Why Reading Books is for Slackers

Speaker 1: [0:02] Welcome to the collecting keys Friday focus.

Mike DeHaan: [0:05] Hey, all you cool cats and kittens. I don't know why I said that. Do you guys remember that show? I never watched it. That that Tiger King show that was so big. Was it, like, 2020? I think it right when COVID came around. Yeah. Never watched it, but I heard that joke enough times that figured it would be relevant to get some of you guys interested. So anyway, welcome to this episode of the collecting keys Friday focus. Today, you have me, Mike DeHaan, and I'm going to talk about a somewhat unpopular opinion I have. And that is the fact that in my opinion, reading books is ultimately for slackers and is a major inhibitor in people actually becoming successful. So before you turn it off and say, Mike here, if you're full of it, you have no idea what you're talking about, let me go ahead and explain where I'm coming out with this. So within the growth and business and mindset sort of space, people are super into reading, which makes sense. You know, they wanna learn. Going up through school, we've learned that reading is a great way to learn, and honestly, it generally is. But what happens a lot with people is, you know, they start to learn the basics about, you know, whatever they're trying to get into. They start to get this growth mindset, and they ultimately use reading as a way to procrastinate on doing the things that are actually challenging, and that will actually get them moving forward. Now, it's a common practice for people to, you know, read a lot of books. They have like a reading time.

Mike DeHaan: [1:34] I always see these people posting about, you know, their humble brats about how they read 50 books this year, they read a book a week, or all those sort of things. More often than not, that person is not the top person in their field. They aren't even necessarily like a top 10% person. Like, sure, they're they have a great growth mindset. They're doing well compared to the average person. But in the business sort of space, very rarely is the person that's, you know, reading 50 books a year also the person that has a business that absolutely crushes it. At least from my experience. I'm sure they're out there, and I'm sure that like, you know, there's extreme CEOs and things like that that are the opposite of that. But also too, if you're like a a big CEO, you're a big business owner, you're making $15,000,000 a year, you can do whatever the hell you want at that point. I'm talking about the people that are making, you know, 300 to $500,000 a year. Maybe they have like a low 7 figure business, and they spend so much time reading that they never are actually applying anything that they're reading. And that's kind of the key point with what I'm saying here is be into reading, that's great. Take the things that you learn from these books and, you know, put them in your brain as knowledge. But after a while, you have to move on and actually apply the things that you are reading in these books. Right?

Mike DeHaan: [2:47] So often, I see these people that they have read every book under the sun. You know, they've read traction, they've read the four hour work week, they've read rocket fuel, they've read EOS, you know, they've read I don't know what other books are other people read. I obviously don't read them. But they don't actually apply any of those things to their business. Right? Like like one of my favorites is I have people regularly, you know, I go on podcasts, I get asked what my favorite business book is. I always say it's The Four Hour Workweek. The Four Hour Workweek was the book that ultimately got me to quit my w two job, right? It got me rethinking about what my life could really look like. And when I established my business, I used the frameworks in the four hour work week, kind of to give me the quality of life and the lifestyle that I wanted, right, around being able to work four hours. Now, obviously, I work a lot more than that, but it was more around the concept of, you know, using virtual workers, working in these sprints, and then enjoying life on these mini retirements. That's why I do a lot of big travels throughout the course of the year. There's a bunch of different things in that book that I applied. Something that's so fascinating is I regularly have people saying like, oh yeah, I also love that book. I'm curious, how exactly do you go about finding virtual workers?

Mike DeHaan: [3:56] Like, what did that look like? I'm like, it's in the book, man. If you if you go and you look back at it, it gives you the basic framework. Sure the book's like twelve years old, some of the stuff is outdated, but the general concepts are all there about how to do it. So anyway, the point being, when it comes to reading, like, has a huge amount of value, but don't let it be something that makes you procrastinate on what you actually need to be doing to make leaps forward. You know, this is even worse, I find, in like the high performing w two space, because people are already restricted because they're shackled by the, you know, the the golden Hankos at their job. And they spend so much of their time reading these like business and motivational books. And then they come into work and they complain about how they aren't making any progress in stuff that they wanna do, or they aren't like having these opportunities. It's like because you're spending your time not working, not actually taking personal strides to, you know, make those changes in your life, but you're getting all the knowledge to do so, at least you think you are, but you're never actually putting anything to action. So that's just a small thing that I've noticed that I have really started to, I guess, ponder over the last little bit.

Mike DeHaan: [5:07] And I'll say too, this isn't always just books. I mean, there's people that are also podcast junkies. You know, they listen to tons and tons of podcasts. They don't apply anything. There's people that are coach and mastermind junkies. I can't tell you how many people have applied for the instant investor program that are like, yeah, this will be my, you know, fourth or fifth mastermind. I'm trying to find what works for me. And honestly, we don't normally accept those people. Like, I don't wanna take your money and have you come in and just be like another notch on your belt for a mastermind or a group coaching program that you tried. So ultimately, you know, big picture, path to success is not constant education. The path to success is education and then taking action with that education. So do with that what you will. You can argue with me all you want, but that is 100% the truth. Anyways, guys, short one for you this week. Be curious, you agree with me? Do you disagree with me? Go ahead and shoot me a DM on Instagram at Mike underscore invest. I'd love like some good friendly banter on this. I've had an incredible amount of I could get some incredible increase of people reaching out to me over the last little bit, and I've really, really enjoyed it. So don't be shy at mike underscore invest on Instagram.

Mike DeHaan: [6:12] And then if you enjoy any of the podcasts that we do, please go and share them with your friends and family. It is the easiest way for us to grow the show is for you to tell their people about it. Also too, I'm just teasing this ahead of time, We have the Collecting Keys store here launching soon. So it's gonna have some basic Collecting Keys merch that we have talked about over the last little bit. So we're gonna have some Collecting Keys shirts, which are super cool. We're gonna finally have the unveiling of the BDE Big Dan Energy shirt coming out on there. So those of you that signed up for that, you're gonna be getting a free one coming your way. And yeah. We'll have some more stuff on there. Those shirts are are gonna be for profit, just so you know, they're purely for fans. Everything that we are going to be selling on there is gonna be print on demand. So you're just gonna be charged at cost for whatever the print on demand company charges us. So you should go check those out when they come out. I'll keep you in the loop. So anyways, guys, appreciate you all listening, and we'll talk to

Speaker 1: [7:04] you next week. Thanks for listening to this collecting keys Friday focus. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.