Category: Relationships

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BR 315: Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg

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Comments: Solid book with a nice combination of stories and research about great communication.

Insights that resonated: 

(1) What kind of conversation are we in: Does the other person want to be helped, hugged, or heard?

(2) Effective communication often comes down to our ability to match the mood and energy of the person we’re communicating with. 

(3) The most powerful thing we can do to show that we are seeking to understand and not to be understood in a tense conversation is to: (a) take the time to wait for the person to finish, (b) then play back what we understood and, (c) check if what we understood was what they were trying to say.

(4) “While there are many factors that determine if a romantic relationship succeeds or flounders, one key factor is whether makes the people in it feel more in control of their happiness or less in control of their happiness.”

In detailed examinations of conversations among unhappy couples, researchers found that the partners tended to focus on trying to control the other person. For example, they might say “don’t go there” or “don’t use your voice against me” or “you always do this all that.”

Happy couples instead focused either on controlling themselves or the environment. For example, they’d talk slower and make sure that they kept that cool. The key with happy couples was focusing on things that they could control together and ensuring that they kept an argument as small as possible, instead of letting it expand into other areas and throwing “the kitchen sink” at each other.

(5) Social identities have a noticeable impact in our behavior. For example, without any intervention, studies with graduate level students found that women consistently performed consistently worse than men in math tests. That’s because, by default, they were aware of a stereotype that women are worse at math than men.

However, in tests where these women were reminded of other identities, e.g. that of a puzzle-solver or a successful sportsperson, the performance differences disappeared.

These identities matter a ton in communication because conflicts escalate when they move from being about the topic to being perceived as threatening the person’s identity.

That’s where motivational interviewing comes in. With tricky issues, motivational interviewing focuses on asking questions to help a person understand both sides of an issue and why they might be for against it.

The goal isn’t to persuade – it is to simply understand both sides of the issues and reinforce that there are other identities they could choose. He made the point with fascinating examples involving polarizing issues such as gun rights and vaccines.

(5) From 7 decades of data from the famous Grant study, the people who were most satisfied in the relationships at age 50 were the healthiest and happiest at age 80. One researcher put it bluntly – “The most defining factor for happiness and satisfaction of life is love, not romantic love, but the love and connection with our friends, family, coworkers and their community.”

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BR 298: Excellent Advice for Living by Kevin Kelly

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Comments: I’ve loved Kevin Kelly’s birthday posts – pithy compilations of lessons he’s learned over the years. So I knew this book would be a treat. And it exceeded my high expectations. It is a wonderful compilation of 70 years of wisdom from a fascinating human being. I’m sure I’ll pick this book up from my shelf from time to time and I’ll be gifting it for years to come.

It also has made a profound impression on how I think about writing to have an impact. A great reminder of the power of brevity.

Insights that resonated: A choice few…

“To be rich, you don’t need to make more money; you chiefly need to better manage the money already flowing through your hands.”

“Measure your wealth not by the things you can buy but by the things that no money can buy.”

“Before you are old, attend as many funerals as you can bear, and listen. Nobody talks about the departed’s achievements. They only thing people will remember is what kind of person you where while you were achieving.“

“The big dirty secret is that everyone, especially, the famous, are just making it up as they go along.” 

“Things do not need to be perfect to be wonderful. Especially weddings.”

“To learn from your mistakes, first laugh at your mistakes.”

“Superheroes and saints never make art. Only imperfect beings can make art because art begins in what is broken.”

“Pros make as many mistakes as amateurs; they’ve just learned how to gracefully recover from their mistakes.”

“Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.”

“Generally, say less than necessary.” 

To build strong children, reinforce their sense of belonging to a family by articulating exactly what is distinctive about your family. They should be able to say with pride, “Our family does X.”

“Instead of asking your child what they learned today, ask them “who they helped today.”

“When you forgive others, they may not notice, but you will heal.

Forgiveness is not something we do for others; it is a gift to ourselves.”

“It is not hard to identify a thief. It is the one who believes everyone else steals.”

“Greatness is incompatible with optimizing in the short term. To achieve greatness requires a long view. Raise your time horizon to raise your goal.”

“Your best response to an insult is “You’re probably right.”

“If you can’t tell what you desperately need, it’s probably sleep.” 

“Forgiveness is accepting the apology you will never get.”

 “Don’t measure your success with someone else’s ruler.”

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BR 283: The Power of Regret by Dan Pink

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Comments: This is a classic Dan Pink book – well researched, extremely well structured, and chock full of thought provoking notes.

Insights that resonated: Dan recently shared a summary of the book in a few paragraphs in a short “graduation speech.” My cliff notes –

(1) Foundation regrets: “The first of the big four regrets is what I call Foundation regrets. Foundation regrets emerge from small choices we make earlier in life that accumulate to negative consequences later in life.

We spend too much and save too little. We don’t eat right, sleep enough, or exercise
regularly. We apply only grudging effort on the job – or, yes, in the classroom”

“Foundation regrets sound like this: If only I’d done the work.”

(2) Boldness regrets: “All regrets begin when we’re at a juncture. And with this category, the juncture presents a choice: Play it safe – or take the chance? And when we don’t take the chance – not all the time, but most of the time – we regret it.”

“Boldness regrets sound like this: If only I’d taken the chance.“

(3) Moral regrets: “Once again, we’re at a juncture. We can take the high road
or we can take the low road. And when we choose what our conscience says is the wrong path, most of us – most of the time – regret it.

We hurt others. We break our word. We degrade what ought to be revered. And while at first the decision can feel fine – even exhilarating – before long it eats at us.”

“Moral regrets sound like this: If only I’d done the right thing.”

(4) Connection regrets: “These are regrets about all the relationships in our lives. Partners. Parents. Children. Siblings. Cousins. Friends. Colleagues. Classmates.
A 45-year-old woman, from the District of Columbia, offered this: “My brother died
suddenly at forty-one. I regret not saying, ‘I love you,’ more.””

“Connection regrets sound like this: If only I’d reached out.“

(5) That brings us to the reverse image of a life well lived.

A decent foundation – enough stability so that life is not precarious. Boldness – a chance to learn and grow and do something meaningful during the vanishingly short time we’re alive. Morality – being good and decent and just. Connection – having people we love and who love us.

Or put differently.

Do the work.

Take the chance.

Do the right thing.

Reach out.

And ignore the rest.

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BR 247: The Algebra of Happiness by Scott Galloway

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Comments: The Algebra of Happiness is a nice collection of his weekly newsletters with many nice nuggets. This book didn’t rank as high on my list as I’d already seen most of the content. I guess I was looking for something I hadn’t seen when I read the book.

Top Lessons:

  1. Hard work and lack of balance early in your career has a disproportionate impact later in your career. Speed matters. There’s no right way to do it. It involves trade offs.
  2. Most important decision you make is who you marry. Good sex is 10% of a good relationship but bad sex can be 90%. Aside from that, your values – especially on money matter a lot.
  3. The ratio of how much you sweat to watching others sweat is a leading indicator to success.
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BR 238: The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henriquez

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Comments: I read this over the holidays at the end of the year. It is a beautiful, poignant, story of a Mexican family who made it over the border to live a better life in the United States. I read it as a friend shared it as among her favorite books of the moment. Books have this magical ability to open your eyes to what someone else is going through.

This book does just that.

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BR 233: Non violent communication by Marshall Rosenberg

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Comments: Simple, profound, life changing. Someone I know describes this as “algebra” for communication – a must read for anyone who communicates (i.e. all of us). I think that’s a great description. Putting this book to action will be my top focus in 2019.

Top 3 Lessons:

  1. Keeping observation and evaluation separate in our thinking and communication is one of the hardest things to do. There’s a time to observe and a time to evaluate – almost never a good idea to do both at the same time.Words like always and never communicate evaluation. Communicating observations can be powerful.
  2. I feel is often misused when we use it so say things we think. “I feel I’ve been mistreated” or I feel misunderstood or I feel you..
  3. We don’t know how to communicate needs. :) empathic listening is all about listening to feelings and needs.
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BR 221: The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath

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Comments: I love books by Chip and Dan Heath. While this book didn’t resonate as strongly as Decisive (their previous book) did, I thought it brought together lessons on a very important topic, Great moments are what we remember in this life. Understanding how these get made is, thus, as important a lesson as any.

Top 3 Lessons:

  1. A formula for excellent mentorship: High expectations + Assurance + Direction + Support
  2. Responsiveness is the key to strong relationships. It means you are attuned to the other person. The idea that physicians ask patients “what matters to you” revolutionized children’s healthcare in Scotland.
    Do we understand what matters to the people we care about? (Deep questions, thus, are a great way to get to know people.)
  3. In the short term, we often choose to fix problems over creating moments. In the long term, that backfires. Moments are not a means to the end, they are the end. They are what we remember in the end.
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BR 199: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

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Comments: I rarely re-read books but decided to re-read this during my end-of-year break as I’ve come to appreciate how wise this book is. It delivered, again. I’d spent most of my first reading in the first half/personal victories portion of the book. This time, I spent more time in the public victories. So much to learn, do and build.

Top 3 Learnings:
1. To know and not to do is not to learn. Beautifully drove home the point that I haven’t “learned” nearly as much I say I have.

2. Seek to understand and then to be understood. In the spirit of knowing and not doing, this has become an important part of “engagement” theme this year. I am still too impatient too often.

3. Seeking win-win requires a combination of courage and consideration.

Stephen Covey’s masterpiece is so good that it makes the “Read ASAP” list twice. :)

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BR 189: Conscious Business by Fred Kofman

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conscious business, fred kofman

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Comments: Conscious Business is an all star business book and deservedly so. It is one of those books that can fundamentally change your perspective. I did find a lot of overlap with the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Top 3 learnings:

1. Consciousness is our ability to be aware and to choose. I found this definition very powerful.

2. Kofman shared the steps to drive people crazy. I found this similar to the steps to creating a cult in Robert Greene’s book on Power. Essentially, it involves being very inconsistent and pretending to be open while not being so. The inconsistency drives people nuts. Sadly, such behavior is a common cause for schizophrenia.

3. Don’t question the emotion. Instead, question the underlying beliefs that lead to the emotion. For example, if Fred’s son believes that there are monsters in the basement, there is no point expecting him not to be scared. After all, we would be scared if we thought so too.

Book notes here.

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BR 142: Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton

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Comments: If you love technology, you will find this book very interesting. It felt a bit gossip-y in that it focused a lot more on the dynamics of a handful of people who were responsible in building Twitter. You come to learn how Twitter nearly imploded multiple times but, against the odds, survived to change the world.

Top 3 Learnings:

1. A strong board of directors is a key in every company as in life. It is very important to have people who have a long term interest in you who are then willing to call bullshit on your decisions and occasionally, guide you to move to a better place.

2. Complexity, conflict, clash of egos, etc., are not the words that come to mind when you think of the glory of a start-up’s journey to success. They’re part and parcel of the journey, however. And, it is worth remembering that no good comes without significant pain and learning. The book explores the path of these multi millionaires who all learnt some very tough life lessons in the process.

3. Twitter was founded by a bunch of geeks who saw it as a way of connecting with people. These weren’t people with strong social bonds or relationships. They understood the power of technology in helping people like themselves find connection. I thought it interesting that Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in the process of getting back at the girlfriend who dumped him. Scratching your own itch is a very powerful reason to build a company that changes the world.