---
title: "An Absorbing Mind: Soaking in the Relevant Info to Form an Advantage"
description: "For anyone whose reading pile grows faster than what they keep from it."
author: "Rahim Rasul"
type: "Podcast episode"
series: "Halftime Talks"
episode: 161
published: "2018-06-26"
duration: "14 min"
theme: "Questions and learning"
tags: "reading, learning, retention, information overload"
audio: "https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/rahimrasul/HTT_AbsorptionRate.mp3?dest-id=175061"
url: "https://iloveprocess.com/halftime/an-absorbing-mind/"
site: "I Love Process"
---

# An Absorbing Mind: Soaking in the Relevant Info to Form an Advantage

_For anyone whose reading pile grows faster than what they keep from it._

**The question:** Are we absorbing the lessons that we're learning on the day to day, not just with books, but with life itself?

Listen: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/rahimrasul/HTT_AbsorptionRate.mp3?dest-id=175061

## Before you listen

In the fall of 1998 I stood in the foyer of the Alkek Library at Southwest Texas State University and asked myself a simple question: what if I only knew a fraction of 1% of the information in this library? What would be possible? Today that information is everywhere, and it is counting on us to consume it.

The harder question is how we take it in. School taught us to read in a straight line and call it finished at the last page. Bill Gates gives himself an hour after reading to process what he read. Last year I paused through my books, wrote in the columns and debated the author along the way.

Listen for the cash machine at the old school mall near the end: money blowing around a booth while most people step out with plenty of it left behind. Treat the next book you pick up the same way, and go in with a strategy for catching it.

## From the talk

> I'll read a book that I've read before, and it feels like somebody snuck in in the middle of the night and added words to the page which I already had notes on.
>
> I didn't feel success when I turned the page. I felt success as I absorbed what was on the page.
>
> We must become the sponge.

## Sit with this

- What are you doing to safeguard your sponge?
- Are we notating the questions that we're having as we're moving through a day?
- How can you become that living sponge where nothing is left?

## Transcript

Welcome back to another episode of Halftime Talks. My name is Rahim Rasul, and you're listening to the podcast that recognizes that in the middle of your game of life, whether you're by 10 or down by 20, we all need halftime talks to uplift us, inspire us and challenge us to bring that level of performance it's gonna take to win the game.

So welcome back to another episode. If you know how we start, you know we start by centering us with appreciation. Here we go. Today. I want to appreciate the fact that I have found the core components of my voice. So what I mean by that is I have an understanding of who I am, and the value of that is immeasurable understanding who you are. You're not trying to solve that big equation. It's a discerning device that lets you know what you should avoid and lets you understand what you should invest in. You understand your values and your priorities, and therefore it directs your attention, you understand what's a waste of your time and time that you should be spending in certain domains.

So finding that voice, it's beautiful because you no longer have to emulate, or you no longer have to imitate things in the world, because you're standing rooted in your center of your own voice, and I appreciate the fact that I found it to all the new listeners tuning in this week. Thank you for checking out our podcasts. Make sure you recognize that we have an evergreen library of some conceptual ideas that no matter where you are in your life, I think you could benefit from, and if you're a returner, don't forget, we have those two in this week's episode. What we're going to be bringing you is a concept that I aforementioned call the absorption rate.

Like if we are a human sponge, what allows us to absorb more, or sometimes not absorb as much as we possibly should. And we're gonna, we're gonna dive into that today. So what I want you to do is I want you to sit back, strap in your seatbelt, open your mind, get prepared to take some notes, mental notes, at the very least. And let's get in it right now. Here we go.

It was the fall of 1998 when I stood at the foyer at the base of my library on the campus of Southwest Texas State University. From that foyer, I looked up and circumspectively saw this whole library standing before me, and I asked myself what seemed to be a very simple question. This question had an had a profound impact on me in that moment, my imagination and what I thought was possible for me moving forward for the rest of my life, I asked myself, What if I only knew a fraction of 1% of the information that sat contained within this library? What would be possible today, we sit in our abundant economy with an overabundance of information.

There's even information products, people selling their message and methodology and a process to create value in the marketplace, and they can extract that same value out of the marketplace in the form of money. Amazon publishes new books each day to their Kindle platform. There's a lot of information out there in the world, and it's begging for us to consume it. Matter of fact, it's counting on us to consume it. So I recognize that the question isn't about the availability of information, the availability of the methodology to allow ourselves to ascend to that next stage of our development. The question is, is, how are we engaging in it?

How are we becoming the human sponge? How are we soaking it up? What is this sponge supposed to do, typically, through our education process, up to this point, the way that we. You've learned is consuming in a very linear manner, and once we get to the end, we're finished. What if there existed a different paradigm, a different paradigm that measured the finish by the ability to acquire and absorb from that source, because it's funny, like I'll read a book that I've read before, and it feels like somebody snuck in in the middle of the night and added words to the page which I already had notes on.

How could that be? How could I continue to learn more from something that I've read continuously? And people say they read a similar book year after year, because now the book grows with them. The wisdom was always there. How do we become more how do we become more attentive to the information there and sponge it up. Recently, I was watching a documentary on Bill Gates, and Bill Gates said I never start a book without finishing it. Wow. He also said that he always gives himself an hour after he reads to process what he's read. Interesting. Last year, while reading a myriad of books, I paused many times.

I fought with the ideas I wrote in the columns. I debated the author along the way. I debated and wrestled with expanding the scope of my own comprehension as I read, I didn't let the chapter just drip by. I didn't feel success when I turned the page. I felt success as I absorbed what was on the page. This is the process. This is the journey. This is how we continue to not only cognitively understand but cognitively evolve and challenge ourself to incorporate that the implied meaning that's on the page into our day to day lives. Are we absorbing the lessons that we're learning on the day to day, not just with books, but with life itself?

Are we notating the questions that we're having as we're moving through a day? Are we absorbing the lessons that are being shown to us? What are you doing to safeguard your sponge? Because if it's too full, it can't bring in new things. How do we incorporate and guarantee that some of these lessons that we would not preferred to repeat or earned or gained or understood, compound upon us and build our own nature into a level that we don't have to do that anymore. And I know I've brought this up in the past when I talked about the book from Napoleon Hill, who's created millionaires upon millionaires with his his work.

What is his work day? Think and Grow Rich. Thank you. I appreciate that. And to me, it's not about being rich, but it's about the magnitude of information that he shares. Are we agreeing? Are we questioning? Are we challenging our own assumptions? Are we looking for ways to incorporate the wisdom on that page in our day to day lives? Have you ever listened to an interview from an author who had something profound to say? They say it took them a year of our life to read something that took a week of our life to read. Are we trying to go in and understand the fabric of what is being presented and how that can have a demonstrable impact on our life?

We must become the sponge. There is a high cost and redundancy to do it again and again. Not only cost you financially, but it cost you time and time. To me, fellas, ladies gentlemen, is one of the most valuable assets on this planet. So even when we find the perfect book, the perfect model, the perfect person that represents that level of where we want to move into and it has the potential to answer our deepest questions. I. Will we be ready to receive it? How do you prepare yourself to hear that magic? And if the answers were right there, what technique would you employ to ensure that not only you'd understand it, but you'd be capable of applying it immediately in college, it was common to study and keep things within your short term memory.

After the exam, the information would be converted into some vague generalities of understanding. The most we can hope our style would be of studying is to be later on, familiar with it. That sounds familiar. I know that in order to incorporate these things that we find immeasurably valuable, we have to not only cognitively understand it, but we have to engage with it. That engagement, that experiment, that experimentality, once again, will allow us to absorb it and incorporate it and grow. And it's like that avalanche, that snowball that started so small, will make it to the base of everywhere you want to be, layered, refined, compressed, compacted, all of that life experience to the things that you absorb will be right there.

And I want to leave you with a very visual metaphor. Imagine you're in a mall, classic mall, old school mall, and they have a cash machine there, and the game of the cash machine is to you step in this booth, they activate a high force of wind that circulates a ton of money in the air within this booth. And your job is to capture it all, or as much as you can before you step out. As you stand on the outside and watch people do it, you realize that they're leaving, proverbially, a lot of it on the table. Will you devise your strategy different? Will you go in there and just freestyle? Will you try to figure out a way to maximize what you can take from it more than anybody else will you try to maximize your potential in this engagement.

And I challenge you, this is a challenge that as you acquire information, be it reading a book, watching an interview, or consuming within a domain that you want to create your expertise more proficient in, I challenge you to treat it like this cash machine, blowing money in the air. How are you going to capture it? How can you soak it up? How can you become that living sponge where nothing is left? Not a drought. It's Rahim. This is halftime talks. Thank you. Our entire library is available on our website. Halftimetalks.net as well as the iTunes podcast library. While you're on there, do us a favor, SUBSCRIBE and leave a review.

Not only would we love it, but it would also make our podcast more findable, discoverable for other people, like you, who can gain benefit from the podcast. So until next time, go out there in the second half of the game and play to win you.