Godin Gets It Right — We Read (Business) Books “In Search of Disquiet”

Why read a business book?  Or any non-fiction book?  My phrasing might be different, but Seth Godin lauds the scientific method, and he writes:
Ask yourself, “what do I believe that’s wrong? How can I change the way I do things? What works? What doesn’t?”
Some people read business books looking for confirmation. I read them in search of disquiet. Confirmation is cheap, easy and ineffective. Restlessness and the scientific method, on the other hand, create a culture of testing and inquiry that can’t help but push you forward.

“I read them in search of disquiet.”

Going back to a theme I have written on before, persuasion requires “stasis,” a moment of standstill, a moment of dissonance, when one realizes that “I-could-be-wrong.” Only when that is acknowledged can change and progress become possible.

We read to experience disquiet — to be stopped in our tracks, to find what we need to jettison and abandon, what we need to change, what we need to add.  We read to grow and to change.  “To grow is to change, and to have changed often is to have grown much.” (John Henry Newman).