One of those podcasts that are on my daily listen list is The Jason Stapleton Show. On one of his shows a year or two ago he was doing a live read for something and said that studies show that millionaires read 50 books a year on average. While I couldn't find the exact study but I did find a Huffington Post article talking about it. I was getting more interested in reading, more so just learning the information contained in books. I'm dyslexic which makes reading a real pain. I use to read every now and then when I was coaching in Rochester but often I didn't retain any information. Most of the books I read then I have small details from and mostly just remember the titles, none of the contains. I discovered Audible last year who sponsors what seems to be every podcast (they aren't sponsoring me for suggesting them) and it changed my life. Now I retain much more details than I used to.
After hearing about the study I set out to follow it, so far I'm on pace this year to do it. Well when I got to about 18 books this year, I heard a guest on Tim Ferriss’s podcast talk about how they read 2 books a week. Being a competitive person I wanted to up that, so that’s when I started relistening to the audiobooks I had, realizing I would have to stop listening to podcasts to match it, which those are treasure troves for information too, especially ones like Tim Ferriss’s, so I thought 1 a week was good enough. Then I listened to Ferriss’s interview with Charles Poliquin, who is my idol, he reads a book a day in one of the 3 languages he is fluent in, along with scientific journal articles, all before he starts work in the afternoon. So, I gave up and settled for 1 a week with my current schedule and inability to speed read. Maybe this is something I can do later on but now I just don’t think I have the ability to nor the desire to learn how.
I want to have this page to keep track of my reading list each year. First, for selfish reasons to have some accountability that I’m actually keeping up with it. Second, so you readers can possibly find some new books that catch your interest. Reading is almost a universal way to improve in any field so if you aren’t reading start now, even if you’re slow and struggle with it, just start. It’s a cheap and quick way to get a distilled version of someone’s lifetime of knowledge.
Enough rambling, here’s the list of me rambling about the books I’ve read during the listed year, I hope you enjoy!
