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
APPLICATION WRITTEN BY
Doug Burrier
Key Topics or Truths
Decision making
First impressions
Problem Solving
How we think (by God’s design)
This Book is Good For...
I argue that this book is incredible 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 I Use this Book to make disciples
This book does what it does well. The content needs little explanation and is solid. I break the reading up into a few chapters a week and review the following week along the way.
The decision scientist in me likes to make sure that people are really getting the parts about how we think and make decisions. The disciple maker in me likes 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. I use the sections on blink failures to help illustrate this truth.
I 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.
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 out 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 Spirit, our BLINK can become 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.
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Malcolm Gladwell
Book Details
- Phase: Discipleship 3
- Book Type: Non Fiction
- Flair: Eye Opening, Relatable or 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.
