My Thoughts on “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell

Good afternoon everyone,

I hope you’re all keeping well!

I recently finished reading “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell, and what a thought-provoking book it turned out to be! In today’s blog, we are going to be taking a look at some of my thoughts & opinions about the book – let’s get into it 🙂

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Malcolm Gladwell is an English-born Canadian journalist, author and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. He has built up a very successful career with his writings into the research of social sciences, such as sociology and psychology, and their applications to us as individuals, society, and the broader world around us.

With all of that in mind, I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise as to why Gladwell’s books are rated so highly, alongside other fantastic authors such as Matt Haig, Daniel Kahneman, James Clear and so many more. Their books have this innate magic to draw you in, capture your interest and ignite the most curious parts of your mind – and as we’ve started to talk about the inner workings of our minds, that’s the perfect introduction to Blink.

Blink “The Power of Thinking Without Thinking” is a masterclass in understanding how our subconscious mind works. Do you ever wonder how your mind makes millions of decisions in a fraction of a second? Do you wonder about the societal influences that have impacted your unconscious mind? Are you interested in finding out more about how you think? Well then, Blink is well and truly the book for you!

As Gladwell puts it “the book is concerned with the very smallest components of our everyday lives – the content and origin of those instantaneous impressions and conclusions that spontaneously arise when we meet a new person or confront a complex situation or have to make a decision under conditions of stress.”

Blink is centred upon the concept of “Thin-slicing”, how your brain identifies, analyses and processes millions of pieces of data instantaneously. “Thin-slicing” refers to the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behaviour based on very narrow slices of experience. It includes your past experiences, your current mindset and environment, the millions of problems and situations that we face daily and so much more.

Each chapter of Blink explores a different scenario and part of our unconscious mind, how people would typically react to this scenario, and then Gladwell explains the thought process behind our perspectives and gives us advice and pointers for how we can think, act and reflect differently. I’m not going to go into each paragraph, as I don’t want to spoil them if you decide to read the book, but wow, you gain so much value and learn loads in each one.

I decided to read this book differently from how I would usually read. Traditionally, I would try to go through a couple of chapters at a time, depending on how much time I had when I sat down. However, for Blink, I thought that it would be good to treat each chapter as its own session, its own lecture, its own learning curve. I really wanted to take the time to fully process each chapter, to fully understand all of the messages and teachings which lie within the book, and I feel like this way worked out perfectly for me.

I’ll be very honest, Blink is the first book that I have read by Malcolm Gladwell, and after recently finishing it, I cannot wait to start delving into some of his other work. I love how he phrases his sentences, the way that he explains and illustrates each of his points and the overall flow of the book, it was just such a nice book to read.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, what a book!! I could not recommend it more if I tried – it’s the perfect journey to understanding how both our conscious and unconscious minds work, the factors which influence them and how we can develop and build on our perspectives of the world.

That’s all for today’s blog, what do you think? Would you like to see more book-based blogs on the page? What’s your favourite book? Are you interested in learning more about how our minds work?

Be sure to let me know your thoughts and answers to the above questions, either in the comments below or through our Facebook page!

Thanks for reading & I hope you have a lovely day!