What do you guys think about the book The courage to be disliked? Do you guys think it goes against Doctor K’s school of thinking?

I’m a big self improvement reader and am always on the lookout for new titles.

One book I always see brought up on Reddit is The Courage to Be Disliked so I was existed to pick it up. I enjoyed the conversational format and thought it was a very unique take on a self improvement book however, opón further reading I had to put I’d down for a while.

It’s first major taking point seems to be that standard psychology (the idea that negative experiences cause trauma and that trauma can negatively influence our everyday lives) is wrong. That we can simply chose to act how we want to act and leave the bad stuff in the past.

One justification given is that two people who have gone through the same trauma can react to it in different ways therefore, trauma does not 100% guarantee a damaged existence.

This kinda tracks with a story from my own life: I have a lot of trouble talking to people and while I have gotten much better over the years, it is still very difficult for me to hold even a short conversations. This is including with folks that I’ve known for years. I just have nothing to talk with them about.

I also went to an online school from elementary to the end of high school. I have always attributed my social problems to this. I grew up isolated from the outside world so I don’t know or care about most of the things my coworkers or classmates care about. It always astonishes people at work how little rappers or sports players I know for example.

Now imagine my surprise when I learned that one of my managers, probably the most extroverted and outgoing person I’ve ever met, also went to virtual school all his life. This alone seems to support the book’s theory that shared trauma doesn’t necessarily equal shared results. Now, I’m a very logic oriented person and to me, cause and effect makes the most sense in explaining why people act the way they act. Is a person afraid of loud noises? Maybe their verbally abusive father would always vacuum loudly while nagging at them and it reminds them of that.

This seems to be Dr.Ks mindset as well. After watching his videos, he also seems very logical and in fact talks about how trying to jump to solutions while ignoring deeper issues is damaging.

I don’t imagine Dr.K would agree much with the book’s views so I’d be really curious what his thoughts would be. Then again, it must be so popular for a reason. Should I keep reading?

Do you have any thoughts?

Ok, Ted talk over