One of the things I get a great deal of satisfaction from is sharing and receiving good books. My choices tend to be business books, but also have been known to read many biographies and historical depictions of world events. I have friends as well as clients who will send me books to read on a fairly regular basis and offer an opinion on. I think reading is vital to everyone and physical books are preferred over a reader or audio versions. I cherish the feel of a book and the ability to mark it up and make notes. As a pure business booster, sharing books with referral partners and clients is one of the best value propositions I can think of.
This leads me to the concept I put together with some friends that was a special form of book club. We did it with 12 people but you can work with more or less depending on the type of books you want to read and how committed the people in the club are to reading. If you can muster up six participants in your first attempt, you might find it easier to get started than 12, but 12 is ideal and you will soon see why.
So my group contained 12 people. We first all proposed a list of books we thought would be good for the group to read. Everyone sent their list to the group leader (known as #1) and they then selected one book on each list that would be read and a color highlighter to use to highlight important features of the books.
The leader of the group then assigned numbers 2 through 12 to the rest of the group, along with the book they had to buy and read for their first book. Because we had 12 in the group, the timeline was to read the book was one month. They also would give you the mailing address of the next number on the list so you could mail your book to the next number once you were done, or by the end of the month.
Everyone now knew their first book to buy, the color highlighter they had to use, and to whom they would be mailing their highlighted book to once they were finished. Now came the time to buy your book and begin reading and highlighting the passages you found important. By the beginning of the next month you should have received a new book that had already been read and highlighted. You were to read the book, taking notice to highlight any passages you felt important that weren’t already highlighted by a previous reader. If you agreed that a highlighted passage was important, you would simple place a small “dot” in your color highlighter in the margin. If you didn’t think it important, you did nothing. At the end of the month you mail this book along and receive your next book, now highlighted by tworeaders. This goes on month after month following the same procedure.
By the end of the year, you get your original book BACK, this time; it has been read by eleven and highlighted by all of them! You can now reread your book and see what others agreed with you in highlighting. You also see what other people may have highlighted that you may have missed! In any case, you will have read twelve books that year!
Reading books is vanishing from our culture at an alarming rate. Many adults don’t manage to read even a single book in a year! If you want to expand your mind, learn how to relax and share thoughts without getting into a conflict or running the risk of being “unfriended” or even “bullied”, try book club and expand your thoughts and the group of people who can help you improve the way you think and approach your life and your business.
Questions or comments: Mike@IMTcoaching.com
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