Suresh Sadagopan, founder, Ladder 7, Navi Mumbai: Currently, I am reading a book “Art of thinking clearly” by Rolf Dobelli which describes the most common thinking errors that humans do.
The Art of Thinking Clearly deals with human psychology and reasoning. The book tells us about the 99 common fallacies of our thinking, which lead us to make mistakes, and gives us practical advice and tips on how to think better.
Normally we hate losing things more than we enjoy gaining them. There is always the sentimental value attached to things, which you own say your late grandfather’s watch. Once you own something, it will become a part of your sentiments. There may not be any rational value attached to it, but still you do not want to lose it. The real art of thinking clearly does not involve adopting someone else's view of rationality.
Another book that I read is “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert B. Cialdini. This book talks about psychological tactics that influence us to say yes to something, where ideally we would have said no.
In this book, the author took different role-plays such as car salesman and waiter to understand such tactics. According to him, there are six tactics of influence that are commonly used by salesman. As I was reading the book, I was. actually scared at the way the author has explained to readers how salesman can manipulate the decision-making of people by these weapons of influence and how important it is to say “no” when required. This book has a huge relevance to financial advisory professionals as at times, we agree for something, which is not in our control.
Shifali Satsangee, Funds Vedaa, Agra: I read a book “The Seven Stages of Money Maturity” by George Kinder. The author is the father of life planning and a Harvard-trained certified financial planner.
As advisors, we have to understand our clients and much of what counts in their life is beyond financial goals. A job of a financial adviser is to help client in all aspects of their lives including their aspirations.
In this book, the author suggests a road map to understand the role of money in various stages of life to achieve financial freedom. Life planning is the only way to get a clear picture of what our client needs and where he wants to go in life. In other words, life planning is the financial plan done correctly.
