Relevant reading is important (not just for financial trading)

1/4 of Americans did not read a single book  in 2007, with active readers in decline, according to The Washington Post. This is good, it implies an increasingly lazy, less productive population of competition against those who constantly read, learn, and improve to remain the best of industries.

Learning by doing only?

Sure I've also learned a whole lot from actual trading, too. While technically, I could have learned everything I needed to trade profitably without the reading; it would have taken a significantly longer period. All the additional reading has seriously helped shorten my learning curve, and made the learning stage much less expensive than they could have been.

Personal habit

I spend at least 30minutes each day going through academic research literature (Google Scholar), new books (Amazon), or exchange tutorial literature. It's with this wealth of information, that one become capable of recognizing money making opportunities when they arise in financial economics. This applies to other industries as well, naturally.