Read and Grow rich Summary: 3 key lessons I learned

The book “Read and Grow Rich: How the Hidden Power of Reading Can Make you Richer in all areas of your life” written by burke Hedges will ignite the passion for reading books.

In this book, you will find stories of some people who come from a good background and some people who come from poor backgrounds. Some people had low IQ and some people were geniuses.

But there is one thing common in all these people: They all improved their life by reading.

You will learn how the hidden power of reading can make you rich, not only in terms of money but also in health, relationships, and in all other areas of your life.

You will learn how reading is different from other mediums like TV, radio, and the internet. You will learn what happens inside your brain while reading.

Here in this summary, I have 3 key lessons for you to learn from this book. So let’s start the Read and Grow Rich summary.

3 lessons I learned from Read and Grow Rich

1. Books can transform lives
2. Reading 15 minutes a day can change your life
3. What happens inside the mind of the reader while reading

Lesson #1 Books can transform lives

In 1986, the author got one book from his sister-in-law. The name of that book was “the greatest salesman in the world”. Up to that point author not have been a reader. He was out of money, out of shape, and out of hope as well.

He just looked at the headline of the book Scroll 1. Today I begin a new life. Looks interesting. He started reading book and by the end of the book, he had tears in his eyes and hope for his life. He was a different person after reading that book.

Within two weeks of reading the greatest salesman in the world, the author resigned from his job and applied for a new job of selling cellular phones.

By the end of the first month, he earned $4000 commission by applying all the principles mentioned in the book like “persist until you succeed”, “today I will multiply my value hundredfold”, “I will act now.”

By the end of the second-month author was a leading salesman in the district and by the end of the year, he had his own business.

Though he had not become the greatest salesman in the world he was on the way to become the best he could be.

This is just one story. There are many people in the world who changed their life by reading books. Written words have such a powerful impact.

It has the power to make immediate transformations in your life through brilliant insights. And it has the power to make gradual transformations through accumulated knowledge.

It has the power to expand your universe. You will never know which book at what time will change your life. That’s the beauty of reading.

Lesson #2 Reading 15 minutes a day can change your life

Non-readers and poverty

Statistic 1: At any given time, one-third of the population is living in poverty.

Statistic 2: 37% of the population never another book after high school.

One-third poverty and One third who don’t read. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Harvey Mackay, author of bestselling book swim with the sharks without getting eaten alive Has this to say about the power of reading- Our lives change in two ways: through the people we met and the books we read.

If you are not meeting new people and not reading new books- you are not changing. And if you are not changing, if you are not changing, you are not growing. It’s that simple.

I don’t have time to read

People buy the books with best of intentions but they don’t read. People are busier than ever today. There is just no time to read.

Well, what if the government pass the law that would give 1 million cash to everyone who read 15 minutes every day without fail for one year? Do you think most people suddenly take time to read? Of course, they would.

I am here saying that they could take more time to read and not make more time to read. We all have 24 hours a day and we can’t make more time but we can take time for reading. You just need to change your priorities. You can give easily give 15 minutes a day for reading.

15 minutes a day = a dozen books a year!

The average graduate reads 250 words per minute. But we will assume the average reading speed of most adults is 200 words per minute. There are 400 pages on a single page, so you can easily read 7 pages in 15 minutes and 200 pages book in one month and 12 books in a year.

See you can get a benefit of books by just setting aside 15 minutes per day. You can become richer in all aspects of your life by reading a few pages a day.

It all depends on priorities. You have time to read books but if you prioritize TV or social media over the book, you will run out of time.

The few minutes a day can pay the huge only if you invest the time to read each and every day. Next time, don’t give an excuse for not reading. Give an excuse for reading books.

Now you know how reading can transform lives and how you can do the same.

In the third lesson from reading and grow rich summary, you will learn- how reading affects our brain? Why it is different from watching TV or listening to audio? What is it reading that enables it to transform lives?

Lesson # 3 Inside the Mind of a reader

Reading is a complex process. When we read a sentence we jump our eyes 100 to 200 degrees across pages 3 to 4 times per second. The actual reading takes place between those jumps and pauses.

During the brief pauses images of printed symbols are sent to our brains where they decoded into meaning. This process is so fast that we even don’t realize it.

When you read the word W-I-N-D in this sentence, you take the picture of symbols and pass to the brain where it decoded into meaning.

You tell yourself the context of word W-I-N-D. Whether it means “wind your alarm clock before bed” or “wind blowing through the leaves.” This stores in the short memory and then you can back between short term and long term memory for experiences or associations that you can attach to these new words.

You perform complex mental functions such as remembering, imagining reasoning, connecting reviewing, hypothesizing, testing via trial, and error at a lightning-fast speed.

All the while cross-checking the printed symbols, knowledge of grammar and spelling, personal experiences, memories, and interpretations, and re-readings. Whew!

And this all takes in the blink of an eye!

As we become more experienced readers we laugh, criticize agree or disagree attack absorb, and so on. We test what we read to see which written messages we will add to our own philosophy and which ones to throw out. We make the text our own.

If all this seems a lot of work then you are right. When you read you are making a big investment in time and effort. And this investment makes reading a valuable activity.

When we read we create our own mental pictures. This doesn’t happen while watching TV. Reading needs mental participation while watching TV is a passive activity.

When we get information through reading we are earning it by investing time and mental energy. It’s the human nature that we value the most what we earn. That’s why we value reading so much!

With this, we come to the end of the book summary of the reading and grow rich summary by Burke Hedges.

Now it’s your turn. You have a choice to read a book or not. But before that remember one thing. Choice not chance determines your destiny. Every action counts.

Every action that you take moving you closer to your destiny or moving you away from it. It is your choice to read a book and get all the benefits of reading or not!

What else to you will learn from Read and Grow Rich

• 10 writings that rocked the world
• How to read a book
• Stories of great people and how reading changed their life & many more lessons.

I recommend you to buy this book. Also, let me know in the comment section which is your favorite book? Why? What did you learn from that book?

Buy Book Read and Grow Rich