What types of books should business owners read? Fiction or Nonfiction?

His suggestion was: we need to read more fiction, to be able to activate our fantasy, activate our imagination and tickle our fantasy and imagination so it gets going. Because that’s what our brain was made for. That’s what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom; We can think and create, they can not as much as we do.

I walked out of that meeting started looking for a fiction book to read, because I also back in the day heard Jim Rome saying the same thing. He said, once in a while you gotta read fiction, to get your brain going, activate your imagination, and the rest of it.

I started searching because I had no idea what fiction I should read.

The last time I read fiction was probably 25 years ago. And that’s when I was probably eight or nine years old, and my teenage uncle who was about nine years older than me was reading all these love novels, from Danielle Steel. He was a teenager all in love. And he was reading all those novels. So I remember when he was not home, I would sneak into the room, pick up the book, I would start reading the book. And it was a real page-turner for me.

I was looking around, I noticed that Daniel still was number four, author in volume on the planet into in the entire history. So I was like, well, I had a good experience with that. So I went and bought a book called Fall From Grace from Daniel Steel. And sure enough, it was about business. So which was good, I liked it. It was business-like and it was a novel. And it was a page-turner, it was like, I think 300 pages and I read it in probably five days, which was my fastest reading speed ever. All the business books are not easy to read.

But a novel, if it’s well written, it’s a page-turner, you have a hard time putting the book down!

I noticed that I’m more comfortable when I’m reading a novel or fiction, and my imagination is activated.

Right away, I’m coming up with new business ideas, because my imagination was going.

Think about this, because the writer is describing what’s happening with the entire scene, the person, what they look like, what they’re wearing, how they’re feeling, the colours, the light, the textures, the taste, the smell, they’re describing every little thing, and you’re imagining this whole thing, right?

So it tickles your imagination, it tickles your fantasy.

ALTERNATING BETWEEN FICTION AND NON FICTION

Then, started alternating between fiction and nonfiction. That’s what I’m trying right now. I read one fiction, and then I’d read a non-fiction book. I’m going to try it out for the next six months, and if it works for me, I’ll just keep going that way.

Then, I read the book Origin by Dan Brown, which was good. Again, another thick book and I read it, I think, in 10 days. And right now I’m reading a book called Aragon, which is another good one. 

So, my suggestion is that you should start reading some fiction, don’t read too much how-to material.

I remember that I read a quote from Albert Einstein, and he says:

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.