Evolution, the natural movement toward better adaptation to reality, is one of the greatest forces in the universe. Evolution leads to improvement, improvement helps one get what he/she wants. Thus the desire to evolve is probably humanity’s most universal driving force, and continuous personal evolution is one of the greatest rewards by itself. In order to better adapt to reality, one has to have an accurate understanding of it. Reading and reflecting is a shortcut to gaining knowledge about how society and the universe work. Below are 28 books that I read in 2016 across a range of domains. I don’t think I am any smarter, but I am certainly more knowledgeable than a year ago, or rather more aware of my ignorance…
In 2017, I think I will slow down my pace of reading and instead devote more time to each book, and re-visit some books read in the past. After a year of voracious reading, I found my knowledge retention was not very satisfactory. Writing a book review is a good exercise but a bit too time-consuming and less economic given my slow speed of writing. A habit that I will start to form is to write down a few key unconventional ideas from each book. Peter Thiel asked an interesting and really hard question in the opening of his book “Zero to One”:

“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”

I think that is a good filter to start with to select my key takeaways. Continue reading “Continuous Learning: 28 Books I Read in 2016” →

A year ago, my former manager (now partner) at Accenture, Bogdan Konsur, gave me this book written by Chicago professor Nicholas Epley. After graduating from CBS, I finally had time to read it and found it very interesting and insightful. The book is based on studies of neuroscience and psychology, and is filled with experiments of how the human mind works and how its inherent limitations could cause misunderstandings of others. Here are my key takeaways:

How to be a better “mind reader”? Put less effort on trying to read others’ body language or “putting yourself in their shoes,” this amounts to little more than imagination and guess work, and could exaggerate misunderstandings. Instead, try harder to GET another person’s perspective instead of trying to TAKE it.

Imagining/guessing is easy because it is quick and often works reasonably well based on one’s own mind, stereotypes about others’ mind, and others’ observed actions, but each of these are simplifying heuristics that give imperfect insights. Asking is a slower and harder process therefore a path taken less often, but it is the way you understand people more accurately, and the way you solve their problems more effectively.
Continue reading “How to be a better “Mind Reader”” →