Insight: Why We’re Not As Self-Aware As We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and in Life

The first definitive book exploring the science of self-awareness, the meta-skill of the 21st century, Insight is a fascinating journey into everyone’s favorite topic: themselves.

Do you know who you really are? Do you ever wonder how other people really see you? Though we are usually confident that we do, we are wrong more often than we think. And if we could see ourselves through others’ eyes, we might be really surprised.

Yet regardless of our line of work or stage of life, success depends on understanding who we are and how we come across. Research shows that self-awareness means better work performance, smarter life choices, deeper, more meaningful relationships, and a more fulfilling career. There’s just one problem: people can be remarkably poor judges of their behavior, performance, and impact on others. And despite the lip service given today to “feedback,” in the business world and beyond, it’s rare to get candid, objective data on what we’re doing well, and where we could stand to improve.

Of course, at work and in life, we’ve all come across people with a stunning lack of self-awareness—but how often do we consider whether we might have the same problem? And if we did, how would we even know it?

Drawing on her three-year, first-of-its-kind study of people who have dramatically improved their self-awareness, organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich reveals why we don’t know ourselves as well as we think—and what to do about it. Alongside her research, she integrates hundreds of academic studies and her 15 years of work with Fortune 500 clients, challenging conventional “wisdom” to reveal many surprising truths—like why introspection is the enemy of insight, how experience isn’t a bullet train to self-knowledge, and just how far others will go to avoid telling us the truth about ourselves.

Readers will learn battle-tested techniques and tools to improve self-awareness and thus their work performance, leadership skills, interpersonal relationships, and more. Insight is a guide surviving and thriving in an unaware world.