Book Byte #107 "The Upside of your Dark Side" by Todd Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Diener
Why Being Your Whole Self – Not Just Your “Good” Self – Drives Success and Fulfillment
📣 Curious Quotes from the Author
“According to the National Institute of Mental Health, in any given twelve-month period one of five American adults is afflicted with an anxiety disorder. The number is higher for teenagers: 25 percent will suffer from a clinically significant anxiety disorder.”
“Two types of avoidance cause problems for people: avoiding pleasure and avoiding pain.”
“There is a not so hidden prejudice against negative states, and the consequence of avoiding these states is that you inadvertently stunt your growth, maturity, adventure, and meaning and purpose in life.”
“Ambiguous tasks are a good place to observe how personality traits bubble to the surface. Although few of us are elite soldiers, we’ve all experienced the kind of psychological distress these trainees encounter on their training run: managing unclear expectations, struggling with self-motivation, and balancing the use of social support with private reflection. These issues are endemic not only to the workplace, but also to relationships, health, and every aspect of life in which we seek to thrive and succeed. Not surprisingly, the leading predictor of success in elite military training programs is the same quality that distinguishes those best equipped to resolve marital conflict, to achieve favorable deal terms in business negotiations, and to bestow the gifts of good parenting on their children: the ability to tolerate psychological discomfort.”
“Perfect balance is not what it means to be whole. Being whole is about being open and accommodating of all parts of your personality: the light and dark passengers, the strengths and weaknesses, the successes and failures.”
“Our conscious mind is simply unable to handle the complex, dynamic layers of data flooding us in each moment.”
“How could boredom be beneficial? In Hindu and Buddhist traditions, boredom is described as a precursor to insight and discovery. Parents sometimes want their children to be bored because they have an intuitive sense that grappling with this uncomfortable state is how kids discover what they’re interested in, quiet their mind, and find outlets to channel their energy. We wish more parents would trust that when their kids get bored, they’ll find the way out on their own, resisting the temptation to schedule activities from morning to night to keep boredom at bay. But don’t just take our word for it. The American Academy of Pediatrics released a 2007 consensus statement on how child-directed, exploratory play is far superior when it comes to developing emotional, social, and mental agility than structured, adult-guided activity.”
“Giving advice and serving as a mentor are two fundamental leadership roles for a parent, teacher, or executive. Failure to tackle sensitive issues increases the likelihood that tasks fail, relationships erode, time is wasted, and money is lost due to poor communication. Lean into those feared conversations. Try them when you’re a bit tired so that your natural defenses are down; this state can help you tolerate discomfort and draw on feelings that are less buttoned-down.”
“The big reason you should care about emotional time travel errors is that nearly every decision you make now is based on an assumption of how you expect to feel in the future.”
“Social psychologists have long known that the roles people fulfill—daughter, husband, lifeguard, boss, volunteer—have real-world impact on their behavior. Classic evidence for this comes from Phil Zimbardo’s famous Stanford Prison Experiment, in which Zimbardo took a group of Stanford undergraduates and assigned some to be prisoners and others to be prison guards. The scenario extended over several days and the guards became increasingly abusive. They forced prisoners to do large numbers of push-ups; they interrupted their sleep and isolated them. Remember, these “guards” had been right-minded undergraduate students only days earlier.”
📚 Cognition of the Book’s Big Idea:
While joyful, aware, and kind people are frequently cited as shining examples of how to act, this picture only reveals half the reality. In fact, our negative emotions serve a purpose: they guide us, inspire us to achieve our goals, and keep us out of trouble.
Make rapid judgments.
When you're in the grocery store and can't decide between brand-name and off-brand cereal, give yourself no more than 15 seconds. Giving yourself a deadline forces you to make intuitive, "mindless" decisions, which have been found to produce the best results. By developing the practice of making snap judgments on minor decisions, you train yourself to employ this strategy on larger, life-changing ones as well.
“Organizations desire creativity but often want it controllable. It is a long-standing problem for managers that highly resourceful problem solvers also have a hard time following rules and completing detailed work. What’s more, businesses love new ideas but hate the lack of certainty that accompanies them.”
🛠️Fixing the Tech Industry
I’ve notice people who work in Tech have a natural cognition of being able to handle emergency situations better than most. I think it’s based on the ability to make decisions quickly and with your intuition and usually those quick decisions end up being positive outcomes.
This can trick you to try an make big decisions quickly, but that shouldn’t be the case. The big decisions take time to answer correctly, the minutia of day to day operations however, following your gut on those is the easy and more reliable choice.
Don’t sweat the small stuff, decide with the company’s and your best interests at heart.
🤝Collaborate with others with this Social Media Prompt:
What’s a decision you know you spent way to long deciding and wish you could of just make a split second decision on it instead of all that wasted time? How’d it turn out?
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