“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.” ~ George R.R. Martin

Every successful person owes his or her success to a good reading habit. As a society, we are grateful to those who invested in books and cultivated the reading habit in their children.

The Wright brothers owe it to their father Bishop Milton Wright for stocking their modest home with books. Bishop Wright was eager to encourage boy's education, but he did let them skip school if they wanted to take advantage of the books at home instead. Thanks to father's library, Wilbur Wright, the older of the two brothers, got fascinated with flight and rest is history.

I am one of those fortunate ones who learnt about the importance of reading through my mentors and business associates. For me reading was a chore that ended when I finished college. I was not going to read any more books until I found the value of reading books and not just textbooks. I discovered how “unsharp” I was when I became an entrepreneur. In the beginning, reading became a necessity and a deliberate practice to succeed in business and life. Eventually it became a life changing habit.

We now live a robotic life in a fast-paced digital world with no time for non-digital activities such as reading. People are enslaved by technology and have an instant gratification mindset. People spend endless hours watching movies, videos on YouTube, playing video games or chatting on social media. All the “busyness” is making fewer people read these days. Because fewer parents are reading or investing in a library of books, fewer children are reading these days. Unless we cultivate the love for reading, it will have a negative impact on the future generations.

Warren Buffet was once asked about the secret to his success as an investor. Holding a stack of papers and reports he replied, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”

Reading opens your mind to life. Reading gives you the power to understand people and life. Reading makes you ask questions and wonder about life. It makes you open-minded. It makes you a better person. It makes you confident. It gives you benchmarks, gold standards and absolute truths.

Pick up one of the classic books I list here, make a commitment to read for at least15-20 minutes every day and, you will begin to discover a whole new YOU and a whole new WORLD!

-Nanda Sringari

"A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep it's edge." - George R.R. Martin