1 year, 50 books, 50 posts
At the beginning of 2020, I set an ambitious goal — writing a blog post about each book I read during the year. This wouldn't be such a challenge if I read 10 or 20 books. But, and taking into account the sum of the last 4 years, I read more than 200 books.
It was surely an interesting challenge. The goal wasn't to review any book or summarize it. But reflecting on certain ideas — even if they were not the main focus of the book, and only represented one paragraph. What before was a reading goal, reading 50 books, became a creation goal, writing 50 posts. I published more than 50 posts this year. But I can proudly say 50 of them reflect the 50 books I read.
The journey was not perfect and I left some posts hanging for quite a while. 2020 finished with me checking which ones I had not yet published and working hard to get them online by the first week of 2021.
There were a few lessons learned during this process which can be extrapolated to many other fields:
A fall is not a broken leg — how many times have you fell and how many of those have you broke a leg? Exactly. If you made no progress for 2 weeks, you don't need to give up your goal. You can always re-start and continue your journey. You did fall, but you didn't break a leg.
When lost, you just want to find somebody — if you are lost in a forest, you don't necessarily want to find your friends, just somebody who can help you reach them. When you set a goal, don't focus too much on the outcome, but rather the process that might lead you there. If all your attention is on the final destination, you might be blind to the beauty of the journey. You want to find your friends, but any person is a blessing.
The Phi-Phi Islands are in Thailand — when your dream is to visit the Phi-Phi islands, going to Tenerife won't do the trick. If you have an ambitious dream, don't be afraid of aiming for it, even when it takes years and failure is a probable outcome. Spain is pretty, but it's not Thailand.
Don't give up. Enjoy the journey. Aim high.
You can see all the 50 books I went through as well as the related posts, here. But if you are curious to know, here are The Top 10 Books I read this year:
”Zero to One” by Peter Thiel
(31 December 2020)
Read my thoughts.
Buy the book.
”Non-Violent Communication” by Marshall Rosenberg
(28 December 2020)
Read my thoughts.
Buy the book.
”The Practice” by Seth Godin
(16 December 2020)
Read my thoughts.
Buy the book.
”Make It Stick” by Peter Brown
(12 November 2020)
Read my thoughts.
Buy the book.
”I Will Teach You to Be Rich” by Ramit Sethi
(08 August 2020)
Read my thoughts.
Buy the book.
“This is Marketing” by Seth Godin
(6 July 2020)
Read my thoughts.
Buy the book.
“Untamed” by Glennon Doyle
(29 April 2020)
Read my thoughts.
Buy the book.
“Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear” by Elizabeth Gilbert
(28 May 2020)
Read my thoughts.
Buy the book.
“The Moment of Lift” by Melinda Gates
(28 March 2020)
Read my thoughts.
Buy the book.
“Let My People Go Surfing" by Yvon Chouinard
(7 February 2020)
Read my thoughts.
Buy the book.