I read a lot of books that are directly relevant to my work (I’m in the tech industry, so this includes tech books and also leadership/business books) and I do believe they help in my career (obviously some more than others, plenty of leadership books are total garbage). This deepens my subject matter expertise and gives me bigger ideas about where the company could go.

I also read for pleasure and I think it does make me more empathetic and can help increase your perspectives of the world and other people. (Again, depends a lot on the given books). But in this category I don’t pick books for the career improvement, I think it’s just a happy byproduct.