Readers are leaders and leaders are readers. Yes, you may have heard this before. Reading is to mind what exercise is to body.

Studies show that it is becoming harder for people to read & stay focused. Reading books doesn’t come naturally to a whole new generation growing up on mobile devices. But reading is one of the most fascinating things that can shape your knowledge, thoughts and personality.

Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Richard Branson and many other top leaders read vociferously and adore books. Despite their hectic schedules, these leaders find time to read. Many of these leaders also share their list of recommended books to their followers.

Here we look at the top reasons why you should read more books:

1. Improves your ability to Focus:

Reading a book improves your ability to focus and concentrate. The uninterrupted time you devote to a book helps you improve your focus, concentration & your ability to process information.

In the digital world, people are often doing too many things at any given time. It makes them distracted, stressed and lowers their productivity too, but reading a book requires single pointed attention.

People who have a habit of reading books develop good concentration and focus.

2. Expands your Mind & Imagination:

Reading opens your mind to a whole new world of information and imagination. You can learn from the top people in any field by reading their books.

How did Warren Buffett learn about investing? Well, the answer isn’t surprising. He invests 80% of his time reading and learning.  He says, “I just sit in my office and read all day. That’s how knowledge builds up, like compound interest.”

Reading expands your horizon and worldview. You can get more ideas and be more creative with reading. When you read books, you can get insights into the mind of top people and learn more about them.

3. Good for Your Brain:

Reading is good for your brain. Researchers at Stanford University confirmed that reading a book provides a truly valuable exercise of people’s brains. Reading increases blood flow to regions of the brain & activates them.

The Standford Researched Natalie Phillips said, “Surprising preliminary results reveal a dramatic and unexpected increase in blood flow to regions of the brain beyond those responsible for ‘executive function,’ areas which would normally be associated with paying close attention to a task, such as reading.”

4. Develops Skills & learning:

A lot of successful people attribute their learning to reading. They develop skills, learn and constantly update themselves with new information through reading.

“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.” 

Dr. Peter Drucker

The knowledge that you build overtime gets outdated with new information growing all the time. So, most of the top professionals devote time to read and learn. Reading helps them to keep pace with the current changes and improve their skills.

Knowledge becomes outdated every passing second. The more you sit back on what you did in the past, the further you recede in your career.

5. Reading Helps you Discover Yourself:

Reading helps you discover the various facets of your life. Reading enables you to accumulate different experiences about people, characters, locations, culture and various other fields.

Reading enriches your vocabulary, knowledge and conversation skills.

Simply put, books have the power to shape the personality of a man. The books help a man’s quest for learning, satisfy intellectual curiosity and unleash different aspects of his life.

Reading also helps a person to improve their cognitive abilities and understanding.

6. Broader Understanding of the World & People:

Reading books can help you develop broader understanding of the world and people. When you read books, you open yourself to different cultures, traditions and lives of people.

Reading autobiographies and biographies of successful people will inspire you to do well in your live. You get to learn from the experience of the people who have achieved great feats in life.

Reading fiction gives you great insight into the minds, behaviours & characters of people. Reading lets you learn about people’s day to day lives, what they think and do like nothing else can.

Your understanding and perception of things will broaden when you read. There are several studies and researches that point out that reading makes people more open minded too.

7. Makes you More Persistent:

Reading a book is like a marathon, you need to go on and on to complete it. It makes you persistent. When you pick up a book, you are glued to it and do your best to complete it at the earliest.

This habit of reading many books subconsciously makes you persistent. You finish what you start. You try your best to complete the undertakings and accomplish more as a result of it.

The top executives around the world and the leaders who make it to the top attribute a lot of their success to reading. Invariably, people at the top are readers. And many of them, pick up this habit of finishing things they start by reading a lot of books.

Conclusion

So, what are you waiting for? Make a list of your next 5 books to read and start reading until you finish them!