Be a voracious applier

The amount of wisdom readily accessible from the most brilliant minds in the history of the world is at an all-time high.

Being able to access profound knowledge is not the problem it once was, it’s the application of it.

Of all the books I’ve read, I’ve found maybe 70% of the ideas useful. Of the 70%, I’ve successfully applied maybe 5% of them into my life. That’s a massive missed opportunity.

In school we’re often advised to be ‘voracious readers’. I agree.

But at the same time, if the goal is to truly benefit from knowledge rather than simply become proficient at stowing it in our brains, we should also strive to be voracious appliers of the most compelling wisdom we consume.

If there’s a book with particularly compelling or foundational ideas, I don’t think it should be unusual to read and reread sections of it over the course of several months or even years.

Important ideas take time to marinate in the mind, and even more time to make its way into how we conduct ourselves. By deliberately keeping important ideas close by for a long time, we create optimal conditions for this to happen.

Be a voracious consumer of knowledge first, and then a voracious applier of it.