The are many good pieces of advice that adults give to children without necessarily heeding it themselves. It seems only yesterday that we were exhorting our own kids to ‘use your words’ while they were using their lungs to the fullest capacity to make their feelings felt in an exclusively non-verbal manner! In this season of ‘slowing down’ I have re-discovered the importance of words, and of using them well. And I have been surprised by just how much I had forgotten how, or ‘not had time,’ to use them well, in the midst of living at break-neck speed.
In my own experience, reading has been a thing you do when necessary, rather than for pleasure. “Turn off the TV and go and read a book” are words still etched in my sub-conscious from childhood, followed by arduous memories of labouring through the works of Shakespeare or Steinbeck in high-school English classes, taking turns to read line by line out loud. And not forgetting the lists of ‘required reading’ for university courses, where the correct approach seemed to be locate a couple of quotes from those texts to insert into an essay - with proper footnoting of course.
Detaching the word ‘required’ from the word ‘reading’ didn’t really happen in my world until well into adult life. Marrying a lovely lady who ‘read for fun’ was a big part of the equation I suspect. But over the years, there have certainly been times, normally during holidays, where I have enjoyed reading a book so much I would actually feel satisfaction and even a little sadness upon reaching the end.
Of course, in normal life many of us adults are far too busy to waste time sitting around reading books. There is far too much to do…. And then there was lockdown. Isolation. A forced slowing down.
As a friend of mine said exasperatedly, “there’s no more fun in the world.” However, it turns out there was plenty. Looking back over the last few months, I have not only used the space and time to read more, but have thoroughly enjoyed the books I’ve read, and I’ve grown through the process.
Whether it was the memoirs of a lady who lives on a canal, or a young man exploring remote huts in wilderness areas, or research and compelling stories and examples of the Power of Habit, or leadership lessons from the life of Ernest Shackleton, or an account of lots of things we now know about trees, or re-reading all of the Chronicles of Narnia, I feel richer, and deeper, and more alive as a result of seeing the world through other people’s eyes. And even though it takes longer to read a book than watch a movie, I find the effect these books have stays with me far longer than the effect of watching a movie - even a really good one.
The Power of Reading
It is challenging, and somewhat humbling, to be learning the value and power of reading at age 41, having been forced to slow down by forces way outside of my control. And yet, as we glimpse some degree of a ‘return to normal’ on the horizon, it is very much in my control to determine whether making time to use my words, to read well and to grow as a human and as a leader, will continue to be a part of the new normal that lies ahead.
A friend described Shackleton’s cabin… “On one side a writing table, with the wall behind covered with photos of friends, and on the other wall a bookcase with the signs of a well-read owner, for in it I saw Shakespeare, Longfellow, Darwin, and Dickens, as well as books on navigation.” Shackleton crisscrossed the globe in his service to the merchant marine, visiting Europe, South America, the Far East, the Middle East, China, Africa, and the United States. But nothing opened his mind to the vastness, richness, and complexity of the world the way his books did. They took him beyond the scope of his personal experience. […]
Shackleton’s reading on many topics made it easy for him to connect to many people through their interests. Years later, when stranded on the ice, he would prod his men into debates about things like the different types of love, the differences between the Orthodox and Catholic churches, the treatment of blacks in America. “I envied him no end in the way he was always apt in any quotation he made, filling an occasion or anything that happened,” one of his men, Lionel Greenstreet, said about him.
Morrell, Margot, and Capparell, Stephanie; Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing 2001, p47-48
What have you read lately, which has caused you to grow, or changed the way you lead?
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