The Untroubled Mind

Usefulness in my own life:

Key Points

1.  The best way to eliminate worry is to live the life to its full potential then the worry just cannot find the place in your life. 

2.  Don't try to eliminate worry consciously because the best way to get rid of the worry is to stop thinking about it and if you try to get rid of it consciously you cannot forget it.

3.  If you feel sad let it be so, it will disappear naturally by itself.

What I liked in the book.

1. The only thing that I liked in this book is that it contains some really simple but at the same time useful advice that can potentially help us to overcome the anxiety.


What I didn't like

1. From the first pages the vocabulary is so complex and dramatic that at times I felt as if I was reading a Shakespearean tragedy. Here is an example: "life is pursued for the sake of glory itself and not for the sake of peace"

2. It feels that this book just has a bunch of ideas that are scattered throughout it and are not properly organised. This almost made me to give up reading reading after the first 20 pages.

3. The advice provided in this book are not back up by real life examples and this make it to sound a bit philosophical.


To sump up, this is kind of a book that I won't recommend reading at all because it felts as a complete waste of time sometimes.

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

Usefulness in my own life:

Key Points:

The whole book can be summarised by the following quote -
"If you want people to change, you can provide clear direction (appeal to their reason) or boost their motivation and determination (appeal to their emotions). Alternatively, you can simply make the journey easier."

1. To change someone's behaviour you first need to change the situation. For example, if the person is a glutton and he just consumes a huge amount of food there is a chance that we can fix his problem by making him use smaller dishes and then automatically he will consume less. Don't try to attribute people's behaviour to the way they are because this is not productive.

2. Self-control (willpower) is exhaustible it is basically a mental muscle and this means that you can't rely solely on the willpower in breaking bad habits. 

3. Regardless of how problematic the situation in certain places might seem there are always bright spots" which means  that there are instances of success. For example, the author tells us how despite of the malnutrition problems in Vietnam certain families managed to keep their children full and healthy.  By copying this behaviour other families managed to do the same thing.

4. Learn to set black and white goals because they increase the chance of you following through.  For example, setting the goal such as "No wine ever" is more effective than setting a goal such as "Only one glass of wine a day"

5. People are more likely to pursue a goal once they realise that they are half way there. For instance, when the maids at the hotel were told that they are actually the beasts because during their working hours they burn a lot of calories the maids started working even harder and as a result all of them who were told that they are the beasts lost weight within couple of months after they were told that.

What I liked in the book.

1.  There are many references to the real life experiments which gives credibility to everything that the author says.

      

2. Metaphors used in the book add a certain amount of humour and help you to stay tuned. For instance the emotional part of our brain is compared to the wild elephant that is extremely hard to control.

 3. I really liked so called "clinics" when we are given a chance to step out of the textbook and think how we can apply our knowledge in real life.

What I didn't like

1. The book was too long and it felt that some ideas are repeated again and again so if it wasn't for the blog I could potentially stop reading it.

2. It felt at times that the authors are jumping from one topic to another. For example, they jumped from the idea that often what we think are problems caused by people are actually caused by the situation, to the new notion that self-control is exhaustible

If it is your first psychology related book I suggest not to read it since you are quite likely to give up.

Influence: Science and Practice

Usefulness in my own life: 

Key Points:

There are 6 principles of influence

1.      Rule of reciprocation. People feel pressure to return back to those who did something for them. Robert Cialdini tells us how Krishna society was taking advantage of this principle by presenting a flower to the people in the airport and then demanding donations for their society.

2.       The principle of scarcity. If something is less available it is more attractive for people. In the experiment where people were divided into two groups where one group was provided with two cookies and the other one provided with ten cookies, the participants from the first group tended to consider the cookies better tasting that the participants from the second.

3.      Commitment and Consistency. People have this inner-drive to remain consistent with who they are and what they do. This inner-drive becomes even stronger if people declare publicly what they are consistent in. But for making people consistent we need to make them commit at least once. Cialdini tells us that when the patients in the hospital who were doing recovery exercises were asked to prepare “inspirational” tapes for others their consistency level increased even more.

4.      Rule of Consensus or People Proof. People repeat what other people similar to them are doing. The reader will find out about the humorous situation that this rule has once created that almost led to the bankruptcy of a stable bank.

5.      Authority and Trustworthiness. People are ready to blindly follow the authority as long as they trust him or her. In this book, you will find out how some waitresses take advantage of this rule and frequently trick you in the restaurant.

6.      Liking. If you make someone like you, they are more likely to say yes to you. Just keep in mind that people tend to like the ones who are similar to them ;)

What I Liked In The Book

       1.    I like the fact that we are told not just how to influence others but also how to avoid an unwanted influence as well.

    2.    The childish division of people into groups called bunglers, smugglers and detectives of influence adds some humour to the topic and also helps to uncover the issue of ethics.

      3.    Every single point is backed up by a real life example that doesn’t seem to be made up : )

What I didn’t like

      1.    Vocabulary used is quite sophisticated and it might be hard to understand for English as second language readers.

                    

2.     Description of some examples is way too long and sometimes you just ask yourself why the hell should I care about so many details?

3.     The first couple of points is explored more deeply than the last ones. The book is not balanced in this respect.Vocabulary used is quite sophisticated and it might be hard to understand for English as a second language readers.

If you are a manager who wants to influence their employees or a salesperson who tries to sell his product or just a person who wants to influence others you definitely need to read this book.

Don’t forget to leave a comment : )

                    

Awaken The Giant Within

 Usefulness in my own life: 

Key Points:

1.      Beliefs about who we are and who we are not, affect our behaviour and as a result our lives. Tony Robbins backs it up by a couple of real life examples. He tells the readers how the lives of two kids born to the family of the prisoner ended up being completely different due to the different beliefs they had.

2.      What you link pain to and what you link pleasure to shapes your destiny. One example that Tony provided is how he started to hate beer after the process of drinking it was linked to the painful (or disgusting in his case) experience.

3.      Change can happen in an instant. According to the author, there are three thoughts that you need to have for this change to happen and they can be summed up in the following sentence – Something must change, I must change I believe I can change

4.      Emotion is created by motion. Every single emotion has a certain posture attached to it, if you wanna feel a certain way then you need to change your posture to the one corresponding to the feeling you want to get.

5.      It is Crucial to know the order of importance of your own values. In the book, Tony tells us how the knowledge of her own values helped his daughter to make an important decision in her life.

What I Liked In The Book

                     1.   The broadness of the topics covered in this book. Many aspects of human behaviour have been covered starting from how our values affect our decisions and ending with the impact of our physiology in our emotional state

                     2.    Personal connection with the reader at times I felt that Tony is sitting in front of me and telling me all of this stuff

                     3.  The variety of real life examples. Mr Robbins provides us with so many examples from real life that there is no chance that you will have difficulty with understanding the concepts taught in this book.

What I didn’t like

          1.  In my view, the title is misleading. Because “Awaken The Giant Within” sounds as something focused mainly on the techniques of improving yourself and making drastic changes to your productivity but this is not what the book is about.

                    2.   I felt that there wasn’t enough emphasis on what exactly we need to do to control our emotional and mental states. It would be much better if Tony dedicated 10-15 pages solely to this matter.

Overall I feel that this book is worthy of your time and it will make you think and analyse your own life and hopefully make positive changes.

See you in my next posts :)

  

What is this website all about?

 Hi. My name is Anar Kazimov and since my childhood, I have been interested in human psychology. I love observing people and analysing their patterns and causes of their behaviour. Despite this passion, I have never even considered psychology as something I can pursue professionally and that's why all my interest in this field was bounded to reading books and applying new skills in my daily life. However, recently this sudden thought struck my mind: "What if I start a blog where I review every single psychology related book and let the world know my humble opinion about it?" That sounded quite exciting for me because it wouldn't just allow me to add variety to my hobby but it would also enable me to get a little bit of cash for my work. So from now, I will do my best to publish at least one thorough review every two weeks.

Please don't forget to follow me by email :)