Full transcript
0:00Most people read four books a year, if
0:02that. And with millions and millions of
0:04published books to choose from, picking
0:06the wrong one is easy. So, to help
0:08narrow your selection, I'm going to
0:10share 21 books that have changed my
0:12mind. Before I read the book, I thought
0:15one way. After I read the book, I
0:17thought a different way. For example,
0:19number one, Grit by Angela Duckworth. I
0:22always thought that talent was what
0:24mattered most. And it's true. Talent
0:26matters. No doubt about that. But it's
0:27not the only thing. and it's often not
0:29even the main thing. That's the big
0:31lesson of this book, which taught me
0:32that passion and perseverance for what
0:34you do matters even more. That's grit.
0:37It might be the most important driver of
0:39success. Grit has four elements, Angela
0:42says. Deep interest. You have to love
0:44what you do. Deliberate practice, work
0:46your butt off in difficult ways so you
0:48can improve. And meaningful purpose, do
0:51something in the service of others. And
0:52finally, resilient hope. Remain
0:55optimistic in the face of setbacks. Best
0:58of all, grit is something we can develop
1:00in others and nurture in ourselves.
1:01That's the first book that changed my
1:03way of thinking. Now, let's go to number
1:05two, a book that some people might not
1:07know. It's Thinking in Bets by Annie
1:10Duke. Annie is a champion poker player
1:13who also has a PhD in cognitive
1:15psychology. So, she's a great guide to
1:18making better, smarter decisions. The
1:21key takeaway from this book for me is
1:23that when you evaluate your decisions,
1:25you shouldn't evaluate them based on the
1:27outcomes of those decisions. You should
1:29evaluate them based on the process by
1:32which you made that decision. She says
1:34too many people practice resulting. They
1:37think a good outcome means you made a
1:39good decision, but that's not always
1:40true and it can lead to making some dumb
1:43mistakes in the future. So treat your
1:46beliefs as bets. How confident are you?
1:49Estimate probabilities instead of
1:50assuming certainties. Know what you
1:53can't control and separate luck from
1:55skill. Number three, Flow by the late
1:58Mihi Chicken Mihi. The best books give
2:00you a way to describe something that you
2:02know in your gut but don't have the
2:05words to describe. That's what this book
2:07does. We've all had moments when we are
2:09so absorbed in a task that we lose a
2:11sense of time. We lose a sense of self.
2:14What we're doing is so exquisitly
2:16matched to our capabilities that it
2:18becomes almost a transcendent
2:20experience. It's called flow and it's a
2:22concept that chick sent me high
2:24introduced more than 30 years ago.
2:26Because of this book, I always notice
2:28when I'm in flow. I also notice when I'm
2:31not in flow and I look for ways to bring
2:33flow into my life. Number four, The War
2:36of Art by Steven Presfield. Whenever you
2:39sit down to create, the entire universe
2:42will conspire against you. Presfield
2:44identifies something he calls the
2:46resistance, a hidden force that keeps us
2:48from sitting down and doing our work.
2:51Amateurs succumb to the resistance. They
2:53procrastinate and self-sabotage.
2:55Professionals look the resistance in the
2:58eye and they challenge it every single
3:01day. This book had such an effect on my
3:04life that ever since reading it, I've
3:05had a sign on my desk that says, "Beat
3:08the resistance." Number five, The Stoic
3:11Challenge by William Irvine. There's
3:13been a lot written in recent years about
3:15the ancient philosophy of stoicism,
3:17including some great work by Ryan
3:18Holidayiday. This book is by a professor
3:20of classics at Wright State University
3:22in Ohio. He encapsulates stoic
3:25philosophy elegantly and just under 200
3:28pages. Reading this helped me do a
3:30better job of reframing adversity,
3:32frustration, and setbacks in my life.
3:34Seeing them less as a burden I needed to
3:36bear and more as an opportunity I can
3:39use to grow. The real gamecher for me is
3:41the stoic test. When something bad
3:44happens, a deal craters, a project meets
3:47an unexpected delay, whatever. You have
3:49five minutes to reframe it as a test.
3:52Instead of howling about the unfairness,
3:54imagine that the stoic gods are testing
3:56you. They're testing your ingenuity.
3:58They're testing your creativity. They're
4:00testing your resilience. And if you can
4:02meet that test, you can do better than
4:04before. Five down, 16 to go. Number six,
4:08The Sports Gene by David Epstein. Some
4:11of the books I mentioned on this list
4:12describe ways to improve our performance
4:14that are under our control. But certain
4:16things are not under our control. And
4:18when it comes to athletic ability, some
4:20of us are inherently better than others
4:22of us. Unfortunately, there's some
4:24really remarkable data in this book. For
4:26instance, we can't control our height
4:27obviously, but in basketball height,
4:29even a few extra inches is a huge
4:32advantage. So, of all the American men
4:34above 7t tall, one in seven is currently
4:38in the NBA. Or take women's gymnastics.
4:41David says it's now rare to find an
4:43elite female gymnast over 5t tall. I
4:48love books about sports. I love books
4:50about science. This book does a glorious
4:52job of changing how I think about both
4:54topics. and it's why it's one of my
4:57all-time favorites. Number seven, Bias
5:00by Jennifer Eberhart. This is a really
5:02smart book on the science of implicit
5:04bias. Before reading it, I believe that
5:06prejudice and stereotypes were mostly
5:08infrequent and intentional. After
5:11reading it, I now believe that bias is
5:13more frequent than we realize, and most
5:15of it is unintentional. It doesn't set
5:17out to be mean-spirited because we don't
5:20even see it. Here's one example. Decades
5:22of research have shown we more easily
5:24recognize and differentiate faces of
5:26people in our own race than faces of
5:28people in another race. We're not trying
5:30to be biased. It's the way our brains
5:32work. This has huge implications for
5:35every corner of our life. Housing,
5:37employment, education, policing. And
5:39what I like about this book is that it's
5:41optimistic in a hard-headed way. It
5:43shows bias is less a trait than a state.
5:46We can fix it. We can do things to
5:49reduce buyers in ourselves and overcome
5:51it in our world. Number eight, give and
5:54take by Adam Grant. This book lays out a
5:56taxonomy of how we deal with others.
5:59Some of us are givers. We help more than
6:02we get in return. Some of us are takers.
6:05We take more than we give to others. And
6:08most of us are matchers. We reciprocate.
6:11You help me, I help you. What this book
6:14reveals is that the least successful
6:16people are givers. That's the bad news.
6:19The good news is that the most
6:21successful people are also givers. This
6:24book will teach you how to be a giver
6:26without being a doormat. And that is one
6:29secret to success. Number nine, The Art
6:32of Gathering by Pria Parker. Have you
6:34ever gone to a meeting, a party, or a
6:37dinner that was kind of blah? This book
6:39will help. The reasons most gatherings
6:41are uninspiring and forgettable is that
6:43when we organize them, we're typically
6:45on autopilot. But this book offers a way
6:48to bring your gatherings to life by
6:50being intentional, deliberate, and the
6:53opposite of a chill host. The keys:
6:56define a purpose for your meeting or
6:58dinner or conference. Not the logistics.
7:00It's very reason for being. Include the
7:03right people, which means not including
7:05some people. Establish a set of unique
7:07rules for the world you're creating.
7:08When you do things Priya's way, you can
7:11transform ordinary gatherings into
7:13extraordinary experiences that connect
7:15people in deep and meaningful ways.
7:18Number 10, Unfair by Adam Ben Ferado. A
7:21long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,
7:23I went to law school and after reading
7:25this book, I realized that a lot of what
7:27I learned was garbage. Ben Farado, who's
7:30a law professor himself, shows that much
7:32of our legal system is built on
7:33assumptions about human behavior and the
7:36human brain that just aren't true. For
7:38instance, we believe we can tell when
7:41someone is lying, but we actually have
7:43no idea. A lot of the cues we rely on,
7:46not looking you in the eye or acting
7:48jittery, have no relevance. So, a
7:51nervous person may well be telling the
7:54truth and a calm, composed person may be
7:57lying through her teeth. And yet, juries
8:00put people in jail based on this mistake
8:03or eyewitness testimony. It's generally
8:06worthless. The human brain is not a
8:09perfect video recorder. And yet, we use
8:12eyewitness testimony over and over again
8:15to determine guilt or innocence. Like a
8:18lot of books on this list, this one made
8:20me question some of the premises
8:22underneath what I believe. Number 11,
8:25Influence by Robert Shelini. This is a
8:27true classic. It might be the book I've
8:30recommended more than any other.
8:32Chaldini is a professor, now an ameritus
8:34professor at Arizona State University,
8:36and he's considered the father of
8:37persuasion science. In this book, he
8:40lays out the six principles of
8:41persuasion. Six things that can help us
8:43persuade others ethically and
8:45effectively. Reciprocity. We return
8:48favors done to us. Scarcity. When
8:50there's less of something, we value it
8:52more. Authority. We tend to follow the
8:54lead of people with power or expertise.
8:56Consistency. We do what we say we're
8:59going to do and what we've done in the
9:00past. Liking. There's a good chance
9:02we'll do something if the person who
9:04asks us is someone who's like us or whom
9:06we like. Social proof. When others don't
9:08know what to do, they look around for
9:11cues from other people about how to
9:13behave. In later editions, Chaldini
9:15added a seventh principle, but you'll
9:18have to read the book to find out that
9:19one. Number 12, rulemakers, rule
9:22breakers. This book helped me understand
9:24countries, organizations, and families
9:26in an entirely new way. Some cultures
9:30are tight. They have a prescribed set of
9:32rules that are pretty rigid. People
9:34stick to those rules. It's why public
9:36clocks in Germany are always accurate.
9:38Why some families insist that their kids
9:40call adults Mr. This or Mrs. that other
9:43cultures, they're loose. They have
9:45weaker social norms. They're more
9:47permissive, more tolerant. It's why
9:49public clocks in Brazil are often
9:51inaccurate and sometimes way off. Why
9:53some families are totally cool on kids
9:56calling adults by their first name.
9:57Tight isn't better than loose. Loose
9:59isn't better than tight. They're just
10:01two different ways to organize the
10:04world. Two different cultures. After I
10:06read this book, I see loose cultures and
10:08tight cultures everywhere. It's reshaped
10:11how I interpret the world and given me a
10:14new way to talk about it. Number 13, The
10:16Genetic Lottery by Katherine Paige
10:19Harden. This book, I have to say, made
10:21me a little uncomfortable. What it shows
10:24is that genes actually matter. Genes
10:27have a big effect on the outcome of our
10:29life and that our birth is in some ways
10:31a lottery. Now, that doesn't mean we
10:33throw up our hands and say we can do
10:35nothing, but it also doesn't mean that
10:37we should be ignoring the effect of
10:39genes on our life. So this is a very
10:41powerful and provocative book showing
10:43that if we actually care about building
10:45a better world. We have to reckon with
10:48the fact that genes have a role in our
10:50life and that there is a genetic lottery
10:53that some of us do better in and some of
10:55us do worse in. Number 14, The Righteous
10:58Mind by Jonathan Height. I used to
10:59believe that human beings make decisions
11:01particularly about moral issues by
11:03carefully weighing both sides of an
11:05argument and then settling on the
11:06position with the greater weight of the
11:08evidence. This book taught me that's
11:11nonsense. Instead, people have visceral
11:13emotional reactions to things like
11:15abortion or the death penalty. And they
11:18enlist reason to support whatever
11:20they're feeling. Our rational mind isn't
11:22a neutral judge. It's an advocate, a
11:24press secretary for what our emotional
11:26mind instinctively believes. This book
11:28also shows that there isn't a single
11:30morality among humans, but a set of
11:32several moral foundations. Some of them
11:34most of us agree with. For instance,
11:36don't harm other people. Others there's
11:38less consensus. For instance, always
11:40deferring to elders or maintaining
11:42purity. John Height is now better known
11:44for his book, The Anxious Generation.
11:46But here's a prediction. This book will
11:48last with you and with the world even
11:51longer. Number 15, Uncivil Agreement by
11:54Liliana Mason. This book will help you
11:57understand the mess of American
11:59politics. It's a great companion to the
12:01righteous mind. We think that politics
12:03is mostly about interests. People
12:05support a policy because it makes them
12:07better off. Higher incomes, larger
12:08benefits, more opportunities, whatever.
12:10But drawing on her own research and the
12:13research of many others, Mason shows
12:14that what's really driving politics
12:16today is identity. We want our tribe to
12:20win, and we're willing to tolerate or
12:22even support policies that might hurt
12:24our interests if they're advocated by
12:26people whose identity is similar to our
12:28own. So in this country, the fiercest
12:30disagreements can be less about waring
12:32political policies than about two
12:34distinctly different political tribes.
12:36One that is mostly white, mostly
12:39religious, and usually not in
12:40cosmopolitan areas, and one that is less
12:43white, less religious, and almost always
12:45in cosmopolitan urban areas. This is a
12:48tough problem to solve. But there's a
12:49solution. politicians who appeal to our
12:52higher identity, our shared identity as
12:55Americans, to what we all have in
12:57common. Here's hoping. Number 16,
13:00Mindset by Carol Dwek. This one's been
13:02around for a while. You might know about
13:04it, but it's still monumentally
13:05important. Dwek says, "We can approach
13:07what we do with two distinct mindsets. A
13:10fixed mindset says our abilities, math,
13:13writing, social skills, whatever, are
13:15finite. And when you fail at something,
13:18it's a sign you're not very good at it.
13:20A growth mindset is the opposite. It
13:23says that our abilities are malleable.
13:25They're not set in stone. With the right
13:27effort and dedication, you can expand
13:29them. And that means that failures are
13:31actually opportunities to learn and
13:33grow. This book was transformative for
13:36me because I was raised very much with a
13:38fixed mindset. But when I read this book
13:40in my 30s, I realized that for my own
13:42kids and for the rest of my own life, I
13:45want to cultivate a growth mindset.
13:48Number 17, Scarcity by Send Me Nathan
13:51and Elder Shafir. When we don't have
13:53enough of something, time, money,
13:55resources of any kind, that's
13:57challenging in its own right, but it
13:59also dramatically affects how we make
14:01decisions. Put simply, when you have
14:03less, when you confront scarcity, you
14:05make worse decisions. For instance, if
14:08you're deeply concerned about paying
14:09this month's bills, you can develop
14:12tunnel vision. You don't think long term
14:14about health or education or other parts
14:16of your life. There's even evidence that
14:18people who are dieting and therefore
14:20hungry tend to be worse decision makers
14:22than people who aren't because scarcity
14:25imposes attacks on our mental bandwidth.
14:27The key point here, when we see people
14:30who are struggling economically make
14:32impulsive or wrong-headed decisions
14:34about their lives, we mistakenly
14:35attribute the behavior to character
14:37flaws when in fact that's how most of us
14:41would behave in that situation. This
14:42book made me much more empathetic to the
14:44lives others lead. I wish every policy
14:47maker would read it. Number 18, Bird by
14:50Bird by Annie Lamont. This book helped
14:52me become a writer, plain and simple.
14:55The story comes from a story of Annie's
14:57brother back when he was in fifth grade.
14:59He had to write a report about birds. He
15:02hemmed, he hawed, he delayed, he
15:05dillydallied, and the night before the
15:07report was due, he had nothing. So his
15:10father offered him some advice about how
15:12to write the report. Just take it bird
15:14by bird, buddy. Bird by bird. It's an
15:17essential lesson for writing and for
15:19life. Eel Docro once said that writing
15:21is like driving a car at night. You can
15:23never see further than your headlights,
15:25but you can make the whole journey that
15:28way. That's why I take it
15:31bird by bird. Number 19, Nonzero, the
15:34logic of human destiny by Robert Wright.
15:36The books that can truly change your
15:38mind are those that help you see what's
15:40going on not on the surface of our
15:42lives, but one or two layers beneath.
15:45This is one of those books. There are
15:46two kinds of interactions we can have.
15:48In zero- sum interactions, the only way
15:50for me to win is for you to lose. In
15:53positive sum interactions, that's not
15:55the case. The best way for me to win is
15:58to help you win. Wright argues that
16:00most, not all, but most interactions are
16:03positive sum. That's become even more
16:05true as economies have grown larger and
16:08humans have become more interconnected,
16:10which means the key to progress is to
16:12continue moving away from the zero sum
16:14approach and toward one where there's
16:16mutual benefit. This book came out in
16:182001, but it's even more relevant today
16:21when some dark forces in our world are
16:24trying to push us toward a zero sum dog
16:27pessimistic future. Number 20, Moneyball
16:31by Michael Lewis. Let me confess, this
16:33is the only book I've ever read that I
16:35wish I'd written myself. It's pretty
16:37well known now thanks to the Brad Pitt
16:39movie of the same name. It tells the
16:40story of Billy Bean, who was in charge
16:42of the Oakland A's, the least wealthy
16:44team in Major League Baseball. Bean
16:46turned his team of misfits and castoffs
16:49into a contender by challenging the
16:51sports conventional wisdom, embracing
16:53analytics, and ultimately
16:55revolutionizing the game. You don't have
16:57to be a baseball fan to enjoy it because
16:59Moneyball will leave you with a set of
17:01indelible lessons. Think differently.
17:05Challenge the norms of your industry or
17:07your world and ask yourself, what if
17:10everyone else is wrong? Number 21, Man's
17:14Search for Meaning by Victor Franco. You
17:17think you're too busy or stressed to
17:19find meaning in your life? Tell that to
17:21Victor Franco, who survived 3 years in
17:23four different Nazi concentration camps.
17:26He nearly lost his freedom, his family,
17:28everything. But he didn't lose his hope.
17:31While he was in prison, he wrote on
17:33scraps of paper a new approach to
17:36psychotherapy that doubles as a
17:39philosophy of life. Franco says that
17:42human beings primary drive isn't
17:44pleasure but meaning. And even in brutal
17:47dehumanizing conditions, we can find
17:49purpose and significance. In fact, we
17:52can use our craving for meaning to build
17:54resilience. If you're struggling, read
17:56this book. If you're not struggling,
17:59read this book. It's that powerful.
18:01These aren't the only books that will
18:03reshape your thinking, but they're a
18:04start. So, power on your e-reader, crack
18:07the spine of a paperback, or hit your
18:10local library. When we read books like
18:12these, we change our minds. And when we
18:14change our minds, we change the world.
18:18[Music]