What Happens When You Read & Apply 52 Books in 10 Months

[Tucker Cummings]

My wife and I set our “New Years Resolutions” on our anniversary, July 25th, instead of New Years. New Years Eve is a pretty meaningless day, so we do it on a day that's actually important to us. One of my goals last year was to read 52 books in 52 weeks. As of yesterday morning, I hit my goal about 2 months ahead of schedule.

Reading, IMO, is also pretty meaningless unless you actually do something with it, apply it, and challenge yourself to grow in some way. The books I read were mostly around business, finance, investing (both stocks and RE), marriage and my Christian faith. Here’s what’s happened in the past 10 months as a result of reading, education and application:

1) Became a better husband. Stopped being as selfish, realized it’s not about me and it’s about serving and leading our marriage. This is going to always be a work in progress, as I’m trying to overcome 28 years of living a life thinking I’m the most important person in my life.

 2) Put routines and systems in place that keep us on track for our goals, and correct us when we start veering off. 

3) For the first time in my life Scripture study and prayer is a habit.

4) Spent more time with family in the last 10 months than I probably have in the last 10 years combined. 

5) Grew our rental portfolio from 1 property to now 8 properties. We’ve only had to come out of pocket to buy 2 of these. The others were all done without having to use any seed money of our own. 

6) Doubled our stock portfolio, though it’s still dismal compared to other investments and where I’d like it to be. 

7) Started a business. This has probably been the most challenging thing I’ve done. It’s still in the beginning stages but the experience and knowledge I’m gaining as a business owner is extremely gratifying. 

8) Overall built a sense of confidence when discussing anything around finance, my faith, marriage. Though the more I learn the more I realize I don’t know know anything about everything.

I don’t say any of this to brag, just to show that it’s pretty amazing what you can accomplish when you just try. In simplest terms, stuff takes little more than focused effort. 

Want a better marriage? Try. Want a better spiritual life? Try. Want better finances? Try. 

The results speak for themselves, so this is definitely something I will continue doing. As for what I will be reading, I’d like to learn more about politics & economics, while continuing to read and educate myself on faith, marriage & finance.

Not every book was great, some real duds in there (smartest investment book you’ll ever read, science of getting rich). But most were pretty good. Ask me about any of them! 

1. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki 

2. The 16% Solution by Joe Markowitz 

3. Beginners Guide to Day Trading by Toni Turner

4. Start Day Trading Now by Michael Sincere

5. High Probability Trading by Marcel Link

6. Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat by David Greene 

7. The Book On Estimating Rehab Costs by J Scott

8. Buy The Build by Walker Deibel

9. Disciplines of a Godly Man by Kent Hughes

10. Profit First by Mike Michalowicz

11. Raising Private Capital by Matt Faircloth

12. Monday Morning Leadership by David Cottrell

13. The Smartest Investment Book You’ll Ever Read

14. Set for Life by Scott Trench

15. The Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner 

16. The book on buying RE with no and low money down by Brandon Turner

17. Note Investing by Dave Van Horn 

18. Long Distance RE Investing by David Greene

19. How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie

20. Counter Culture by David Platt

21. The science of getting rich 

22. Richest Man in Babylon

23. Multiple Streams of Income

24. Finding & Funding Great Deals by Anson Young

25. Mere Christianity by CS Lewis

26. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

27. Tax Strategies for Savvy REI for beginners

28. Tax Strategies for Savvy REI fr advanced

29. Cash Flow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki

30. Bidding to Buy by David Osborn

31. Think and grow Rich

32. Retire Young, Retire Rich

33. Millionaire Next Door

34. Who Not How by Dan Sullivan & Ben Hardy

35. The Book On Flipping Houses by Jay Scott

36. Follow Me by David Platt

37. Multiply by Francis Chan

38. Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalwitz

39. E-Myth by Michael Gerber

40. Traction by Gino Wickman

41. Essentialism by Greg Mckeown

42. The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek

43. Kingdom man by Tony Evans 

44. Multifamily Millions by David Lindahl

45. Crushing it in Apartments and Commercial Real Estate by Brian Murray 

46. Rich Dads Guide to Investing by Robert Kiyosaki

47. Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman

48. The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe

49. How Champions Think by Dr. Bob Rotella

50. Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss

51. Principles by Ray Dalio

52. Double Digit Growth by Michael Treacy

So if you have any good books, Shout em out! Here’s to another 52 in 52