The Power of Reading

Whether you work in technology, trade cryptocurrencies or have interests in any other area or business, i bet you figured out that without constant reading and continuous learning, you can never compete and stay relevant in such a dynamic market.

When I was young entering college/university, I thought I will be spending 4 to 5 years there, studying all the technology and material they will throw at me and then have all the knowledge needed to have a job and succeed in life for the coming 30-40 years.

But as soon as I left university and joined real work, it took me a very short period to notice that the learning cycle has just begun, that what we learned in University was only the minimum foundation and that you either stay up to date and learn more each day or you quickly get outdated and become obsolete.

Sometime after that, I became a fan of books, purchasing one or more each quarter, building my library at home. I have always believed that a good book can point you to a promising direction, where you can learn new ideas and different point of views and be aware of your mistakes, past ones or current ones made due to the absence of knowledge or experience.

You really need the experience of others who have been there and can help you anticipate and plan for things you might never have thought of or even experienced. A book can achieve that for you, at least to a good extent.

However, there was a very important point missing in the process. Buying books is a good investment but an easy step. Find the topic and the right book covering it, add it to your cart, and put your credit card details and BOOM! It’s over. Five to ten minutes research and you are good to go.

However, Finding time and having the will to read those books every night and apply that knowledge in your life is something else. This is where the real effort begins, especially when you can buy everything in life except for more time, more time for your family, your work, your personal development and entertainment.

That’s when last year, on my birthday in May 2016, I decided that this has to be changed. I cannot stop buying books, it already became an addiction, but at the same time, I am not reading 5 percent of them, so I would better find a way to start reading more.

So I drew a simple process and made a commitment:

– Read 6 books minimum within one year, one book on average each 8 weeks

– Keep one book next to my bed all the time

– Read each night before I sleep (it can be 2 pages if I had a long day at work and I am very tired or 30 pages if I have plenty of energy after my kids go to sleep. What’s important is to keep the momentum by reading each night and seeing that book next to me when getting to bed reminded me of this)

– Each time if finished a book, I would go during that same night, put the book back into my library, choose a new book and bring it next to my bed. This was to remind me that this is becoming an ongoing process and lifetime commitment and not a one time job or task.

I am glad to say that this process proved to be right finally. In one year, I have read a total of 14 books covering different topics, from sales, negotiation and presentation skills, to investment and wealth management and industry trends and entrepreneurship.

This reminded me of a good quote for Brian Herbert “The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice”. You need to make that choice because No one can make you skillful but yourself.

Also, reading alone is not enough. You should apply what you read and learn in practice to be a winner. I gave a headache to my insurance company agent during a period of two weeks after I read the books about wealth management, but it paid off. When you know more and get to learn from people’s experiences and research summarized in books, you can challenge others in their areas of expertise. You can ask your insurance agent about fees details, commissions, which funds they are investing in, etc… Even though you are traditionally an Information Technology guy or a doctor or a teacher who had zero exposure on that specific subject.

Few tools helped me along the way:

– I used the Notes application on my phone to summarize important ideas while reading. Reading a book is good. Keeping all the important ideas in your head for years to come is difficult without a summary refresher from time to time. So each time I finished a book, I would send all these notes to my email then put them in one document (7 to 15 pages word document) for future reference.

– Used “Goodreads” mobile app to track my books library, what is read, what is not and see ratings and feedback about a book I might be interested in purchasing

– Used Amazon.com and later thriftbooks.com for books quick purchases. Thriftbooks is very effective for used books in excellent quality (almost new) and very good prices. This helps you lower your budget while getting the same quality.

I hope those lines will motivate you to start reading more. It started out with me as a commitment knowing how much I can learn through reading. But it ended as an enjoyment and well spent quality time to relax at the end of each day while learning something new. It can become the same experience with you and believe me, it is a rewarding one.

It was said once that “the time you spend at night, after work, is was determines and shapes your future”. And many activities in this digital world will try to compete for filling that time, whether a TV show, Facebook stories, Snapchat, Instagram photos or something else. The choice is yours and only you can define your destiny.

The simple idea is as follows: Learn each and every day something new, to try to become each year a better version of yourself!!

As Magnus Carlsen, the current world chess champion said in an Interview in 2017, “I’ve never been the one to grasp things the quickest, but I never stopped learning as soon as I became interested in a subject.”

Persistence is the answer for any challenge and ultimately any victory. I was doing the easy thing “Purchasing Books” for the past 10 years, but I only won and learned a ton when I challenged myself, kept being persistent and read each and every night for the past twelve months until it became a habit.

What could I change if I was able to? I would have started reading books from the day I left university and jumped into real life work. But starting now is better than never.

Good reading.

Michael