and I couldn’t believe all the things that Richard Branson had done. It reminded me that I could keep droning on with what I’m doing, or I could do great things, like him. I needed to be reminded to take chances. I got inspired.
I recently helped a friend proof-read a response in an email. This email was going to someone who had a background in surgery. Because of their extensive experience (both medicine/reading and life), they had a pretty extensive vocabulary. My friend commented that the tones of that email were almost like a song. It just read like a book. I see the same thing in various different books I’ve read lately. It’s so easy for us to let our vocabulary degenerate with the use of IM and TXT, (see!!!), but that’s not acceptable. Read something else, and enjoy the vocabulary. (It’s not a bad thing to have to go to dictionary.com and look up some words you don’t know either…)
Sometimes when people say read something else, we think that must mean another boring scientific book. Don’t get me wrong, I love my boring computer programming manuals, but I certainly don’t want to spend time reading about… I don’t know… wind energy. So what should you try out?
Sales books: Especially if you’re a freelancer, try reading some sales books. You’ll learn how people sell to you, and how to sell yourself.
Biographies: They don’t have to be historical biographies like George Washington (although, it is pretty interesting to have found out that he never said the “can’t tell a lie” phrase… it was actually a preacher using him as an example during a sermon), but it can be real time people too. Try the Steve Jobs Biography for example. Like I said, I enjoyed the Richard Branson biography as well.
Read fiction: WHAT?! Sometimes the goal is to just to relax. If so, read a fiction book. It’s just like TV, except that you’ll be expanding your vocabulary and running into concepts that are a bit more in-depth than those on TV written for a fourth grader.
I know it’s tough. It’s easier to just sit down and read the next news article, to read tips on how to be better with the new HTML5 technologies, and to watch TV. However, I really suggest you try this out. I’ve been doing it and it’s made tremendous improvements for me. Read something else.