The Influential Mind

Neuroscientist Tali Sharot examines how people influence one another, at school, at work and on social media. Many common instincts, she argues, fail: leaning on facts and figures, insisting that others are wrong or trying to take control all clash with the way minds work. Attempts to change beliefs and actions succeed when they fit the core elements that govern the brain. Sharot stresses the role of emotion, the weakness of data and the pull of curiosity, drawing on research in neuroscience, psychology and behavioral economics. In 2018 it won the British Psychological Society Book Award.

Jeff Tan, peak performance pilot at REV Inspires, listed it in an interview among the three books he was reading at the time, noting that he was rereading it.