Best Books for Improving Your Communication Skills

One tip for improving your verbal communication skills & a few books on the topic I found helpful.

Author

Devan Rome
August 18, 2024

Happy Sunday BrainPals,

Let me know what you think about this. This was originally a post on Reddit I made in reply to someone who was asking how he could improve his speaking abilities and conversation skills. Many people were basically saying that you should “just read” a lot lot in order to get better at speaking. I strongly disagreed. While I’m a huge fan of learning and reading, I know first hand that simply reading more is not enough to get better at speaking. While being more knowledgable can help you have more things to say in a conversation, I don’t think that’s nearly enough to make you a good speaker or conversationalist.

This is what I said in my reply to the person’s post:

Reading a lot isn’t going to make you that much more articulate. Lol I've always read a ton, and that never made me that much better of a speaker. In fact, I used to have a really bad stutter when I was younger and I was just plain awkward in conversation. There are a ton of people that read all the time, are super smart, etc., but can hardly verbally communicate at all. Practicing your SPEAKING more will make you a better speaker. 

By far, the best exercise I’ve done is called “tape and ape”. I’m several times a better speaker than I was before I first did the exercise. Basically, find someone or a few people who you think speak well. Play a clip/video of them speaking. Repeat what they say in the way they say it. Do this for 5-10 minutes per day, and you’ll find your speaking ability will improve significantly.

But you also need to be able to think on your feet if you’re also talking about being able to be witty and a good conversationalist. That’s a combination of your brain health, your knowledge, and frameworks / models / systems you can use in conversation. There are good books on that topic I can recommend, but I’m tired of typing, so just reply if you want some book recos on that topic. 

As you can see, my main view is that speaking more is what will make you a better speaker and verbal communicator. However, I did mention that there are books that can provide you with frameworks, models, and systems to improve your communication skills in your day to day life. I told them to ask if they wanted my recommendations for books on that topic I find helpful. A few people asked for my recommendations, so I made a separate post that included them.

Below is a copy-paste of the separate post I made on books for improving your communication skills. I added some light edits where it made sense considering I’m posting this in a different context (blog and email instead of Reddit).

I'll keep this short. This is not going to be heavily edited because I'm about to go to bed. I used to struggle with communication big time. I struggle a lot less now because I studied communication and also worked hard at it. This made my business, my dating life, and my general day to day life much easier. Here are some books I recommend on the topic.

  • Thank You for Arguing by Jay Heinrichs - This is my #1 recommendation. It was the first book I'd say that gave me really solid foundation and framework for thinking about communication and persuasion. It covers the foundations, so if you consider yourself a communication noob, I highly recommend this. This was the "one" big that gave me an exponential boost in my communication results

  • How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships by Leil Lowndes - This was another life changing book for me. It's focused on communication across contexts (business, cocktail parties, house parties, networking events, meeting strangers, etc.). It's a great companion to Thank You for Arguing.

  • SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham- This is my favorite sales book. It moves away from much of the cheap tricks and "closing techniques" that many sales books are known for and that give sales a bad name. The authors did an extensive, on the field (as in with the salespeople) study of the top performing salespeople in organizations across contexts, including high value sales (so not just cheap stuff at the retail store). They analyzed over 35,000 sales calls. They found a few main qualities of top sales people and also synthesized that into a 4 step framework for sales communication. I've found this very helpful for sales and negotiation. The SPIN framework also helped me convert a higher percentage of my Tinder matches to dates, but that's a story for another day. haha

  • Obviously, you can't write one of these lists without recommending How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Enough has been said about this book by enough people that I don't feel like wasting my time and energy writing about it. It's a good book. Read it if you haven't yet.

  • Influence: Science and Practice by Dr. Robert Cialdini is another "If you haven't read this, just f*cking read it." book like How to Win Friends and Influence People. It's one of the first and one of the main texts on the psychology of persuasion. It's the basics, and I've gone way beyond it since I've read it, but it'll give you many of the main tricks to know and the main tricks to watch out for in persuasive contexts because almost every marketer and sales person knows the tricks in this book.

  • Pre-suasion by Dr. Robert Cialdini is a good follow-up book to Influence. It gives more of the latest info on the psychology of persuasion (that is, at the time the book came out in 2016 (the first version of Influence came out in the 1980s). I liked this book more than Influence because it's a bit more advanced and less "general" with its information.

  • Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss - This is more specifically on negotiation rather than general communication. I'd say it's a great starter book for those at a beginner or intermediate level of negotiation skills. If you're at an advanced level, however, you may find a lot of the principles and concepts relatively obvious. Still, you might consider this a good "refresher" if you're an advanced negotiator already.

  • It also helps to be able to understand people at a deep level. I've made some posts on other subs on common mistakes in understanding people (see). I'll include the list of books I recommend for understanding people better below:

    • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Dr. Daniel Kahneman - For the more modern psychology and behavioral economics behind our behavior

    • Behave by Dr. Robert Sapolsky - For the neuroscience and biology behind behavior

    • Think Like a Freak by Levitt and Dubner - More info on how we process (behavioral) economic decisions and what to do about it

    • The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins - More info on biological perspectives of behavior. Dawkins writes in a very opinionated manner. Part of that I think is just his writing style, which definitely catches your attention and keeps you reading. You don't have to agree with everything he says. Read it and absorb the principles.

    • The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene - Greene is not a behavioral scientist, but the book does cover some basic principles of human nature and behavior pretty well. This book is definitely good for someone who just wants the principles but isn't that concerned with the why and first principles behind them.

    • Evolution of Desire by Dr. David Buss - Much of human behavior is influenced by mating strategy. Understanding how our desire for mates and companionship influences behavior will give valuable insights into the underlying motivations that drive our actions and decisions.

  • Advanced books

    • How to Argue and Win Every Time by Gerry Spence - Written by one of the most winningest lawyers of all time. Not for communication novices IMO. I recommend reading some of the books above before getting to this book.

    • Way of the Wolf by Jordan Belfort - Jordan Belfort was a POS when he was doing the crap he was doing on Wall Street. Still, he had extremely effective sales and persuasion skills. After reading his autobiography (20+ hour audiobook) and this book, I'd say he would have been just as successful (probably more successful) if he hadn't committed those financial crimes. He could have simply used the top 1% sales skills he had to just close legitimate deals and probably be a centimillionaire by now. He kind of goes into detail on how his personality changed after getting hooked on pain meds from an injury and it was all downhill from there. Anyways, this book covers sales tips you can apply without committing crimes. I found this book very helpful for closing deals, negotiation, and also dating.

Those are my main recommendations. Hope you find this list helpful!

And that was the post. If you’d like to see the original discussions on Reddit, they are here (my first comment on the topic) and here (where I covered the reading list).

Let me know if you have any thoughts, comments, or questions. You can reply to this email directly, and I’ll definitely read it. :) ‘Til next time!

P.S. you may not have heard from me for a while. That’s for three main reasons. One, I’ve been busy running my business. Two, I’m changing up my content style to make content creation more efficient; I’ll have a post coming out on my social channels soon on that 😉. And three, I’m moving my blog and newsletter to a new platform, Beehiiv! I’ve found Beehiiv makes it much easier for me to edit and publish blogs and manage my newsletter. All of this should help me in being able to make more content for you. 🙂 

Thank you, everyone!

Best regards,

DR

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