G’day, Ben here. And in this week’s video, I’m going to share with you how you can read several books a week without actually reading a book.
*** This is a transcription from a video ***
So for those of you that know me quite well, you know that I have a mantra– ‘If you want to earn more, you have to learn more.’ And one of the easiest ways to learn more is by reading books. There are some great people out there that are sharing their knowledge and experience in books, and if you can grab one of those books, there’s a lot to be learnt. And you can get one, two, three great ideas out of book, and it’ll make it all worthwhile.
But I’m speaking from experience here– I absolutely suck at reading. It doesn’t mean I can’t read, I just find it very difficult to sit still long enough to read an entire book or for a book to keep my attention. So what I’ve turned to is audio books. And what a lot of people don’t realize is how many audio books are now available online for you to purchase and download onto things like your smartphone. I use an app called Audible.com.
What I do is not just listen to the books, but I have a little hack that will save you a lot of time. It took me a while to get used to, but I can now listen to an audio book at up to three times the narrator’s speed, which means I can get through it very quickly.
I thought I’d just quickly show you. This is a book by Jim Collins called Good to Great. It’s a long book. It has a lot of content in there. I’m just going to play that at normal speed to start with so you can hear that.
(Audio Book) ‘Here’s a guy that has zero chance of success, but always wins…’
So you can hear that’s the normal narrator’s speed. What I do is I listen to it at 2x speed.
(Audio Book 2x speed) ‘He’s expecting to get his brains blown out. At the end of the day he succeeds. He creates peace out of war. That’s what I do too…’
So you can hear it’s a lot faster. I get through the book twice as fast and, believe it or not, retain just as much information. Now it takes a little while getting used to. Some audio books I can play at 3x speed. But if you want to get through three or four business books a week, I recommend you get the Audible app, download the books to your iPhone, and play them at– at least 1.5x speed. Let’s just quickly do that whilst we’re here. I’ll do 1.25 speed.
(Audio Book 1.25 speed) ‘He wrote a book about himself in which he…’
You can’t even tell. You can’t even tell that’s sped up. So just by having a little bit of an efficiency hack in reading books, you’ll get through more books. You’ll learn more. And it’s great– sometimes when I’m exercising I’ll listen to it, when I’m walking the dogs, I could be driving in the car. All those times when my ears are not doing anything, I’ll plug in and do some learning.
About the Author
Ben Fewtrell is a sought-after Business Coach, Keynote Speaker and trainer who has featured in Virgin’s Inflight Magazine and Entertainment Portal, SKY Business and “Secrets of Top Business Builders Exposed”. He is also the host of the popular Business Brain Food Podcast where he interviews leading experts on anything and everything business.
