Conventional wisdom decrees that success is about hard work, who you know, occasionally what you know, and luck. Marketing experts and authors Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller of GravitationalMarketing.com say otherwise: “Conventional wisdom is not always the best wisdom, and can frequently be detrimental if followed.”
I discovered their words of wisdom in the December 2009 issue of Irrigation & Green Industry in an article titled “Beware of Best Business Practices.” You can also find it on the magazine’s Web site at http://www.igin.com/article-1210-beware-of-best-business-practices.html.
The section of the article that really stood out for me is titled “Read” and includes a quotation by Jim Rohn, a motivational speaker, philosopher, and entrepreneur: “Poor people have big TVs, rich people have big libraries.” I could quibble with the use of the comma instead of a semicolon there, but the point is a good one. Successful people continue to learn throughout their lives, and no matter the venue—printed book, e-book, magazine, Web site, even seminar materials—learning includes reading. Text may be accompanied by images, it may be served to us in audio form, it may be on a screen or on a sheet of paper or in Braille—yet it, and the language of which it is composed, remains the most powerful learning and teaching tool we have as humans.
If reading will help us become successful, then it is indeed unfortunate that the statistics from Vee and Miller’s article reflect a rejection of reading in the United States: 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book in 2008; 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after graduation. Yet, as I recall, a USA Today or Parade poll from years back (don’t ask me for provenance; I don’t believe I can provide it) suggested that 80 percent of people in the U.S. wanted to write a book.
The disconnect is astounding, isn’t it?
The Paper Ball 