The Upside Of Your Dark Side

The Upside Of Your Dark Side takes a look at our darkest emotions, like anxiety or anger, and shows you there are real benefits that follow them and their underlying character traits, such as narcissism or psychopathy.

Yes, a work environment that boosts happiness, like at Google, is believed to make people better workers. However, there is a downside to it.

Happy people care less about details, which makes them less persuasive and prone to errors.

The summary quotes a study where happy and “unhappy” people had to write down arguments for or against certain political and philosophical issues. The reasoning of “unhappy” people was evaluated as 25% more convincing.

Similarly, happy people are more likely to recall false facts, or things they never even learned, because they’re focused on the big picture, for which details are less important.

Therefore, a happy person might be a better manager, who is responsible for the company strategy, but a less upbeat person will be a great head of quality management, where details are everything.

One of the emotions this book takes a look at is guilt. There are 2 upsides to guilt:

It’s a terrible feeling, so we avoid it at all costs, which leads us to commit less crimes. If we feel it, we do everything it takes to fix what we did wrong.

Research has shown that the more likely you are to feel guilt, the less likely you are to perform bad actions, like driving around drunk or stealing something.

Similarly, prisoners who felt a lot of guilt were less likely to re-offend once released.

Shame on the other hand is useless.

Why?

Opposed to guilt, shame doesn’t make you want to take responsibility. Shame makes you want to cover up your mistake.

So pay attention the next time you feel bad about doing something. If you want to throw the glass you broke right into the trash can and hope no one notices it, that’s shame. Try to take responsibility instead.

Your ability to be mindful is limited. There is only so much data that your brain can process consciously. However, its capability to process information unconsciously is huge. Think about how complex the task you’re doing right now is. You’re using your hands, senses, thousands of little actions come together, just so you can read this summary. Imagine you had to consciously process and instruct all of these – mind-blowing, right? Ergo, being mindful slows you down a lot. You have to take little baby steps to accomplish tasks, because you’re so busy with processing all the meta-information. While being mindful is great for some tasks, meditation isn’t a cure-all. There are 2 major advantages of practicing…