This is why reading books is like consuming whey protein.
Too many people take reading way, way way too seriously.
Can you build a great career without ever reading a single book? Yes.
Does reading high-quality books that align with your mission and purpose in life significantly boost your chances of building a great life? Hell yes.
Just like you can build muscles without ever taking a scoop of whey protein, creatine, or pre-workout, you can build a successful career, business, and life.
However, taking those supplements with mindfulness and discipline can significantly improve your gains and performance, and it's a lot easier and more convenient to take a scoop of whey instead of eating too much chicken.
You get your protein in without having to consume as much food.
If you've ever been to the gym for some relevant period of time, you understand that whey protein isn't a replacement for diet, but rather, a supplement to an already great diet system.
Similarly, with books, you should strive to build a great career, have great systems already in place, and use books to supplement and improve yourself, your systems, and your knowledge, mindfully.
Imagine if you were taking whey protein and creatine every day but you have a shitty diet and you never go to the gym. What's the point?
Similarly with books, what's the point of reading if you don't have a place to implement your newly acquired knowledge?
Please share your thoughts on this analogy, would love to hear your opinion!
While I do agree on certain things here, One thing that I think is missing here is that I'm reading to actually learn where I can implement the new knowledge. Consider it my conscious incompetence. I know I can code fairly well, I know i want to start a SaaS someday, but I have 0 clue on where to start with any of this. That's when I reach for a book such as The Minimalist Entrepreneur. I go in with the knowledge that I'm Incompetent but I don't know where I will implement it, or even if the book will help me. I might not even like what the book is teaching me about SaaS and I decide to not go down that path. I don't think that's wasted time, cause I did learn something new about myself that I didn't know before.
You are actually delivering a very good point there, however.
In my case as well I don't see my time as wasted, I just learned a more effective way to read.
And it does sound like you know what you are doing with your goals so keep it up!
The push and pull between books and online courses is something I feel on a daily basis! I feel an attachment of sorts to finding and reading high-quality books, but sometimes wonder if my time would be better spent if I were taking a course online to learn skills. The choice is obvious for hard skills like programming, but I'm starting to feel like video/interactive content can edge out books for soft skill lessons and researching as well.
I have found out that sometimes my time is better spent by "fucking around".
That funny meme that says "the more you fuck around, the more you will find out" is so true.
I don't think books will become obsolete any time soon but video/interactive content is starting to edge out books for both hard skills and soft skills lessons.
Glad you shared your opinion here!
First of all, the very comparison is wrong.
Why would you compare books with whey protein!!
I would put books in similar level to water, which is second most important thing after oxygen.
Neither u need whey protein nor chicken to have a healthy body.
Modern day nutrition studies are so haywire that they forget the very fundamentals.
The most important a body needs are oxygen, then water, then it needs salt to have nerves/neurons working properly.
Those are the three most important things body needs; food comes on later part.
Daily consumption of food itself is most unnecessary thing, which has become a habit.
Even if a person consumes one meal for every two days, he/she will be healthy, we are actually burdened by over-consumption.
On nutrition, body needs all the things, but it need not be daily, periodic intake of food is much enough for body.
Body by itself is a greatest machine and its greatest strength is adaptability.
Study of nutrition is to be just aware of what nutrition is needed, its fair to say that its better to ignore the number of grams/amount the body needed daily.
That's not the way body is intended to work in first place.
According to your profile picture, I don't think you are the right person to talk to about health, with all due respect.
Why would I compare books to whey protein?
First of all, because that's the viewpoint I came up with while conducting some work, and wanted to share it with the community to see what other people think.
I put the title because it gets people to comment and share their opinions, evidently.
You are right, those are "the most important things" that the body needs in order to survive but the body needs a lot of other things to remain vital and healthy.
We are burdened by overconsumption I completely agree with you.
Again, some bodies and some purposes are aligned differently. Some people don't burn many calories daily and they can eat every other day, although it's not the most optimal thing to do for your body.
Some people who train and burn calories on a daily basis absolutely do need to consume food every day in order to both survive and remain healthy.
Just on credentials, my father is a doctor-so i have studied quite a few things just out of interest and responsibility.
To clear things again, the greatest myth is to consumer food daily otherwise body gets weakened.
Body by itself always has surplus energy and thats the reason it stores fat, from a lazy couch to absolute hard hitting military work--daily food is still a luxury rather than necessity.
Anyways the main topic is books and i agree with you on that.
Sometimes I say it jokingly that if I can put everything good that i have read in practice then people people will build statues and places of worship.
My point though is putting things in practice is way harder than just reading.
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Very good point. That is exactly why we need to live through our own experiences and just supplement them with the knowledge we find in books.