PDF Summary:The School of Life, by The School of Life
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1-Page PDF Summary of The School of Life
Why do we make the same bad choices over and over? Why do we constantly find ourselves in unfulfilling relationships, hating our jobs, and rubbing people the wrong way—and not knowing why? The authors of The School of Life have an answer: because you lack emotional intelligence. According to them, we’re not taught how to understand and cope with our feelings and the feelings of others, and this leads us to make poor decisions and to be miserable. However, by developing emotional intelligence across several realms of life, you can better understand yourself and lead a happier life.
The School of Life is an educational organization that offers materials to support personal growth. Several of its authors collaborated on this book. In this guide, we’ll discuss the authors’ argument that we don’t have emotional intelligence and examine how they say you can gain emotional intelligence about yourself, others, relationships, and work. We’ll supplement this with scientific research that backs up or contradicts some of the authors’ claims, and with insights from other self-help authors on ways to implement the authors’ advice.
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- Respect others’ basic needs and humanity. People become defensive when they feel you don’t understand or respect them. A diplomat knows they must demonstrate that they can take the other person’s perspective if they need something from them.
- Don’t come across as superior. A diplomat knows that no one likes receiving advice from people who believe themselves to be beyond needing advice. So they couch advice in expressions of how much they struggle with this issue themselves.
- Prioritize the relationship over truth-telling. A diplomat knows that sometimes you have to tell small untruths in service of the overall relationship.
- Don’t take negative reactions personally. Diplomats know that an angry reaction probably comes from fear or hurt. They don’t press an issue when the other person is angry; they’ll bring it up later when the other person will be more amenable to talking about it.
Comparing Diplomatic Tactics to the Key Qualities of Diplomats
The authors list diplomatic tactics that everyone should adopt above, but what qualities are needed in actual diplomats? The ideal characteristics of diplomats differ from the diplomatic traits the authors describe here, but there’s arguably overlap between the two. Let’s look at some of the desired traits of a diplomat and how they stack up against what the authors recommend.
Intercultural communication: Diplomats must be familiar with the culture and history of their host country. It’s important that the diplomat understands and respects the local population and is able to show this. This trait is similar to respecting others’ basic needs and humanity: Only when people feel understood—either culturally or personally—will they open up.
Professionalism: In this context, professionalism is defined as being analytical and composed: Diplomats must recognize that the issues they’re dealing with are complex and that they should always take time to understand them and respond calmly and humbly during interactions. This is comparable to avoiding coming across as superior: Diplomats never assume they know better than others and thus never sound like they’re talking down to them.
Teamwork: Diplomats must be skilled team players, able to establish good relationships and trust within a team. While this doesn’t necessarily correspond to fibbing in service of preserving a relationship, a team player probably will have to occasionally tell a white lie to a teammate to maintain the team’s overall well-being.
Resilience: Diplomats must be able to bounce back from setbacks. A big part of being resilient is not taking things personally. When diplomats understand that others’ negative emotions are rarely about them, they can resiliently re-approach someone once they’ve calmed down.
Act With Vulnerability and Warmth
One of the best ways to connect authentically and constructively with others is to be vulnerable and warm with them. Vulnerability is effective because when we hear others vulnerably share their problems, unhappiness, or worries, we feel validated in having those ourselves. We feel less alone and less alien, which endears the sharer to us.
(Shortform note: In The Power of Vulnerability, Brené Brown also mentions that vulnerability builds trust, which is another way we become more connected to people. Brown contends that you can’t trust someone unless you understand their motives, feelings, and personality—in other words, unless they’ve opened themselves up to you.)
Another way to connect to people is to be a warm person. The authors define warmth as addressing others’ hidden insecurities and worries through kindness and vulnerability—like by heartily welcoming a newcomer to a class you’re taking or by telling them you also struggled to master concepts at first. Warm people don’t insist on formality in social interactions because they know humans need more than small talk and intellectual dialogue to feel comfortable.
At the same time, a warm person can relate to the problems of others and doesn’t pretend they and everyone else are always happy and carefree. They make room for people to express unhappiness and pain and can empathize with them.
(Shortform note: Another way you might look at being warm is as being a comfortable person. In The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale defines a comfortable person as someone others feel comfortable and at ease around. Arguably, the traits of a warm person tend to make others comfortable: When you try to assuage others’ worries and avoid excessive formality, you’ll likely make them feel at ease. And when you recognize and accept that people often have negative thoughts and feelings, you’ll further make them comfortable being themselves around you.)
Tease Others as a Form of Bonding
Good-natured teasing is another way to intelligently bond with others, assert the authors. We like teasing because it addresses our adult desires to be less serious. We all crave the chance to be playful, goofy, and childish and appreciate people who let us do that.
A good teaser also knows exactly what aspect of their friend to tease about. These are usually the small shortcomings their friend would like to fix. For instance, if you know your friend would like to be less of a neatnik, they’ll appreciate it if you gently tease them about their impeccably organized living room.
(Shortform note: You might creatively conceive of gentle teasing as giving words of affirmation, a concept popularized in Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages. Chapman defines words of affirmation as supportive words that make the other person feel loved. Teasing arguably lets the other person feel loved and supported in their quirks and shortcomings.)
Give Others the Benefit of the Doubt
When others seem to be struggling or acting out, you can ease tension by giving them the benefit of the doubt, write the authors. This means assuming there’s an emotional or childhood wound underlying their current behavior and not holding them solely responsible for hurtful or destructive actions. Try to understand why they’re behaving badly, rather than judging them for it. The advice goes the opposite way, too: If you sense you’re acting out, try to understand why you’re doing so and communicate this reason to others.
(Shortform note: Giving others the benefit of the doubt is good for you, too. Research shows that people who habitually assume others have bad intentions are less happy in their relationships and less happy in general. This is called having a hostile attributional style. Conversely, people who habitually think the best of others (who have a benign attributional style) are happier. You can take steps to change your attributional style to be more benign—perhaps by trying to understand others’ motivations more, as the authors suggest.)
Though it may be hard, give even people who openly attack you the benefit of the doubt, recommend the authors. People who insult others only do so because they themselves are in pain. Use this knowledge to become less injured when someone attacks you and respond to them with care, not outrage.
For example, if your boss begins berating you for small mistakes, assume there’s an underlying reason for this and perhaps even try to ascertain what it is. Maybe you notice they leave the office often for doctor appointments—they might be upset because they’re facing a health problem.
(Shortform note: To respond effectively to attacks, you may also need to consider if you’re interpreting others’ words as attacks. The authors of Difficult Conversations argue that we interpret others’ speech based on how it impacts us. For example, if we’re offended by something our boss said, we believe they intended to offend us, even though that might not be true. This is yet another reason to develop your self-knowledge: You’ll better know when something happens to be rubbing you the wrong way.)
See the Positive Side of Every Quality
When you’re irritated by others’ negative qualities, consider how that negative quality can sometimes be a positive quality, advise the authors. Say you find your friend annoyingly bad at making simple decisions, like deciding what to eat at a restaurant. Their extreme considerateness becomes an advantage when they must make a bigger decision, like where to move next: They’ll take into account every minor factor and make the most informed choice. Acknowledging this duality makes it easier to cope with the unpleasant manifestations of others’ traits.
(Shortform note: Ancient Chinese philosophy has a name for this dual nature of all things: yin and yang. The idea is that everything has both a positive and a negative nature (you can also think of this as having a female and male nature, or a dark and light nature) and that one side can’t exist without the other. Yin specifically is described as a negative, dark, calm, feminine energy. Yang on the other hand is positive, light, hot, masculine energy. Drawing on this philosophy might make it even easier to acknowledge and deal with the difficult sides of another’s personality.)
Emotional Intelligence About Romantic Relationships
Now that you’re developing emotional intelligence around interactions with others, you can start to develop emotional intelligence specifically in romantic relationships. We’ll first describe why we so often lack emotional intelligence in that area of life and conclude with advice on how to be more emotionally intelligent.
Why We Lack Emotional Intelligence in Romantic Relationships
We often fail to develop emotional intelligence in the realm of love because our conception of love is almost completely defined by the 18th-century intellectual and artistic movement, Romanticism. Among other things, Romanticism proposes the following:
- Marriage should be both emotionally and sexually fulfilling and also a practical living arrangement. It assumes after 30 years of marriage that you’ll feel the same way about your partner as you did when you first met.
- You should marry for love and not for financial or other considerations; thinking about finances and other practical questions is inappropriate and unromantic.
- You should love and accept every aspect of your partner.
An Alternative to Romanticism
In The Defining Decade, Meg Jay proposes a view of long-term relationships that’s dramatically different from the above Romantic ideas. Her book is written for people in their 20s who face important decisions like whom to date, live with, and settle down with. Jay’s advice is therefore highly practical and based on research. Let’s look at how her recommendations veer from Romantic philosophy.
People often slip into marriage passively: Jay argues that the Romantic belief in the infallibility of marriage is misguided. According to her, people often only get married because they feel they’ve already invested so much time into the relationship that it would be a waste to back out—not because they derive complete emotional and sexual fulfillment from the relationship. What’s more, many couples don’t understand how stressful marriage will really be, and often the added pressures (kids, bills, and so on) change the relationship or make it impossible to feel the same way about your spouse.
You shouldn’t date people who are less mature than you: Jay recommends not dating someone you believe you’d have dated at an earlier stage of your life when you were less settled and mature. An extension of this idea is that, contrary to Romantic beliefs, it’s OK to consider another person’s career goals and financial maturity.
Actively seek out compatible personalities: Jay advises you look for people who have personalities that mesh well with yours as a way to minimize the amount of life choices you disagree on. However, Jay doesn’t say that you can ever find the perfect personality match or that you have to love every facet of your partner’s personality. There will always be differences, and you have to learn how to resolve them, not pretend they’re not there.
The authors contend that Romanticism and the unrealistic expectations it places on intimate relationships have made it difficult to have healthy relationships. But when you know that your ideal of a successful romantic relationship is flawed, you can forgive yourself for not meeting it and develop a more workable approach to romance by building your emotional intelligence.
(Shortform note: Some feel that the influence of Romanticism has declined in contemporary society and that today, people are indeed taking a more practical approach to love. Polls show that only 44% of Millennials were married in 2019 compared to 62% of baby boomers when they were a similar age. Some believe this is because Millennials have higher standards for partners and would rather wait for someone with the right qualities. While this sounds practical and emotionally intelligent, such an approach could also be interpreted as Romantic. Thinking there’s a near-perfect person out there for you and that you’d rather wait for them than settle for someone decent could be seen as more Romantic than sensible.)
Methods of Gaining Emotional Intelligence in Relationships
Now let’s look at some ways to dismantle the destructive Romantic approach to relationships and replace it with more emotionally intelligent ones.
Embrace Compromise and Mundanity
We normally frown on compromise in relationships, but the authors write that often, to compromise with a partner is truly the best option available—better than finding a new living situation or source of income, or disrupting your child’s home life, for example. We should stop seeing compromise as pathetic and instead accept that no situation is perfect.
(Shortform note: You may have accepted that you’ll need to compromise in your relationship, but how do you compromise? It’s critical to communicate openly and clearly when discussing a compromise situation so that both parties’ needs are understood. Partners must also want the best for each other—no one should try to have their way at the expense of the other’s happiness. Finally, both partners must make a sacrifice for it to be a compromise—it can’t just be one person who’s giving everything up for the other.)
Additionally, we feel that in love, thinking or talking about mundane concerns—like the household, shared responsibilities, money, and so on—is unromantic and even inappropriate. We believe subconsciously that such concerns shouldn't matter to people who are truly in love. But the authors argue that discussing such tedious questions isn’t only necessary, but is actually a sign of a strong relationship. When you can talk about important but boring matters, there’s more harmony in your relationship.
(Shortform note: It’s true that long-term couples must eventually talk about the mundane details of their shared life and that doing this makes a relationship healthier. However, embracing mundanity likely makes it all the more important to keep some excitement in your relationship. You can do this by going out on dates regularly and by occasionally surprising each other. You should also remember to stay cordial with your long-term partner by saying “please” and “thank you.” This keeps you both from taking each other for granted.)
Recognize Your and Their Flaws
To have a healthy relationship, acknowledge that you’re a flawed person who at times can be difficult to be around, insist the authors. This lets you take inevitable criticism from partners with more grace. Similarly, acknowledge that your partner is also deeply flawed. When they exhibit these flaws, think about how they might have developed in childhood and don’t hold your partner solely accountable for them.
(Shortform note: This advice may seem sensible, but what happens if your partner doesn’t give you the same fair treatment? What if they refuse to acknowledge their own flaws but chide you for having yours? This could be a sign that you’re in a one-sided relationship. In one-sided relationships, it feels like you’re putting in all the effort to maintain it but get nothing in return. You may also feel that you’re walking on eggshells around your partner and have no sense of what they’re thinking or feeling. While such relationships can be repaired, it may be best to honestly assess if this is a union you want to stay in.)
Reframe How You Think About Sex
We believe in our sexually liberated era that sex should be uncomplicated, easy, and fun if you do it “normally”: have only one committed partner, stick to common sexual practices, and so on. But a significant way to improve a relationship is to recognize that more often, sex is complicated. This is because humans have complicated needs and desires and are rarely satisfied with socially sanctioned sexual practices. The authors argue that this doesn’t mean that people who seek out such sex are atypical, but rather that our conception of “normal” sex and sexual desire is wrong.
(Shortform note: Some might disagree with the idea that we believe societally that sex should be easy and that there’s a standard for “normal” sex. Many people are now opting for ethically non-monogamous relationships, like polyamory, open relationships, swinging, and sex with multiple partners. These types of relationships are based on the understanding that sex and love are complex and that there might be different ways to meet your intimate needs. They also represent a worldview that sees all forms of relationships as equally valid and thus normal.)
For instance, most people become sexually interested in other people after they’ve been with a partner for a certain amount of time (and despite still loving that partner). Also, many kind, caring people desire rough sex or fantasize about sex they’d never want to actually have. Finally, many people are sexually interested in people they don’t like or don’t care about emotionally.
(Shortform note: In Mating in Captivity, Esther Perel confirms that many people have fantasies of unemotional or aggressive sex. She adds that such fantasies are symbolic, not literal: They’re a way for us to process irrational desires privately so they don’t end up causing us to do anything foolish in real life. What’s more, statistics prove that people indeed feel attracted to people other than their long-term partner: 70% of participants in a study noted they felt attraction to someone outside of their relationship. This happens because attraction is an immediate, instinctive reaction, over which we have no control. This also helps explain why many people want to have sex with people they don’t like personally.)
Finally, the authors note that many of the more taboo forms of sex (like oral, anal, and rough sex) are simply humans’ attempts to feel completely accepted, in all our darker shades, by a partner—they’re not abnormal or problematic. If someone can see all these parts of our bodies and needs without shying away, we feel completely understood by that person.
(Shortform note: Here the writers assert that certain types of sex let us feel completely accepted—a feeling humans crave. However, the writers also note (as covered earlier in this guide) that complete acceptance of your partner is a false Romantic idea and that it’s OK to not love and appreciate every one of your partner’s quirks. So there seems to be a conflict: According to the writers, we strongly desire our partner’s complete acceptance, yet it’s OK to not offer that acceptance to our partner. Perhaps we can view this conflict simply as an example of how challenging it is to be in a partnership with another human and a good reason to develop emotional intelligence.)
Argue More Constructively
A final way to have a more emotionally intelligent relationship is to learn how to argue more constructively, write the authors. Couples have countless unavoidable arguments but are never taught how to argue well, which could make those arguments more constructive and less tense. The authors’ recommendation for a variety of recurring arguments is to:
- Know yourself and your flaws as well as possible, as we’ve discussed. The more you know yourself, the less you’re guided by subconscious urges and needs, and the more control you have over yourself in arguments.
- Learn how to communicate your thoughts more effectively to the other person. This helps avoid misunderstandings and keeps you both on the same page.
- Remember that your partner, like you, is deeply flawed. Don’t expect them to be perfect and to understand you perfectly.
Arguing for Insecure Attachers
Having a constructive argument might be especially hard if you have an anxious attachment to your partner, a concept described in Attached. People with an anxious attachment style crave intimacy with their partner but fear their partner doesn’t care about them and avoid saying things that might upset their partner. If this is the case, taking the below approaches to a conflict, in addition to the steps the authors list, might lead to the best outcomes.
First, when having disputes, always express an interest in what the other person wants and needs. Your happiness is contingent upon theirs, so make sure they feel heard and respected. Remembering that your partner is, like you, flawed, can also help you be more empathetic during this stage.
Then, don’t let the argument become about something unrelated. If you’re arguing about whose turn it is to wash the car, don’t bring up how your partner failed to mow the lawn last week. And be willing to share how you feel: Don’t expect your partner to intuit what’s going on in your head. Knowing yourself and learning how to communicate your thoughts well, as the authors suggest, can help with this.
Finally, see the argument through to the end: Only this way will you be able to learn and come to a mutually satisfying resolution.
Emotional Intelligence at Work
Let’s finally look at how to be more emotionally intelligent about two recurring issues in the workplace: impostor syndrome and the need to specialize.
Suffering From Impostor Syndrome
Many workers suffer from impostor syndrome. This is the belief that colleagues have special knowledge and insights that we don’t have, which makes us feel like we’re “faking it” and will be found out eventually. However, in reality, most other people—and particularly successful people—have the same fears and feelings of inadequacy we have and are no more confident than we are. Recognizing that everyone else feels like they’re faking it, too, eliminates the sense that we’re worse than anyone else or lack key abilities.
(Shortform note: In Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg advises a different approach to combating impostor syndrome. Rather than recognizing that everyone experiences impostor syndrome, she recommends rationally countering that feeling with hard evidence. You can do this by recalling your past personal successes and intelligence. Sandberg also advises “faking it til you make it” to overcome impostor syndrome. If you feel inadequate at work, act like you don’t. You’ll eventually stop feeling inadequate.)
Contending With the Need to Specialize
In a capitalist economy, we’re collectively more productive if every worker specializes in one narrow task, write the authors. So, in the working world, we all have distinct jobs with prescribed tasks. For example, you’re a coder or a human resources (HR) specialist, but you’re never both because to acquire and practice both skills would be economically inefficient.
(Shortform note: While it means less freedom to branch out in the workplace, specialization—in other words, the division of labor—also made the Industrial Revolution possible. The Industrial Revolution completely transformed society, lowering the prices of goods, making them more available, and raising the standard of living for the average person. So while we may personally resent the division of labor, we must also acknowledge that it made possible the affluent society we live in today.)
But as humans, we have far more interests and abilities than the ones we use at our jobs. Many people would like to learn to code and be HR specialists at the same time. However, because we can’t do that, we see ourselves only as one identity—a coder, an HR specialist—which makes us feel one-dimensional and unfulfilled. We also become bored with our jobs and try to find new ones, only to become bored with them, too.
(Shortform note: The authors of Your Money or Your Life present a way to avoid feeling like your job saddles you with a one-dimensional identity: Expand your definition of “work.” If you think of “work” as including not just your paid job but also the unpaid activities that give your life purpose, you can see yourself as more than just a job title. You’re not just a coder, for example: You’re a coding basketball fan who volunteers on weekends. This may also decrease the likelihood of your quitting your job due to boredom: You recognize that your job is only a small piece of your life and that you can derive value from other activities.)
The authors advise that the best way to deal with this emotionally is to recognize that everyone feels this way about their jobs. No one gets to live out their fullest potential, so you’re not missing out.
(Shortform note: This advice may feel like cold comfort and also, in the age of social media, difficult to believe. We’re exposed to so many photos of others leading seemingly thrilling lives, that it can feel like everyone has the perfect job and life but you. If others try to convince you through their social media presence or in person that their job is more fulfilling and exciting than yours, remember that people selectively frame information so that it shows them in a good light and that often, bragging is a cover for insecurity.)
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