I was never a book reader.
Before 2020, I was the kind of person who earned well but never knew where my money went. I spent freely, impulsively, and without guilt. Saving and investing were ideas for some distant future version of me—someone more disciplined, more serious, more “grown up.”
Then Covid forced me to stop.
I got infected and had to isolate for a week. The world outside paused, and so did I. I was scared and bored, constantly trying to mentally escape that room and be anywhere else on the planet. With nowhere to go and nothing to distract me, I did what came easily.
I binge-watched Scam 1992.
What stayed with me wasn’t just the story, but the discomfort it triggered. How little I actually knew about money.
At that time, I was working at CoLearn. Like most teams, we had active Slack channels, and in one of them, a coworker casually shared book suggestions around financial hygiene. No preaching. No urgency. Just a recommendation in passing.
One title stood out, mainly because it didn’t sound complicated or intimidating.
Let’s Talk Money
I picked it up without expectations.
The book was simple. Almost disarmingly so. It didn’t try to impress me with jargon or market predictions. It didn’t promise wealth or shortcuts. It just spoke about money the way it should be spoken about: clearly, practically, and honestly.
For the first time, I understood that money wasn’t about earning more.
It was about managing what I already had, with discipline.
That realization changed my behavior.
Since early 2022, discipline slowly became part of my life. Not motivation. Not excitement. Discipline.
I began investing in mutual funds. Then stocks. Eventually, land and gold. Not because I suddenly became an expert, but because I followed a system. A boring one. A repeatable one.
And boring habits compound better than exciting decisions.
The Payoff (That Wasn’t Money)
By the end of 2022, something unexpected happened. Due to market instability, I was let go from CoLearn, along with many other coworkers.
When it happened, I was scared. Anyone would be. But the fear was different from what it could have been.
By then, I had already spent over six months building financial discipline. I had an emergency fund. I knew my expenses. I had buffers. For the first time in my working life, a job loss didn’t feel like a free fall.
That moment quietly validated everything. Saving and investing didn’t magically make me rich. But it did something far more important.
It turned vague future hopes into concrete, actionable plans.
I could look ahead and make decisions with clarity. I could commit to timelines. I could take responsibility for outcomes. That quiet confidence kept stacking, month after month, year after year.
By the end of 2024, that confidence gave me the courage to do something I had only thought about earlier. I decided to try building my own firm.
Brave, Not Rich
That book didn’t make me wealthy. It didn’t promise freedom or success.
But it made me brave.
- Brave enough to stop spending blindly.
- Brave enough to plan long term.
- Brave enough to trust myself during uncertainty.
- And eventually, brave enough to bet on myself.
I didn’t become a reader overnight. And I still don’t read for the sake of reading. But I learned this the hard way:
Books don’t change you. Discipline does.
Sometimes, a book is just where that discipline begins.
The Book
If you’re curious, the book that started it all for me was Let’s Talk Money by Monika Halan.
Want to talk through your own 0 to 1 journey?
If you’re thinking about building something from scratch, navigating early technical decisions, or figuring out when to make the leap, I’m happy to share what I’ve learned.