The Slight Edge—Reading 15 Minutes a Day
Can Change Your Life

Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence.  If you gain 15 minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year. -- Horace Mann, American Educator                                                          

            “Wheel of Fortune”, hosted by Pat Sajak, is one of the most watched TV shows in the world.  The game show is broadcast to 51 worldwide markets and reaches 100 million viewers each week.

            Sajak has been hosting Wheel of Fortune for almost 20 years now, so it’s safe to say he’s an expert on the game.  When an interviewer asked Sajak the key to winning big on the show, he made this observation:

            “I’ve never told anyone this.  People who have a lot of money and not many letters up on the board...  they don’t know the puzzle and there are a lot of blank spaces... they’re spinning that wheel and calling letters at random, instead of buying a vowel.  I’ve seen more people lose a game without buying a vowel.”

Reading Is Your Vowel

            I’ve watched the show enough to know exactly what Pat Sajak is talking about.  Sometimes there will just be a few letters up on the board and lots of blank spaces.  Then one of the contestants will buy a vowel and Vanna White goes to work—flip... flip... flip....  Pretty soon I can start to make out a word or two.  Before long the contestant has filled in so many letters that our family dog can solve the puzzle.  The key to solving the puzzle can be traced to the slight edge the contestant got by buying a vowel.

            I think the same thing happens in the game of life.  People look at their lives and see a big puzzle with lots of blank spaces.  So what do most people do?  They start spinning their wheel of fortune and calling letters at random.  “Try this... no, try this... let’s buy that....”

            Hello-o-o-o-o!  It’s time to quit calling letters at random, folks.  It’s time to get a slight edge in your life by buying a vowel... and one of the vowels in the game of life is reading.  In short, reading is your slight edge to help you solve the puzzles in your life.

            Now, when I talk about a “slight edge,” I’m not talking about a monumental edge, like winning the lottery or inheriting a zillion dollars.  I’m not talking a pie-in-the-sky edge.  When I say a “slight edge,” I’m talking about a small strategy that you can use again and again to give you a big advantage in the game of life.  Let me give you a couple statistics that prove my point:

 Statistic 1:  At any given time, one-third of Americans are living in poverty. 

 Statistic 2:  37% of Americans never read another book after high school.

            Now think about those two statistics for a moment.  America represents the greatest accumulation of wealth in the history of the world—and one out of three of us is living in poverty.  That’s a national disgrace!  And more than one-third of us refuse to take advantage of the most powerful technological breakthrough in history—reading.

            Let’s see—one-third in poverty and one-third who don’t read.  Coincidence?  I don’t think so!

            According to the National Center for Family Literacy, 40 million adults lack the reading skills to fill out a simple form.  And 50 million aren’t prepared for the high-tech jobs of the future.  That’s a total of 90 million adults in a population of 275 million people who cannot, or will not, use reading as a slight edge to improve their lives.  That’s almost one-third of the population who are “calling letters at random instead of buying a vowel” in the game of life.  Without reading, they’re setting themselves up to lose the game. 

            Reading may be a slight edge, folks, but it can yield such huge dividends!  It’s a shame millions of literate people lack the wisdom and the discipline to grow rich by reading 15 minutes or more a day.

Go Get the Information

            Harvey Mackay, author of the bestselling book Swim with the Sharks without Getting Eaten Alive! has this to say about the power of reading:

            "Our lives change in two ways: through the people we meet and the books we read."

If you aren’t meeting new people and reading new books, guess what—you’re not changing.  And if you’re not changing, you’re not growing.  It’s that simple.

            Look, I realize that not every person who is happy and financially free is a reader... and not every reader is happy and financially free.  That goes without saying.  What I’m talking about is giving yourself a slight edge so that you’re better today than you were yesterday.  I’m talking about giving yourself a chance to win the game of life by buying a vowel!  I’m talking about reading and growing rich in all areas of your life!

            Having books in your home and not reading them in the Information Age would be like having seeds in your hand and not planting them in the Agricultural Age.  In Denis Waitley’s words, “The future belongs to those who learn what they need to learn in order to do what they need to do.”  In an age when “knowledge workers” vastly outnumber blue collar workers, you better be prepared to get the knowledge... and get it NOW!

A Few Overlooked Benefits of Reading

            The other day I was talking to a publisher about the slight edge of reading, and I asked him point blank, “What is it about reading that sets it apart from any other way we get information?”

            He thought for a moment before delivering a simple, yet profound, answer that immediately clarifies why reading remains the most powerful means of acquiring information ever invented.

            “You can scan when you read,” he said softly. 

            “That’s it!” I thought. “That’s why reading will never be replaced by TV... or movies... or conversation... or anything else humans are likely to invent.  You can scan when you read!  What an amazing advantage when you’re looking for specific information in a limited period of time.  You scan!

            Ever try to scan an audio or video?  It’s a real pain.  Every time I fast forward, I always end up missing the part I’m looking for.  But it’s so easy to scan when you’re reading a book.  Computer screens are harder to scan than books because you have to scroll, but programmers are sensitive to the problem and are doing a better job laying out text.

Take Notes While You Read

            Another advantage of reading is that you can highlight key parts and write notes in the margins (try doing that on an audio tape!). Abraham Lincoln’s law partner, Billy Herndon, remarked that Lincoln was a great one to underline text and write notes in margins of books.  When Lincoln was especially intent on remembering parts of a book or document, he would underline entire pages and rewrite them in longhand.

            This method may have been time consuming, but few could quibble with the results.  As a lawyer in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln argued scores of cases before the Illinois Supreme Court, and judges and opposing attorneys were always amazed at his thorough knowledge of the case at hand, as well as how he would masterfully illustrate his points by using stories he’d read from the Bible or Greek mythology.

Research and Cost

            Can you remember the last time you researched a topic?  Maybe you needed information on a new car you were considering buying.  Or maybe you were planning a long-overdue vacation.  A few years back you probably went to your local library or bookstore for help.  That’s how I used to do a lot of my research, too.  Then, a couple years ago, someone showed me how to access the Internet.  WOW!  Suddenly I had the Information Age right at my fingertips! 

            Today I use the Internet as my primary research tool.  If I want to find out what a new Mercedes costs, for example, I’ll type in the word “Mercedes” in the search box of a web browser and... voila, within seconds I have tens of thousands of websites to choose from, everything from dealerships... to financing... to used parts... to auctions.  With the Internet, I don’t have to go to the library to do my research—the library comes to me! 

            Most amazing of all, this thing called the Internet is still in its infancy.  One expert predicts that by the year 2003 there will be more than 10 million websites on the Internet.  Information Age, I guess!

            Just 10 years ago the worldwide web was available only to a few key people in the military.  Private citizens couldn’t gain access to the web at any cost.  But today virtually anyone with a computer and a phone line can have instant access to the Internet for a few bucks a day—and the costs keep going down, down, down.

            There was a time in this country when people could be excused for being illiterate.  Or ignorant.  That day is long gone.  If someone truly wants to acquire information and knowledge, they can find it with just a little effort.  People who can’t afford the Internet at home still have access to thousands of public libraries across the country—and they’re free!