Read People Like a Book: How to Analyze, Understand, and Predict People’s Emotions, Thoughts, Intentions, and Behaviors

by Patrick King

Someone who’s underperforming at work might feel the need to protect their perceived skills and talent by deflecting responsibility to: “The boss has always had it in for me. And who trained me? Him! It’s all his fault one way or another.” Someone who trips and falls yet fancies themselves graceful will blame the fact that it rained six days ago, their shoes have no grip, and who put that rock there, anyway? Someone who fails to make the school basketball team will grumble that the coach hated them, they weren’t used to that particular style of play, and they didn’t really want to make the team, anyway. This is what it sounds like when the ego steps in to protect itself. There’s so much justification and deflecting going on that it’s difficult to know what is real and what is not. This all stems from the universal truth that nobody likes to be wrong or to fail. It’s embarrassing and confirms all of our worst anxieties about ourselves. Instead of accepting being wrong as a teachable moment or lesson, our first instinct is to run from our shame and cower in the corner. This is the same reason we will persist in an argument to the death, even if we know we are one hundred percent wrong. If the ego had a physical manifestation, it would be sizable, sensitive, and heavily armored (to the point of going on the offensive)—essentially a giant porcupine. When the ego senses danger, it

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