“Know thyself, then thou shalt know the Universe.”
– Temple of Apollo, Delphi
You Are Here for a Reason
Social interactions have always been central to the existence and evolution of us humans. If you were an alien visiting Earth, one of the first things you would easily notice is humans interacting together on many levels, in various ways. Person‐to‐person encounters are embedded in every aspect of daily life. Our earliest ancestors, just like us now, have been obliged by various physical and emotional needs, a satisfaction of which happens to require the partic‐ ipation of other people. We have always collaborated in search of necessities like food, shelter, safety, and of course, in creating more humans.
Although the visible basics of sur‐ vival help us see the next day, our desires to fulfill that which may not be visible to the eye sets us on a perpetual journey through various emotional experiences together. We need each other for the basic things in life, as well as the more ex‐ traordinary ones.
Have you ever wondered why people simply can’t get along? If you look at the various levels of conflicts, misunderstand‐ ings, and disappointments, which often happen during human social encounters, things don’t always go so smoothly. Most of the time, humans get a failing grade in the lesson of seeing things from the perspective of others, seeing through mere appearances, or sometimes even simply seeing the big picture. Many pieces of your past experiences make up your unique perspective, which in turn shapes the creation of your convictions (or beliefs, feelings, attitudes). Despite our often‐ misestimated mental capacity, as humans, we are incorrect about many things we think we know. Your mind unfortunately builds many inaccurate convictions because, as Joseph Jastrow profoundly stated, “Conviction is the rivalry between reason and emotion.
Often, the emotion wins the bid to build that conviction, because they’re already associated through the memory process. Social‐psychological knowledge is here to expose the common processes of the human mind as it en‐ counters various social interactions throughout the path of life. Knowledge of how and why we operate the way we do, will eliminate the obstacles that stand in your way to the mastery of self. It will pull you out of the darkness of misconceptions, which can lead you down the wrong path. Are you tired yet of wasting time on mistake after mistake? I know I was, and then I found this knowledge. The right knowledge utilized is central to the quality of your life, and that of the world around you.
Mastering the social part of your earthly experience is crucial to your basic survival and beyond. Those who are skillful in the craft of social interaction are most likely among the winners in many areas of their life, as compared to those who are not as skillful. They are often pretty good at disallowing emotions to distract their judgement. I’ve always admired movie or story characters who were impressive in dealing with other people, and knew exactly how to remain ahead of the game in every social situation.
I’m sure you can already imagine which types of characters I’m talking about! Sherlock Hol‑ mes, Tony Stark, Alice from Resident Evil, Hermione Granger in Harry Potter, even Fresh Prince of Bel Air or Bugs Bunny. They were keen listeners and observers, had exceptional awareness of their environment, and were almost psychic in their ability to predict the behaviour of others. They always had the perfect response for pretty much anything, and others looked to them for solutions in tough situations. This skill inspired me to get to know the human mind as much as I can, and to work on overwriting my own inopportune mental programs to achieve the highest level of mind mastery in this life‐ time.
What truly impressed me about these characters was how hard it was to fool them. Such people are a minority in our world. Did you know that most people cannot spot a lie in real time when interacting with someone who is lying? Re‐ searchers, Bond and DePaulo, found that the average person here in the Western world is roughly 54% accurate in discriminating lies from truths when judging the liar’s behaviour at the time when the lie is being told. That is pretty much like scoring a wild guess, because people’s minds are often automatically inclined to judge lies based on peripheral cues, which are the superficial factors.
Attention is swayed by things such as incorrect stereotypes about what a liar does, or looks like. Less often, people look to the inconsistencies in the liar’s message. The trick here is that the mind is designed to make you operate most efficiently, and chooses actions that save time and energy. Highly blinding effects of emotions, desires, or accepted social norms can also work against you. Intelligent people who were assumed to be highly diligent, have lost big money because someone has been able to talk them into a bad investment, and even top‐ level spies have allowed themselves to be fooled by the enemy. The autopilot within you happens to be a terrible lie detector.
From a young age, many of us are taught various behaviours, such as to be nice and polite in social settings. We adapt this automatic assumption that other people will also be nice to us, or that they should have our best interest in mind. It is important to value good manners, kindness, and be a nice person, but if niceness is not mindfully managed, it can make you hesitant to stick up for yourself when needed, or deter you from questioning the motivations of others.
I was that person for a long time. As smart as I thought I was, it was during my study of psychology when I truly realized how vulnerable I was to the sources that manipulated my perception of them, in order to gain some material or emotional goal. I also realized that my desire to automatically be overly friendly towards everyone, was often putting me in a disadvantaged position.
Seeing how many people fall for simple manipulations, and extreme scams, has inspired my mission to share this essential knowledge with nice people world‐ wide, who are tired of getting the short end of the stick, as well as those who have been doing quite well and do not want to jeopardize all the hard work due to the mismanagement of that one unresolved vulnerability hiding within them. Social‐psychological knowledge will train you to skillfully avoid being misled in the world full of various levels of deceit. It is said that knowledge shall set us free, and it may be true be‐ cause, often, it happens to be the naive who make it possible for the malevolent to achieve their goals.
I am sure you would probably agree that you don’t take enough time to sit quietly and detach from your surroundings to deeply reflect on your thoughts, feelings, behaviours, attitudes, or beliefs. Most people don’t. Interestingly enough, a psychological research study, by Timothy Wilson and col‐ leagues, revealed that “participants typically did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think, that they enjoyed doing mundane external activities much more, and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts. Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative. This adds even more evidence for the sociability of humans.
It is likely that you have dipped into some mindfulness concepts, listened to motivational speakers, tried meditation, or are part of some like‐minded group, but you still feel like something is missing. Have you ever thought that it would be great if you could just find that missing piece so you can finally move to the next level? I’m quite certain that you were led to this book for a reason. Now the time has finally come to perfect your knowledge of self, and your knowledge of others, so that you can flow with greater ease towards total mastery of life.
I’m glad you have the desire to learn about the mind! Your mind directs your whole life, and often people reach for great heights of knowledge but forget to learn the basics of how this main operating station of theirs operates. It doesn’t mat‐ ter what background or level of knowledge you come from, or how old you are, this book will help to fill in the blanks of what you may have missed in your own learning trajectory, or it will spark new dimensions of thought about some topics that are relevant to you. The aim of this book is to set and reinforce proper mental foundations of knowledge of self, and knowledge of others. Reading the information contained here will help you elevate your mind’s processes to a whole new level, improve your social outcomes, and make you laser‐ sharp in the art of understanding others.
As a bonus, you will move much closer towards fully getting to know your very best friend: your own self. This somewhat simple but broad review of basic social‐psychological theories, thoughts, and examples will prepare you for the next levels of your rise. I’m certain that the more people learn about the mind in a social context, the higher chance we will have to improve our world by straightening out human interactions, so that we can finally move in the direction of social harmony. After a couple of thousand years of social discordance, it’s about time to elevate into a higher state of being as a species.
This first chapter is just a brief overview of the vibes we will be getting into throughout this book, so keep that in mind be‐ fore you get discouraged by a slight information overload in this first chapter! If you must, then feel free to skip to the second chapter. I’ll forgive you in advance! If you are one of those people who thinks they picked up just another gim‐ micky self‐help book, I want you to note that this book contains fluff‐free, university‐level knowledge, and at the same time, it does not ignore the energetic forces present in all things—otherwise, self‐mastery would once again be incomplete.
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Nika Domi
www.NikaDomi.com
New York Times Bestselling Author: Person to Person
