things that are distracting
119. 4:24you, right? On the internet, etc.
120. 4:26Reading is slow. It's slow. You have to
121. 4:28take things slowly. You have to be
122. 4:30patient. You have to go page by page.
123. 4:33You have to absorb ideas. Please, I beg
124. 4:35you to train your mind like you train
125. 4:38your body to go through something that's
126. 4:40a little more difficult, a little more
127. 4:41challenging, that's going to take some
128. 4:43time for you. That's the way to develop
129. 4:45the habit of wanting to read and to have
130. 4:47the patience to read more books.