I’m wrapping up my blog posts about the three books I synthesized as part of my Thanksgiving challenge (see here). As I was working today, I thought about several insights:

• The synthesis of the books happened within the time frame I planned (i.e., Thanksgiving weekend). But sharing what I learned in a way others could easily pick up took longer than I estimated.
• Creating a post that summarizes an entire book is something I can do, but it’s likely to be rare.
• Creating the digest is helpful, albeit painful and time-consuming. It forces me to pick out the most important points from the book. But the process of turning it into something useful to others forces me to understand the material deeply. I didn’t realize how much of what I’d consumed, even after I created the digest, I didn’t fully grasp. Sharing is a force function in understanding.  
• The more poorly a book is written, the more work it is to create a digest and post. One book, written in the 1940s, was wordy and poorly structured. Piecing together what the author was trying to convey in a simple way that people could grasp quickly took more effort. Good content, but not presented well.
• The concept of ideas is starting to resonate with me. What ideas in a book got me excited, and why? If I can answer those questions, those ideas are probably worth sharing.
• Breaking complex frameworks down into something easily understood by others (and giving myself a quick reference) is something I toyed with and enjoyed. Lots of work, but curation and simplification are valuable to others (and will be valuable to my future self when I need my memory jogged quickly).
• You don’t deeply understand something unless you can communicate or teach it to others in a way they can easily grasp. If I want to force myself to understand something deeply, I should make myself write a blog post about it.
• Investors who teach or openly share what they know may have a secondary motive. It helps people, which is great. But it also forces them to learn things more deeply, which likely has a positive impact on their decision-making and investment returns. This is likely true for other professionals outside investing, too.

Those are a few quick takeaways from my latest holiday challenge. I’m glad I decided to do it. It reminded me of the value of synthesizing my reading, and it’s forcing me to figure out how to develop the habit of doing so consistently.