My story began in the year 1999, when I came to Bhopal with a lot of dreams in my heart of becoming successful in life.

I belong to a business-class family with six sisters and one brother. When I was in school, I always felt motivated by reading inspirational books. The first-ever book that I read was Akhand Jyoti, which is an Indian monthly magazine published by the Gayatri Pariwar. This magazine soon became my school-time favorite, all thanks to my father, who inspired me to read and grow intellectually. Another reason was – ironically enough – the Internet, which was costly at the time, and hence, we had to rely on newspapers and books as our sole source of news and knowledge.

Assistant professor Sneha Soni

My hometown is located in a small tehsil area with limited resources. I still harbor fond memories of the days when I, as a school child, loved making a personal collection of motivational articles and quotes from the newspaper. I pasted these in a notebook that I had specially maintained for this purpose.

Books always motivate me to inculcate good habits in my life, and, whether you believe it or not, it’s those very thoughts and habits that have helped me face the biggest challenges of my life. It was my inspirational talk (read tirade), which was inspired from my perusal of similar speeches in Akhand Jyoti, that eventually helped my father get rid of his smoking habit. That was, perhaps, the first time I realized the power and influence that books could exercise on our lives.

After completing my tenth standard, I came to Bhopal for higher studies and obtained an engineering degree in computer science. In my college days, I used to read inspirational and motivational books like Shiv Khera‘s You Can Win. As the Internet became less costly, I also started reading several other inspirational eBooks.

Books played a huge role in helping Sneha get where she is today

Having done my schooling in Hindi medium, my graduation days saw me face a lot of difficulties in expressing my thoughts in English. I started listening to English audio books besides also practicing my writing and speaking skills.

Some of my all-time favorite motivational books are The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz and The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Every single book I read influences my life in one way or the other. They help me a lot in achieving my goals. My consistent reading habit is what has enabled me to become an assistant professor in a reputed engineering college.

What’s your take on Sneha’s story? You can get in touch with her here to know more. Just in case her tryst with books inspired you to tell us about yours, you can send in your story to us without further ado.