By David Brooks
I got through this one pretty quickly via the audiobook. The author concedes that understanding the points in the book doesn’t make it easy to implement them in day-to-day life. He still struggles, as I’m sure I will.
One point that stood out to be was the degree to which people are experiencing a different world. It’s not that we encounter the same reality and then apply our own judgments of it. Parts of our perception happen quickly and subconsciously in ways that we aren’t even aware of. An example in the book was that people are bad at rating the grade of hills they encounter while walking. Everyone thinks they are steeper than they are. One group was less prone to overestimating, and it turned out to be a college soccer team. The hill is less steep for those prepared to handle it. Hills are steeper for sad people, less so for happy people. They’re steep for people with backpacks, and not for those without. Not so steep for caffeinated folks. This obviously compounds. Experiences throughout a day might look the same on paper for two different people, but they really experience two very different realities. Reality only exists in our minds. Everything perceived by our senses is converted to a model in our minds and every mind model is different. As a “rational” science-minded person, I tend to think that there’s an objective reality out there and that we can access it. As a “rational” person, I imagine that I’m better at discerning the objective reality than most and should therefore be trusted to relay my observations to others. This is nonsense. Anything that goes into my head is constructed by my unique biological systems and my life history.
Other notes:
- Meyers Briggs is nonsense and not supported with real data
- The Big 5 Personality traits are a better supported way to understand behavior tendencies
- This isn’t new but I need to be reminded forever: don’t jump to giving advice and don’t leap at the chance to share your own stories in place of fully hearing someone else’s
- This book as well as another I happened to start around the same time both shared the same anecdote about Winston Churchill’s mother on meeting Gladstone and Disraeli: “When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But after sitting next to Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest woman in England.”
- Try to get people into narrative mode. Don’t ask what they think, ask how the came to think that way.
- He referenced the book: The Weirdest People in the World which sounds interesting.
Overall, I wasn’t blown away by anything, but it was generally full of good reminders to lean in to empathy and be a better listener.