Learn how to develop self-awareness and use it to become more fulfilled, confident, and successful.Most people feel like they know themselves pretty well. But what if you could know yourself just a little bit better—and with this small improvement, get a big payoff…not just in your career, but in your life? Research shows that self-awareness—knowing who we are and how others see us—is the … are and how others see us—is the foundation for high performance, smart choices, and lasting relationships. There’s just one problem: most people don’t see themselves quite as clearly as they could.
Fortunately, reveals organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich, self-awareness is a surprisingly developable skill. Integrating hundreds of studies with her own research and work in the Fortune 500 world, she shows us what it really takes to better understand ourselves on the inside—and how to get others to tell us the honest truth about how we come across.
Through stories of people who have made dramatic gains in self-awareness, she offers surprising secrets, techniques and strategies to help you do the same—and how to use this insight to be more fulfilled, confident, and successful in life and in work.
In Insight, you’ll learn:
• The 7 types of self-knowledge that self-aware people possess.
• The 2 biggest invisible roadblocks to self-awareness.
• Why approaches like therapy and journaling don’t always lead to true insight
• How to stop your confidence-killing habits and learn to love who you are.
• How to benefit from mindfulness without uttering a single mantra.
• Why other people don’t tell you the truth about yourself—and how to find out what they really think.
• How to deepen your insight into your passions, gifts, and the blind spots that could be holding you back.
• How to hear critical feedback without losing your mojo.
• Why the people with the most power can often be the least-self-aware, and how smart leaders avoid this trap.
• The 3 building blocks for self-aware teams.
• How to deal with delusional bosses, clients, and coworkers.
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Think of the most cluelessly unselfaware person you know: your boss, annoying neighbor, brother-in-law. How can we avoid being that person? And teach our kids to avoid being that person as well? Eurich summarizes the fascinating science about self insight, but–perhaps more importantly–she studies admirable individuals who are self-aware in a way that is applauded by their peers. You’ll benefit from knowing what they know. Buy a copy for yourself and buy another to leave, anonymously, on your boss’s desk.
Self-knowledge is key to a happy life, but it can be hard to know ourselves. It’s easy to get distracted by the way we wish we were, or what we think we ought to be, or what others think we should be, until we lose sight of what’s actually true. In INSIGHT, Tasha Eurich shines a spotlight on people who have managed to gain insight into themselves, and she suggests groundbreaking strategies and tips for seeing ourselves clearly. This book is a powerful resource for anyone seeking to live a happier, more successful life.
As an executive coach for almost four decades, I have seen firsthand how important it is for leaders to be self-aware. Tasha Eurich’s ‘Insight’ lives up to its title, offering effective tools for leaders to gain this critical perspective.
This book was thought-provoking and dispelled common beliefs about introspection and insight. Some of the research and tools were helpful and really interesting: asking “what” instead of “why”; figuring out who your “loving critics” are; the various questions and exercises in the appendix.
However, at times, this read like a wordy thesis or school essay (repeatedly saying things like “in the following chapters I will explain x, y and z” instead of just…explaining x, y and z!). Also, Eurich used examples that may be “famous” for psychology students or enthusiasts, but to laypeople, required more backstory and explanation to be useful (The Wolfman and Freud, for example). Finally, there were a few “real life” scenarios/case studies sprinkled throughout the “internal” section (the “external” section was overflowing with them), but more (say, one or two for each main idea/chapter) would not only help make the concepts concrete, but would make the book more lively and interesting.
Great book if you are interested in learning about yourself! If not read something else.
The author’s conclusions were supported by research and resonated w/ my experience. As a social psychologist, I found Insight to be a valuable read.
Required reading for every human being that will be expected to interact with other ones in their lifetime.
I find any book that showcases the importance of self-awareness as a part of self-growth, and successful living an important edition to one’s personal library. Some Authors are just better at executing the mission, then others. This one falls more into the latter category.
While the information in Insight is sound and based on a lot of research, I was not so happy about the presentation. Again, as I have mentioned in previous reviews, I am not a person who likes it when non-fiction books base their teaching strategy on stories and expect the reader to learn from them, but I am rather someone who wants to learn from a more factual based presentation. And my main mission for reading non-fiction books is to learn as much as possible.
Insights contain too much fluff, too many little anecdotes that take away from the mission of the book. Worse yet, and what ended up bugging me the most is that the Author decided that it was a good idea to present factual questions and a workshop style content in the back of the book, as an appendix, rather than as a part of each chapter. Why could that not have been placed into the meat of the book?
That oversight – if Miss Eurich would have decided to place that information into the main text – would have made this barely readable book into a pretty decent and usable self-help book.
I also don’t quite agree with the notion that self-awareness requires a creation of core principles. I personally have found that self-awareness enables the creation of core principles, not the other way around.
There are some interesting points made throughout the book. And if you are a person who learns from stories and anecdotes you might get more out of the book than I have. I do appreciate that the Author does not promise an easy path to total self-awareness, but asks the reader for patience and commitment in the process.