There’s a pattern I’ve noticed over the years, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
The leaders who consistently make good decisions… The leaders who stay calm when things get messy… The leaders who don’t panic during uncertainty or volatility…
They read.
Not headlines. Not hot takes. Not whatever the algorithm decides to shove in front of them.
They read books.
For the past six years, I’ve read over 100 books per year. Not because I’m special. Not because I have some magical ability to read faster than everyone else. And definitely not because I have “extra time.”
I made it a priority.
And that distinction matters more than people want to admit.
Reading isn’t a hobby, it’s a leadership discipline. Some people treat reading like a luxury activity. Something they’ll get to “when things slow down.”
Here’s the problem: things never slow down.
Leadership is pressure. Decision-making under uncertainty. Balancing competing priorities with incomplete information.
If you wait for the perfect conditions to read, you won’t.
I don’t read for entertainment (though that’s a bonus sometimes). I read to sharpen my thinking. I read to borrow lessons from people who’ve already paid the price for mistakes I’d rather not make myself.
Reading is how you: Build mental models. Expand your perspective. Pressure-test your own assumptions. Learn without bleeding.
Every book is a conversation with someone who lived through a problem you may be facing right now (or may face soon).
Leaders who don’t read eventually run out of ideas.
This is where things get uncomfortable. If you don’t read, your thinking becomes recycled. You say the same things. You default to the same solutions. You repeat the same mistakes (just with different labels)_.
Eventually, you start mistaking experience for growth, but experience without reflection is just time served.
Reading introduces friction to your thinking. It forces you to confront: new frameworks. Opposing viewpoints. Uncomfortable truths. Better ways of operating
And here’s the kicker: the higher you go in leadership, the fewer people are willing to challenge you directly. But books still will.
Why I read 100+ books a year (and what it’s done for me). Let me be clear: I’m not sharing the number to flex. I’m sharing it to make a point.
Reading at that volume fundamentally changed: How I think, communicate, make decisions under pressure, and filter noise from signal.
When you read consistently, patterns emerge. You start seeing the same principles surface across: Leadership. Strategy. Psychology. Finance. History. Faith. Personal discipline.
Different authors. Different eras. Same truths.
That’s when confidence changes. Not loud confidence. Not ego. Quiet confidence.
The kind that comes from knowing you’ve thought deeply about problems long before they arrived.
Most people are “informed”, but very few are educated. We live in a world drowning in information and starving for wisdom. People scroll for hours. Consume endless content. Know a little about everything. And understand almost nothing deeply.
Social media trains your brain for speed over depth, emotion over reason, and reaction over reflection.
Reading trains your brain for focus, patience, and critical thinking.
You cannot think deeply while constantly being interrupted. And yet most people wonder why: They feel mentally scattered. Making decisions feels harder than they should. Anxiety creeps in during uncertainty.
Your brain was never designed to live in a constant state of alert so get off the devices (especially when times are hard).
This part matters more than people realize. When life gets difficult, most people increase their device usage. More scrolling. More news. More noise.
That’s the worst possible move.
During difficult seasons, clarity is everything, and clarity does not come from chaos.
Reading forces you to slow down and sit with ideas. To process instead of react and to create needed mental space.
When I deliberately step away from devices and into books, I notice something almost immediately: My thoughts slow down. My thoughts and emotions stabilize. My decision-making improves.
That’s not accidental. Silence plus good input is a powerful combination.
Before you lead others, you lead yourself. Reading is one of the most effective self-leadership tools available. It builds internal discipline. It strengthens attention control. It creates margin in your thinking
You don’t need motivation to read. You need a system.
I don’t wait until I “feel like it.” I read daily because it’s part of who I am and how I operate.
Leaders don’t negotiate with themselves about important habits. They don’t lie and say “I don’t have time.”
This might sting a bit. You have time. You’re just spending it somewhere else.
Five minutes here. Ten minutes there. Thirty minutes of mindless scrolling that turns into an hour.
Reading doesn’t require massive blocks of time. It requires intentional blocks of time.
Ten pages in the morning. Ten pages at night. That’s it. Consistency beats intensity every single time.
What to Read (Hint: It’s Not Just Business Books)
If all you read are business books, you’re missing out.
Some of the most valuable insights I’ve gained came from: History books. Books on Faith, Psychology, and Philosophy. And TONS of insights from Biographies.
Leadership doesn’t live in a vacuum. It’s shaped by human behavior, belief systems, incentives, and consequences. Diverse reading creates well-rounded leaders.
This is rarely discussed, but it matters. Reading (especially reflective and values-driven material) forces you to confront: Who you are. What you believe. What kind of leader you want to be.
In a world obsessed with speed and results, reading reminds you that how you lead matters just as much as what you accomplish.
There’s a reason the calmest leaders you know often have books nearby. They’re not smarter. They’re not luckier. They’ve trained their minds to operate at a different pace.
Reading builds resilience. It creates internal stability. It anchors you when everything around you feels unstable.
If you’re not reading consistently, don’t try to overhaul your life overnight.
Do this instead: Buy a Kindle. Put a book where your phone usually is. Read before you scroll. Replace noise with depth
One chapter. One session. One habit at a time.
Momentum will follow.
Leaders are readers because leadership demands clarity, and clarity demands depth.
If you want to think better, decide better, lead better, and live with more intention… Put the phone down. Pick the book up.
Your future self (and the people you lead) will thank you.
