Question: How much time do you spend reading about what Richard Branson is doing vs. actually doing things?
I have a confession to make – several years ago, I used to read The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, The Economist, Entrepreneur, Inc, AdAge, and other business-related periodicals. I’d spend hours thumbing through stories of the wealthy and famous, studying photo after photo of older men in conservative ties and ladies in pantsuits, hoping to find some little tidbit of knowledge that would somehow make me more “successful.”
Looking back, it was a complete waste of time and energy – 99.9% of the useful things I’ve learned about how to live a productive and enjoyable life I learned via (1) reading great books, (2) conducting independent research and experiments, and (3) having lively discussions with interesting people.
I had been sucked in by power porn.
The Biological Roots of Power Porn
Power porn strongly appeals to the human drive to acquire immaterial “possessions” like status and influence and defend against potential competitors. These drives have extremely strong biological roots: a study conducted in 2005 showed that monkeys will “pay” for two types of images: (1) attractive female monkeys, and (2) more powerful, higher-status monkeys:
A new study found that male monkeys will give up their juice rewards in order to ogle pictures of female monkey’s bottoms. The way the experiment was set up, the act is akin to paying for the images, the researchers say. The rhesus macaque monkeys also splurged on photos of top-dog counterparts, the high-ranking primates. Maybe that’s like you or me buying People magazine. The research, which will be detailed in the March issue of Current Biology, gets more interesting. The scientists actually had to pay these guys, in the form of extra juice, to get them to look at images of lower-ranking monkeys.
Think of all of the business information sources you follow. How many of them actually teach you useful concepts or skills, and how many of them are simply thinly-veiled power porn?
Going Cold Turkey
Once I realized that “staying informed” about what was happening in the business world provided no real value, I decided to quit – cancelled my subscriptions, deleted my browser bookmarks, and never looked back. Once in a while, a useful, well-written article will make its way through my various filters, but other than that, I consume almost zero information from the “mainstream” business press.
As a result, here’s what I discovered:
- It’s amazing how quickly you make progress once you decide to stop comparing yourself to / trying to be like other people. They aren’t you.
- When you stop spending time and energy envying Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch, you have more time and energy to actually do something useful.
- It’s easier to be creative when you’re not constantly exposed to what everyone else is doing.
- You begin to understand that “success” is less about having a bazillion dollars and a private island in the Maldives than (1) figuring out what type of life you want to live, (2) making a plan to move toward that kind of life, and (3) making things happen.
Are you addicted to power porn? The first step in change is to admit you have a problem.
{ 12 comments }
So, I guess that I should delete this blog from my bookmarks and stop reading, right?
I subscribe to several magazines because I had expiring airline miles. And, I have learned things from different magazines. I just completed a great interview with a guy I found through Wired. I re-defined my business plan based on an Inc article.
I’m not comparing myself to other people. I think Donald Trump is a douche. He defines the old adage:
“What’s the best way to become a millionaire? Start with ten million dollars.”
I don’t see the difference between reading a great magazine article and reading a great book, except the article takes a lot less time.
I can see Josh’s point, but isn’t that the same with reading a book? You read a book in the hope that there is maybe one or two things you can use. But it is a fine dividing line indeed …
I am not going to criticize or give my opinion, like other monkeys.
I am going to try this out for next 2 weeks and see what happens.
Action plan -
Max 10 minutes on newspaper & mag.
Biz books – everything I can find about Peter Drucker & Jack Welch.
More social interactions and discussions about the subject.
AND
I wont stop reading this blog, because its the ’source’ for inspiration.
Brian – to clarify: I’m not saying that all magazines are worthless. It sounds like you’re using magazines exactly for what they’re good for – finding new ideas or interesting people, then doing something in the real world with that information. All I’m saying is that it pays to be mindful of the signal to noise ratio. I personally found that the periodicals didn’t add much real value, so I redirected my time and energy towards things that were.
Tom – in my experience, books tend to be better organized and researched than magazines, so you can delve more deeply into a subject. Information-focused magazines are great for getting exposure to new ideas. As Abby Marks-Beale and I discussed, you can go through books in roughly the same time as magazines if take the time to learn how.
Amity – excellent strategy; very wise approach.
Amity hit it on the head. There are competing interests at play here. One is that appropriate time management is a mainstay of executive effectiveness. The other is that “systems thinking” requires information outside your normal work/life to add perspective and insight. Nurture your perspective by focusing what you read to articles that discuss how things work and what the concerns of other companies are, because these folks may be your customers or suppliers or employers some day. I go through cycles of finding new sources and reading voraciously then trimming them down to get the “good parts”.
Mea culpa. I’m addicted to business porn myself.
For me it’s Fortune, Kiplinger, BusinessWeek and Bloomberg. I’ve thinking about quitting cold turkey ever since I started reading PMBA books. A chapter in the majority of PMBA books easily outweighs 3 months worth of reading all my business mags.
Magazines are good for keeping up with current news, not learning lifelong business concepts.
I was going to make a comment like Brian’s just to razz you Josh, but he beat me to it
Certainly the pmba is NOT business porn.
But the danger of wasting valuable time on news and magazines (and blogs) is very real. There are even a few business books that touch on it. A book that mentions (actually uses the term) “business porn” is A Good Hard Kick in the @$$: Basic Training for Entrepreneurs. It was making a similar point.
This article also reminds me of Tim Ferriss’s “elimination” section in 4 Hour Workweek. I just recently re-read it and resolved to limit the time I spend looking into every new idea (a bad habit of mine).
Just like you mentioned before about not watching tv (I’m also tv-free), news and magazines are time stealers.
We all have to make our own way (based on our passion), that requires output and not so much input.
(1) figuring out what type of life you want to live, (2) making a plan to move toward that kind of life
Having been a business information addict all of my adult life, I must admit that the best bit of all of this are summed up so well in the initial bullet points do it all for me, especially the first one:
It’s amazing how quickly you make progress once you decide to stop comparing yourself to / trying to be like other people. They aren’t you.
Mark
Great website. I just found it and have just added it to my blog subscription list.
The irony of this article is that I’m currently listening to Branson’s audio-book “Losing my Virginity” and contemplating (just today) whether spending a full hour each day in my typically 10-11 hour working day on self-development stuff, is worth it.
It is. I agree with you, Josh, that the real issue is filtering out the signal to noise ratio, to maximise that time. There’s looooots of noise out there, probably including this comment (for some people).
An example of keeping the noise down, is blog subscriptions. Now that I’ve subscribed to this one, I’ve got to axe another off my list – maximum of 5 subscriptions for me!
I touched on this issue in a recent blog about stupid bodylanguage tips – http://visionadvancement.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/stupid-body-language-tips-from-the-world%E2%80%99s-top-5-articles/
Hi all, I read this post on 20-May and decided to give it a try. Since then, I’ve read following books and virtually no newspaper/mag.
The Definitive Drucker
The Essential Drucker
Never eat alone
Think and grow rich
Science of Getting rich
Winning
What makes a leader
Trust me, life is much better without news, only problem is now I’ve got nothing to discuss at dinner table except business and self development principles.
I think its worth it because I’ve been getting – OMG this guys knows something (nonverbal looks) which feels great. Thanks J
Amity – way to go! Kudos to you for doing an experiment that yielded real-life results; learning about something and applying it are two different things, and the latter is far more valuable.
this article offers a very unique perspective
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