Blink revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. It is about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant – in the blink of an eye -that actually aren’t as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work-in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others?
In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of “blink”: the election of Warren Harding; “New Coke”; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police.
Blink reveals that great decision makers aren’t those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of “thin-slicing” – filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.
Blink
This book's Disciple Making Purpose
Disciples are well along the Predictable Path. They have read the Bible three or four times and are seeing things connect. Blink will open a world of understanding about how God created our brains to work and how connections are natural and happen automatically. To this point, we have been trying to help disciples be conscious of their subconscious connections to understand the Bible and make great decisions. Blink pitches the idea of mastery – the concept that we can trust what we are sure of in those blink moments if we have the data and the skill. What Gladwell talks about is physiologically and psychologically real but disciples have the additional power of the Holy Spirit. We leverage this work to show them how God designed their body to work in conjunction with His spirit to be wildly successful.
Key Topics or Truths
Decision Making
First Impressions
Problem Solving
How We Think (by God’s Design)
This Book is Good For...
Every believer because all of us make decisions and few of us understand how our physical brain works to do that very thing.
How We Use this Book to Make Disciples
Blink is just a simple, easy-to-read, fun read. It does what it does well, and the content needs little explanation. We use it to expose the physiology and psychology (the science) of the brain as designed by God. We leverage the book to challenge the disciples to invite the Holy Spirit, who reminds and teaches us all things, to supercharge their physical processes of thinking, remembering, connecting, and deciding. Our team works to ensure that they are really getting the parts about how we think and make decisions. As disciple makers, we like to make many repetitive connections to the BLINK of the Holy Spirit in our lives and how to know when it is Him and when it is not Him. We use the sections on blink failures to help illustrate this truth. We read and review the book over four weeks using open review plan (see below). Here is our reading plan with a few starter questions,
Week 1 : The Power of Snap Judgments : Introduction – Chapter 2
Snap decisions can often be as good as (or better than) carefully considered ones.
“Thin slicing” = making judgments based on the smallest slices of experience.
Real-world examples of rapid cognition in action.
The unconscious mind often makes decisions we can’t fully explain (“locked door”).
Starter Questions:
- When have you trusted your gut and been right?
- When do quick judgments go wrong?
- Why do we sometimes “just know” but can’t explain it?
- How might the Holy Spirit make our “blinks” more accurate or powerful?
Week 2 : When Thinking Fast Doesn’t Work and Training Intuition : Chapter 3 – 4
Our snap judgments can be flawed due to biases and stereotypes (e.g., judging by appearances).
Training and experience can refine snap judgments.
Case study: A Marine general who relied on instincts in war games.
Starter Questions:
- How can we avoid biases that corrupt first impressions?
- What role does experience play in shaping good instincts?
- Have you ever had “too much data” cloud your judgment?
Week 3 : The Dark Side : Chapter 5
Market research vs. instinct — why people sometimes choose poorly when overanalyzing.
Case study: Kenna, a talented musician, is judged poorly by conventional methods despite expert intuition.
Starter Questions:
- Can you think of a time when overthinking a decision actually made it worse?
- How do you discern when to trust instinct versus gathering more information?
- How might the Holy Spirit guide us when our natural “blink” fails?
Week 4 : The Dark Side and the Balance : Chapter 6 – Conclusion
Snap judgments can be brilliant but also dangerously wrong.
We must learn when to trust our intuition and when to slow down.
Starter Questions:
- How can we tell when to trust fast thinking vs. slow thinking?
- What habits could you develop to sharpen your everyday decision-making?
Our open review plan is simple. We let the room speak and talk as a room. Why? As you move closer to the end of Year Three, you should be focused on preparing the disciples to leave the process of discipleship and move to the daily practice of discipleship. You are preparing for release and moving the relationship from a leader to a peer relationship slowly over time. The open review plan works best for this read as we ask the room an open question of “So what did you learn in this week’s reading? Wasn’t it cool?”
Real Life Story
Have you ever had that moment when you were certain something was “off” in the room, the conversations, or something you observed? BLINK. Have you ever simply known that you were supposed to do something, that God wanted it, and then you figured out what to do? BLINK. Our natural design, God’s design, is designed to filter what is important and help us be aware, unconsciously, of our surroundings. That design can alert us even before we have time to analyze or figure out what supports what we seem to “just know.” We BLINK all the time and most of the time, if we are self-aware, we are correct. With the power of the Holy Spirit, our BLINK can become a God BLINK.
Know Issues or Controversies
This is not a Christian book even though written by an incredible author who appears to be a believer. This poses no difficulty for the application of the text in disciple making.
We love this book because it connects scientific discovery of God’s design of our brain to understand our surroundings with the idea of Christians having access to the Spirit of God guiding that very mind.
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Malcolm Gladwell
Book Details
- Phase: Year 3
- Book Type: Non-Fiction
- Flair: Eye Opening, Storytelling
- Tags: Critical Thinking, Easy Read
Reading Time
Related Reads
When it comes to critical thinking, this book pairs really well with Mystical Chapters because there are so many occasions in Mystical Chapters to have this BLINK, “this is so true” or “somethings wrong” long before you figure out why. Blink can really help with critical thinking.