The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement

With unequaled insight and brio, David Brooks, the New York Times columnist and bestselling author of Bobos in Paradise, has long explored and explained the way we live. Now, with the intellectual curiosity and emotional wisdom that make his columns among the most read in the nation, Brooks turns to the building blocks of human flourishing in a multilayered, profoundly illuminating work grounded in everyday life.

This is the story of how success happens. It is told through the lives of one composite American couple, Harold and Erica—how they grow, push forward, are pulled back, fail, and succeed. Distilling a vast array of information into these two vividly realized characters, Brooks illustrates a fundamental new understanding of human nature. A scientific revolution has occurred—we have learned more about the human brain in the last thirty years than we had in the previous three thousand. The unconscious mind, it turns out, is most of the mind—not a dark, vestigial place but a creative and enchanted one, where most of the brain’s work gets done. This is the realm of emotions, intuitions, biases, longings, genetic predispositions, personality traits, and social norms: the realm where character is formed and where our most important life decisions are made. The natural habitat of The Social Animal.
 
Drawing on a wealth of current research from numerous disciplines, Brooks takes Harold and Erica from infancy to school; from the “odyssey years” that have come to define young adulthood to the high walls of poverty; from the nature of attachment, love, and commitment, to the nature of effective leadership. He reveals the deeply social aspect of our very minds and exposes the bias in modern culture that overemphasizes rationalism, individualism, and IQ. Along the way, he demolishes conventional definitions of success while looking toward a culture based on trust and humility.

The Social Animal is a moving and nuanced intellectual adventure, a story of achievement and a defense of progress. Impossible to put down, it is an essential book for our time, one that will have broad social impact and will change the way we see ourselves and the world.

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Social Skills For Success

It is true that success can be most easily achieved by making friends with the right people. If you can earn the trust of those in high positions, or even those who know people in high positions, you can quickly find yourself occupying a high position. When you use good social skills, whatever needs come up in the course of life, you can find the best possible help for meeting those needs.

So empowering yourself can simply be a matter of finding and forming relationships with a variety of people who have a variety of powers. You can achieve the things you want to achieve, while becoming a more socially adjusted individual. So how do you get started on the path to social power?

1. Be Honest

Some with naturally overwhelming social skills can get by with putting on disingenuous fronts. For the rest of us, forming social bonds requires learning to be truly honest about who you are and taking an honest interest in others. Hypocrites are social outcasts.

2. Learn to Listen

It is interesting that people tend to be more trusting of those with whom they've shared things about themselves than they are of those of whom they know much. So sit and listen. If you speak, do so only to receive more information from the speaker. Use your eyes to convey your interest.

3. Laugh Loudly

Laughing may catch people off guard at first, but light hearted people do better socially. You don't have to laugh at everything, just jokes.

4. Don't Be a Pushover

In the course of this experience you must also convey a powerful sense of self. If you value self, so will others. Carry yourself as worthy of respect.

5. Do Kind Things

Go out of your way to do kind things, particularly the small kind things. Old-fashioned politeness is a lost art that can bring with it great social rewards.

6. Don't Lose Touch

It was once difficult to keep in touch with old friends. Only the most socially motivated among us could succeed at this. Now days, there is so much social networking stuff on the Internet that it is more difficult to lose contact with people. Just remember to take the time to send a note or say hello to everyone now and then.

7. Portray a Positive Personality

If you're a grouch, you don't do anything but bring people down. People are attracted to those who make them feel good.

8. Display Social Confidence

Start encounters with a smile. Don't wait for people to come to you. Go introduce yourself to them. This shows both confidence and humility at the same time.

9. Have Emotional Control

You don't have to react to your anger. You don't have to throw fits. Be the calm person in a room. Use your anger to help you do productive things. People are not attracted to people with unpredictable or violent mood swings.

10. Stay Focused on Your Relationships

It is not simply enough to form a relationship. You must actively take steps help them grow. Take time for people. Make them feel important. Show each person that they matter to you and that you're there for them in times of need. As a result, they'll want to be there for you.

Barbora Knobova is a humorist, columnist and Chiquenist. An internationally published author, she is on the mission to bring Fantastic Fearless Feminine Fun into women's lives. She is enthusiastic about showing her Chique Women Soulmates how to step into their power and live with gusto. Do you want to discover (and shatter) five toxic myths that ruin your life, your mood and your appetite? Find out more about the FREE and dangerously hilarious Chique Chick's Survival E-Course at: http://www.chiquenist.com/

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