The Hidden Power of Reading

4 Steps to Supercharge Your Learning and Growth

I used to think reading books was all I needed to do for success. While it might seem obvious to you that that was a necessary but not sufficient condition, there is a gap between acquiring knowledge and application. It’s the difference between reading about a recipe and cooking the recipe. You learn much more cooking the recipe because you actively apply the knowledge, you get immediate feedback and then, you change what you do so you get better results in the future.

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Step 1: Active Reading

You might be surprised that even reading books so that you can apply the knowledge isn’t enough, instead, you need to practice active reading. What is active reading?

• Note-taking strategies — Maria Popova has a wonderful newsletter called the Marginalian. It’s based on marginalia, markings made in the margin of the books or other documents. Ryan Holiday does something similar in the books he reads: he writes in the margin, underlines passages he likes, and captures the notes into index cards for subsequent use in his writing.
• Asking questions while reading — A critical part of active reading is asking questions. In fact, there’s a lot of great information in even the table of contents and the author’s bio — that…