Book Club: "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell

I’m a pretty big Malcolm Gladwell fan, and have read most all of his books/essays.  What  I enjoy about his style of writing is that he tends to ‘show’ more than he ‘tells’. All too often I hear people refer to books they’ve read along the lines of “I didn’t get much of it” etc.  This is an unfortunate expectation to put on books, because some of the best writers simply want to enable you to make discoveries within yourself.  They use words to stimulate your independent thought, not just instruct.  Malcolm Gladwell (at least in his books) is one of those writers.

“Blink” is a book about human ability to make instant a snap judgement about various things in everyday life.  Gladwell addresses our cultural love for making ‘informed’ decisions with piles of data and contrasts it with the often times more accurate technique of allowing one’s subconscious to pop a decision into his head.

In his typical style the book is filled with examples and counterexamples that prod at this issue of snap-decisions from all angles.  When should we trust the gut feeling and when should we ignore it in favor of more data points is the crux of “Blink”.  While no definitive answers are given (sorry to the passive answer seekers!) you can certainly use this text as a means to reflect on your own judgements.  Just bringing awareness back to how my mind operates is infinitely helpful in social situations (judgements and first impressions), as well as trading in the financial markets (where you never have ‘enough’ information to trade).

Overall I enjoyed “Blink” and will likely search for other readings for specifics on the subconscious mind.  Recommended.