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Today I'm going to share with you my number one tip for remembering the most important parts of any book that you read. This should change your engagement with books, your experience with knowledge. Let's get into it. Welcome to this week's episode of the Read well podcast. My name is Eddie Hood and I'm your host where I believe it's more important to read well than to be well read. So grab your favorite book, open up your notes and let's get ready to learn something fascinating. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Readable Podcast. My name is Eddie Hood. I get asked all the time how I remember what I read. Now I want to point out first and foremost that I don't remember everything that I read. I absolutely do not have a photographic memory of any kind. I don't have perfect recall, but I can remember things from books, specific quotes that have meant something important to me, major lessons. And the thing is, is if you go grab any book off the shelf that you've read and you ask yourself what that book was about, you're probably going to look at the COVID of that book, try to form a mental image of the main argument and you'll be able to, at least in one sentence, say the idea of that book. But to actually pull major lessons out of that book, major themes, but you know, five, six, seven ideas from that book, you would probably really struggle with that. That's because you haven't applied what I'm going to teach you in this lesson. So today I'm going to show you what I do specifically to get the most out of books. Alright? So I have been developing my reading system over the past several years and has grown and become something that has been, you know, is quite useful to me as a reader. Now I want to point out first of all that the way this episode is going to be structured, I need to point out that there are some things you need to do in place, or at least I do in place with a book before I get to that secret trick that helps me remember what I read. So I'm going to first of all break down how I read a book. Then I'll break down how I approach the note taking system. And then finally at the end of this video, I'll show you what I do to remember the most important parts. So the first thing I do when I grab a book is I just read it. I read it like I it's a new friend and I've never met it before. So I just grabbed a book off my desk. This is Ernest Becker's the Denial of Death. This is a very tricky book, by the way. It's very thick in concept. It is a very difficult book to read. But whether it's a book like this that is going to require my full attention, or perhaps it's something more enjoyable like this week's book recommendation. A Medicine for Melancholy by Ray Bradbury. It's a collection of short stories which we'll get into later. I'm going to share with you my favorite one in there. So this is more for entertainment, a much easier read than Ernest Becker's the Denial of Death. Regardless of the kind of book it is, I just read it as though it's my first experience with it because it is. If you think about a new friend when you go out to meet with them or you want to build a relationship with somebody, you don't get into the deep, dark secrets of their lives on that first luncheon, right? You, you get to know sort of their background and who they are and where they come from. It is the same with the book. Now you don't know enough about this book yet to pull the major concepts out, nor do you know how to apply those. Ide. So for me, I don't put that much pressure on myself. I just read the darn thing. And if at the end of that first reading, I think, wow, there was a ton of really good stuff in there, things that I want to remember, I'm going to read it a second time. So that's the first tip to remembering the most important parts of a book. It is this. If the book is a book worth putting the effort into, we should probably read it a second time. So, okay, when I read it the second time, this is what I do. I go through with my highlighters and I will just read. And as I come across passages that I remember from my first reading reading, and I think, oh, here comes that really good bit. I'll highlight it. Now in this video, I'm not going to get into the specific highlighting methods because that's not the point. There are a thousand ways to take notes in books. You can, you can write in journals, you can write in the books. The goal here though is for you to notate the passages that get your sort of neurons firing, the bits that make you think, ooh, that's good stuff. Now I will post a link right here into my, my note taking system for videos or for, you know, for books themselves if that is something you want to dive into. But I'm not going to get my note taking system here because I think that can divergent idea, right? There are a thousand ways to do it. You need to do what works best for you. And today we're talking about how to remember valuable lessons. So as you go, I want you to flag the bits that are really kind of get you excited. You know, the things that you think, oh, that's fantastic, I think I can use that in my work. That is interesting, that's fascinating. You're going to read through the book a second time, flagging the best passages and you'll know that the best passages because you've already been here, you've already gone to lunch with this person. If we stick with our metaphor, you already know kind of who they are and their background. So now you can dig into some of the meatier ideas and as they come up, you flag them. Now, once you've read the book a second time, you're going to let it rest on your desk for a couple days to a week or so. And it just needs to sit there. We want it to cool off a little bit. And the reason why is because when I read at least I highlight everything. It all looks good to me. I get way too excited with my highlighter and I end up like, I don't know, I over highlight. A lot of people have this issue. I am one of those people. If you let the book sit on your desk for a week or so and cool off, what you're going to do on the third pass. 1, 2, 3. The third pass is you're going to go back and only read the passages that you highlighted or marked. And you're going to ask yourself this question, does this passage matter? And am I willing to put the work in to apply this to my life and do something with it? You'll find that by asking that question, most of the passages won't matter because they require you to do further work. You're really going to have to weigh like how long important this thing is. When you come across an idea that is so good, so valuable, something you do not want to let go, that you want to keep in your heart, in your life and share with other people, you're going to make a note of that and you're going to make that note in whatever system you keep your best ideas. It could be a notebook, it could be a digital note taking system like Obsidian or something else. It could be your Apple Notes app, it doesn't matter. But you're going to grab that idea and you're going to write about it in your note Taking system. Now, notice I said you're not going to transcribe it. Don't write it down word for word in your notebook or don't type it out in Obsidian. It's already typed out in the book. You don't need it word for word. It's right here on page 48 of the book. What we want to do instead in our note taking system is Write out page 48 so you can remember where this thing exists. Write out the title of the book and then write your response to it. Sort of your feeling and your experience with it. Now this is still not how I remember things. We're not to the good bit yet, so stick around. But this part is crucial because once you go through the work of writing down your response to the best ideas, what you're doing is forcing yourself to ask why that idea is important, why it matters, and what you're going to do with it. Okay? So once you've done that, maybe you've gone from a hundred highlights in notebook down to maybe 10 that you really find valuable, that you've done the work on. Here is how I remember the best parts of every book. Are you ready? This is what I do in my reading community. I have a mantra. It is to read slowly, take notes and apply the ideas. That's the secret. You have to apply the ideas. So you know, case in point, when I got my degree in accounting, for example, I thought I knew accounting back to front. I was feeling pretty good about myself because I'd spent five years at university level reading about business and studying debits and credits and all of this stuff that get accountants going. When I graduated, I got a job in accounting and they gave me real live accounting work. And it immediately became apparent that I had no idea what I was doing. I was so freaked out. I was terrified because I had this existential crisis that I actually didn't know anything about accounting. And that's because I had spent my entire college career in the books and not in the real world. Now that's not to say that books aren't important. Of course they are. I absolutely love books. But they are not the thing that make you better. They are not the thing that teaches you action, teaches you taking action, taking steps, going out and doing the thing. That is how you learn. Okay? So I had to actually go out and be an accountant and apply the principles that I had studied. So for me, it is the same in books. I learn by doing. And so as an example, if I'm reading the Denial of Death And I have narrowed down 10 passages that I think are life changing. My next step, and the most important step, is to identify a specific action from each of those notes that I can apply apply to my life. So let's do this right now. I'll show you how this works. So the Denial of Death, of course, is a book that analyzes why we do what we do. And the argument here is that we are motivated through anxiety by our own death. And so we get up to all these crazy projects as humans, we. We build pyramids. If we're like the pharaohs to try and make sure that our lives mattered. We put our energy into our children, and our children are a reflection of who we are and so on. We have all of these crazy projects. So one of my notes in the Denial of Death was about the HERO Project. That's what Becker calls it, the Hero Project. I listed out what my HERO projects are in my own life, and I have several around the concept of building this community, about raising my kids, about my physical health. All of these things are my projects. And then I had to define why I thought those added value or meaning to my life. And whether they did or not, it was a very humbling experience. But now, because I went through that work, I remember the concept of the HERO Project from the Denial of Death. Let's do another one. So we're currently reading a book, An Immense World, by Ed Young in my book club. This is a book about animals and how they perceive the world very differently from how I perceive the world. And there's a note in here that I will remember for the rest of my life because I applied it. It's the note about how dogs experience the world and how their sensory input through their nose is how they gain knowledge, how they gain joy and pleasure. And there's just a great chapter on the sense of smell for animals. And he challenges us as readers not to walk our dogs so that we get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. It's not about exercise. It's about giving them the olfactory experience with their nose to go on a smelling walk. So he would say that when you go and take your dogs outside, your job is to let them smell everything. It doesn't matter if they stop and spend 20 minutes on a bush. Your job is to let them do that, let them be a dog. And that will always stick with me because I've done that with my dogs now. Now I went out and applied that idea. And I will always remember that concept when I see this book, An Immense World by Ed Young. There are several other concepts in here called the umvelt and several other cool ideas, but you'll have to read that if you want to learn all about it. Let's do one more. Just as an example, here, I'm currently teaching a class on the art of deep reading, and we're reading the Death of Ivan Ilyich together. Now, in this. This is the story of a man on his deathbed who has lived his entire life in a lie, a lie to him, to his family. And he thought he was doing the right thing. He thought he was living a pleasant life. He was moving up the career ladder. He was doing everything he should. Therefore, he should have had a happy, meaningful life. So why is it that when he's on his deathbed, he's miserable, he's moaning in pain, not only physical pain, but emotional pain? Well, at the end of this book, I don't want to give too much away, because, again, you should go read it. But he has a turning moment where he finally finds joy because he realizes that he has lived this lie, that he has been lying to himself. And the moment he admits that, the moment he says, my goodness, I've been lying, he finally finds joy and meaning in his life. And it is a story about telling the truth to yourself, about hearing the inner voice. And so I sat down and did a journal prompt about this, and I wrote out the question at the top of the page, what am I lying to myself about? And I thought about those concepts and the conversations I have around my relationships with people I care about, my career and what I'm trying to accomplish. I have all of these stories in my head about what I think is happening, what's really happening, and so on. And this book has forced me to ask whether or not those stories in my head are really true. So I will always remember what the Death of Ivan Ilyich is about. And I can pull specific lessons out of it because I've applied the ideas in my life. So that's the secret for you. If you want to remember more from your books, you have to do more than read them. You actually have to sit down and apply what they're being taught. A great example is, you know, we read books on finance, for example, how to get more wealthy. I cannot imagine what the statistics are from people who go out and read these get rich books, but they don't actually do any of the concepts in there. They just read them and go, wow, that was great. And they feel like they learn Stuff, but they're not any wealthier. It's because they didn't do the thing. So that's what I do. Again, read slowly, take notes and apply the ideas. Let's get into this week's book recommendation and then I'll let you go. So this last week I did a challenge administered by Ray Bradbury himself. He is the one and only. He's an incredible author and I miss him deeply. He has since passed, but in his challenge, which was issued online. I can put the link down below in the notes here. It's an hour long talk where he suggested that each night we read a poem, a short story and an essay. And I've been doing that for a week now. And it actually is very beneficial from a. From an idea perspective, from a sense of connecting with humanity. It's just great. But I thought, well, what am I going to read for short stories? And it made sense that I should read Ray Bradbury short stories, because, you know, why not? Let's do that. I had this book on my shelf and I had actually never read it. It is Ray Bradbury's the Medicine for Melancholy. Now, the very first story in here is actually one that I want to share with you today. I'm not going to read it. Heavens no. You need to go read it yourself. But it is called In a Season of Calm Weather. Now, in the Season of Calm Weather is this incredible short story. You can Google it online right now and find free copies. You don't even have to buy the book. Although I would buy the book because Bradbury is incredible. But in this short story, it is the experience of a man who is trying to. Is trying to apply meaning to his life by one day meeting Picasso, the artist. Picasso. Right. And it so happens that in this story he accidentally meets him. But. But in the process of doing so, something happens that is beautiful and inspirational. And instead of living in that moment with the great artist and thinker, this protagonist is busy trying to find a camera to capture it. Right? And it made me think about how today in life, instead of being present, instead of being alive, we're busy taking pictures of all of this stuff and we're missing life itself. It was such a great, great example of the technology death that we're dealing with today. So I would. I would suggest you check out Ray Bradbury's A Medicine for Melancholy. Hey, if you liked this week's episode of the Readable podcast, I would greatly appreciate it. If you go to Apple, itunes, or Spotify, wherever you're listening to the podcast Give us Give me it's just me some kind of star rating. Let me know how I'm doing. Right now we're at 4.7 stars with 140 reviews. That just means the world to me that you take the time to do that for me. And again, if you find this video helpful, leave me a comment down below. Let me know how I can make better videos for you or any questions you have about the art of deep reading. And as always, remember to read slowly, take notes and apply the ideas. I'll see you all next time. If you'd like to take your reading to the next level, then head on over to thereadwellpodcast.com there you'll find daily posts on how to read well. You'll also get access to all of my book notes and tools for becoming a better, better reader. And as always, don't forget to read slowly, take notes and apply the ideas. Thank you for listening to the Read well Podcast.