I’ve always been a reader. I love to read. But I’ve mostly read fiction, literature, philosophy and history all my life. I know my Dostoyevsky from my Wodehouse or Ayn Rand. (Also guilty of reading a few Nicholas Sparks books, haha.)
After my MBA, my general business reading was about limited to a subscription to the Economist and McKinsey quarterly, and I read articles/blogs regularly on things that interested me. Then I joined Alore. Hahaha — like they say in those silly tele-commercials: “My life changed for the better.”
Not just because I love my job, have a great team, and an awesome boss, but also because it's the first company I’ve worked at where the boss literally encourages you to read everyday, even during office hours. In fact as part of the hiring process, candidates are supposed to read Aaron Ross’s Predictable Revenue/ Hacking sales and discuss it with Alore’s founder Vikas in the final round.
Don’t miss my cool JD pen holder BTW ;)
To manage my time better, two months back I gifted myself a new routine:
READ every morning for ONE hour as soon as I start my work day. I don’t even check my emails until I’ve read. I’ll head straight into what I learnt:
1. I’m more articulate and my vocabulary has definitely improved
I find myself effortlessly using better words to explain my thoughts and whatevery I'm writing.
2. I collect and link my ideas better
Reading gives you better ideas and it's like a non-stop supply of them with each book. I’ve seen I am able to transpose ideas from across industries and see if any of them are a fit for our. e.g. We’re a SaaS company, but it's easy to adopt translatable industry agnostic practices from hospitality or retail.
3. I give better examples at meetings
I didn't realise this consciously, but recently I noticed that while debating over our marketing funnel and marketing strategy in an internal meeting, I was talking about “Law of diffusion of innovation” which I would never know of if I hadn’t read.
4. Reading gave me access to people who move and shake the world !
The honest truth is that I don’t know Sheryl Sandberg, Jeff Bezos, Simon Sinek or Seth Godin personally (yet!). They're brilliant people who have tons to teach. So whats the next best thing I can do to hear their thoughts and ideas ? yes you're right- I read what they write. That way I know what the master wizards of the world are doing and thinking and I can align my direction accordingly.
5. Reading of success makes success feel achievable and in reach
Okay this you might know already but reading of stories of success makes you boosts your inner fire like never before. It gives a feeling of the possibilities of your life if you choose to work hard enough and smart enough.
6. Reading of failures teaches you more.
As much as reading of success is important to know what works and may work for you, reading of failure has taught me to learn from the early innovators who failed. They have tons to teach on what not to do. Thats more important to know because for every hundred ways to succeed, there are a million ways to fail.
7. I focus on data
Okay I’ll admit to the fact that when I started out I wasn't too high on data collection. I reported my data but never really sat on analysing it much. After reading over weeks and months on the importance of data in business today and how companies harness data to succeed and adapt quicker than ever, I have a fresh view on data and its something I look to work on further. I take my data much more seriously now and am seeing the benefits at work. A book that really ignited the change in me was “Winning with data” written by Tom Tunguz. I’d recommend you read it soonest you can.