From aimless reading to informed doing

Sometimes I get the question from entrepreneurs: “What should I read?”. I end up giving them suggestions of books and articles that are fresh in my mind. My suggestions are becoming less of “how to readings” and more in the area of “thoughtful reads”.

It would be foreign for me to in any way suggest that you should stop reading

I am convinced that there is a lot to be gained by reading, listening, and learning from how other people have “done it”, how they have overcome challenges. It also gives energy knowing that others have faced similar situations.

So, it would be foreign for me to in any way suggest that you should stop reading. However, I want you to avoid doing it “aimlessly”, and here’s why. Firstly, there is simply an abundance of texts and even if you get down to only relevant content, you could go on reading until your eyes are bleeding.

Secondly, I suggest that you don’t have the time to extensively get input from others. I would even say that reading sometimes could be seen as an “avoidance mechanism”, meaning that instead of you facing whatever brutal facts you need to face, you consume content and, thereby, avoid your own challenges. Lastly, you start spending time searching for “external confirmation” instead of trusting your already gained knowledge, experience, and your gut.

...as much as I like an audience for my blog posts, the ultimate ambition with me crafting them is to convert you, my readers, to doers

Everyone who writes something and shares it on any platform has a desire to attract readers. In all honesty, I check on how many have read my posts and feel some sort of self-satisfaction when the counter is ticking. So, thank you so much for reading! But as much as I like an audience for my blog posts, the ultimate ambition with me crafting them is to convert you, my readers, to doers. I want you to adopt, adapt, contradict, and reflect on what I am writing and turn it into something useful for you in growing, disrupting, pivoting your business. So, for me, 2 comments and 3 emails with questions, comments, examples, or flat-out harsh critique trump 30 “views”.

Medium, a platform for writers and their audiences to “meet-and-greet” has concluded that the best possible reading time for a blog post is 7 minutes. (The Optimal Post is 7 Minutes.)

So, let´s say that you “give” me 7 minutes of your day, I actually do not want you to spend them all on reading what I have written. I want the 7 minutes to also include you to take action on what I have shared. I have a (soft) rule when I write a blog post that says that reading one of my posts shouldn´t take much more than 3 minutes. That gives you 4 minutes either to go and do something else because my blog didn’t spark any interest or time to think about what was suggested in the post and to decide if you can put it to good use.

With this in mind, I have decided, together with my team-mate Kerstin, that we are to make it easier for you to “take action” by ending every post hereafter with some bullets and/or some questions for you to start “doing”.

I want entrepreneurs to be able to grow amazing businesses

I want entrepreneurs to be able to grow amazing businesses. My small contribution to that is – among other activities – my blogposts. But you don’t take your business to success by reading, you do that by daring to do. If I can contribute to you daring to do, then I will keep going with my approximately 3-minutes blog posts and you keep on assigning 4 minutes to test if my writing could contribute to your next step. A wonderful co-creation!

So again, thank you so much for giving me 7 minutes of your day that I know is already jammed packed! I promise to treat your minutes with respect.