Blink: The Power Of Thinking Without Thinking

3.5 stars

Malcolm Gladwell is studying first impressions and our unconscious reactions to our encounters with various people and things. I'm not sure I'm summarizing very well, but I think first impressions and unconscious reactions do mostly sum it up.

I thought this was quite interesting. Some anecdotes that stuck out for me include how the New Coke came about and the reason for its downfall, how some people can just read people... I guess a lot of it is that they are trained, whether for a specific purpose (to watch married couples discuss a point of consternation or just trained in facial expression) or for a job. I also thought the info on facial expressions was fascinating! Overall, good book, very interesting.

Most of my successes have come from acting on my instincts. Blink has given me some insights as to why.

Whether it's a museum curator examining a Greek statue, a military general monitoring a battle field or a tennis coach watching a match, the best ones always have some intangible way of seeing more than the rest of us. It is almost as though they have a sixth sense for what comes next.

In Blink, Gladwell takes us through the process of finding out what makes these people as good as they are. By talking to military men, tennis coaches, neurologists and pyschologists, he finds out that each of us operate mentally at 2 levels: one conscious, the other not. It is this unconscious level that seems to separate people at the core.

This unconscious thought tells us when to talk to a stranger and when to keep to ourselves. It allows me to read a room at a business meeting and know when to offer a joke or stay serious.

And I believe it helps me to suss out the best kernels of information during a market research session...it's not what the subjects say verbatim but what they say unconsciously--through a combination of words, tone, body language and facial tics--that really matters. That's when you find out what they really think (or more importantly, how they really feel) about your product or service.

A consistent aggravation I have with Gladwell, however, is that while he resets the bar to a new level, he doesn't typically offer solutions as to how to get to that new ideal: in this case, the ability to harness the unconscious thought process to improve your performance in life.

Perhaps in just making us aware of these processes, he is helping. It has definitely made me re-examine my environment when intuition checks in and tells me something is about to change."

The first Malcolm Gladwell book I read, The Tipping Point, was full of interesting facts and evidence about human behaviour that one could take away and apply to real life situations. Blink is no different.

Once again Gladwell inspires new schools of thought, this time it's about how to make good decisions. Gladwell astounds readers understanding of how the mind works. He delves into how our mind sifts through the endless bombardment of our senses, how our subconscious affects our thinking, and how our intuition is usually right.

I have used some of the lessons learned from this book to improve my decision making. If you want to do the same or is simply curious how the mind works, this is a must-read!

Loved this book. Quick read as the author has a fluid and direct writing style. Just by scanning the first page you can tell if you are going to like this book or not in the blink of an eye.