Book review: SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE

The New Science of Human Relationships

by Daniel Goleman

Genres:

  • Psychology
  • Social Science

Review posted on:

13.02.2017

The number of pages:

416 pages

Book rating:

3/5star

Year the book was published:

First edition published 2006

Who should read this book:

  • Anyone who is interested in learning why they behave as they do and what has the most effect on them.

Why did I pick up this book and what did I expect to get out of it:

At this point in life, I want to know what is the science behind relationships. How are they formed and why do we need some of them? Why do people stay in bad relationships and why do they sometimes cut the good ones? And how do our relationships affect us as a person, our habits, our personality, and our reactions? And is there a difference between close and superficial relationships? How does each type of relationship shape us as a person? These are some of the reasons why I picked up this book and I hope to get at least some answers to the questions mentioned before. If possible not just theory but also some case studies to back it up. And if possible I hope the author won’t use too much of an academic approach (language) explaining things.

My thoughts about the book:

Social Intelligence takes you on a journey on which you learn how you are currently affected by your past, by the people around you, and by the thoughts you consciously keep going through in your mind. The foundation of our actions/reactions is our brain (the neurons, and their connections…). Your brain changes during your life, based on what you do, with who you do it, what you think, how you feel, and how old you are. During your life you lose neurons you do not use and you gain new ones by activating new neural pathways (this is called Neuroplasticity). So if you want to change your life, you first need to change your brain/mind. You do that by consciously repeating your wanted reactions to certain situations, and by doing so creating new neural pathways. So that the next time when you are under stress or in a state of fear the amygdala (which is a small primal part of your brain) does not take control over your prefrontal cortex which is responsible for decision-making and you end up reacting to certain situations the way you trained yourself to. For example: when something bad happened at work you used to panic “Oh sh#t what now” and you froze, but after some mental training you now react “ok, this happened how do I solve it?”

The good news is that by creating the right neural pathways and training your brain you can conquer fear. All you need to accept is that it takes time and mental work. It takes around 5-6 months for a neuron to be created, “find its place” and fully develop all connections in the brain. In the meantime, everything you do affects the development of the neuron and its connections. That is why you must let go of certain things and repeatedly do new things for them to become something normal for you. Everything that is normal for you today was once new to you.

I found the book very interesting, but in the end, a little bit “too long”. The first 80% of the book was great, developing the topic at hand and giving the reader “food for thought” chapter after chapter. In the end, Daniel Goleman tried to make the same point over again, but with different cases. Maybe he thought he was just elaborating and “cementing” the point of his book into the reader’s mind, but for me, it was a bad finish to a good book. Otherwise, I loved the topic, I loved that the author included cases and examples that supported his findings and conclusions in a simple way, but sometimes he went too deep into biology.

The most important takeaway from the book is that who you are today is a result of your past relationships, environment, and way of thinking, and who you will be “tomorrow” depends on what you do and with who you do it “today”.

My notes from the book:

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