Since moving to London and having to commute on a daily basis for at least 2 hours a day I’ve developed the habit of reading, buying books from Waterstones or saving pdfs on my phone in order to make the most out of my commute.
The titles below might not sound really inspiring, and on the contrary, might sound like all those bestseller books that people with an average IQ might read. Trust me they’re not, I used to refuse to read bestsellers because I’m the type of person who enjoys reading more “non-mainstream” or is “non-mainstream”. I used to have the mentality that popular things cannot be very good. This changed after one of my friends who I was admiring because he delivered a TED talk, told me about this book by Dale Carnegie, which I’ve seen everywhere and refused reading it for a long time because it “was just too mainstream”. It turned out it’s a VERY decent book, in fact.
I’ll share with you below the top 5 books I’ve read and what I’ve learned from them, things that can be applied in life situations.
1. The power of habit — by Charles Duhigg
2. The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck- by Mark Manson
3. The dip-by Seth Godin
4. How to make friends and influence people -by Dale Carnegie
5. Getting to YES- Negotiating an agreement without giving in -by William Ury and Roger Fisher
The power of habit
Charles Duhigg explains in his book why habits are really hard to take on and what we should be aware of when forming them.
The way our habits form can be through a natural process or voluntary-induced. Habits that are formed naturally can come as a surprise, and often times are unnoticeable. For instance, eating pizza- if you order pizza once a week and you watch a movie, this immediately send a reward to the brain- it feels good and it’s relaxing. So the next time you do it again. If you’re not aware, this can easily become a habit because of the strong reward that it has. The habits are triggered usually by a cue- for instance “there’s no food in the fridge” let’s order Dominos, or “I had a bad day today at work” -gonna order pizza. These thought processes are in fact the cues- that lead to the formation of the habit.
Habits can be formed voluntary. Since you NOW know that it’s all a chemical process that happens in the brain- the reward, it’s now easier to induce it. For instance, let’s say you want to wake up in the morning at 6 am to have some quality and quiet time for yourself. The most important thing when inducing a habit is to provide an immediate reward- for some waking up in the morning is and doing that meditation is enough of a reward for the brain to form a craving. (Oh it felt so good waking up in the morning, I felt so relaxed, etc.) And then you do it again!
This is called the habit loop- however, habits are formed in the presence of a cue. So for instance, if you wish to start a new habit, you need to remember how it felt, or the reward that you got out of it.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck
Just as the title suggests this book will teach you how to live a rewarding life, not caring about other people’s opinions or about the small things in life that don’t matter.
The most important take out of the book is finding out that everyone’s brain has this defense mechanism of “victimizing” themselves when things go wrong, which in turn goes down the road of the sense of entitlement. This sense of entitlement is what keeps many people unhappy, thinking that “they have done a lot”, “they are great at what they do”, “they are good people” and why do bad things happen to them. Which in turn lead to comparison with other people.
The takeaway from it is acceptance and problem-solving. In order to get out of that state of self-loathing, the advice given by Mark is to realize that “you are not special”. However taking that away from people, is upsetting.
As the book suggests if everyone would be exceptional, then by definition the term would be contradictory.
The dip
Do you know the expression “winners never quit and quitters never win”, well according to this book, YOU got it all wrong!
Seth Godin explains how quitting is ESSENTIAL to be able to prioritize what is really important for you, and that winners always quit, but they quit strategically.
Quitting the right stuff and the right time when your resources, values or personal choice don’t support it anymore, is the braves decision and that’s what leads to progress and innovation.
Another interesting concept regarding the same idea of quitting is the dip. The dip is the lowest point you can get to in a learning curve. Take for instance you want to learn a new language, that’s your goal. And you start going to classes or do Duolingo for a few weeks, then you realize it’s a plateau effect that doesn’t really satisfy you. In this sort of situations, people are usually confronted with two choices- push through the boring time or quit.
Pushing through however will require a lot of energy and motivation so your real motives come into play here. Your reasons for, let’s say learning French have to be really strong for you to be able to push through the dip. Let’s say you decide to carry on because you want to move to France, then you enter the cliff stage, where real progress is more visible and also the rewards.
Most importantly is the recognition of these stages and the fact that in any given situation you are left with these choices. Recognizing the dip, makes specialist people quit the things they’re not good at (or the distractions) and focus on the things that matter to become the best at it.
How to make friends and influence people
The most important thing to take out from this book is learning people’s names and knowing that people care more about themselves first than anyone else in the world. By knowing these two, you can navigate easier through life and become more charismatic with time.
Learning people’s names
“A person’s name is the sweetest thing to her or him and most important sound in any language,” said Dale Carnegie. Even though I doubt it being the most important sound (I might say it’s the most important after any danger related sounds since that is biological).
Even so, learning someone’s name can have a great impact, especially in first impression situations, at a dinner or when introducing new work colleagues. Addressing someone by their name is personal and shows that you’ve made the effort to acknowledge it, and learn it. It’s very powerful! Try it next time you’re introduced to a few new people, and remember a few names to see people’s reactions. At the same time, if you have the memory to do it, it also puts the person in a difficult situation if they haven’t memorized yours, time when you get bonus points.
Another key thing from this book is the idea of genuine interest. Showing someone you’re genuinely interested in what they have to say, goes a long way. If the subject of the conversation is something you’re not that interested in, find one that you are. The same applies to compliments that you give to people. Give compliments genuinely, find something that you really like in that person and compliment them on it.
Getting to YES- Negotiating agreement without giving in
This book opened so many roads for me, from negotiating the contracts with my landlords to getting a pay rise at work. A negotiation can’t happen like I want something -You offer me, that’s it. This book teaches you strategical tactics to use with a variety of real-life examples and applications of them.
People usually don’t know how to behave in a negotiation, and therefore whenever they bargain over something it can come across as either too soft or too hard. However, the author implies that the best way is to go soft on the people and hard on the problem, in this way you let them know it’s nothing personal therefore you don’t burn bridges, but you go hard on the problem and remain firm to your principles.
Another extremely useful tactic is focusing on interests rather than on positions. Interests define the problem and can help the negotiator set out clear off-limits. Where there’s usually a negotiation taking place the interest is a common one, yet opposite positions. Most importantly interests center among things most important to us: security, love, a sense of belonging, recognition. When you sort out the interests of both parties, the negotiation will become easier since you know what the other person is also aiming to achieve.
Hope this gave a brief overall of the books. Let me know in your comments if you’ve read any of them!?
