I have some news for you that may be hard to hear, so brace yourselves: You don’t know everything.

As much as I read, it would be fair to say I’m a man who wants to know everything—but I can’t. No one can. Knowing everything is impossible! Last I heard, only God could do it.

The things you’re looking for,
Montag, are in the world, but the only
way the average chap will see 99 percent
of them is in a book.

—Professor Faber in Fahrenheit 451

Now here’s the good news: while it’s true that none of us can know everything, we can all know more tomorrow than we do today.

The question is—do you want to know more? I know I do. If you do, too, then answer this somewhat rhetorical question: how can you and I learn if we don’t read? You won’t get smarter from video games, chat rooms, or from spending more time in the office.

Faber, Ray Bradbury’s fictitious professor, understood that knowledge is a treasure to be pursued, and that most of it is found in books. You need to get that picture, too. Video games come and go; movies, while there are many great ones, are often forgotten as soon as the Oscar ceremony has ended; TV shows last maybe an hour or two. And who can keep up with the iPod? Don’t get me wrong—I’m not knocking any of these forms of entertainment. But I am urging you to understand that books are deserving of at least as much time as these other pursuits—and, I’d argue, far more!

When we read, our imaginations are stimulated by the natural desire to see the characters or the setting being described. Ideas are born when we read—ideas for how to start businesses, motivate leaders, spark winning basketball teams—or even write more books. Television, movies, and other forms of electronic entertainment have their place, to be sure, but if you want a lively, productive imagination, there’s no substitute for what you can find between the covers of books. Our minds are capable of pictures that cameras can only want to see.

Language is the soul of intellect, and reading is the essential process by which that intellect is cultivated beyond the commonplace experiences of everyday life . . . Reading is a means of thinking with another person’s mind; it forces you to stretch your own.

—Charles Scribner, Jr., publisher

Art Linkletter told a story about someone visiting Disneyland during its fiftieth anniversary celebration in 2005. “Gee,” the visitor said to Art, “it’s a shame Walt can’t be here to see this.” Art responded, “He did see it. That’s why it’s here.” If a man who grew up without television, video games, palm pilots, cell phones, or HDTV could create something as amazing as Disneyland, well, where do you think those ideas came from? Walt was a reader, my friends, with a great imagination. Because he loved stories, he wanted to share that love. So he made pictures to help you and me see them as he did. Let reading stimulate your imagination as it did young Walt Disney’s.

Read to Change Your Life

As a child, Benjamin Carson spent his primary school years in the bottom of the academic pool. By the time he’d reached fifth grade, the nickname “Dummy” had become his permanent label. Then his mom took charge. Though she was a single parent who had been a teenager when Benjamin was born, she understood what needed to happen, and it didn’t involve teachers’ conferences. Ben’s mom restricted his leisure time and insisted that homework and books come first. She insisted that Ben and his brother read two books a week, and to make sure they were retaining what they read, she asked for book reports, too. Young Benjamin hated it, but in eighteen months, he’d gone from the bottom of the class to the top.

One day, his science teacher asked the class a question about a rock sitting on the teacher’s desk. Since he had just finished reading a book on geology, Benjamin knew the answer. No one else in class did. That was the moment Benjamin Carson understood what his mother was doing. Though unable to read herself, she knew her sons would not succeed in life without books. And today, Dr. Benjamin Carson is director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and the first person to successfully separate Siamese twins connected at the head.

People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.

—Malcolm X

In an interview for Investor’s Business Daily, Dr. Carson told writer Curt Schleier, “You actually have to work when you read, just as you have to work when you lift weights. You have to take letters and make them into words so you learn how to spell. You have to take words and make them into sentences so you learn grammar and syntax. And you have to take these sentences and translate them into concepts. You don’t have to do that when you’re watching television. The concepts are already developed for you, so you don’t become creative.”

People who read are people who achieve. What are your life goals? It doesn’t matter if you’re ten or one hundred and ten; it’s never too late to attain those goals. Books help you get there.

People who read are better communicators. Constant exposure to the written word can’t help but impact and shape how we perceive and use language. It’s well known that word power is a critical key to success. Do you want to increase your vocabulary? Books are full of words! What a great place to continue your education in language arts.

Mark Edmundson, author of Why Read? told C-SPAN interviewer Brian Lamb, “We all get socialized one time around by parents and teachers and schools and priests and ministers, and what have you. And for a lot of people, those values will do just fine. They’re community values. They’re long tested and long tried, and there’s something eminently respectable about them.

“But there are other people who, for whatever reason, just don’t fit right into the established values. They find themselves disgruntled, dissatisfied with what even the best-meaning teachers and parents said. Those people go a lot of directions, but one of the best directions they can go is to become obsessed readers. They read and read and read until they start to find people who see the world in a way that’s akin to theirs. And then they feel that they’re home. They’ve got a second set of parents and a second set of teachers, and they can start seeing the world for themselves, a little bit different from the way the community sees it, often.”

Books inspire change. Dramatic, powerful periods in our lives are often triggered by a book—or books—we’ve read. Can you think of a book that changed your life? It’s a question worth asking yourself. What books have made a difference for you? If your answer is “none,” may I suggest you find one?

When I was just seven years old, I was dynamically influenced by one of the first books I ever read. My dad gave me a copy of Pop Warner’s Book for Boys, and the course of my life was decided. Thanks in large part to that book, I have not only spent my entire professional life in the world of professional sports, but I’ve become a lifelong reader. In fact, I echo the words of the late poet Langston Hughes, who once wrote (The Big Sea: An Autobiography, Hill and Wang reissue, 1993), “Books began to happen to me.” In addition, the lessons Pop Warner offered young athletes became foundational for me and continue to influence me—my concepts and beliefs regarding teamwork, sportsmanship, winning, leadership, and more—to this very day.

It may seem unusual to you that a man who’s made his living in the world of sports would love books as much as I do. My friend Jerry B. Jenkins once called me a “Renaissance jock.” I suppose that’s a good description. It’s how my parents raised me. Whatever you do for a living, that living can be enhanced—as mine has—by books.

The stories that last are those that have proved their power to stir the imagination of all kinds of conditions of men.

—Walt Disney

Reading helps us understand life. It shouldn’t be about just finding people whose opinions agree with yours, but about exposing your mind to new ideas, more information, and different perspectives. Reading, when done effectively, takes who we are and makes us more.

Here’s another way in which reading changes our lives: research shows us that what we put into our minds puts us in charge of our lives. If we see negative images or read negative words, we become grouchy and ill at ease. Positive images—like those beautiful Rose Parade floats we see every January 1—bring sunshine into our hearts and minds, even if we live in subzero climates when we see them.

Oh, I know there are those who argue there is no relationship between what we put into our minds and what we do, but please, you and I both know there is a decided connection. What you read, what you see, what you listen to truly influences your thoughts.

Earl Nightingale was a leading authority on success and on what makes people successful. Nightingale spoke of what he called a “strange secret”: You become what you think about.

What we think about most definitely influences how we feel. While there is tremendous evidence today to support this idea, it is at least as old as the first century BC. The apostle Paul knew this and advised his Philippian readers, “Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse” (Philippians 4:8, The Message).

Books give us so many choices, so many words, and so many ideas upon which to anchor and build what we think about. Choose wisely, my friends.

What goes into the mind comes out in a life.

—Motto of the Christian Booksellers Association

Read to Grow

When we open the cover of a book, we can’t help but become a slightly different person by the time we’ve closed it. If we’re careful to select books that challenge us rather than those that merely agree with us or tell us what we already know, we will inevitably grow in mental, intellectual, and spiritual stature. Let books challenge your potential.

“Words are enormously important to me,” former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has said. “I love to read, and I love language ... the sheer pleasure of words in the right order. Choosing one word over another is an important act.”

Books help you grow in so many ways. I can think of at least four key ways in which reading contributes to your growth:

1. Reading shapes your values. As you read, especially books by and about people you admire, you’ll learn how they think and feel—what’s important to them. If your heart’s desire is to emulate that person, you’ll begin to adapt his or her values into your life. Chances are, they’re close to those you already believe in. Reading helps you refine them. The great words and noble ideas you find in books help you clarify and define your values. As Rick Warren has written, “The way you see your life shapes your life.”

2. Reading shapes your thinking. Great writers use powerful verbs and write in ways that can actually alter the way we think. What better example of that truth is there than in these words from the apostle Paul, who urged his readers, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2, NIV)? Reading actually transforms our minds.

Books are compasses and telescopes
and sextants and charts which other men
have prepared to help us navigate the
dangerous seas of human life.

—Jesse Lee Bennett, twentieth-century American writer

3. Reading helps determine your life course. Our world is filled with stories of lives changed by books. Are you wondering what your life purpose is? Bookstores and libraries hold many of the answers you’re seeking. Through books you might learn how to do some particular skill, or find inspiration to be like someone you admire.

Elsewhere in these pages I’ve mentioned a book my dad gave me when I was quite young—a book by the legendary Pop Warner. That book undoubtedly played a part in my later decision to invest my life in the world of professional sports. To be sure, growing up surrounded by baseball didn’t hurt, either. But books helped my head know what to do with what my heart felt inside. The advice and experiences of others informed my dreams. Books can do that for you, too.

4. Reading builds your character. Who you are is largely determined at birth and is a combination of factors inherited from your parents. This does not mean that the way we express our personalities will be carbon copies of those parents. My son Bobby and I, for example, share many of the same passions—we both love sports, we love reading, we believe in strong, exemplary leadership. But the way we manifest those beliefs is distinctly different.

Les Carpenter of the Washington Post wrote a great article about Bobby and me called “Father and Son Game” (July 7, 2005). In it, Carpenter pointed out that “Bobby Williams is as quiet as Pat is exuberant” and “Where Pat booms into a room like it’s the Improv, throwing out one-liners, interrogating every new person he meets, talking in lists . . . his second-oldest child seems content to sit on the periphery, to watch and assess.” Bobby and I share many qualities, but we are also our own distinct men.

The point is, you may have a veritable Williams household of characteristics inherited from your parents, and, yes, all those genetic qualities influence who you are. But with all that, you remain a uniquely created individual. You are you, and there will never be another one.

Books develop that uniqueness by exposing us to the ideas, experiences, and wisdom of those who’ve been down the paths we’re on. They’ve seen the end from the beginning, and they can point out the twists, turns, and potholes up ahead of us. Books challenge us to be all we can be—and more. They are the road signs, the traffic police, the signals that help us stay on course.

It is not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.

—S. I. Hayakawa, educator and politician

Other life influences and experiences, often not of our choosing, also impact who we become. Children, for instance, have little to no control over the home in which they are raised or who their parents are. For that reason, Mom and Dad, it’s critical that we model great character traits for our kids.

Beyond those genetic factors, however, each one of us has the capacity to influence our character through the choices we make. Books are a primary factor in shaping our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, and responses to situations. In other words, the characters we read about go a long way toward shaping our character. We’ll talk more about the “who” factor in another chapter, but for now, know that the “who” in you is a great reason why you should read.

Read to Build Your Mind

Books build brains. It’s true. Books are like weights and workout machines for our minds. What’s more, we’ve known that for years. Is it possible that reading could be the answer to preventing such age-related tragedies as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease?

Writing in U.S. News & World Report (December 5, 2005), Dr. Bernadine Healy reported, “Alzheimer’s is more apt to strike those who don’t continually prod their intellects to learn and expand. Yes, use it or lose it. Brains are dynamic beings—growing nerve cells, establishing complex networks and connections, breaking down unneeded old ones. Exercising the brain builds reserves of neural networks.” Dr. Healy advised, “The message to our children: study, study, study.”

Not long ago, I picked up a copy of the book Letters to Young Black Men by Daniel Whyte III (Torch Legacy, 2005) and was thrilled to find his list of the seven benefits of reading:

1. Through regular reading you can become an “educated person” without following a rigid course of study.

2. Regular reading forces you to increase your vocabulary.

3. Through regular reading you can become a more interesting person to talk with.

4. Through regular reading, you are able to go places, mentally, that you may not be in a position to go physically.

5. Regular reading will help you become a better writer, speller, and speaker.

6. Regular reading helps you to become a thinker.

7. Regular reading puts you head and shoulders above the crowd.

Healy and Whyte understand what needs to happen to make us productive people in every way. No matter what age you are today, you can and should invest in your mental health, just as you would your physical health. Books are the best source of mind aerobics known to date.

Writer Holbrook Jackson once observed, “We read to train the mind, to fill the mind, to rest the mind, to recreate the mind, or to escape the mind.” There are so many reasons to pick up a book, and every one of them involves your mind.

What I know for sure is that reading opens you up. It exposes you and gives you access to anything your mind can hold.

—Oprah Winfrey

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body,”said eighteenth-century Irish writer Sir Richard Steele. Some things never change, and this truth is one of them. As pumping iron is great for our biceps, triceps, and deltoids, so pumping books through our brains strengthens our mental muscles.

Recently, I heard Rick Warren point out that training for the mind is the first step out of poverty. That thought alone should be enough to spur most of us to make reading a daily habit. For years, the slogan of the United Negro College Fund has been, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Books are one of the best mind-and time-wasting preventives I know. Fitness experts tell us that muscle burns fat, so build your mental muscle and put that brain fat to good use!

Read to Live Longer

Don’t believe that reading can help you live longer? Many people believe that actively engaging your mind in books can extend your life. But in this case, what I’m talking about is living through the lives of others. Books can help you do that! I’m not getting metaphysical here. What I mean is that through books, we can meet new people and make contact with ideas and thoughts we wouldn’t come up with on our own.

Learning through books extends our life goals, even when we’re long past what the government calls “retirement age.” That year arrived for me recently, but I have no plans to retire. I feel like I’m just getting started! Noted Bible teacher Chuck Smith, Sr., is known for his stated desire to “wear out rather than rust out.” I agree! There is so much yet to learn from books. No single lifetime could hold it all.

“Reading sweeps the cobwebs away,” wrote author Chuck Swindoll. “It enhances thinking. It stretches and strains our mental muscles. It clobbers our brittle, narrow, intolerant opinions with new ideas and strong facts. It stimulates growing up instead of growing old.”

Read to Connect with Others

Communication is one of our first great needs in life. What is the first thing most babies do when they emerge from the dark womb in which they’ve spent their first nine months? They cry! And when they do that, they’re communicating a message. Not yet having words at their disposal, they use what they do have—their lungs. In addition to being a natural tool for getting those lungs working, a newborn baby’s cries tell those around him, “That light is too bright! And I’m hungry!”

Later, as that child grows and begins to use language skills, he discovers that words usually get him what he wants and are far more effective than whining noises.

Not long ago, I witnessed a familiar scene during a “discussion” between a young mother and her three-year-old daughter. The preschooler wanted something, but couldn’t seem to get out what it was. In her frustration, her face turned red and screwed itself into a massive wet twist, reminiscent of one of our Florida hurricanes. She thrashed her arms and stamped her feet. Like a day trader watching the numbers for just the right moment, her mommy patiently waited for her opportunity. Sensing it, she went in for the kill. “Angie, calm down,” she said, modeling her request. “I don’t know what you want unless you use words to tell me.” In time, Angie got the message. She may not have known all the words she needed yet, but she knew enough to get started.

One sure window into a person’s soul is his reading list.

—Mary B. W. Tabor, New York Times columnist

Language is empowering. Reading helps us learn more words. It helps us master our language. And with more words, our ability to communicate effectively with others only gets better.

Whether you lead a young family or a Fortune 500 corporation, you need to understand the power of communication in leadership. Leaders are people who see what needs to be changed and work to make it happen. They have a vision for how things can be better. Armed with that vision, a leader needs to know how to excite, inspire, and motivate everybody on the team into seeing his or her vision. If you can’t do that, you’ll lose every game you play, no matter how talented your players are. Books help you develop the message you need; they give you the words to communicate your vision. Read books in your field that help you learn better ways to get your job done, and then supercharge the doers with the new ideas those books inspire.

In my contact with people I find that, as a rule, it is only the little narrow people who live for themselves, who never read good books, who do not travel, who never open up their souls in a way to permit them to come into contact with other souls—with the great outside world.

—Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery

There’s another way that reading connects us with others, and it’s one of the best reasons for reading of which I can think. When we read, we discover a huge, comforting truth: we are not alone.

No matter what problem you have that you think no one on Earth has ever experienced before, you’re wrong. Someone else has not only been there and done that, but lived to tell about it in a book.

Author James Baldwin once wrote, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”

Do you struggle with loneliness? Most of us do at some time or another. Yes, you could soak yourself in your tears, even be guest of honor at a fabulous pity party. But wouldn’t you be better off to discover a way out of your misery? Wouldn’t you rather invest your life in another person, do something for someone else’s sake and not your own gratification? I’m convinced that books hold the answers to almost any problem—or excuse—we can imagine.

Read to Make Friends and Meet Influential People

Nineteenth-century writer Martin Tupper once wrote, “A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever.” Have you ever thought of a book as your friend? Most of us who love to read have held at least one or two books in high esteem. What’s really going on is we’re connecting with the mind of the writer.

What a writer writes is often different from what he or she might say in public—or even in private! There’s something about putting our thoughts in writing that makes it easier to be transparent. So when we read, we are actually linking minds with that writer—sort of like secret friends, or “kindred spirits.”

Let’s face it: we have limited time on this Earth. Sooner or later, all of us lament over people with whom we didn’t spend enough time, or those we never got to meet at all. Think of the millions who have gone on before us. Through books, those lost moments can be redeemed. Books enable us to touch the minds of people, both living and dead, we would otherwise never know. Through books, we who write achieve a level of immortality here on Earth.

A great book should leave you . . . slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it.

—William Styron, author

Through books we reap the benefits of someone else’s ideas and solutions. Things we may have puzzled about have already been through someone else’s mental processor. Fortunately for the rest of us, some of those great thinkers have recorded their ideas in books.

My friend and frequent writing partner Jim Denney says in his book Quit Your Day Job! “I’ve always loved the feel of a book in my hands. The weight of a book is the substance of an author’s thoughts pressing against your flesh.” And, I might add, it’s the spark of that author’s words and ideas fusing with your thoughts. What greater way is there to connect with all humankind?

The Why Factor: So What Can I Do About It?

Make up your mind that reading matters. Whether or not it mattered to you up until this moment, it matters now. And it matters tomorrow. For your own sake, and that of everyone whose life you impact, make these decisions:

1. Realize reading matters. Entrepreneur and department store founder J.C. Penney regretted neglecting books in his youth. Fortunately, he lived long enough to make up for that mistake. “I should like to say to the young men in particular that it is a splendid thing to make money, but it is a greater thing to make a good way of life. If they will devote some time each day to reading the best books they can find, they will derive a lasting benefit throughout their lives.”

2. Decide to work hard to discover great truth. “To read books casually will not suffice,” Penney continued. “One must study every sentence and make sure of its full message. Good writers do not intend that we should get their full meaning without effort. They expect us to dig just as one is compelled to dig for gold. Gold, you know, is not generally found in large openings, but in tiny veins. The ore must be subjected to a white heat in order to get the pure gold. So remember this when you read.”

3. Take hold of the power books have to change your life. Oprah Winfrey, TV’s daytime goddess of books, discovered this power during her extremely difficult childhood. “Books were my pass to personal freedom,” she has said. “I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.”

4. Read because you need to learn. As I said at the beginning of this chapter, you don’t know everything. Neither do I. But when we read, we learn things we didn’t know before we read them. We gain a new perspective. Benjamin Disraeli, the late great prime minister of England, wisely observed, “To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.”

5. Read because Mr. Rogers said so. Now don’t look at me like that—it’s true! In his biography titled I’m Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers (Gotham, 2006), author Tim Madigan recalls, “I once asked him what he did for fun. He said, ‘Read.’ He did most of his reading at night, and usually in the field of spirituality and the human condition.” Mr. Rogers taught generations of kids how to respect one another. Obviously, he remembered what he read.

Now that we all agree why reading matters, let’s look at how to fit it into our already crowded daily lives.