5 Books That'll Change Your Life

Today we're gonna be talking about a subject near and dear to my heart. That subject is fifty shades. This week, we're going to be talking about books.

 Now, I wanted to give you a list of my recommendations and since it's the new year and we always say, new year, new you, I wanted to come up with a theme around that. This list will not only serve as a foundation for you to understand yourself better, but also those around you.

 Ever since medical school, I've realized I'm a better auditory learner. 

I can be multi-tasking and still take in all the points that I'm listening to. In fact, I told you this before, I used to screen all of my lectures multiple times instead of sitting and reading the notes. Now my go to way to get these audiobooks is through Audible. 

All right, let's jump right into it. I'm going to be talking about five books that I think will make you a better all around you. 

"What Every Body is Saying" by Joe Navarro. Now, I love the catchy title in this book. "What Every Body is Saying." - Oh, okay, I see what you did there. - This is a book covering human body language and I think this is very important because most of human communication is actually non-verbal. Joe Navarro is actually an ex-FBI agent and he talks about all these unique tips that you can use to read people from across the room or even someone you're interacting with. Even the smallest body parts, eyelids, cheeks, fingers.

 - The name's Sherlock Holmes. - When I read this book for the first time, it shocked me. I love people watching. I started understanding what was going on in each situation without even needing to hear what they were saying. 

The entire body gives us a better picture than just the face and I'll use an example from the book where if you look at two people having a conversation and you look at the direction of where their feet are pointing, that speaks volumes about how much they're enjoying that conversation. If you see two people sitting next to each other and one person's feet are pointing away from that person, they're ready to get out of that conversation. Joe even goes as far as to give you simple tips to change your posture to allow you to express authority, to build trust with somebody else.

 If you put your hands completely in your pockets, that's a very passive, submissive pose. Now, if you want to exemplify a little bit of confidence, all you have to do is take your thumbs out and that just makes your body language speak with more authority. "Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini, Ph.D. I love reading books on influence and it's not because I want to manipulate somebody. People often think that influence carries a negative connotation. I think it's more manipulation that carries the connotation. Manipulation by definition is a shrewd or devious way to influence somebody for your own advantage. 

If a patient walks into my office, they have high cholesterol, high blood pressure and they don't exercise, it's my job to influence them to begin an exercise regimen. It doesn't mean that I'm manipulating them for my own advantage. Now in everyday life, we not only need to be very good at influencing people at our jobs, whether you're a doctor influencing your patients, or a teacher influencing your students, we also need to be aware of those who are trying to influence, or manipulate, us. - It's just a matter of luring him out. - One of the concepts this book breaks down very well is something known as the contrast principle. And it's something that sales people utilize all the time in order to get you to spend more money. I'm a sales person and you're coming into the store to buy a suit. I will get you committed to buying this $400 suit and then I'll offer you an $80 sweater, which is a pretty expensive sweater, but it won't look as expensive because you've already spent $400. - Wow, that's messed up. 

- "The Influential Mind" by Tali Sharot. If you want someone to understand where you're coming from, it's gonna take a lot more than facts and figures. Oh, I like that. That was a good. Most people are influenced by emotions rather than facts and figures. You can see this right now on the news cycle. 

When somebody starts talking to your primitive brain, they do a much better job at influencing your thoughts and even your actions. When your mind is stressed, it's much more easily influenced. And we see this after horrible terrorist attacks like September 11th, it takes one person to start running in order to get hundreds to do the same because in that stressed state, they're more likely to be influenced. I think the real gem in this book is that it teaches you how to communicate with somebody that disagrees with you. The way you do that is you establish a new concept that doesn't necessarily disagree with their viewpoint but does agree with yours. Once you find that sort of common ground, it can facilitate that conversation and allow you to exert your influence. If I'm trying to encourage a parent to vaccinate their child and they happen to be anti-vaccine, instead of going back-and-forth and arguing about the side effects of vaccines, I introduce a new point where we can both agree that the disease that the vaccine prevents, like measles, is a bad disease. If the parent agrees with me, we have a much higher likelihood of seeing eye-to-eye and agreeing on getting a vaccination for their child. "Public Speaking for Success" by Dale Carnegie. We all need to improve how we speak in public. 

To be an effective communicator, to share your story, to influence people, to be a better person yourself, you need to be able to be a better public speaker. Dale Carnegie gives you some really simple steps that anyone can follow in order to be a better public speaker. One of those steps that I take to heart and use in all of my speeches is the idea of verbalizing your speech or your talk before even doing it. That way, your brain can recite the information, get used to saying it. You'll probably stumble and that's okay because you're practicing but you have to practice. It talks about really great speakers, how they presented their speeches, what words they used, why certain speeches were more effective than others and that really goes a long way in order for you to communicate your ideas. "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly (mumbles) (laughs). Even though this book is called "The Psychology of Optimal Experience," it's basically a book about happiness. This is an evolving field of psychology known as positive psychology. And this is one of the first books I've read on the subject and I've become obsessed. In medicine, we always look at the negative symptoms, we talk about depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, but positive psychology focuses on the positive aspects of life. 

What is flow? When you are playing basketball, when you are rock climbing, when you are playing an instrument, you're putting in a lot of effort and generally, for human survival sake at least, when we put in effort it's done so in order to get something in return whether that's financial return, sexual return, that feeling you feel when you're climbing a mountain, playing an instrument, playing basketball, is called flow. It's a very self-fulfilling, authentic happiness that you feel.

 When people look at my Instagram or YouTube channels, they always comment on how happy I look and they say that they don't believe that I'm always so happy or that they want to know how I'm always so happy. I think flow is a great reason of why I'm happy. 

Flow explains that in order to feel happiness, to get that intrinsic joy in life, you constantly need to set these little achievable and meaningful goals for yourself whether we're talking about cleaning the house in a certain amount of time, or reading a certain amount of books in a given year. 

A great paradox that this book addresses is that we don't spend our free time well. 

Most people can't wait to leave work. 

They can't wait to retire but when they do, they actually become more unhappy and more anxiety sets in. When you are not activating your mind to reach goals and set challenges for yourself, like you are every time you're at work, your mind fills that empty space with anxiety. When you have anxiety, that leads to more problems, more depression. 

When you're at work and you're constantly setting new goals and new obstacles for yourself, you're able to reach those goals