How's it going guys? Welcome to this episode of Technically Short. My name is Thomas Edward
Carney. That is the T-E-C in the beginning of Technically Short. If you would like to
leave a comment, leave a five star review, or share this out on your social media so
that would be greatly appreciated. And I just want to say real quick, pretty early in the
episode, I say that the book Carry a Big Stick is written by Stuart R. Roosevelt. And that
is wrong. I had to fact check myself. It was actually written by George Grant. So if you
hear that, don't fact check me. Gar did it. All right. See you in the episode. All right,
guys, let's dive right in. So today we're going to be talking about reading. I know
that sounds exciting. Just like the last episode on finances. I know we're doing so many fun
things here today or this week or this month or whatever you want to say. Let's get into
it though. Why am I talking about reading? Okay. You might already clicked off. Don't
do that. Come back. Come back. I don't know how that works, but come back. Okay. Let's
dive in. Let's keep going. The name of this episode is How to Grow All the Time. And then
it's like, read. You know, that's the name of the episode. You already read it a few
times hopefully. Um, and this is something that has been instantiated in me from a very
young age. And so like this episode, we're going to, we're going to go through a couple
reasons why I love to read. We're going to go through the background behind that and
then really get into what that background, that seed, the seeds that were planted really
grew into and it really grew into my love of growth. Let's dive into the background
a little bit. Why do I love to read? So this is kind of funny actually, because I wrote
down, um, like what my dad did. My, when I was, when I was a kid, my dad actually paid
myself and my older sister to read books. Well, he actually paid us to write the essays,
one page essays for books. He did, he would give us, I believe $10 for certain books,
$10 for others. And we're like, yeah, for sure. Of course we're going to do that because
$10 felt like a thousand dollars when you're like, I don't know, 10. So I feel like I,
I, I, I'm not joking. I'm pretty sure I was that young and I had been reading books by
Zig Ziglar, um, Teddy Roosevelt, like, like carry a big stick. Like I believe that's from
Teddy Roosevelt. Don't quote me on that. I'll have you can quote. Don't quote me. Fact
check me. It was a book written by someone who was no longer alive. And I was listening.
The reason I said it was funny was because I was listening, like kind of pert myself
a little bit more for this episode. I was re I was listening to a couple of videos,
uh, that, uh, of John Maxwell and he was talking about why he reads and what, what didn't you
know it? His dad did the same thing. His dad's older than my dad. His dad died at 98 and
a half years old. And I'm like, is that where my dad got it? Like I was just like making
my dinner and I was like, man, it all makes sense now. Like I know you went to a conference
and that person probably heard it from someone else. I don't know if my dad heard it from
John Maxwell, but like it was full circle in like a day, but um, it was nuts. I never
really asked my dad like why he had me do that. I mean, if I did, and if I did, I don't
remember. So, but what I believe he was doing was planting his seed, what planning is see
wanting us to gain wisdom from these books and books that he's he read himself. And I'm
going to be honest with you. I don't think that part worked. I don't know if that part
worked that well. I'm going to be a hundred percent honest. I don't think I understood
exactly. I didn't really understand what I was reading and I didn't retain it too well
because really what my focus was mainly on was getting the money and writing the essay.
I mean, I did that, but it was, it was, I'm thinking about that now that I don't think
I remember anything from that book, but for all I know, there are seeds that were planted
that are affecting me today that I don't even realize. But the thing that I know for a fact
worked it, that created my love of reading. We already, I already kind of read. I remember
like going into high school, like even before high school, I'd go to bed, like reading an
hour before bed. And then I'd wake up and these be fiction books. Like these be books
about like fictional stories that I'd be reading. I would read like an hour before bed reading.
And then sometimes when I woke up on the weekend, I was like, man, I can't wait to wake up and
read my book. And I would read for like two hours, like no joke, just lay it. I would
get up. I wouldn't grab my phone. I didn't have a phone when I was that young. Neither
should any child. Anyway, my, I'm not a parent, so I'm, I get it. But, uh, I would wake up
and just read for two hours. I wake up, grab my book and read. And like, I miss that. I
don't do that anymore. I read, but I don't wake up and immediately start reading. Cause
I have like the routine that I went, Oh, actually that's a lie. I wake up every morning and
read my Bible. So I guess I do that just not for two hours. Doing it every day for two
hours would be kind of cool though. If I had that, if like, I actually had that time to
do every day, maybe that could be a goal. But the reason I'm bringing any of that up,
like, you know, I want to, well, well, like I read those books and the books I was reading,
you know, some of the, some of my favorite books, whenever I was, um, reading the fictional
stories, it was things like Harry Potter, Charlie Bone. If you ever heard of Charlie
Bone, the Charlie Bone series, kind of like Harry Potter, but was Charlie. It's like,
it's like Charlie Potter, kind of like Harry Potter and X-Men, like the school where like
all the, um, Xavier's school for gifted children or something like that. Um, it's kind of like
that. My Harry Potter and X-Men mixed into one, like they had Matt, like it was cool.
I loved it and I still love it. I have to have the whole series still on my bookshelf.
Uh, and then chaos walking, which is something I found just randomly in the library. Like
those are some of my favorite book series and like they, um, it's great. Like all of
that, like I said, planted a seed that really didn't take root till much later in life.
Let's dive into this, uh, kind of part two of this episode is my love of growth. Like
I love, I love to grow. I used to say, I love to learn and I still do. I still say that,
but like, I love to learn, but why do I love to learn? Like I love to learn because I love
to grow. And the best way I found to do that is by reading books. You might disagree with
me. You might be like, Thomas, I'm not a reading person. I don't like to read books. I mean,
you can do audio books. I don't believe you get the same quality of retention and things
like that from just doing audio books, but you do get benefit from those. Uh, and I get
that from like just from re like a couple of little bits of research and things I've
done, but we're not going to dive into that. But one of the excerpts, uh, I have an excerpt
right now from Mark Cole. He's a John Maxwell CEO for his leadership company. And this is
from an article called all great leaders have one thing in common. He says personal development
is fundamental fundamentally linked to reading to improve, to improve oneself and those around
them. One should read more. The question should not be if one should read, but what one should
read. That's more of a paraphrase, just to be honest, but it's, but it is all of that's
true from that article. And I really liked that last sentence. The question should not
be if one should read, but what one should read, what are you like, it's what are you
intentionally seeking? I want wisdom. Are you intentionally searching for? And I like
one thing I can look back and like every time I want to learn something or focus, I was
willing to learn something or focus on a new topic. I would look for a book written by
an author that it was an is or was an expert on the subject. For instance, for time management,
I read redeeming your time by Jordan Rainer for leadership. I read anything by John Maxwell
for starting an online business, Russell Brunson all the way, understanding how to think or
on the, I'm sorry, understanding how people think. There we go. Aristotle and then learning
how to live well and learning how to think the Bible. And the reason I say all these
because these are the most, I'm not going to meet, I most likely will not meet any of
these people in my lifetime. I definitely have the opportunity, but I do not have the
same opportunity as other people to meet these people. And I have the same opportunity as
everybody else has, and it's to read the books that they put out there to help others and
to serve the communities that they serve. So like the reason I say, like, I love to
grow and that, and they say that personal development is linked to reading is because
I believe at least the more, whenever you're reading these books, you're planting seeds
in your own mind. And this is a little bit later in my notes, but I kind of flows in
well to it. I thought this was really cool. I don't know if you ever thought about it,
but there is, you know, whenever you plant, you're planting seeds, like actual seeds for
like a garden, there's a lot of plants, like even a lot of plants that where you have to
put more than one seed into the plot. In this, in my mind, I was thinking about how I was
preparing for this episode. I meet, I, I eventually thought like multiple seeds. Okay. Wait, acorns.
Okay. Hear, hear me out. Where's he going? Um, no acorns. Like you need multiple acorns
to grow the mighty oak. This is a little something I made up with the help of AI, but, um, I'm
just going to read this like little thing. Uh, think of each book you read, like a little,
like a little acorn that's got the, the guts of potential to grow into a big, strong oak
tree inside your head. The more books or acorns you plant in your brain, in your, in your
brain garden. This is funny. The better your chances of growing a whole forest of smarts.
Or I would say better your chances of growing a whole forest of wisdom. Just like with your
real, that's like with a real acorns, not every book is going to sprout into a tree
and that's okay. The important thing is to keep planting, read everything you can get
your hands on. Every book, whether it sprouts or not, it's going to help you grow that oak
tree of understanding inside your head. The one thing I want to pull out of that is it's
read anything you get your hands on with the one caveat is what it was saying. We're going
back to that excerpt from a Mark Cole is that it's not if you should read, it's what you
should read. So it's to be very intentional about reading. And like, I know I'm kind of
getting off of like why I loved, like this is me saying I love to grow and diving into
how books actually help you grow. I don't think that whenever you, whenever I read reading
your time, I only read it once by Jordan Rainer. I don't, I know I didn't retain everything
that he wrote, but there are things that stuck out that planted the seeds that took root
that I still instantiate today. I read that book like two years ago and there are things
I remember that things I do. The John Maxwell is going to keep reading his books because
I want to be the best leader I can be. Those are just a few examples. I know you listener,
the person who is listening right now, I know you have something that you wanted to like
to know more about and I know there's a book on it. I don't even need that. Like I don't
need to know what you're thinking right now. I don't need to know what subject you want
to know more about. I already know for a fact that there was a book out there about it because
multiple people have already been where you are and are where you want to be. And some
of them just so happened to write it down. Like, isn't that cool? I don't know if this
is a different episode, but it's definitely an episode that like I feel really passionate
about. I believe, no, I don't just believe I know that people, if people would dive into
books more than people would read more of these quality books or in by these quality
people who know what they're talking about and how do you vet those people? You do research
how you know that they know what they're talking about. You vet them, you do your research.
You don't just pick, pick the first book that comes off that you see on the shelf, but you
do, but you do try. You do read these books. Do you, I talked about in a previous episode
about habits, like you make a habit of reading. So it becomes so, so instilled in you that
it feels wrong not to do it to tie up this episode. I just want to do a quick listener
shout out from my episode, living with pain and accomplishing goals on, on Spotify, Zach,
Zach, Sarah left a comment. And I just want to start doing this as people leave comments
every episode, just read it when you guys are guys listening to comments, because I
really appreciate your support. He said amazing episode, brother. I have, I have trouble asking
for help. And I try to figure out things on my own, but sometimes you have to realize
that are that there are people that know more than you that know more than you and can make
it easier. And that is extremely true, Zach. So thank you for your comment and really appreciate
your support, man. Well, I appreciate you listening to this episode of the podcast.
If you liked this episode, give it a like, give us five stars on Instagram, on an Apple
podcast, give us whatever platform you're on, give us really love these actual listener
comments that you can leave on Spotify or Apple podcasts, or even technically on YouTube
if you want to. If you can do that, that'd be awesome. Love. I love getting feedback,
whether I love getting these any critiques and I love the texts that you guys send me
whenever you listen to an episode and you really like it that I really do appreciate
that. And actually we got, I got a text right before recording this episode. So yeah, I
really appreciate that stuff. But all right guys, I'll see you next time.