7 Inspirational Life Lessons We Can All Learn From Oliver James (The Man Who Struggles with Reading)

Introducing Oliver James

Oliver James is a TikTok (and #BookTok) sensation, motivational speaker, and personal trainer.

In his TikTok videos, Oliver often introduces himself by saying “I’m a 34-year-old man who struggles with reading.” However, it wasn’t long ago that he would say “I can’t read.”

He opens up about many deep struggles he has gone through with learning to read and his mental health. His story has been so inspiring that he ended up being featured on ABC’s Good Morning America, the Rachael Ray Show, NPR, and other major outlets.

The way I came to learn about Oliver may surprise you — after all, it surprised me. Oliver’s partner gave him a book that I compiled, titled 365 Quotes to Live Your Life By. It was the first book he ever owned, which was the beginning of his journey of learning to read better.

Oliver James, Tiktok sensation, motivational speaker, and personal trainer holding up "365 Quotes to Live Your Life By".

Often, he would read one or two quotes from the book while doing a workout session. Since the quotes are short, he did not need to spend too much time on them. Importantly, with this book, he had no excuse to avoid reading. There are at least 10 videos where he reads from the 365 Quotes book while he does a workout or after he reflects on his challenges with learning to read.

As 365 Quotes to Live Your Life By inspired Oliver, I was also inspired the more I learned about his story, and the more I realized how much of an effect a single book could have on someone.

As I browsed his videos, I was amazed at who this person is and what he has accomplished, and the shining path that he is illuminating in front of him. I’ve seen most of his videos at this point, and they are truly inspiring.

Oliver James has a greater depth of wisdom and understanding in him that is perhaps not apparent at first glance.

It’s easy to assume in this life that we know better than someone else because we have more education, financial resources, a better social network, status, or whatever it may be. But I will continue to tune in to see what Oliver is doing because I know that this is just the beginning. And I know that I and many others can learn from his struggle, experience, and the insights he shares.

Below are 7 Inspirational life lessons we can all learn from Oliver James, the man who struggles with reading (and who used to say “I can’t read”). To be clear, some of this post involves information I learned from his TikTok videos (@oliverspeaks1), including his words, and some of this is my elaboration or further thoughts on what he has said or done.

1) Start somewhere – Take the initiative.

A theme I’ve noticed in my own life, and the lives of many people lately is that just starting anything seems incredibly challenging. It’s common to build something up in our heads as being more difficult than it has to be. Then we may find ourselves thinking about starting, or talking about starting, but not actually doing it.

However, thinking about something without acting on it can be futile. If you want to help someone, go out and help them. If you want to make a change to better your life, then take a step toward that. Whatever it is you want to do, make sure you are taking action. A thought, even if it is positive, hopeful, or useful, can only take you so far when it comes to improving yourself.

The question is: What gives us that spark, that drive, or initiative? In Oliver’s case, he realized something. He saw that he would not be the best model for his kids if he could not read. Why would Oliver expect his son to be a great reader and achieve his dreams if he didn’t focus on this himself?

Ultimately, he saw that his life was not going in the right direction and all the difficulties that he was going to continue to have if he could not read. Oliver understood the pain that not knowing how to read well was causing him and the people around him, and he wanted to change that.

This type of realization can be a key motivator for any of us. When we see the pain we are causing and perpetuating, it is natural to want to stop this and embark on a new and better path. This is when you become empowered, find the courage within, and take action toward your goals.

Whatever it is that provides that spark in us, we need to tune into that if we ever expect to take major actions in our lives that lead to improvement.

What is so important in your life that you can’t afford to turn away from it any longer? Like Oliver, we have to see that for what it is and get started somewhere.

2) Work on your goals in your way.

Oliver’s goal for 2023 is to read 100 books. That would be quite an impressive feat, wouldn’t it?

Well, in one of his videos, Oliver discusses how some people don’t think he will be able to read 100 books in a year. Many people who read regularly, after all, still do not read 100 books in a year. And he is still learning and struggling. But Oliver knows that the goals other people set for themselves do not matter, or whatever opinion they may have about his goals also do not matter.

This is his personal goal that he has set for his reasons, and he will attempt to achieve this in a way that works for him. It may involve reading children’s books, or simpler books, as he isn’t trying to fulfill this goal in any way other than what works for him.

Oliver says, “If you set a goal, and you’re doing it at your pace, and you’re doing it for you, that’s all that matters.”

Often, we work on goals that someone else set out for us, in the way that they want us to work on them. This means we work on them in ways that don’t necessarily make us happy or that don’t allow us to function at our highest potential. Rather, we should listen to Oliver and tackle our goals in our way, for our own reasons.

Keep in mind that if Oliver was concerned with learning to read how other people say he should, perhaps he never would have gotten started. Conventional wisdom may say that you should start with a tutor, with a class, or with a particular kind of software or system meant for learning to read. But it seems Oliver decided that the most important thing was to get started and to read in the way that appealed to him and where he was able to get something done.

His partner gave him 365 Quotes to Live Your Life By, and he decided he would take it on his workouts, drives, and wherever he was going, and he would read a quote or two when he had the chance. Many people may say that this isn’t the right way. But it doesn’t matter, as long as Oliver is reading in the way that works for him.

To summarize, Oliver realized that to change his life, and keep himself from feeling stuck, he would need to learn to read. That motivated him to take the initiative. Then he worked on his goals his way, as he understood that this was the only way he would ever learn to read. What works for other people won’t necessarily work for him, so he didn’t concern himself with that.

When you have an important life goal, ask if you are approaching this in the best way that works for you, or if you have allowed too many people to tell you how you should be approaching this. Then, is their input helping, or is it just holding you back?

If their input is holding you back, consider Oliver’s next tip.

3) Don’t listen to the people who focus on the negative. Don’t let them restrict your potential.

One of Oliver’s TikTok videos shows a young woman who makes extremely negative and hurtful remarks when someone asks if she would date someone who could not read.

He responds to her hurtful words, as he wants his audience to learn a lesson here: “People’s words, they don’t mean nothing. Don’t let nobody label you. You are as smart as you think you are. Don’t worry about what anybody else says.”

As I already mentioned, when you have a goal, some people may criticize that the goal isn’t the right one, or that it is unrealistic. When people find out that you are not skilled at something, they may attack your intellect, ability, or motivation. Of course, regardless of what we choose to do in this life, there will be critics.

Constructive criticism can be useful and help us to make progress, but when someone is negative and hurtful without any purpose behind it, that is something that we have no reason to allow into our lives.

I am grateful to hear that Oliver does not allow the negativity to distract him from his purpose. He knows he wants to learn to read better, that he must get better at reading to improve his life, and that there is no reason to allow some negative comments to derail his plans. His plans are bigger than that.

Oliver took the initiative of getting started to read, and he focused on learning in his way, but he must also push through any negativity that others use to try to make themselves feel superior, or to doubt his potential, even if it may be well-intentioned in some cases.

We must retain our power of being able to clear the mind, stay focused, and know that we are capable of getting to where we need or want to be. Don’t allow the negativity to steer you off course, or to limit what you are truly capable of.

Redirect your focus onto the larger goal here, whatever that is in your life.

4) Pursue something that challenges you, and stop avoiding it.

One of my favorite things that Oliver says is “What hard and challenging thing are you doing for you that might make you a better you?”

Most of us know that challenge is a part of life, and it doesn’t help you to always seek comfort. You get tougher, stronger, and better by pursuing challenges. But the reason these words were so special is the person who says them.

Oliver was placed in special education as a child and treated abusively. He served over three years of his life in prison because through a lack of knowledge, he didn’t realize that trafficking weapons was a crime. He suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. He spent most of his life being functionally illiterate. In his own words, reading saved his life.

Perhaps it is cliché to say, but this is a person who seems like he would be a statistic, a cautionary tale. Rather, he has transformed his experiences into an inspiration for the world, and more importantly, he is learning to read so that he can be a better person, and hopefully make progress on his issues and ultimately accomplish his dreams.

When a person with such life experiences speaks to you, even if through a TikTok video, the words shine in a truly meaningful way. He isn’t coming from a place of judgment. Rather, it’s just an honest assessment — if Oliver James is pushing himself to learn to read, then we can all do something that challenges us every day.

Some of his personal challenges include mental health issues, a learning disability, and of course, not knowing how to read well. There is an even more fundamental issue in his life that interfered with his ability to learn to read, but we will discuss that in our next point.

Despite all the challenges he faces every day, he urges his audience to pursue a challenge in their lives and to seek to become better.

Oliver went most of his life avoiding reading, and as soon as he decided to face the challenge head-on, to always keep a book on him, and to stop making excuses, his life began to change. This is the second part of this lesson.

We must stop avoiding that challenging part of our lives that we don’t want to deal with.

This is the part where you may ask – How can I get the courage? Where can I start? Who can help? All of these types of questions are the exact reason it is a challenge. There is no simple road map to show you the way. Don’t you think Oliver went 34 years of his life wondering the same thing? Don’t you think he stopped and wondered who was going to come and help him? In one of his videos, he discusses realizing that no one was coming to save him. He was going to have to do it himself.

In time, he has gained so much support and fans, but it began with him choosing to work on his goals for himself. He stopped trying to avoid and escape the challenge, and instead decided to pursue it. No one else could do that for him.

We should all be willing to dive deep into a challenge in our lives. The deeper we dive in, the more we can grow.

5) Be open, sincere, and honest

In one video, Oliver says “I want to be as real and honest as I can so I can develop into a better person.”

Being honest and truthful has been fundamental in Oliver’s ability to make progress on his reading journey. To make progress at anything, you have to be real with what the situation is. In this case, Oliver was functionally illiterate. He could read some words, and understand things in a very basic way, but up until recently, he didn’t even feel capable of reading a menu in a restaurant.

He has been asked why he didn’t learn to read when he was younger, and his response was surprising, yet honest. He was physically abused when he was in the special education system as a child. The system was more interested in controlling and restraining him than they were in educating him. That abuse made it so Oliver didn’t have the energy to focus on learning to read, or on learning anything for that matter. Instead, he thought of ways he could get expelled so that he didn’t need to be there at all.

As they say, “the truth hurts,” but Oliver was willing to discuss this uncomfortable reality with his audience, because he understands that this is the path to progress. He is not running away from reality. It’s better to be honest with himself and the world.

Many people are interested in Oliver’s journey, as he has over 129,000 followers as I write this. And I believe people are attracted to someone open and sincere about who he is, who he was, and where he wants to go in life. The truth of Oliver’s situation is not all pleasant, but the fact that he is open and honest will help him to find the path to improvement. Likely, his honesty makes his followers want to help him as well

But if we hide from our problems, our insecurities, and our struggles, then we will not grow. If your energy and attention go to covering up your issues rather than shining a light on them and doing something about it, how can you expect to make progress?

Some people want to pretend that they are doing well — that everything in their life is perfect — but if we do that, then at some point our energy goes to maintaining the illusion that things are going well, rather than making improvements in our lives that we need to make. Again, if your focus is on appearing to be doing well, then when are you going to find the time to make real improvements?

Like Oliver, we must learn to be open and truthful about the struggles we are going through, and the problems of our lives. We must have the courage to face the reality of who we are, where we’ve been, and the problems of our lives. That is the only way to make progress.

If you do not want to share your struggles and problems with the world, that is fine. But at least dare to be sincere and truthful with yourself. Stop hiding from it.

6) Love yourself (You have to love yourself)

Oliver says that one of the greatest lessons he learned through his reading journey was that “I have to love myself.”

As many of us do, he likely struggled to love himself because he found it difficult to accept some less favorable aspects of himself or his life. As long as we want to escape who we are, it is difficult to truly love ourselves. It seems that self-love comes from learning self-acceptance. We may work to learn and grow in certain ways, such as becoming a better reader or learning a skill, but it’s also important to see that there is no need to become something that we are not. The core of who we are is fine, and is someone we must love, and is always worthy of love.

Fortunately, Oliver understands that he needs to love himself, and he needs to work on that. He knows that nothing good comes from being too hard on himself.

I hope you understand: We all need to be kind, understanding and accepting of ourselves. A key reason we have to learn to love ourselves is that it’s very difficult to love anyone else if you can’t even love yourself. We must be mindful of the type of energy we are putting into ourselves because that is the same thing we put out into the world.

Yet, even if the world around us seems especially difficult, troubling, or hurtful, we must find a way to love. Remember that we are good inside, we are worthy, beautiful, and with tremendous potential. Perhaps it is difficult to find love for ourselves at times, but we need to work on it. Strive to see yourself in a better light each day. Practice being understanding and forgiving with yourself.

In life, we often crave for someone to love us, to see us as beautiful, smart, or worthy somehow. But the key is to start to see this for yourself. Why wait for someone else to see it when you can work on this yourself? When you see it, your love grows.

I am aware that many, or perhaps most of us go through self-doubt, we think harshly of ourselves in our minds, or we find it hard to let go of mistakes that we made. And part of this is just being human. It’s not easy to completely let go of all negativity, and we can’t expect to accomplish that either. Nonetheless, we must find our way back to Love.

Love is the foundation.

When on the path to bettering yourself, as Oliver is, you have to return to love, because it’s all too easy to be hard on yourself. You try something challenging, and it may not go the way you hoped. Rather than get into self-doubt or self-hatred or excessive negativity, allow the love to flow through you.

7) “Be happy even when you don’t want to be.”

This last life lesson is a tip that Oliver James gave to his son. He appears to be giving parenting advice, but I believe this is advice that we all need to hear. If anything, the adults need to hear this more than the children.

Oliver says, “One of the keys to staying young and feeling happy is to be happy even when you don’t want to be. When you feel frustrated, when you don’t feel good, you don’t feel happy with the decision that you have to make… try your best inside to still be happy.”

My way of thinking of his advice is that this is how happiness is created in the world. If you are only happy when the situation is good, then that is expected. It is easy — no energy or effort has been required from you. However….

If you can be happy or strive to see the good in situations that are not the best, then you are creating happiness in your own life. You are making it happen.

Many of us may have a difficult time understanding this advice, and that is because to get to the point of striving to be happy even when you don’t feel it, you must understand that happiness or your state of mind is not always occurring due to outside events. We have some control over our thoughts, and with that, we also influence our emotions.

Don’t wait for happiness to come to you. Make it happen.

If you are on your way to work, and someone rear-ends your vehicle and they cause some damage, then you have the choice as to how you think about this.

Most people may get upset and believe that someone distracted on their phone probably hit them, and then the insurance isn’t going to cover this because it’s not that much damage anyway, but it’s still going to be expensive, and they’re going to be late for work, and the boss isn’t going to be happy, and so forth.

But if you practice striving to be happy even when the circumstances are not the best, you can get to the point where you may react differently.

You may react with concern for the other driver, and make sure that everyone is okay. You may realize that as long as everyone is okay, that is what is important here. You can always find a way to pay for any damage that you need to, or you can simply continue to drive the vehicle even with the damage, and life will go on. You can also decide that even if you are late for work and the boss doesn’t understand that you have a reason for it, then perhaps it was time to find a better boss and job anyhow.

How do you think these different ways of thinking and reacting will influence your emotions and your happiness? Don’t take my word for it. See if you can change the way you think about negative events in your life. Then see how that influences your happiness or your emotions and well-being.

The trick is to practice being happy even when the situation seems to be an unhappy one. Practice this, then when someone rear-ends your car one day, you will find a way to be happy through it.

Think about it — so many of us want happiness in this life, but what are we doing to actually work on it? Are we putting in the effort to be happy even when there is a mild inconvenience? If the slightest problem is enough to make you feel unhappy, sad, or moody, then this is something worth working on.

I won’t ask you to pretend to be happy, as that is not what this piece of advice is about. It’s about making an inner effort to see that most things in life are not worth feeling unhappy about. You have so much going for you in this life that you just need to open your eyes to it and see it and be grateful for it. Be happy with what is — don’t allow yourself to become unhappy because something didn’t go the way you wanted.

Oliver James was functionally illiterate for 34 years of his life. He doesn’t allow that fact to make him an unhappy and bitter person. He is working on changing things and improving every day. That is all he can do. We can’t expect any more than that.

This month, or likely this year, I will be working on putting all of these bits of advice into practice in my life. I hope that you do this too.

If Oliver is doing it, why can’t you? What is stopping you? As I said in my prior post, every moment presents a choice. What choices are you making?

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I didn’t want to crowd the post above with too many links. Below are some resources you may wish to check out:

Oliver James’ TikTok channel - A TikTok account is NOT required

365 Quotes to Live Your Life By - Oliver began his reading journey with this book

Good Morning America (ABC) - Oliver James shares his story with the world

Oliver James’ video - this is one of my favorite motivational clips

Oliver James’ video - this is one of my favorite clips that includes 365 Quotes to Live Your Life By

Is It Worth Reading if It Isn’t Tweet-Worthy?

The other day I had a thought that could apply to many of us:

Most people started off reading books, made their way to articles, and ended up at tweets and headlines.

Is this how the devolution of human thought begins?

Before you think I am accusing you of anything, I can admit that to some extent I have gotten into this pattern myself. I still read books, but I do find myself scrolling through headlines to get the gist of what is goinkg on. Partly, this is due to the fact that so many apps encourage this. Facebook, Twitter, Google News, Reddit (and probably loads of other apps and social media) are all organized as never-ending feeds.

You can scroll down to your heart’s content, and never reach the end. This is a bottomless well of information and entertainment. Rather than needing to click or select anything, you can keep scrolling down. It’s comforting, like a friend who is always there for you.

You may not even feel the need to actually read the articles, as the headlines may tell you all that you felt you needed to know. You can feel like you know so much, while actually knowing so little. You get dopamine bursts as you continue to scroll down, learning more and more, about less and less.

When it comes to these apps, tomorrow’s posts will probably contradict today’s posts, but tomorrow is another day, and so we are not worried about that for now. Even if there is no contradiction, tomorrow’s posts will continue along a path with many twists and turns, as if a never-ending soap opera. Since the drama is never-ending, there is no need to really dig deep. You can ride along the surface, scrolling down mindlessly, endlessly, in a loop, day after day.

When someone asks what you’re doing. There Is no longer a need to say that you are on a particular app, as they mostly function in the same way.

When they ask what you are up to, you can respond:

“I’m just scrolling.”

f you are about to scroll, and you haven’t yet begun, you might say:

“I’m going for a scroll.”

I admit maybe I’m being alarmist (and facetious), but sometimes I wonder if we are scrolling our minds away.

When I lived in Paris, I recall crossing a crowded street with pedestrians, and most people had their phones out. Loads of people proceeded to bump into each other like bumper cars, not saying anything, not acknowledging what had just happened. They kept moving along, kept staring down at their phones. Were they on GPS? To cross the street – seems dubious. Were some of them scrolling? Probably. (In defense of the French, many of these people were probably tourists – and of course, this could happen anywhere.)

Often when I am on Facebook, someone may post an article, and then there is a flood of comments, outraged at the premise of the article. Inevitably, multiple people comment that no one actually read the article. The article apparently did not state what people thought it would claim. People have gotten angry, outraged, attacked the author’s competence, sometimes even taking the dramatic action of “unfriending” some of their long-time “friends” over a petty disagreement about this article, all the while not having actually read the article.

Many of us don’t want to take the time to read and learn. We want to form an opinion and spread it, even if this is just based on a headline’s worth of information.

And we now know headlines are designed to get you to click.

Then if you manage to click, most of us expect a list (e.g., 5 Steps to…) or some quick way to scan the material.

This could make sense to make the reading process more efficient – but it seems like scanning has become a way of life. Sometimes I am having a conversation with someone, and it looks like they are scanning for something better to come their way. Similarly with reading, if we can’t absorb the material in seconds, we become impatient. Rather than us needing to work harder to understand, we tend to blame the material as not being Tweet-worthy enough. Are we at the point of needing catchy headlines and convenient bullet lists, otherwise we can’t read and understand? If so, this is quite the devolution in our comprehension abilities.

Just yesterday, I had a dream or a vision. I thought – What if people read? What if they didn’t keep scrolling? What if they not only read but what if they actually found something worth reading? What if they actually desired to learn and understand first instead of wanting to spread their ill-formed and baseless opinions?

And then I woke up, and instead of dreaming, I decided to write this post.

5 Steps to Reading Insightfully:

1.     Learn to read

We all think we know how to read, but maybe we don’t. Maybe we are stuck at reading in a basic way, not reading or thinking critically. Whatever you are used to reading, seek out material that challenges you more deeply to improve your reading skills, learn more, and deepen your understanding.

2.     Read to learn

Reading is one of the best ways to learn. You will exercise your thinking, logic, imagination, questioning, and problem-solving, all while learning new things. We can read for fun, but we should also read some books to learn.

3.     Learn to understand

When you learn, you will come to an understanding of life and the world. You will start to see and perceive more fully, more deeply. We shouldn’t learn to accumulate random facts but instead, aim to focus on facts that help us understand.

4.     Understand to form useful opinions

As you understand things on a deeper level, you will begin forming novel and useful opinions and think more critically. People may even start to come to you to see what you think about a topic. These useful opinions are your reward for having read and learned deeply. Many of us want to believe that our opinions are useful, but this isn't easy to accomplish without meeting the prior steps.

5.     Form useful opinions to enact meaningful change

Work on developing opinions that can help to change things for the better. This can be done in virtually any field, but in general, the idea is to help solve problems and help humanity, life, or the world somehow. At this stage, you are not the only one rewarded, but society itself is also gaining from your deep reading and thinking abilities.

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If you would like a guide to better reading, you may be interested in reading one of my books - The Insightful Reader: How to Learn Deeply & Attain Life-Changing Insights from Books