What Is Essential Reading For You During COVID-19?

Read The Video Transcript Below:

 

Are you wondering what business books are essential during COVID-19? I just got back from my walk as you can see, let me pull this down. Okay, that's much better.

And look, there are a lot of books that are really good to read, but there are three essential business books for this moment in this time, and let me show you each of them. And I'll show you the one that I think is probably the most important. Now, this is my favorite business book of all time, Crucial Conversations. I love this book,. Absolutely fabulous, fabulous business book. But this is not my favorite one for this time, but it was one of the three essential ones you should read.

Having said that, because Crucial Conversations is all about talking in difficult times, and that's most of the conversations you're going to have. In fact, all three of these books that I'm showing you all are about how do you communicate in a difficult time.

And let me show you book number two. This one's still isn't my favorite, but it's really good. It's Alan Alda's book. Let's see if you can see it there. And unfortunately I have the Kindle version of the book so you have to take a look and it's kind of screwing up my lighting there. Sorry about that.

And this is If I Understood You is the name of the book and this is a great book. I love this book. And just as an aside, Alan Alda looks exactly like my dad if my dad was still alive. So anyways, it makes me think of my dad every time I see that book.

But the book is a great book. And the reason why I love If I Understood You again, it's all about using an actor skills to learn how to communicate and improvisation is involved in everything else. Again, a great book for the moment we're in right now. Love that book.

But here is the most important book you can read in this time of COVID-19. It's the third leg of the stool. And here it is Never Split the Difference by Chris VOSS. My absolute perfect favorite book for this time. Now why do I love Never Split the Difference? Well, the reason why I love Never Split the Difference at this time. It's teaching you how to negotiate.

And there's a common thread between all three of these books, but Voss probably does it the best of all. Now Voss is the ex lead hostage negotiator for the FBI. And one of the things that he learned, as crazy as it sounds, was when you're dealing with a terrorist, when you're dealing with kidnappers, what's the most important tool in your tool book? You won't believe it, but it's true and it will be true for you now and that's tactical empathy. In other words, understanding and communicating whether you agree with the other person or not, that you understand where they're coming from.

And think about this right now, all of us. Every single one of us are going through really tough situations and tough times. Be it with employees, be it with vendors, be it with clients, be it with customers. It's tough out there. And if you don't show that you understand where the person you're talking to is coming from, you know, be it that client, be it that employee, then you know what? You're in deep trouble. So learn from this. Never Split the Difference. Great book. This is my favorite for COVID-19 reading. I'm Brett at brettjfox.com. Have a great, great day and thank you Avery for waiting.

 

Do You Want To Grow Your Business?  Maybe I Can Help.  Click Here.