Ideally, 3 percent of your monthly income should be set aside for your personal development.
Life is in stages and investment takes time to mature. The stage when you work more than you earn is your investment stage.
The stage when you earn more than you work is your harvest stage. The greater your investment, the greater your ROI. If you are below 25 years, FOCUS more on your personal development.
What a poor man needs is not money but knowledge. You can have the money and don’t know what to do with it. With knowledge, you will be able to get and sustain any resources.
I know I am one crazy reader. People say I read like a mad man. Nevertheless, reading 52 books and over 500 articles and journals in year 2020 was more of a goal than a coincidence.
I usually don’t count the number of books I consume yearly (I’m not talking about academic books here!) until I had a meeting with my mentor in the beginning of 2020 and he suggested that I took a census of the books I intend to read during the year.
I ended up reading 4 books every month. All thanks to the COVID-19 lockdown too.
One statistic says that 46% of graduates do not read after school, and I believe that is why 46% of graduates become irrelevant before they begin their career.
Who book epp? Has it added any money to my pocket? Yes! It has added profits to my life. The ROI is more than you can calculate. I hope you decode that!
Every successful person knows that there is a strong connection between poverty and ignorance. If you doubt it, check out the rate of illiteracy and poverty in most third world countries.
Reading is not a grace or skill; it is not genetic; it’s a habit inculcated through discipline. Read books to improve yourself, not to showcase yourself.
Stop carrying a book around just to create the false impression that you are a serious person. It’s just a matter of time; your ignorance and stagnancy will be visible to all.
Books are food of champions. You cannot eat the food of champions and look like a mediocre. The quality of your life and business will never appreciate beyond the quality of available information to you.
Dear, if you mean good for yourself and business, do not let a month go without you picking up a book to read.
How was I able to reach my goal?
- I saw a need for it.
Yes! Personal development and growth were my sole reason. I knew that what I had in my head cannot take me far in my life and career. I didn’t just pick up a book to finish it, I made sure I took something away from it.
I needed to be more productive with my life, hence, I could not afford not to read books. I couldn’t afford to run my life on mere assumptions and outdated knowledge. Get this, if you don’t have a reason for picking up a book, you will definitely have no reason to persevere.
I don’t read just to know, I read to practice. Accumulated knowledge is useless if you can’t apply them. I don’t believe that knowledge is power. Ugh! No, knowledge is not power. Execution is power. What you know may initiate the process, but what you do brings the result.
2. I strategized.
I had a goal, but I needed a plan. It was easier for me to read one book per week, irrespective of the pages. (Know your limit and abide by it).
3. I dealt with the real demon.
Mehn…social media can be a trap. Or in the Nigerian way, it can be a demon. If you spend 4 hours on social media every day, by the end of the year, you would have spent over 2 months of the 12 months on social media.
You see why I call it a demon. Lol! Who told that there’s no time? There’s time, just that you’ve decided to fill your time with trash and trinkets.
I drastically cut down my activities on social media. Every WhatsApp status on my phone is muted! Call it pride if you want. Except for family and intimate friends, I don’t chat with you if there is no need for it.
I only reply reasonable DMs. I went on Twitter basically for news and intelligent trends. I scrolled through my Facebook and LinkedIn posts just once per day. Not more than 5 minutes. I was intentional. Sincerely, my productivity doubled.
4. Make it fun
Hey! Before you conclude that I’m a bibliophile or a bookworm, let me also tell you that I watched over 52 movies throughout the year. That is, for every book I read, I watched a movie. All book and no play make reading boring.
Do you know that you can read more books than you are currently reading? If you think you can, you are right and if you think you can’t, you are also right.
© Kingsley Ndimele
Your Reliable Consultant