It is very hard to choose one book that I can read over and over again.
I will list down three gems that really helped shape my career in the last 7 years. These are the books I read over and over again.
Spoiler Alert : These three books are also part of my Ten book recommendations post for building your career
1) Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Prof. Kahneman talks about various human biases, Prospect theory and explains how loss/risk aversion is so instinctive to humans. He also explains how our how impulsive brain dominates our thinking brain.
Why I like this book : It helped me understand why I made some boneheaded decisions in life. It gave me an awareness about myself that I thought I didn’t need. I have been much more thoughtful about many decisions in life after reading this book. I hope you do too.
2) Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
Chris Voss is an Ex-FBI hostage negotiator. Everyone talks about showing empathy to fellow human beings but no one teaches how to be empathetic. Voss is the most unlikely person I would have imagined to teach me empathy.
Why I like this book : I always confused empathy with sympathy. Those are two very different feelings. Some humans need sympathy but most humans that I interact with in my professional life need some empathy. I really learned how to understand where people are coming from without wallowing in sorrow with them. This helped me make some very logical win-win decisions for both the parties involved.
3) Influence, the psychology of persuasion by Robert Cialdini
In Influence, Cialdini explores the psychology of persuasion and the six key principles that govern how people are influenced. The Six principles are Reciprocity, Commitment, Social Proof, Liking, Authority and Scarcity.
Why I like this book : This is one of the first books I read that opened me up an entire secret world that exists around me but I was unaware of. I was always struggling to understand how human interactions work and I always had a very pessimistic view of networking. I always thought it to be a very shitty, transactional dealing until I encountered this book. It helped me understand how I am always being influenced by people around me in subtle ways and gaining my compliance. If used in an ethical way, this improves the quality all your human interactions in your life.
If you have any books that influenced you so much, please feel free to comment below. Thanks for reading.
BYC 
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