5 Ways To Prepare Yourself For Leadership

1) Become an Avid Reader

“Good leaders are good readers”   ---Jim Rohn

Abraham Lincoln once said that if he were given eight hours to chop down a tree, he would spend six hours sharpening his ax and two hours chopping down the tree. That is one of the true characteristics of a leader.

We all should take time to sharpen our axes—to read. It is said that the average American reads one book a year. What that means to you and I is if we read one book a month in our field, we will be twelve years ahead of the average person.

The more we learn, the more we earn; the more we know, the more we grow. Think about it, when we buy a book for twenty dollars, we are paying for hundreds of years of knowledge. The price is nothing compare to what we get from reading the book.

For example, Tom Peters spent about forty years of his life studying what makes businesses survive and thrive even in hard times. He had to study the past masters plus his own experiences. He then wrote a book and put the best of his knowledge in it. You and I can cut our learning curves tremendously by just reading his book.

The late Earl Nightingale said if we read for two hours every day on any subject, in five years, we would become a national expert. And in ten years, we would have the equivalent of a Ph.D. To me, reading quality books is the ultimate joy. It rekindles my hope, and takes me to new heights. It rejuvenates and gives me a boost. In case you wonder, I wasn’t always a reader. I made this a habit after I arrived in America. 

Today we can buy most books on tape. We can no longer make excuses about not having time to read. We can turn our cars into a university on wheels while commuting to and from work. I got a brilliant piece of advice from a man once. He told me to buy a cheap paperback book. Then tear out three to four pages and keep them in my wallet at all time. When I have to wait in line in the bank or anywhere else, I read those pages. Turn waiting time into learning time is brilliant!