- The Reading Life
- Posts
- 10 Psychology Books with the Cheat Codes to Your Own Mind (and the Minds of Others)
10 Psychology Books with the Cheat Codes to Your Own Mind (and the Minds of Others)
Matt Karamazov
November 13, 2024 ā¢ Estimated Reading Time: 29 minutes
YOUTUBE š THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE š PATREON
These ten books Iām about to recommend contain the cheat codes youāll need to instantly understand the inner psychological lives of the people around you.
They cover a lot of ground - everything from what ancient wisdom says about how to be happy, to status-consciousness and what our purchases say about who we are, all the way to self-compassion and the subconscious fear of death.
Turns out thereās a LOT more going on underneath the surface than most people ever see, and before I read these books I was completely ignorant of many of these extremely powerful psychological realities.
A Few Quick Announcements:
š In case you missed it, hereās my latest book breakdown, No B.S. Guide to Succeeding in Business by Breaking All the Rules, by Dan S. Kennedy (read for free)
š§ My next two book breakdowns will feature an update of The Go-Giver, by Bob Burg and John David Mann, and my brand new breakdown of Feel-Good Productivity, by Ali Abdaal. Coming soon! Both will be free breakdowns too.
š My complete summaries and notes from all these books (and 1,300+ more) are now available on my Patreon, updated monthly(ish).
š I havenāt decided exactly what Iāll do for Black Friday, but I do have a few spots open for personal coaching (for content creators who want to go full-time, faster), so if thatās you, look out for that!
šŖ One of the best fitness books Iāve read in a long time is Diary of a Gym Addict, by Tom Moss. Itās geared toward natural lifters who donāt want to resort to taking any PEDs to get results, and I liked how he takes aim at a lot of the garbage advice out there that keeps way too many people stuck with a body they donāt want. Highly recommend!
Tonight, Inside The Reading Life, Weāve Got:
š Spent, by Geoffrey Miller
Weāve got lots to learn today, so letās hit the books!
āāAre those the only two options?ā I asked. 'Yes,' he replied. I listed a few other paths that he conceded were possible, but he added, 'I don't know anyone who has done that.'
Many people fall into this trap. We are convinced that the only way forward is the path we've been on or what we've seen people like us do. This is a silent conspiracy that constrains the possibilities of our lives."
Buy Foreign Currency Online Today to Beat Bank And Airport Rates.
Planning your next international trip? Skip the hassle of bank visits and get your foreign currency delivered straight to your home with Currency Exchange International's OnlineFX website.
Order foreign currency online or on your mobile device whenever, wherever
Save money on your last-minute foreign currency needs
Easily access over 80 foreign currencies
Quickly have your foreign currency delivered to your home - as fast as the next day
24/7 access to order the foreign currency you need on the go
More time planning your perfect vacation, less time worrying about foreign currency
Traveling with cash ensures you never miss out when traveling. Order today to take advantage of today's great rates so you can enjoy all your trip has to offer.
āIf you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you'll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life. You will be evading your own capacities, your own possibilities."
This was one of my standout reads of 2020, a book that impressed me and astounded me so strongly that now I recommend it all the time.
In his professional academic career, Scott Barry Kaufman has focused on expanding on and spreading the ideas of Abraham Maslow, whose name you may recognize from that pyramid you were made to memorize in school. You know the one!
At the bottom level, youāve got the very basic survival needs of air, food, water, and health. Then, going up a level you find shelter and stability as the next most important human needs, all the way up to the need for development, creativity, and growth.
Kaufman shows how, at the end of Maslowās life, he was working towards extending his world-famous ideas (dealing mainly with self-actualization and self-expression) to the idea of transcendence, or the interconnection between the fates and destinies of every human being alive on Earth.
āThe world makes much less sense than you think. The coherence comes mostly from the way your mind works.ā
Daniel Kahneman was a Nobel Prize winner in Economics, and Thinking, Fast and Slow is easily his most influential book. Many of the concepts he first introduced here have made their way into popular usage, including the division of the human mind into two separate systems that he called System 1 and System 2.
System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional, whereas System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. These arenāt discrete systems within the brain, however, but rather a helpful way of thinking about whatās going on up there!
When you have to make snap judgements or fast decisions, youāre engaging System 1, and when youāre engaged in slow deliberation or prolonged, conscious thought, youāre using System 2.
Another distinction he makes is between the āexperiencingā self and the ārememberingā self, drawing the conclusion that theyāre almost like two different people! Thereās what youāre experiencing now, reading these words, wherever you are, and what youāll remember about this experience later.
And spoiler alert: people are way too trusting of the productions of their own minds!
āMan not only lives in this moment, but expands his inner self to yesterday, his curiosity to centuries ago, his fears to five billion years from now when the sun will cool, his hopes to an eternity from now.ā
This book about the subconscious fear of death and how it motivates much of human behavior won the Pulitzer Prize in 1974, but the man behind the book was just as interesting as what itās about! I never met the guy, but he might just be one of my favorite university professors.
Ernest Becker taught at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was so beloved by his students that they once got together and offered to pay his salary after learning that the university wasnāt going to renew his contract!
Many times - while teaching, for example, King Lear, anthropology, and whatever else - heād come to class in full costume, full of life and energy and enthusiasm for learning.
When he died at the age of 49 from colon cancer, the academic world lost someone very special, and Iād personally recommend several of his other books too, including The Birth and Death of Meaning, and Escape from Evil.
The Denial of Death is one of my favorite books, and its main thrust is that being alive - as fragile beings with no satisfying explanation for why weāre here - is so terrifying that in response to this realization, the majority of people retreat into a socially constructed self that basically forms a psychological defense against the reality of death.
Becker also believed that these psychological defenses prevent us from discovering who we really are, and not only that, are also responsible for much of the evil thatās present in the world.
Itās not an āeasyā read, by any means, and one of its strengths is that it gives a person very little room to hide, or rationalize away his conclusions.
With brilliantly reasoned arguments, he shows how this subconscious fear of death limits our lives, prevents accurate self-knowledge, and, if not surmounted through the pursuit of āgenuine heroism,ā casts a dark shadow across our full human potential.
āWhen we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.ā
Every now and then, a book like this comes along. Viktor Frankl was a World War II Holocaust survivor who spent years imprisoned in four separate Nazi death camps, losing his entire family before he was set free by the invading Russians and spent the rest of his life helping people find the real meaning of their lives.
This book is massively popular, and yet still not as popular as it deserves to be. Something like 12 million copies have been sold, but even attaching a number to it cheapens the infinite value of this incredible, inimitable, life-transforming book.
The fundamental message is that we always possess the freedom to respond to our circumstances, not to be crushed by them. Our lives are up to us, and as long as we have something ā someone ā to live for, no fate or tragedy is insurmountable. Frankl knows what heās talking about, of course, speaking from painful experience like he does here.
āSet for yourself any goal you want. Most of the pleasure will be had at each step of the way.ā
This is a book about finding modern truth in ancient wisdom, where professor Haidt looks at different philosophical traditions and their teachings to discover which have stood the test of time and what is now amply supported by modern psychological research.
It turns out that ancient philosophy and modern psychology have converged on some very clear answers that are so easy and effective to implement that youāll likely be amazed at how much your life improves just by making a few simple changes.
None of these simple changes require you to become a billionaire or amass millions of followers on social media, either. You can pursue those things if you want, of course, and you might even succeed! That would be wonderful, depending on the person! But itās only a fragile, vulnerable happiness thatās based exclusively on those things.
The Happiness Hypothesis is also where Haidt popularized the āelephant and riderā view of your emotional brain and rational brain. An elephant without a rider is out of control and chaotic, and a rider with no elephant lives without passion, energy, and drive.
Clearly, one is more powerful than the other, but in the book Haidt explores a few ways you can ātameā the elephant and educate the rider.
"Regret is not dangerous or abnormal, a deviation from the steady path to happiness. It is healthy and universal, an integral part of being human. Regret is also valuable. It clarifies. It instructs. Done right, it needn't drag us down; it can lift us up."
It's more or less a universal human experience to look back on the path we never followed and feel a nagging, painful, sometimes sinking, sickening feeling that we've somehow missed our chance, that we've traded our many unlived lives for this one, real life, and that it could have been so much better had we simply acted differently.
Virtually everyone has experienced something to the same effect, ranging from the "that might have been nice," to the "damn, I really should have done that," all the way to the "I've thrown it all away and I'll never, ever recover from this."
Anyone who says that they have no regrets is also usually viewed with suspicion by most people who have taken the time to reflect on their own personal history.
In this book, The Power of Regret, Daniel Pink refers to regret as our most misunderstood emotion and shows how it can potentially be transformed, transmuted into something extraordinarily valuable. We can reflect on our regret, reorganize it in our minds, reconceptualize it, and then use it to live better with all the time we have left.
What's more, navigating regret (and life) is always an ongoing process of closing certain opportunities while at the same time opening new ones. Every action we take determines the possibilities that are available to us in the next moment, and we are always choosing, even when we do nothing.
But we are not helpless against regret, as Daniel Pink argues in this book. We can enlist this misunderstood, potentially painful emotion in service of living a larger life, gaining redemption, and reclaiming at least a portion of our remaining unlived lives.
āCompassion is not only relevant to those who are blameless victims, but also to those whose suffering stems from failures, personal weakness, or bad decisions. You know, the kind you and I make every day."
Kristin Neff is one of the worldās leading experts on self-compassion, and she makes the compelling argument that as important as it is to possess solid self-esteem, itās self-compassion that can help us be kinder to ourselves if our self-esteem is ever threatened.
I believe winning is important. I believe hard work is important. I believe that high achievement in the areas of life that are meaningful to us makes our lives better in a real, tangible way.
But Iām also not blind to the fact that thereās always going to be someone out there smarter than you, in better shape than you are, richer than you are, with more friends, more of everything you want. Itās a losing strategy to base your entire self-worth on what you have, what you do, or what youāve achieved.
A much better āstrategyā for life is to treat yourself like a very good friend, like someone you were responsible for helping. Push yourself, yes. Be kind to yourself, also yes. The two are not mutually exclusive, and Dr. Neffās book will help you get better at the ābeing kinder to yourselfā part.
The fact is that if you had a friend or family member who talked to you in the same way that you sometimes talk to yourself, youād want to get away from them as fast as possible! You might even call the police! AND the fire department!
Forget all that. This book will help you soften your self-talk, be kinder to yourself, and treat yourself like a really good friend who you want to see happy and healthy and at peace.
āI started to see that marketing underlies everything in modern culture in the same way that evolution underlies everything in human nature.ā
Evolutionary psychology is a fascinating lens through which to observe modern techno-consumer capitalism, and thatās exactly what Miller does here in this book, one of my absolute favorites. In my gross oversimplification, he looks at ātrait displayā and āstatus-seekingā and other things with respect to human mating, and how the things we buy are used to present ourselves to potential mates in the best possible light.
That being said, Miller explains that consumer capitalism is one the least efficient ways of doing this! Through conversation, mutual exploration, and group dynamics, weāre already very good at determining whether someone weāre meeting for the first time is higher or lower on the Big Six personality traits ā openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism (mental stability), and generally intelligence.
We donāt need to mindlessly buy things ā and waste our vital powers doing so ā in order to find the communities to which we most suitably belong.
Thereās a ton of nuance in this book, and reasonable people may disagree with some of Millerās conclusions, but he basically says that consumer capitalism is responsible for some of both the best and the worst features of modern societies.
The answer isnāt just to ādisbandā capitalism or adopt some new system ā rather, the thing to do is mindfully approach our own consumption patterns and recognize when we may have gone too far.
āThe triviality of everyday life, with its problems and responsibilities, destroys our inner freedom. In fact, most people donāt even realize they possess this inner freedom.ā
When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
Individuals tend to have much greater control over their internal and external circumstances than they believe and, within reason, you can change your moment-by-moment perception of reality by working to strengthen your consciousness.
The way Colin Wilson conceptualizes it in this book is that life is like a vast museum just full of beautiful artwork that we could perceive, but it's as if we're trying to see in the dark.
We don't bring our full mental faculties to the task, and although the brilliant artwork is still there in the dark, we have to āturn on the lights,ā so to speak, to be able to see how beautiful life really is or can be.
Every once in a while, however, we are reminded of the literally stunning beauty and wonder of life, and it shakes us out of our accustomed habits of seeing the world as a rather dull, dreary, miserable place.
It is within our power to shake ourselves out of this suboptimal, habitual way of seeing, and the investigation of how certain people have done that throughout history is Colin Wilson's project here in this book.
āStatus is an essential nutrient found not in meat or fruit or sunlight but in the successful playing of our lives. When we feel chronically deprived of it, or disconnected from the game, our minds and bodies can turn against us. To our brains, status is a resource as real as oxygen or water. When we lose it, we break.ā
Put any group of humans together, and almost instantly they'll start trying to figure out who should lead, who's most worthy of respect, and who should be praised and emulated.
Not only that, but we each carry around a sense of where we stand in that hierarchy, and many of us go to rather extreme lengths in order to rise to the top.
According to the award-winning writer and journalist Will Storr (award-winning = high status!), the "status game" that we're all playing is an invisible thread that runs through the best and the worst of what human beings do all day.
Whether we're "winning" or "losing" affects our happiness and our self-esteem, our relationships with others, our goals in life and whom we choose to copy, and even how long we'll live.
All this being the case, just think about how complicated it is to be alive!
You've got all these forces - the cravings for status and for love, social conditioning, and the impact on the individuals of the wider culture, the subconscious fear of death, the swirling emotional storms affecting our thoughts and actions all day long, and so much more - how do we even live? How do we make sense of it all?
For that, we should be grateful to Will Storr as he explains a few of the rules of the Game of Life...
Forward this to a friend you think would love this book!
If you were sent this newsletter, click here to subscribe.
To read past editions of The Reading Life, click here.
āClick here to recommend The Reading Life on Twitter (X).
OK, thatās it for nowā¦
More excellent book recommendations coming your way soon!
And if youād like me to buy you a new book every month, (and rapidly scale your personal brand while earning more money in your business), click to join us inside The Competitive Advantage - weād love to have you!
With that said, I hope you enjoyed this edition of The Reading Life, and enjoy the rest of your week!
Until next timeā¦happy reading!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are three more ways I can help you:
Work with me personally to scale your business past $5K per month and experience the intoxicating freedom of finally being in control of both your time and your income. High-performers only.
Become a Premium Member of The Reading Life and enjoy unlimited access to 150+ Premium Book Breakdowns, my complete notes from 1,300+ books, exclusive discounts, monthly donations made on your behalf to an incredible literacy charity, and more!
Join The Competitive Advantage, my private business mastermind for creators looking to add at least $1,000/month to their revenue and save at least 20+ hours of productive time each and every week.
Reply