The Fractal Reading Revolution [Part 1 of 4]

Reading differently changes everything.

My colleague loves to ask about the latest book I've "read." He does air quotes. Always smirks.

Because I told him how I actually read.

I never read cover to cover. Ever.

I start with the table of contents. Jump to what grabs me. Take notes. Find a podcast with the author. Then back to the next interesting section.

"That's not really reading," he said. "You're just cherry-picking."

For a second, I wondered if he was right.

But here's what I noticed.

When we talked about business books, I could connect ideas across authors. I remembered the practical stuff. I knew which frameworks actually worked.

Here's what I realized: We both learned. Just differently.

He absorbed everything.

I absorbed what I needed.

Both approaches work. But only one felt natural to me.

Most books have maybe 20% useful content.

The rest is filler.

Smart people figured this out.

They don't read books. They extract value.

Information doubles every year. While I read the "wrong" way, I keep building insights that stick with me.

Powerful.

I don't read everything.

I read what matters.

In Part 2: the three-step method that changed everything.