One of the benefits of reading is that it allows you to master the best of what other people have already figured out. Of course, this is only true if you can remember and apply the lessons and insights from what you read.

Reading is a way to discover new ideas. The question is, how do we do that well?

This essay outlines how to get the most out of your reading. Whether it’s a book, article, or academic paper — it doesn’t matter. The goal is to use our time efficiently.

In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time – none, zero.Charlie Munger

Levels of Reading

Reading the words is the easy part. We learned how to do this in elementary school. But reading the words is not enough if you want to retain and apply what you learned.

The first lesson of reading comprehension is that not everything needs to be read the same way. Tailoring how you read to what you read saves you time and increases retention.

Some books deserve a skim, while others deserve your undivided attention.

How much effort you put in relates to what you’re reading, why you’re reading it, and how interested you are.

We live in a society that demands specialization. Being the best means being an expert in something. Letters after your name and decades in the trenches of experience are required before you can claim to know anything. In one sense there is nothing wrong with this — specialized knowledge is required to solve problems and advance our global potential. But a byproduct of this niche focus is that it narrows the ways we think we can apply our knowledge without being called a fraud.

So we think physicists can’t teach us about love; mathematicians can’t instruct us on how to run a business; poets don’t know squat about “my life.” And bloggers can’t contribute to philosophy.

I don’t believe this is true.

Knowledge is hard to come by.

It takes work and commitment, and I think we owe it to ourselves to take it out of the box it comes in and experiment with it. We should blow past conformity and apply all the knowledge at our disposal to the problems and challenges we face every day.

Think about it. Over time you’ve picked up a lot of fundamentals about how the world works. You may have read a book about the Manhattan Project and the building of the nuclear bomb that was launched at Hiroshima. This story conveys the awesome power of self-sustaining nuclear reactions. Have you ever thought about applying those ideas to your life? You should.

Otherwise intelligent people can make terrible decisions. Think about decisions like these:

• Napoleon decided to invade Russia (and Hitler did it again 130 years later)
• An editor deciding to publish O.J Simpson’s If I Did It
• Chris Webber choosing the timeout he didn’t have in the 1993 Final Four
• NASA’s decision to ignore the O-ring issues on the Challenger
• President Kennedy’s famous blunder to continue the Bay of Pigs operation inherited from the previous administration (a mistake he quickly learned from)
• Margaret Thatcher deciding to get behind a “poll tax” that led to her ouster by her own party
• Juergen Schrempp, the CEO of Daimler-Benz, deciding to merge with Chrysler despite massive internal opposition and general history of big M&A deals working very poorly
• …and a hundred thousand more…

These were catastrophic decisions made by people who were, in some sense, professional decision-makers. They had impeccable credentials and judgment, and yet they made poor decisions due to poor judgment, a too-limited mental representations of the world, or just plain stupidity.

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“The frog in the well knows nothing of the mighty ocean.”— Japanese Proverb

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To learn how to make decisions, I found some mentors around my organization. I watched them, asked them annoying questions, and tried to learn as much as possible from them. I did an MBA. I read everything I could about making decisions. And thanks to the internet, I was no longer limited to the best teachers in my organization or university. The entire world was available. I could find the best teachers in the world, learn their tools and frameworks, and add them to my mental toolbox.

You’d be amazed at who replies when you tell them you work for an intelligence agency and you think they might be able to help you save lives.

You probably don’t know it but you already think in mental models.

A mental model is a compression of how something works. Mental models help us understand the world. For example, velocity is a mental model that teaches both speed and direction matter. Reciprocity is a mental model that shows why going positive and going first puts the world on your side. Relativity is a mental model that shows us we have blind spots and how a different perspective can reveal new information. The list goes on.

The models in your head shape how you think, approach problems, and identify the information that matters and ignore what doesn’t.

Few things will change your trajectory in life or business as much as learning to make high-quality decisions. Yet, no one teaches us how to make consistently effective decisions.

I remember standing in a windowless room at a three-letter intelligence agency. Information was flowing across the screens. Some information said zig, and some said zag. What to do wasn’t clear, and the wrong choice would end up on the front page of most newspapers and put troops in peril.

“Shane…. we need a decision.”

The problem? I was 24. No one had taught me how to make decisions, let alone choices like this. There was no one else around. I could feel my heart beating faster and faster.

I started working at an intelligence agency on August 28, 2001. Two weeks later, the world changed. If you were in the building, you did what you needed to do. No one complained. We all just wanted to do our part.

If no one would teach me how to make decisions, I’d have to teach myself.

There is no class called “practical decision-making.” Making better decisions isn’t one skill but a series of tools, behaviors, and frameworks (see decision by design).

What distinguishes consistently good decision-makers from poor ones is an ability to position yourself, understand the circumstances, and think.

Even a genius looks like an idiot when circumstances force them to make a poor decision. The converse is also true. An average person can look like a genius when they position themselves to take advantage of circumstances.

Aside from positioning, the key is learning to think through a problem using mental models. Mental models are important because they change our perspective and reduce our blind spots.