chuckle how do you read books to prepare for podcasts how do you read a book to extract maximum benefit any advice on keeping yourself focused and being patient while reading books so this was a series of reoccurring questions that were about kind of how I read and I’d grabbed three of them that were in there so how do I prepare for a podcast it’s actually a pretty in-depth situation so first thing I do is I read the book as a reading the book I highlight anything that I find to be interesting or informative to me or reinforce an idea that I know or bring a new idea to bear so as I’m going through I’m just highlighting everything and when I get done with and now just to just to say when we’re talking max benefit when I was in college and I would do that I would once I got done with highlighting the areas that I found informative important then I would make flashcards of the highlighted areas so I was like double-locking the information because when you as soon as I make a flashcard I’ve already got it 50 percent in my mind I read it I highlighted it it was like 25 percent make a flashcard that’s another 45 or 50 percent and so boom now I got to do study the flashcard for that last 25 percent to lock in the knowledge where when I go in to take the test I know 100 percent I know I’m gonna know every answer on the on the quest when you recall like a thing you actually recall what the flashcards yeah yes you know yes so that’s what I would do this is kind of a sidetrack when I was in college highlight and then make flashcards of what I highlighted now for the podcast what I do is once I once I read it and highlight it now I go back through and I look at the highlights and now I start being selective of what is going to be in the podcast and I actually circle the actual words I’m gonna read with a red pen that I’m holding right here and that’s what I do a circle and then I have little notes that say next like when I circle a section and then I’ll either have an arrow that goes to another point or I’ll have a little note that says go to page 49 and then there’ll be a one of those little yellow sticky tabs on page 49 boom there it is I can flip right there real quick so we don’t have to edit we don’t have to there’s a flow I can keep rolling and then on top of those when I get to when I read something and I want to say something about it I have little sticky notes that I put in there either sticky notes I have the sticky tape stuff which is pretty legit and I just rolled I roll that out I stick it on there and I say hey mention you know experience I had here or what happened when I was doing this and so I kind of make those notes and that way I can get it done and while I’m doing that is when I have to figure out the chronology that I’m gonna read it because I don’t always read the notes from the book on the podcast in the same order that they are in the book because sometimes it just doesn’t make sense sometimes there’s some so at the same time I’m doing that I’m going back and figuring out what direction I’m actually gonna read them so sometimes my conclusion of the book is different than the author’s conclusion I look yes so I got to go back and say I got to go back pages or forward or whatever so that’s what I’m figuring out there as well so that’s kind of what the podcast prep looks like now how to stay focused in patience while reading books this is really difficult I don’t have a long attention span when I have a lot of contention span it’s only because I absolutely force myself to do it so what I would prefer to do is to read in small chunks I want to do work for like an hour at a time right when I’m writing I want to work for about an hour when I’m reading I want to read for about an hour after that I want to get up and break something or throw something or lift something or run somewhere you don’t I mean it’s I have an hour of patience with me of course that’s not enough time you know especially when you’re doing a podcast a week and you got to read a whole book well guess what you gotta you got to read for longer you got to read for two three hours at a pop I’ll try and make it that I do an hour early in the morning sometimes when I’m behind the curve I will read first thing in the morning before I work out because I just want to get an hour then I get to go and release right then I get done with the work I’ll take a shower now I’m gonna read for another 45 minutes okay good now I’ll do something else a little pre-lunch reading so and then before I go to bed I’m doing another hour so there I just got four or five hours in a day without having to sit down and do something for four or five straight hours which bothers the hell out of me the other thing you can do and I do this is I’ll read multiple books at the same time which is which is an interesting task tactic I don’t know if everybody should do that or could do that or would want to do that but sometimes one book gets boring but I know I got to read so I guess I have two books three books all sitting there and I’m reading them all at the same time and that makes them a little bit more interesting and the last thing I would say about trying to be focused on an impatient when you’re reading books is to try to really understand what it is that is happening in the book not just from a plot perspective but from a human perspective what is that person going through what is that like for that person what are they thinking and I’d get to a point where I’m so engaged I feel like I’m becoming the offer I feel like I’m in the book sometimes when I’m reading it so that is another good way to keep it engaging because if you’re seeing it from the outside and you’re not really in it well then it’s not it’s just not as engaging simply put if you get into it and you start thinking about that person you go back you know do a little Wikipedia search on the author and see who they are that gives you like a little insight yeah and that helps me now I connect with them I know that they’re from New Jersey I know that they went to this college I know that they played soccer so now when I’m reading about them I’m going oh yeah that must oh you know so I try and get a little background on that person mm-hmm gives me a little bit more engagement saying that’s that that’s my reading habits it’s kind of advanced it and it makes more sense I think that like how you say you want to put yourself in the guy’s head you know actively I’m gonna we put myself in the in the guy said sometimes people are so good at writing where you that just happens naturally but when you do when you do that it’s like you can kind of get you get the story of course but most of the time you when you do that all the time it’s lessons learn like what do you learn it’s almost like when you’re in your head is in it like that all the lessons are just flying into your brain you know yeah because it’s almost like you’re doing like you’re you’re going through that war or that particular ambush or something like that and then you know they talk about the mistakes and all that but you feel the mistake yeah and also I have some experience with what they’re talking about oh yeah and also and I’m not saying I’m I’m telling you right now I don’t have even close to the experience of the books that I’m reading on this podcast these guys that were in the Battle of Iwo Jima and the Battle of the Bulge no nothing I did compared to anything that they do but do I know what it’s like to be waiting to go into a bad situation do I know what it’s like to be shot at do I know what it’s like to you know have guys getting wounded yeah I know what that’s like so that’s a little connection to but I think you know everybody that’s been in stressful situations of any kind you can say oh what what must that feel like hey I know what it’s like when I was waiting to you know going for a job interview and I was completely stressed out and that’s what this guy must be feeling right here only even worse so then you make that little mental connection a little mental leap and you can look like you said you can then learn more from it yeah yeah which is important yeah so if I’m going into this particular situation you know in a book I’m reading it and I’m not as engaged as maybe I could be this guy goes through X Y Z experience I’m looking at it from my opinion like well I could handle that you know kind of thing but this guy is the type of guy who that’s maybe part of his weakness or something like that and vice versa where you know like I don’t know something about claustrophobia I might be like dang but that cluster fool will be a part of it part of the story isn’t necessarily a huge part of the lesson that you’re trying to get from it you know so you might miss there might be some disconnects there if you don’t because they have a certain intention and you have a certain intention so if your your the lesson lessons learned you might miss some of those lessons just the feel for sure missing for sure I’m not gonna get everything out of a book that’s why when you that’s why when you get a really good book you read it multiple times and you can get more out of it every single time that you read it no doubt about that one yes true
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