Read and Grow Rich

Copyright © 1999 by Burke Hedges and Steve Price All rights reserved under International and Pan American copyright conventions. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, either in print or electronically, except for brief quotations in book reviews or news articles. Printed in the United States of America eBook Edition, April 2004 Published by INTI Publishing Tampa, FL Distributed by www.AsAManThinketh.net Read Your Way to Riches Famous People Who Have Read Their Way to Riches! Some good book is usually responsible for the success of every really great man. —Roy L. Smith • Lou Holtz, one of the winningest coaches in college football history, credits The Magic of Thinking Big as a turning point in his professional career. • W. Clement Stone, multi-millionaire businessman and best-selling author, says that Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich “changed the course of my life.” Hill’s book inspired Stone to begin a lifelong habit of helping others by giving them personal growth books, a habit he followed religiously for 50 years. • Donna Reed, Academy Award winner and early TV star, was a shy, insecure high school freshman when she read How to Win Friends and Influence People. Upon completing the book, she landed a lead role in the school play, setting the stage for a 40 year career in movies and TV. • J.W. Marriott, president of Marriott Hotels, was so moved by the message of The Greatest Salesman in the World that he gives a copy to each of his marketing executives. • Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s Restaurants, was a high school dropout with a low self concept when he happened to read The Power of Positive Thinking. Today he heads up a fast-food empire with thousands of restaurants all over the world. • Phyllis Diller, the famous comedienne, was a frustrated, insecure housewife when she read The Magic of Believing. The book gave her the confidence to try her hand at show business, and she went on to become one of the best-known comics in the country. • Archie Moore, the former light-heavyweight boxing champion who knocked out a record 141 opponents in 228 bouts, wasn’t much of a reader until he was cast as the slave Jim in the movie version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Moore read the book to prepare him for the part and from then on became an avid reader, saying, “Now that I’ve found books, I’m really living.” 3 Read Your Way to Riches Contents Introduction: The Right Book at the Right Time Can Change Your Life! 1 Seven Years Later... 2 The Power of Books to Transform Lives 3 The Slight Edge—Reading 15 Minutes a Day Can Change Your Life 4 How to Read a Book 5 The Readers and the Read-Nots vs. The Haves and the Have-Nots 6 Everyone—Including YOU— Can Read Your Way to Riches! 7 10 Writings That Rocked the World! 8 Reading & Writing: The Greatest Technology Ever Invented 9 Inside the Mind of a Reader 10 You Are What You Read (So be careful what you read) 11 The Reading Explosion 12 Personal Growth Books Hall of Fame: a Brief Summary of the Most Influential Personal Growth Books Ever Written Conclusion: Reading or Regrets—the Choice Is Yours! 4 Read Your Way to Riches INTRODUCTION The Right Book at the Right Time Can Change Your Life! A good book contains more real wealth than a good bank. —Roy L. Smith I’m living proof that the right book at the right time can dramatically change your life. Less than 12 years ago I was earning $5.50 an hour... sharing a tiny, one-bedroom apartment with my pregnant wife and our one-year-old son... driving a rusted-out 1976 red Datsun patched all over with gray fiberglass... feeling sorry for myself... disgusted with my job and my life... and not knowing what to do about it. One day my sister-in-law—fed up with my complaining and sensing potential in me that even I didn’t recognize—handed me a copy of Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in the World. It was the turning point of my life. Mandino’s book inspired me to quit my dead- end job and to seek a position selling cellular phones. Within a year of my first sale, I had opened my own cellular phone business, and, I’m proud to say, I’ve been a successful entrepreneur ever since. I still shake my head in amazement when I think how my life has been enriched in so many ways by a paperback book costing less than $10! Read Your Way to Riches The title of the book you hold in your hands is a tribute to Napoleon Hill’s perennial bestseller, Think and Grow Rich, a wonderfully insightful book that has enriched my life—and the lives of millions of others—beyond all measure. Hill’s book, Think and Grow Rich, explains how average people can grow rich financially by following the wealth-building principles learned from America’s greatest industrialists, such as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford. This book, Read Your Way to Riches, explains how the hidden powers of reading can empower you to grow rich in the largest sense of the word. Rich in money, yes. But also rich in love. Rich in happiness. Rich in family. Rich in health. Rich in fulfillment. Rich in your relationship with God. In other words, rich in all phases of your life. Reading, more than any other activity, has the power to unlock our potential and, in the process, unleash the “better angels of our nature,” to use a favorite phrase of Abraham Lincoln, an avid reader who dramatically transformed himself from a poor, backwoods boy to perhaps our greatest president through the power of the written word. 5 Read Your Way to Riches The Awesome Power of Reading I’ve thought a lot about the impact The Greatest Salesman in the World and other great books have had on my life, trying to figure how black letters printed on a white piece of paper had the power to change the direction of my life. I’ve always known that something magical happened when I read, but for the longest time I couldn’t put it into words. I just know that when I read good books, I experience something transforming... uplifting... and life-altering. Then one day I came across an article by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel J. Boorstin that summed up the value of reading in one simple, yet profound, sentence: By reading we discover our world, our history, and ourselves. That quote pretty much explains the awesome power of reading. More than any other mental activity, reading changes and improves us by forcing us to think... to imagine... to examine... to grow... and in the process, “to discover our world, our history, and ourselves.” When we read inspiring, thought-provoking books, we grow richer in all phases of our lives. In short, reading has the power to transform us from what WE ARE right now to what WE COULD BE in the future. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, “A truly great book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint... What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.” What You Will Learn in This Book Reading influences us in ways we can’t even comprehend. Research proves that reading changes the way humans solve problems, store information, tell stories, interpret the world, and think about ourselves. Reading even changes the shape of our brains! When we stop to really think about the impact that reading has on our lives, we’re left standing in awe. In the coming pages I’m going to help you better understand the powerful influence that reading plays in our culture and in our personal lives. You’ll learn why the invention of reading and writing is still the greatest technological breakthrough in the history of the world. You’ll learn what happens inside our minds when we read. You’ll learn why literate cultures out-produce oral cultures. You’ll learn why reading is different—and in many ways superior—to listening to the radio or watching TV. You’ll learn how to read a book so that you get the most out of it. You’ll learn why “e-books” will soon become as common as e-mail. And you’ll learn why everyone—including YOU—can read your way to riches. Get Reading and Get Growing Whether you are an avid reader or whether this is the first book you have read since high school, the fact remains that this book—or perhaps the next book you pick up—can empower you to grow rich in a multitude of ways. Reading your way to riches starts with one simple, powerful act. You must pick up a book... open it... and start reading... so that you can start growing in ways you never imagined before. 6 Read Your Way to Riches 1 Seven Years Later... Many times the reading of a book has made the future of a man. —Ralph Waldo Emerson It’s a magnificent, clear, sunny day in late March, 1993, and my wife, Debbie, and I are standing on top of the mountain in Aspen, Colorado. We can see for miles and miles in all directions.

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