5 Books That Expanded My Understanding
In addition to technology, we should learn more about the way of thinking.
I have shared a book before, but it was about technology. On this World Book Day, I would like to share several books that have influenced my thinking. I hope you will also enjoy them.
In the vast ocean of knowledge, each book is like a beacon, illuminating our path forward and expanding the boundaries of our understanding.
Today, I’m recommending five profoundly influential books that are worth reading and worth revisiting and delving into deeply.
These books cover a range of knowledge and wisdom from different fields. Whether you’re seeking personal growth or aiming for success in your career, they offer profound insights and endless motivation.
Principles: Life and Work
In this book, Dalio suggests that we can view life, management, entrepreneurship, and investment as machines, and systematize them into a set of principles.
The cornerstone of his principles, extreme truth, and extreme transparency, along with creative meritocracy and decision-making based on credibility assessment, are outlined in this book.
With over 500 principles, this book helps us maintain an open mind, see reality clearly, evaluate ourselves and others correctly, and face decision-making and team-building with ease. It further deepens our self-awareness and fosters continuous growth.
Two sentences from the book left a lasting impression on me:
“When facts don’t fit what we want to believe, most people resist. You need to distinguish between your goals and desires; desires are the things that will stand in the way of achieving your goals.”
Successful people not only need intelligence but, more importantly, they require the right values.
Asking the Right Questions
Living in a noisy, tumultuous, and uncertain world, surrounded by inundating information every moment, from global economic trends to personal life decisions, we often find ourselves confronted with viewpoints sold by others and the media. Without independent thinking and judgment, we tend to accept them wholesale — they’re eager to convince us it’s “fact,” but their words often blur the line between truth and falsehood.
You may sense something amiss but find it challenging to articulate.
This book helps us consciously learn and apply critical thinking, ask critical questions, carefully consider issues, strive to understand the analytical reasoning of those whose values oppose ours and overcome biases that affect judgment. Only then can we arrive at more correct, rational conclusions.
When you can confront opinions diametrically opposed to yours without bias, make rational judgments without bias, and discern logical fallacies and emotional manipulation in dialogue and debate, the world becomes more intriguing, expansive, and steadfast in your eyes.
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
After decades of research on success, Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck discovered the power of mindset.
In “Mindset,” she demonstrates that our success isn’t determined by ability and talent but by the mindset we exhibit in pursuing our goals.
The book introduces two mindsets: fixed and growth, which reflect two fundamental attitudes toward success, failure, achievement, and challenge.
For instance, individuals with a growth mindset, when faced with failure, say, “I should change the way I do things and try harder,” ensuring they do better next time.
Viewing problems through a growth mindset equips us with resilience, endurance, and initiative.
Every choice we make on the path to success bears the stamp of a growth mindset.
Helping People Change
At different stages of life, people sometimes need to make significant changes. When facing such changes, we all need help.
Professor Richard and his team discovered that focusing on “fixing” others, correcting problems, or bridging the gap between the present and the ideal state doesn’t effectively inspire positive change.
This problem-centered approach triggers psychological reactions, leading to defensive attitudes.
For change to be enduring, individuals must be willing and internally driven, rather than externally driven. Helping others learn and change should not only focus on problem-solving but also on fostering positive views of themselves or their long-held inspirational dreams or goals.
The book presents a positive coaching model — empathic coaching — and uses rich examples to demonstrate how empathic coaching fosters creative thinking and helps people achieve genuine growth.
“Helping People Change” not only draws on decades of research by Professor Richard and his team but also provides numerous exploratory questions and self-reflective exercises.
By reading this book, you can understand how to better tap into others’ willingness to learn and change and coach or lead others in a more empathetic manner.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Rest in Peace, DK.
Outstanding individuals often have different ways of thinking.
After reading this book, I realized that to improve one’s thinking, one must first understand that our brains operate in two modes: fast and slow.
One relies on memory, emotion, and experience — fast thinking — such as recognizing that 1+1 equals 2 or noticing when someone is angry based on facial expressions.
The other requires logic, analysis, and synthesis — slow thinking — such as writing a paper or planning a trip.
Fast thinking yields quick conclusions but often leads to errors; slow thinking, though slower, is more accurate.
In real life, due to laziness, we often rely on fast thinking. To change this cognitive habit, the book offers several methods — such as consciously slowing down thinking speed or pre-imagining outcomes before making important decisions.
Through this training, we can choose the appropriate approach for different problems and make more accurate decisions.
Thoughts on reading these books?
