This book is part of a series Tsai has written on emotional intelligence. Even though I’m generally not a fan of self-help books, I enjoyed reading this. I have always loved Tsai as a talk-show host (and honestly as a human being) and appreciated his ability to bring out depth from his interviewees in a lighthearted way. His interviews are always well-intentioned, generous and funny.
In the preface of the first book, he had expressed not wanting his face on the cover and wanting to publish under a pseudonym. While his first book had the flavor of a publisher wanting to co-opt his fame to list out 10 bullet points on emotional intelligence, you can tell he has more creative freedom in this second book.
This book departed from the stereotypical self-help book format, and instead loosely follow a bar owner, a bartender and a “past-his-prime” talk-show host. Each chapter opens with a customer coming to the bar with some very relatable problem and ends with a witty cartoon. There’s stylistic and artistic ambition in this format, and I wish his publisher had given him more creative freedom because I think he was still being told to write an overt self-help book when the abstraction elevated the content of the book.
The rest of the review is my interpretation of the book and could be wrong. There were a few points from this book that I truly enjoyed learning from and being challenged by. First, I think the overarching theme of the book is actually about preserving the relationships we have in life. We need emotional intelligence because we want to live in harmony with others. This is a stark contrast from some other talking points that use ‘emotional intelligence’ as a means to an end or as a philosophy on how we should cut people off when they no longer serve us. (Not to get stuck on the strawman fallacy because obviously people should leave abusive relationships.) Tsai points out that our lives have limited overlap with others, whether it’s parents, friends, classmates, colleagues, strangers, romantic partners, spouse, or children. The overlap is finite, and we should preserve it when we can. Relationships are often damaged because of disagreements in opinions and misaligned goals. Tsai says above all else we should know ourselves well when we are interacting with others. What do we want? What do we want from them? We also need a good understanding of our intention and execution paths. Picture a Venn diagram: that space of understanding ourselves and pressure-testing that understanding allow us to maintain the boarders of our circle in the intersection with another person’s circle. More and more, I’ve come to the conclusion that people aren’t supposed to see things my way. Why would they? We live different lives and have different goals. The responsibility to communicate my wants and reasoning lies with me. We don’t need others to affirm our choices, but it benefits us to pressure-test what we believe for the sake of making good decisions. Second, as someone who perpetually lives in my own head, I often have a hard time understanding small talks. Many times, despite smiling and nodding, internally I’m thinking “why is X talking to me?”. Tsai says that small talks is really just a way to signal friendliness regardless of whether it’s done expertly or clumsily. This fundamentally changed how I approach small talks. Give people a chance to get to know you and interact with you and get to know others just for the sake of it, even if it starts out awkward.
Third, my favorite chapter could be loosely translated into “superstition”. (It’s a poor translation but I think it’s the closest in meaning.) In this short story, a drunkard comes into the bar mourning the life that she could have had. Tsai talks about how it is really a form of “superstition” when we compare what our lives should be to stock images of happiness. The more of those stock images we have in our head, the more likely we’ll be unhappy. Those stock images aren’t real, and we’re comparing ourselves against something that holds no true meaning. Most importantly, we can be happy without becoming those stock images. I was reading “The siren’s call’ and “Enlightenment now” at the same time, and I remember thinking how we’re being force-fed this concept of what we need to achieve in life to have “made it”, when life is already so short. We really should just live the life we believe in, even with the heartbreaks, shame, fear, and uncertainties, because what’s the point of the alternatives? Focusing on comparing ourselves against stock images runs the risk of losing our appreciation of what we do have and the progress we’ve made, and the independence of thought about what we truly want.
The last concept I loved is Tsai’s take on time. Yes, life is finite. Yes, time is finite. But we often attribute finality in relationships that don’t actually exist. We overreact when we perceive the potential of a relationship getting fractured or when we feel we’re at risk of being abandoned. But time heals wounds. A lot of times that initial gut overreaction is the cause of true damage. If we can accept that relationships do get damaged, but relationships can also repair themselves through time, we’re in a better position to have more rational communications. Overall, this book is highly intellectually stimulating. My biggest fantasy growing up was to have a big bro, and in a way, this book gave me that. I love Tsai as a person, for what he has overcome and the grace that he always shows others.