Today, I’ll let you in on a little secret that I use to read AT LEAST ONE BOOK EVERY WEEK, without taking any additional time out of my day.

But first, I’d like to take a minute to stress how important ongoing education is to your success, and why EVERY SINGLE SUCCESSFUL person I know focuses on it daily.

I don’t mean the kind of education you got in school, in those dusty old text books that were full of numbers and boring graphs.

I mean a different kind of education that deals more with street smarts, than book smarts.

Did you know that the majority of people (58%) will NEVER read a book again after high school? Our education system leaves such a bad taste in people’s mouths. When we are forced to learn, we end up dreading the process, instead of embracing it.

I know that in my own life, it wasn’t until I was out of school that I really started to love learning. I realized one day, that learning wasn’t just for reading, writing, and arithmetic. You could literally learn how to do ANYTHING in life.

Whether you wanted to get in shape, become more creative, build wealth, or start a business…it is a LEARNABLE skill.

And you do it much the same way you learned in school. You start by surrounding yourself with people who know more about the subject than you do. Then you read, listen, and watch everything that they have to teach you. Mimic the best until you reach a level of mastery where you can innovate on your own.

Once I realized the importance of learning I started trying to read more books about business. The problem was that there was never enough time. Sure, I could TRY to read a chapter per day, but the time would always be filled with something urgent, and the reading would never get done.

I literally had a STACK of books that I wanted to read, and wasn’t making much progress.

That is, until one day I discovered a secret to success, which I learned from a man named Brian Tracy. The secret was to start listening to AUDIO BOOKS in my car while I was driving.

You see, every day I HAD to drive somewhere. There was no way that I could forget to drive, or not have enough time to drive. Every day, I was going to drive somewhere no matter what, so it was BUILT IN to my life.

I eventually came to hear of more and more successful people, who ALL followed this strategy. Pretty soon I was going through a book a week on tape. I would even “read” books while I was at the gym, taking public transit, or flying (so even if you don’t drive, there are still opportunities).

For me, the real beauty of listening to books on tape is that I get to hear someone’s voice, and this is how I learn best. It was like I was surrounding myself with these great authors. Everyday, their way of thinking and great outlook on life was changing the way I thought. I heard their voices and ideas so much, it was like they were my personal friends who I couldn’t get away from!

Some people are audio learners, and learn best when hearing someone speak (like me). Some people are visual learners, and learn best when they can SEE the words on the page (the next post in this series will offer some tips for you). A small percentage of the population are even touch learners, and learn best when moving their body or using their hands.

If you learn well by listening or hearing words in any way shape or form, then audio books are the secret you’ve been missing to start learning more every day, without taking any additional time out of your day.

Life is quite simply TOO SHORT to spend listening to Britney Spears and Snoop Dogg on the radio. Instead, start getting more reading done then you ever thought possible today by listening to audio books.

A great first one to listen to is Brian Tracy’s, The Psychology of Achievement.

You can get audio books through services such as www.audible.com (the Amazon.com of audio books), which allows you to download MP3’s to burn to CD’s or to use on your MP3 player.

They are often a bit cheaper than the actual book. You can also get audio books for free at your local library, and find some online for free. Finally, I have a handful of friends who also listen to audio books and we always share.

Stay tuned for the next two posts in this series which will contain TWO MORE SECRETS you can use to get more learning done every day, without taking additional time out of your day.