Book Review of Insight

Book Review
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Book Review
Outline
Introduction
The book, “Why we’re not as self‐aware as we think and how seeing ourselves clearly helps us succeed at work and in life” is written by Tasha Eurich.
The author aims to provide individuals with tools that unlock new levels of knowledge to help thrive in the increasingly unaware world.
The book gives an insight into several techniques and strategies that make an individual successful in life and work.
Provides insight on the seven kinds of self-knowledge that self-aware individuals should have.
Moreover, the book discusses the biggest invisible roadblocks that are prevalent to self-awareness.
Furthermore, the author discusses the internal and external self-awareness myths and truth.
Summary
Part one: Roadblocks and building blocks
The part focuses on the roadblocks that are prevalent as one strives to build self-awareness.
Chapter 1: The Anatomy of self-awareness: The seven pillars of insight
The chapter discusses the seven pillars that are essential to separate the unaware from the aware.
Chapter 2: Blind spots: The invisible inner roadblocks of Insight
Chapter two analyzes the internal barriers that hamper self-awareness and fill people with unwarranted confidence.
Chapter 3: The cult of self: The sinister societal roadblock to insight
Examines the cult of self and how it influences the self-awareness of an individual.
Part Two: Internal self-awareness myths and truths
The part examines the various internal factors that influence the internal self-awareness.

Chapter 4: Thinking isn’t knowing: The four follies of introspection
The chapter discusses myths and follies to improve internal self-awareness.
Moreover, the chapter shows how introspection improves the internal self-awareness.
Chapter 5: Internal self-awareness tools that really work
Discusses the practical approaches that improve internal self-awareness.
Part three: External self-awareness myths and truths
The part examines truths and myths of external self-awareness and analyzes how individuals cannot unearth it on their own.
Chapter 6: The truth we rarely hear: From mirror to prism
The chapter discusses misconceptions that people have regarding external self-awareness.
Furthermore, the chapter provides various approaches to overcome the misconceptions.
Chapter 7: Receiving, reflecting on, and responding to difficult or surprising feedback
Examines how hearing feedback without fighting can be essential in overcoming difficult situations.
Part four: The Bigger Picture
The section provides a bigger picture of what self-awareness entails and how it can be applied in a person’s life.
Chapter 8: How leaders build self-aware teams and organizations
The chapter shows how leaders can foster self-awareness in their organizations.
Additionally, the chapter discusses the various steps that help foster self-awareness.
Chapter 9: Surviving and thriving in a delusional world
Focusses on the various strategies that can help eradicate delusion thus enabling individuals to survive in the delusional world.
Analysis
The books address the aspect of self-awareness.
The author argues that self-awareness is essential because it helps view ourselves deeply while understanding who we are, how other individuals see us and how we adapt to the world around us.
The book provides an insight into the different categories of self-awareness while showing how leaders can foster self-awareness in their organizations.
Moreover, it examines the pillars that help an individual separate from the unaware.
In my opinion, the author supports the aspect of self-awareness by providing an analysis of barriers, myths, and misconceptions to self-awareness.
Furthermore, the author discusses how individuals can overcome these barriers.
Conclusion
The book has given me a deep insight into self-awareness and how I can strive to build it.
I would recommend the book to other people because the author uses simple English and has organized her ideas well.
However, the author should have included review questions at the end of each chapter to help the readers evaluate their understanding.
Introduction
The book, “Why we’re not as self‐aware as we think and how seeing ourselves clearly helps us succeed at work and in life” is written by Tasha Eurich. Tasha is an organizational psychologist who aims at assisting individuals to become more self-aware and successful in their lives. She emphasizes the need to have the self-awareness to initiate personal and corporate transformation. She engages in motivational speaking and also writes books and articles that focus on individual development. The book examines the aspect of self-awareness and how individuals can apply it to achieve personal and organizational transformation. Moreover, the book discusses the roadblocks, internal and external myths that influence self-awareness. It also provides solutions to these barriers and shows how leaders can nurture self-awareness in their organizations. The paper reviews the aspect of self-awareness as analyzed by Tasha Eurich in her book.
Summary
Chapter one discusses the seven pillars that enable an individual to gain insight into self-awareness. First, an individual needs to develop a set of principles that guide how they want to live their lives (Eurich, 2017). The author argues that values such as humility, sincerity, resolution, silence, temperance, justice and frugality can provide a basis for evaluating our actions. Secondly, individuals should understand their passions to utilize their strengths well optimally. Tasha provides Jeff’s story to emphasize the need to understand our passion. Jeff wasted most of his time looking for a job instead of focusing on architecture which was his passion. Thirdly, Tasha emphasizes the need to understand our aspirations. One should know what they really want in their lives rather than focusing on what you want to achieve. This is because aspirations keep an individual motivated to achieve great things (Eurich, 2017). Fourthly, people should know the kind of environment that they require to be engaged and happy. This ensures that an individual remains happy with the feeling that they have not wasted their time by engaging in a particular activity. Fifth, a person needs to know their personality. They should know their way of thinking, behaving and feeling across different situations. Sixth, an individual should understand how their behaviors affect other people. Lastly, individuals should be aware of their real-time reactions in given cases. They should know the actions and thoughts that reveal their capabilities.
Chapter two discusses inner barriers that hinder an individual from exhibiting self-awareness. For instance, overconfidence can blind managers to their worker’s brilliance. Thus, managers end up underestimating the contribution of the top performers thus killing their morale. The author pinpoints that leader’s need self-awareness to gain on their complex duties. She stresses the need to understand the knowledge, behavior and emotion blindness to improve our self-awareness (Eurich, 2017). Furthermore, the author uses Steve’s disease to show that it’s what we don’t know that affects our self-awareness rather than what we know. Steve’s disease was a combination of the three blindness thus affecting his leadership.
Chapter three analyzes the cult of self and how it affects the self-awareness of an individual. The cult of self-makes a person have excessive admiration for a particular thing or person (Eurich, 2017). It makes a person recruit many friends, neighbors, and colleagues who later influence our behavior. The author stresses the need to evaluate our esteem before showing our admiration for specific people or things. The evaluation enables a person to foresee the likely obstacles or problems in a particular relationship. Furthermore, Tasha emphasizes the need to move from self-absorption to self-awareness. This enables people to focus on engaging and connecting with other people rather than focusing on themselves. They should also cultivate humility because it helps one appreciate their weaknesses while
Chapter four examines myths and follies to improve internal self-awareness. Tasha claims that human beings have introspection which helps them explore their motives, thoughts, behaviors, and feelings. Individuals need to look inward into their emotions and experiences to build their self-awareness. However, the author pinpoints that introspection is ineffective because people do it in a wrong manner (Eurich, 2017). Thus, individuals should adopt a flexible mindset to understand several explanations and truths. Additionally, people should determine the forces that influence their emotions.
Chapter five examines the internal tools that improve self-awareness. Mindfulness is an essential tool because it helps experience our emotions without overthinking and overreacting. One remembers that they will not experience the same problem forever (Eurich, 2017). It enables a person to look at their behaviors and circumstances at different angles to maximize their insight and success. Moreover, thematic coherence helps discover the themes of doing something good. One can be able to identify their success while creating connections with others. Additionally, the life story approach assists individuals to look at their past life experiences and learn how it has shaped their lives. According to Tasha, positive and negative life experiences shape whom we are.
Chapter six discusses misconceptions that people have regarding external self-awareness. The author claims that individuals should strive to know what others think about them. This is because other people can see us objectively than view ourselves. Feedback from other people can help people create an insight into themselves (Eurich, 2017). Thus, a person can make informed decisions while rectifying their bad behaviors.
Chapter seven examines how hearing feedback without fighting can be essential in overcoming difficult situations (Eurich, 2017). The author claims that individuals should strive to listen to the truth to gain real insight about themselves. She emphasizes that they should adopt the 3R model (Receive, Reflect and Respond to the feedback). The feedback assists an individual to understand their strengths and weaknesses for greater personal success. Individuals should not be reluctant to inquire about what other people say about them. The author stresses the need to adopt 360-degree feedback which involves a wide range of people such as clients, peers, board members and different groups. This approach helps a person compare his self-views with those of other individuals.
Chapter eight explains how leaders can foster self-awareness in their organizations. Leaders need to transform their organization’s culture by establishing an efficient executive team (Eurich, 2017). That author claims that leaders should develop self-aware teams that assess the objectives, progress, processes, assumptions and individual contributions in an organization. These teams cultivate self-awareness among the employees. Furthermore, Tasha argues that leaders need to have three building blocks to drive a self-aware team. First, the team needs a leader who models the way to make the process sincere. Secondly, there should be psychological safety to enable the employees to give their feedback on self-awareness. Lastly, the process of driving self-awareness should be an ongoing process rather than being a one-time thing.
Lastly, chapter nine examines the various strategies that can help eradicate delusion thus enabling individuals to survive in the delusional world (Eurich, 2017). Tasha argues that people should accept what they cannot change and change what they can. Moreover, individuals should learn to manage their reactions to avoid making unwise decisions. The author emphasizes the need to have compassion, reframing, laugh track and clarity of boundaries to navigate in the delusion world.
Analysis
In my opinion, the author supports the aspect of self-awareness by providing an analysis of barriers, myths, and misconceptions to self-awareness. Tasha’s ideas are convincing because she uses personal stories to emphasize on specific ideas. For example, she uses Jeff’s disease to show how internal barriers can influence an individual’s self-awareness. The book is consistent with life experiences because self-awareness is critical in guiding one’s lives. Self-awareness helps shape an individual’s values such as humility, justice, intimacy, mindfulness, leisure, humor and moderation among others. The argument of the author on the need for self-awareness is comprehensive because she explains the barriers, myths and importance self-awareness. Moreover, the author shows how leaders can foster self-awareness in their organizations. Thus, it becomes possible to explain the various aspects of self-awareness while internalizing how it links with our values.
Conclusion
The book is useful because it provides an insight into the importance of self-awareness. Furthermore, the book can be appropriate to a wide range of audiences like the students, leaders, employees among others. I would recommend the book to other people because the author uses simple English and has organized her ideas well. Each chapter of the book discusses a particular issue concerning self-awareness making it easier to read. However, the author should have included review questions at the end of each chapter to help the readers evaluate their understanding.
Reference
 Eurich, T. (2017). Insight: Why We’re Not as Self‐Aware as We Think and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and in Life. Crown Publishing Group: New York. ISBN: 978‐0‐45‐149681‐2