Book SummaryThe School of Life, by The School of Life

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The School of Life

In The School of Life, writers from The School of Life offer methods to improve our emotional intelligence in several spheres of life. They argue that we’re not taught emotional intelligence—an understanding of our and others’ feelings—in the same way that we’re taught subjects like science and history, and that this is to our great detriment. Without emotional intelligence, we bumble through life, making poor choices based on misunderstood feelings that hurt us and others. However, by taking their advice on how to be more intelligent about...

The School of Life Summary We Lack Emotional Intelligence

The authors write that as a society, we place huge stock in formal education. But we don’t educate our children or ourselves about how to deal with disappointment, anger, loss, and other difficult emotions. In other words, we don’t teach emotional intelligence. Instead, we believe people should simply follow their intuition when navigating emotional situations and that doing this will lead to the best outcomes.

For example, instead of teaching adolescents how to navigate conflicts with their friends, we allow them to do what seems intuitively best to them—which might be yelling or talking about their friend behind their back.

(Shortform note: In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman proposes some ways in which we could teach emotional intelligence to children. Teachers could incorporate emotional intelligence lessons into existing subjects by simply bringing up discussions of emotionally intelligent behavior. For instance, in a history class, a teacher could talk about why a historical...

The School of Life Summary Emotional Intelligence About Yourself

Now that we’ve looked at the broader lack of emotional intelligence across society, let’s look at your personal emotional intelligence. First, we’ll examine why it’s so difficult to understand ourselves and the result of that lack of self-understanding, then we’ll talk about how to build self-knowledge.

Why It’s Hard to Know Yourself

Understanding ourselves is extremely difficult, write the authors. This is in part because our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs are constantly changing. There are no fixed points from which we can observe our psyches. We don’t even have a fixed identity, argue the authors: This is also always in flux.

(Shortform note: The idea that we don’t have a fixed identity and that we’re constantly changing is firmly rooted in Buddhist philosophy. Buddhists label this idea “non-self,” and they contend that “we” are really just a collection of changing physical processes, feelings, perceptions, responses, and consciousness. They believe that clinging to any single view of ourselves makes us suffer because that view of ourselves will inevitably change (identifying with youth is an obvious example...

The School of Life Summary Emotional Intelligence About Others

Now that you know more about how to understand yourself, let’s turn to how you can be more emotionally intelligent in your interactions with others. The authors provide five ways of doing this.

Communicate With Politeness and Diplomacy

Communicate with politeness and diplomacy to improve the quality of your interactions. For the authors, politeness consists of these behaviors:

• Avoiding blunt speech because this can be hurtful
• Respecting that others have different opinions and preferences and asking for those
• Offering validation and kind words because humans can be emotionally fragile
• Giving everyday kindness through small gestures
• Not taking impulsive, decisive action toward others because we may be wrong

Today, we view politeness as synonymous with inauthenticity and snobbishness. But the authors argue that this view is incorrect and that politeness—rather than frankness, which they contrast it against—would help us all get along better.

Can Politeness and Diplomacy Ever Be Harmful?

Perhaps a better description of politeness should include performing the above behaviors at the right times. In certain contexts, the polite behaviors the...

The School of Life Summary 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...

The School of Life Summary 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...

Shortform Exercise: Become More Emotionally Intelligent in Social Interactions

Understand yourself better to have stronger social interactions and experiment with some of the authors’ tactics to improve the quality of your interactions.

Think about a recent interpersonal interaction that you felt didn’t go well. Describe in detail what about the interaction was unsuccessful: Perhaps the other person didn’t react to some news in the way you expected, or maybe you found yourself raising your voice in anger.