(Thanks to sumit, The Hiring Tool, for the tip)

Reading books is one of the most important (I would classify it as mandatory) activity an entrepreneur should invest his/her time into. And I am not talking audio books, I am talking actual real paper books (e books are also fine, but not as effective unless you have a Kindle).

Issac newton said “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of Giants”. That is true for all entrepreneurs because essentially that’s what they are trying to do, look farther into the future, solve problems and be really fast at it. As the history tells us, the most successful ones are those who are able to look the most farther.

Reading allows you to “stand on the shoulders of giants”. It allows you to learn from what other folks have experienced, achieved, failed at, loved , suffered, everything A-Z. There is just a lot of concentrated, distilled knowledge in the books, that its almost a sin for an entrepreneur not to be reading, since upgrading of skills is a constant need for a startup founder.

To some of you, it may seem counter intuitive. Wouldn’t it be better for me to spend my time on real-time , real world problems at hand, instead going into the dreamy world of books? Isn’t my first and most important job to solve real problems?

Yes, that’s true. At a fundamental level the job of an entrepreneur is to solve problems.  But as we know the most effective way to approach / solve a problem is by looking at parallel scenarios and applying the learning to the problem at hand.  Isn’t it easy to solve a problem if you have already experienced a similar one before?

Books are one of best way to collect /come across /find / learn these problems which others have come across.  When you read “The Google story” and go thru the birth of google as an idea, as a young company and so forth, you are sure to learn a bunch of stuff that you can use while building your own company.

The book stores are full of these inspiring, real life stories of companies, people, which are biographies and autobiographies. Then there are authors like Seth Godin, Malcom Galdwell , Tom Peters and so many more. You just need to get started and you will discover a whole new world.

Its not tough at all, I carry a book almost everywhere. And a lot of my reading happens while traveling, waiting, just filling the small little time gaps and I finish almost a book a week.

Trying to read a whole fat book may seem difficult, but reading 50 pages is quite easy. So go ahead my friend and commit yourself to “Reading 50 pages a day”. It will not take more than 1-1.5 hrs, depending on your reading speed. Just keep at it and i promise it will be one of the most fruitful and enjoyable investments of your time.

Tell us in comments if you are planning to start 50 page a day reading journey and keep us updated on the progress…