Reading great books again at different times in your life is a completely different experience because you remember shockingly little.
The speaker explains why he is re-reading Robert Cialdini's 'Influence' — that re-reading great books at different life stages feels like reading a new book entirely. ✦ AI generated
Speaker 1 · My First Million · 2026-08-04 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 3:36
“Why are you re-reading Robert Cialdini's Influence?”
Because as the great Buddhist proverb says, 'No man steps in the same river twice, for he is not the same man and the river is not the same river.' ... I think you know reading the best books again at different times in your life, it's a totally different book. You think you've read it and what I found is you remember shockingly little of books and so going back and reading great books is like the gift that keeps giving in that sense.
verbatim transcript · starts at 3:36
3:16your car for the day?" Even though even though those two asks aren't even remotely equal, I because of the rule of reciprocity am very likely to lend you my car because the rule of reciprocity states that if you do something nice for someone, they are they have a high chance of doing something nice in exchange to you, even if the they aren't equal. And uh that's like how society is
3:37built, one could say, is like based off the role of reciprocity. So, when I was a kid, I was uh 24 years old, there was a motorcycle for sale, I think, for $1,800 and I went to buy it and I took photos and documented all of this as I went. And I was like, "Hey, uh you have the motorcycle for $18 $1,800. Let me see it. Let me check it out. Awesome.
3:55Oh, by the way, I'm really sorry I'm late. I I just I wanted to stop and get a Coke cuz it was kind of hot outside. I got one for you if you want one. Do you want one?" And he goes, "Yeah, sure. Thanks." Um and then uh I start talking to him and I'm like, "Look, I love this motorcycle, but like I'm a young guy. I
4:08don't have a lot of money. I know you're asking for 18. [snorts] Could could you do 14? And he goes, you know, if you brought me the Coke, you seem like a nice kid. Yeah, I guess I can do that. And so, like, there's a blog post where I took photos of myself like when he was when he was like turned around like signing the paperwork. I like took the
4:26took the photo. But anyway, the rule of reciprocity is pretty amazing. So, let me tell you a funny follow-up story to that. I remember you telling the story about the Diet Coke and the negotiation and how you always bring two Diet Cokes to a negotiation. Correct. You've told me this before like 10 years ago. >> Yeah. I try to bring a gift. Yeah. I try to bring something.