Reading, Writing, and 3 Books That Have Had a Huge Impact on Me!

You don't realize the impact of reading and writing until you do it. 3 books had a good influence on me during the early days of Peerlist. Here's how I found them and a little about each book today!

Last night, I was listening to Jason Fried’s podcast about writing. If you don’t know, I am a huge fan of Jason Fried, his writing, his way of building Basecamp, and almost everything else.

I first learned about him from his book Rework. I randomly picked up that book a few months before I started working on Peerlist. The impact it had on me was quite huge.

Out of all the books I’ve read, today I am sharing three books that changed a lot for me and helped me in the early days of Peerlist.

1. Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

Nearly 4-5 years ago, I wasn’t a fan of reading books. It used to feel like too much of a task to me. In my office, my friends and colleagues would discuss the books they were reading.

One day, randomly, I saw this book at my home. The book was The Hard Thing About Hard Things. Those office conversations and the brilliant title of that book made me pick it up and start reading.

This is why I don’t believe in the phrase, "Don’t judge a book by its cover." 😄

I think I am fortunate that I started reading Hard Things! This book introduced me to how startups work, how hard they are, yet how exciting they can be, and that there is no limit to the possibilities! It made me hooked on it and the story of Ben Horowitz. The first half of the book, where Ben Horowitz walks you through his story, is a must-read.

2. Atomic Habits by James Clear

This one is quite cliché, but yes, this book changed many things for me! I am always proud of my consistency and resilience, and what made me even better at it is this well-known book Atomic Habits!

At the beginning of 2021, I was recovering from Covid and feeling completely lost. I wanted to upskill myself and do better in my career. I wanted to change my lifestyle, and at that time Atomic Habits was making a buzz on social media. So I picked it up and started reading 30 minutes a day.

This book helped me write consistently, work out consistently, and recover faster. My writing helped me reach people which otherwise was not possible. After this, I hardly read any book on productivity because this one does it all for me!

3. Rework by Jason Fried and DHH

We were thinking about building Peerlist. It was just an idea. I picked Rework from a social media post. (I don’t remember what the post was about). The book is in the form of small essays, many of them. And I love books that are formatted that way. It gave me the freedom to read and better understand startups and building products.

After reading this one, I was convinced that bootstrapping is the only way to build a startup (okay, let’s move on) 😁.

---

Since 2021, I have been quite regular with reading books, but there have been multiple months when work took precedence and I did not read or write much.

Nowadays, I spend some time in the mornings reading books. Audible is my best friend as I can do some chores along with listening—not a perfect way of reading, but I made this tradeoff to better utilize my time.

So, what about you? What are you reading currently, and which book has had the most impact on you?