The 30 Minutes That Saved My Life

The problem isn't that you don't read. The problem is that you never discover anything new. See, there are ideas that completely change the way that you think, and the crazy part is you weren't even looking for them. I came across an interesting experiment from filmmaker Christopher Nolan, and it supports exactly what I've been banging the drum on for so many years. He says most people think that all human knowledge is online. He says, "Do an experiment. Walk into a library, pull a random book off the shelf, open up to a random page, write down something that stood out for you, and repeat that over and over again 10 times." And he said, "Then go online and see if you can find that idea." " people think that 90% of the knowledge is found online." And he said, "If you will do this experiment, you're going to find that most of the stuff that leapt off the pages to you, you can't even find online" This supports the fact of what I say, man. The magic is still in the books. It's not that the internet's bad. It's because the act of random reading exposes you to ideas that, bro, you would have never even searched for Think about how we use Google. You type in the question that you already know to ask. You search for problems that you know you already have. But the life-changing ideas, hear this, the life-changing ideas usually don't even show up that way. They show up by accident. You stumble across them, and you intersect into something that, bro, you begin wrestling with And you end up connecting two ideas that you would've never even dreamed of putting those two together. This is why I think random reading is one of the most powerful habits that you can, that you can embrace, and you can do it, like, immediately. People tell me all the time,"Marsh, I don't have time to read. Marsh, I don't like to read. There's no way, man, I can read a 400-page book." Good. You don't have to." Marsh, I fall asleep reading a book. My mind wanders off." All of those things support the very idea of why I say you should start the habit, the ritual of random reading The problem is the old way that we've been taught to read. There's nothing in the Constitution that says that you have to start on page one to get to page 400. Why not just start wherever you want to? It's your time. It's your book. It's your life. Start anywhere you want to Here's what I do every day. I pick a random book off my shelf, or I go through my Kindle library, or sometimes I'll check out a book digitally from the library on my app, and I'll just… If the title's interesting, I check it out. It's 100% free. I go to the table of contents. I pick a chapter that most, like, jumps out there at me, and I, I set my timer for 10 to 15 minutes, and I read from that one chapter That's it. I write what stands out If I'm standing at a bookstore, I don't even have to buy the book. I could take a picture of the highlight that jumped out there at me, and then I set my timer for 10 to 15 minutes and write about what I read. Now, I may use that one highlight to spark the ideas, but then the rest, man, I gotta pull in the recesses of my mind Like, what does this mean? How can I use this? How do I see it? I may read it totally different than how the author intended it to be. Just challenge yourself to write at least one page. That's it. And I can find a lot of times, man, and when I s- first started doing this, I started writing, and I was like, nothing was really coming out. It was kind of a forcing function is what it was. And I was just kind of writing, kind of thinking, but bro, somewhere about halfway down the page, the brakes unlock, and then my mind begins to flow. Stories start coming back. Ideas begin to connect. Other ideas pull from out of nowhere One thought leads to another, and then I end up writing something that is completely different than what I read about I don't wanna live a well-read life. I wanna live a well-applied life. How many books you read is irrelevant. What you do with what you read is the only thing that's relevant. So why not segment 10 minutes, read from a random book, and, and then write about it, and then go live it that day? You, you are going to be exposed to new ideas from all over the place. I can't tell you how many times I have read about something, flashes of ideas, and then by pure chance, I have a conversation about that very topic. It's the craziest thing in the world. When you do this repeatedly… Bro, I've been doing this since 2017. I, I just stumbled across it. Nobody taught it to me or anything. I just started doing it. But I'm telling you, man, this is why… I, I can't tell you how many episodes I've even done about random reading, but it is, it is that important. If I could just do this, if I could talk about this every single day, man, I certainly would, because it is so important, and it checks all the boxes. You don't have to read a book cover to cover. You don't have to sit down for four hours at a time doing something that you don't like, to do. I didn't read my first book till I was 25 years old. I told my daughter that the other day. She's like, "What?" I'm like, "Yeah." I got all through college, high school, college, never read a book. I didn't read my first book till I was 25. It's sitting on the shelf behind me, The Secret of Closing Sales, because I was thinking about getting into sales. And when I read that book, I'm like, "Hell, let me try it." 28 years later, I'm still trying it. I love sales. I love the psychology of it. But see, this is what I'm talking about, man. It's these random ideas. And let me tell you something. There are books that have been gifted to you, there are books that are, are subjects that you've been meaning to get around to, and you're just like, "Bro, I just can't, I can't read a book that's that thick." Fine. Go to the table of contents, pick a chapter, set your timer for 10 to 15 minutes, read about it, if you… And then try to write something about that That's it. And you know what? You can do this anywhere. You can walk into Goodwill and pull a book off the shelf. You can walk in Books-A-Million. You can walk into your public library. You could be waiting to get on your flight, and you go into the little convenience store that at the airport that's way overpriced with everything. Pull it off the shelf. Pick that one chapter. Say, "Siri, set my timer for 10 minutes." Did it just do it? No. Set my timer for 10 minutes and, and read that one chapter. Take a picture of that thought, and then go sit down in the chair while you're waiting on your delayed-ass flight, and then write about that one thing. I'm telling you, bro, you w- you do this every day, it will literally save your life. I am living proof it saved my life. I was broke. I was bankrupt. I was depressed. I was dark. I was at the point of ending it all, and I was demoted. Pff. I had nowhere to go but up, and I said, "I had to change the narrative." The only way you can change the narrative is by reading something. It… and last, last point I'm gonna make to this also, it strengthens your focus, okay? We're in a ADD society. Get to the message in three seconds. When I write a script for Reel, man, I have to say, "Okay, it's gotta be captivating in the first three seconds." Why? Because nobody gives a damn after three seconds. That's what I'm talking about, and we're like, "Uh, uh, uh, uh." That's what happens, and you have trained yourself to, "If I'm not getting the information in two seconds or less," and you are missing out on the magic, okay? It's just a little bit extra that you gotta do, man, but it is going to… The, the return on the investment is going to change your life. Thank me later. Before I get out of here, I want, I want you to DM me. I'm on all the socials. DM me. What do you… What did you read? What was the random book you read today? What jumped out there at you, and how did you live it? I wanna start hearing from you, man. All right? Let's get out of here. Keep it simple. Keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough. Peace.