How Reading Made Me a Better Man
B.O.O.K. Club’s reads since Spring of 2020
Mastery. Independence. Belonging—and Generosity.
These are the four core needs we know that young people need, that we focus on in NGM’s youth work.
But don’t us ‘grown-ups’ need these too? In fact—maybe—we need them even more.
For me, my journey to fulfilling these four core needs started (and continues) with reading. And that’s where, in part, the idea started for B.O.O.K. Club.
B.O.O.K. Club is Next Gen Men’s quarterly reading group for self-identified men. The big idea behind it can be summed up in its acronym—‘Beyond Our Own Knowledge’.
As we get ready to launch a new B.O.O.K. Club cohort this year, let me tell you about what ‘intentional reading’ means to me, and how it still helps lead me to Mastery, Independence, Belonging, and Generosity.
Mastery
Have you been feeling like a bit of a goldfish of late? That your brain is having a hard time keeping the same thread for more than a few minutes at a time before you reach for your smartphone or switch to another tab in your browser?
It’s hard to imagine reading A book, let alone 30.
How did I go from barely reading to 30 books a year on average over the past 5 years?
By failing.
I grew up loving to read. Having immigrated to Canada with non-English-speaking parents before Kindergarten, my parents heavily incentivized me to read. I remember getting box sets of the Hardy Boys from Costco, looking forward to the next edition of Harry Potter being released, and generally enjoying the imaginative world books took me to.
Post-secondary sucked my love of reading out of me. As I’m sure, it did to many others. Moving from fiction to non-fiction, deadlines, incredible page counts. It’s enough to make one’s eyes gloss over.
Yet, I missed it.
So in 2018, I set myself a goal to read 12 books. One per month. Easy enough, right?
Somehow I still managed to read only 11 books! Granted, I had to get out of the mindset of page counts and the performance of reading, but I was still disappointed to not hit my goal.
So in 2019, rather than lowering the number to make it more attainable, I raised it to 20.
I read 27 books that year. Then 34. Then 42. I’ve since come back down to 24 each over the past two years, but looking back at where I was reading, maybe 1-3 books per year. It’s quite the difference.
Much like any resolution or goal achieved, it makes me feel good about myself and my ability to flex my will upon a task and master it.
Independence
The Joe Rogan Experience is a podcast often lauded by listeners for being ‘free thinking’ and ‘independent’ of the mainstream media.
How many listeners do you think listen to each episode?
11 million.
If you and ten million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand people share an experience, is that really a unique experience?
How many books do you think sell over 100,000 copies a year?
About 200. In 2020, that number was 268.
That means reading a best-selling book is a 110 times more independent experience than listening to an episode of Joe Rogan. This number grows exponentially greater when reading books not on the New York Times or Indigo bestseller lists.
In 15 cohorts of B.O.O.K. Club, I have yet to curate a book where one of our 650+ participants has said, ‘Oh, I’ve already read that’. I take pride in being able to nearly guarantee that we will have a unique experience that pushes our thinking outside of the mainstream.
Belonging
Though B.O.O.K. Club is exclusive to men, it is inclusive by design. Exclusively inclusive?
Far different than most men’s groups out there, B.O.O.K. Club does not centre on men & masculinity—it is committed to centring lived experiences outside of the often dominant narratives of white, heterosexual, cisgender, able-bodied, and male.
Much like the aforementioned podcast, there is a roster of thought leaders that get passed around workplace circles as gospel: Ryan Holiday, Adam Grant, Seth Godin, and Simon Sinek, among others.
These guys are in my personal rotation of thirty-some books that I read in a year, but again, these guys are probably the ones that will sell 100,000 copies of their books AND have similar lived experiences to the status quo.
What’s NOT in rotation in men’s reading circles is adventure.
If we’re all reading what everyone else is reading, we’re not exactly expanding our horizons. We’re not challenging the way that we see the world.
We’re losing the sense of adventure that so inspired us to read the Hardy Boys, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings. These characters ventured into the unknown! So often, we venture into the well-trodden when it comes to what we read.
These adventures inevitably solve problems (Hardy Boys), help us imagine alternate worlds of magic (Harry Potter), and bring diverse stakeholders together to overcome great challenges (Lord of the Rings).
Inevitably in reading books authored by authors of colour, folks differently abled, trans and nonbinary people, and many magnificent women, we are better able to solve our own problems, imagine the magic of life through others’ eyes, and come together to drive success.
Generosity
Lastly, B.O.O.K. Club has made me more generous.
Those who know me, know that I’m quick to offer a book recommendation, but those that follow me on LinkedIn, also know that I regularly share my own learnings & unlearnings with quips, quotes, and takes from books I’ve read.
Better yet, B.O.O.K. Club is a space where all participants share wisdom.
Just this past quarter, while reading and discussing Shon Faye’s The Transgender Issue one participant shared:
“Being anti-trans isn't a stance, or a position I don't think. It’s taking your freedom for granted and limiting someone else's.”
*Mic drop*
This nugget of brilliance would not have clicked in my brain without a space asking, ‘what did you think?’.
There’s a beautiful quote about a man standing in a river:
““No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.””
Well, if this river was a metaphor for a book, no reader ever crosses the same book the same way either since our own lenses of reading and understanding are shaped by our lived experiences.
Experiences (and mic-drop moments) like these are ways in which B.O.O.K. Club allows us to be generous with others, and with ourselves.
By showing up together, stripping away our defenses and insecurities, and sharing our revelations, we’re giving each other a gift—the kind of gift we all can grow from.
We give that gift to ourselves too. Revelations don’t tend to happen in everyday life. We need to create a space for them, a space where those nuggets of brilliance can ‘click’.