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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Find Out What People Really Think, What They Really Want, and Who They Really Are
If we want to understand what’s going on with other people, it’s easiest to start by looking at ourselves.
First, imagine how you feel when you’re in the zone. Like, deep into your treadmill workout or effortlessly driving a car. You’re moving without thinking, you’re alternating between the brake and the gas, you’re changing lanes automatically.
Now, imagine carrying a hot cup of coffee across the room, one that’s filled to the brim.
Why do you feel so different in each situation?
When in that second situation, your ego is anxious that the hot coffee might spill and burn your hand. So it makes your perspective zero in on that coffee. The anxiety of being under threat means you fixate on yourself.
The same thing happens when you have to drive through a snowstorm or make witty chitchat at a cool party. Suddenly, all those moves you would normally do without thinking become conscious and calculated – you find yourself tightly gripping the wheel . . . or your drink. Simply put, when the stakes are higher psychologically, your anxiety goes up and your perspective narrows.
Anxiety forces you to fixate on yourself; it limits your ability to process what’s going on around you. Have you ever blanked out during a crucial exam or choked during an important interview? In these cases, something that you’ve always done automatically suddenly stops working. You’re too conscious and your cognitive timing is off. That’s anxiety in action.
Anxiety also expresses itself verbally through the use of qualifiers, like “I think” or “I guess.” When using such qualifiers, we end up softening the conviction of what we’re saying.
While all of the above are examples of situational anxiety, they do hint at generally low self-esteem. That’s because when we have low self-esteem, the more stressed out and fearful we tend to become. Let’s look more at low self-esteem in the next section.
Mindreader (2022) explains how to read and understand people. Written by an FBI instructor and lie-detection expert, it delves deep into how to understand situational subtext, interpret language, and determine whether a person is being honest.
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Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 7,000+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Start your free trialBlink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma