"Social Animal" by David Brooks is number-one in sales, at least according to some metrics, because emotional intelligence [EI] is what the new economy runs on. After all, the formulas for success from the 20th century are useless. How we figure out what's going on now is mostly through making quick and accurate reads of situations and obtaining equally valid input from those on our network. They won't be on our network if we are a jerk.
That's why, after spending most of my childhood and professional life as manic aka "high energy," I worked with an executive coach and cognitive therapist to adjust the inner metabolism to what other social animals found they could work with. Sure, John Gartner explains in "The Hypomanic Edge" how the American economy was built by a bunch of manic misfits. But that was then. Today, we don't trust the fast talker, the fast actor, especially in women. Most of the latter who do that are desperate, looking how to re-enter a game they had won at during the 20th century. I call them Ladies of the Gush.
The advantage of a career crash, just like the deep-sixing of the German and Japanese economies around 1945, is that we have to pay attention to its lesssons. After that, re-tooling is a piece of cake.
That's because the past doesn't hover over with its oughts. Here is my experience with all that [Download Geezerguts]. In essence, I have had an easier time adjusting to what is than my colleagues and clients who didn't endure a major upheaval.
In the re-configuring of how I operate a business, advise communications clients, and coach Baby Boomers in transition, I left out the "high energy." The teachable moment on that was a corporate communications vice president's informing me that I wasn't going to ghostwrite a book for his executive because I already seemed "so busy." A lesson that can't be ignored.
Today the manic are marginal, so much so that they scare me. Their written content is full of typos and faulty grammar. Also, it's excessive in every aspect. Their oral communications is full gush. No way to create a connection in a wary marketplace.
From what I have learned I published this ebook on EI [Download CUsersjasneDocumentsjg.] Those over-50 who might be stuck in The Gush can read my book, which really is appropriate for all age groups, "Over-50: How We Keep Working." Here you can order it online, for relative peanuts.
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