February 27, 2026

I remember being five years old, sitting with One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. I couldn't actually read the words yet, so I memorized the words my mom read to me associated with each of the pages. Eventually I learned to read the words by relating the words on the page to what I knew each page said.

In first grade, I read Pinocchio. Not the Disney picture book, but a version hundreds of pages long. That book didn't just help me win the spelling bee later that year (I won the class spelling bee by spelling "laugh"), it gave me a map of the world. It showed me context, consequence, and character before I'd even left my house.

I have read my whole life. Some periods more and some less. I have read sci‑fi, other fiction, biographies, business books, self-help books, etc. I have never gone long periods without reading or listening to a book. During COVID, I began reading more and have increased the velocity of the number of books I read since, to the point where I do not think I can consume any more—but I keep trying. Reading continues to help drive me to discover new things, think differently, and see different sides of an argument.

This is why the data I'm about to show you is so jarring to me. We aren't just losing a hobby. We are losing the cognitive inner infrastructure that allows us to do deep work. Our desire for immediate gratification is killing our ability to reach a flow state, making life—and work—feel less meaningful.

If you want to know if someone is an A‑Player, don’t look at their resume. Look at their nightstand.

Steve Jobs was famous for his obsession with taste. He didn’t just hire engineers; he hired people who were immersed in the humanities. In 2008, Jobs famously dismissed the Kindle by saying, “The whole conception is flawed because people don’t read anymore.” He saw the decline coming, and he knew it was a disaster for innovation.

Jobs understood that sustained reading builds the mental muscles for focus and empathy. He reportedly read Autobiography of a Yogi every year and gifted copies to every guest at his memorial service.

When people ask Elon Musk how he learned to build rockets, his answer is a three-word playbook: “I read books.”

For modern knowledge workers, reading is a knowledge advantage. As Mark Cuban says, “Everything I read was public. Anyone could buy the same books. The same information was available to anyone who wanted it. Turns out most people didn’t want it.”

If you can’t answer the question, “What was the last book you read?” with a nuanced takeaway, you aren’t just busy—you are becoming obsolete.

For modern knowledge workers, reading is a knowledge advantage.

If you want to understand the future of the wealth gap, stop looking at bank accounts and start looking at bookshelves.

We talk a lot about generational wealth, but we rarely talk about generational cognitive infrastructure. There is a direct, measurable link between literacy skills and earnings in the global labor market (OECD, n.d.). In an economy that increasingly rewards complex problem-solving over brute force, the ability to process long-form, nuanced information is a high-leverage skill. But that skill isn’t developed in a vacuum; it’s built through a culture of voluntary reading that starts in the home.

High-level literacy and cognitive skills carry a measurable wage premium in the global labor market (OECD, n.d.).

The data shows a startling disparity in our mental environments:

This creates a vicious cycle. Regular access to books is one of the few proven pathways to building the inner infrastructure of focus, empathy, and critical thinking required for high-paying knowledge work. When lower-income environments lack these resources, the gap doesn't just stay the same, it amplifies.

We are effectively seeing the reinforcement of income inequality through reading habits. Those who read are reinforcing their competitive advantage every single day, while those who don't are seeing their disadvantages compounded.

The numbers don’t lie—and they aren’t pretty.

When you stop reading books, you don’t just lose information. You lose the ability to think.

The number one excuse I hear from high-performers for why they don’t read is simple: “I don’t have enough time.”

You don’t find time for high-leverage activities. You schedule them.

Reading is one of the highest-ROI habits available. It costs almost nothing. Libraries are everywhere. Its cognitive return is exponential.

Commit to the 10‑Page Rule.

Don’t do it for the facts. Do it to reclaim your attention. Do it because the world needs leaders capable of deep thinking.

Pick a book. Read 10 pages. Start tomorrow.

Bone, J., et al. (2025). The decline in reading for pleasure over 20 years of the American Time Use Survey. iScience.

NIHR. (2024). Reading for wellbeing.

OECD. (n.d.). The impact of literacy, numeracy and computer skills on earnings.

reMarkable. (2024). Knowledge worker survey.

Sirisena, D., & Lhussier, M. (2024). The book's a conversation starter. Medical Humanities.