What I learned from reading 50 books in a year

A year ago, I set a challenge for myself to read 50 books in 2018. That is a 10x jump from the average of 5 books I read per year. That bold step stemmed from the cognizance of how little I still knew of the world. At one point, I decided to start using my time seriously to make a meaningful mark in the world. But I knew I won’t be able to do that with the knowledge and mentality I had then. I knew there’s more to life and my potential that are fenced in somewhere. I need to unlock it.

It’s like driving with a broken GPS. You can continue driving faster only to get to the wrong destination sooner. So before I start racing, I decided to first upgrade my GPS. Before I embark on the bumpy transformational journey, I wanted to first equip myself with the right armors for the game called life. I figured there’s no better way to do that than absorbing the wisdom from people who have dedicated their life into the subjects and do it as many times as possible, from as many experts as possible to completely upgrade my mindset in a year.

Just two days before the end of 2018, I did it. I completed 50 books and diligently posted my takeaways for each book on social media.

Finishing the challenge made me feel bad-ass, but the comments that came from the challenge were even more gratifying. There was a lot of kind…