"I Am the Only Normal Person in My Universe," the definitive Book about Relational Intelligence, (RQ) written by Richard Zwicky
Written during recovery from Long COVID, the book gives readers language and a framework for dealing with the relational conflict everyone recognizes and rarely names.
VICTORIA, BC — Richard Zwicky, Founder and CEO of Memores Software Inc., developer of the Sparks-Health Relational Intelligence Platform, has published "I Am the Only Normal Person in My Universe," a book that lays out the framework of the ways in which Relational Intelligence (RQ) govern the relationships that affect us all.
An unlikely origin
The book did not begin as a theory of human connection. Between 2020 and late 2023, Zwicky navigated the cognitive effects of Long COVID, a period that cost him the ability to hold a complex thought, recall a prior conversation with specificity, or sustain focus long enough to work through difficult problems.
In the slower, more granular thinking that period forced on him, he began noticing something he had moved past too quickly for years: how much was happening between people, in ordinary conversations, that neither side was accurately reading.
That noticing became a pattern, and the pattern became the book's central premise: every person is, in effect, the only normal person in their own universe. Each of us assembles a "normal," out of biology, upbringing, culture, and experience that feels like reality itself rather than one view among many, and most relational conflict is not a failure of caring but a failure of two people navigating the same territory with different maps, neither one lying about what they saw.
A third kind of intelligence
The book argues that IQ and EQ leave a gap between them: the learned capacity to operate more effectively with people, to sense what is being communicated beneath what is being said, and to respond to the relationship itself rather than only to the content of the moment.
"No one should claim to have mastered Relational Intelligence," Zwicky writes in the book's workbook introduction. "Observing it and applying it consistently are separate matters. However, by observing it and learning how we can apply it to our own situations, we can consistently improve our skills."
From framework to platform
The book's Addendum traces how the same framework became a company. Reviewing the mental health system during his long-covid period, he kept finding the same structural gap, and realized that relational injuries were rarely legible enough to the person experiencing them to be addressed at the source rather than the symptom. A real-time platform for RQ coaching and stress reduction did not exist, so he designed one and built a company around it.
That company is Memores Software Inc., and the platform is SPARKS. Its assessment suite, relational insights reports, and Communications Coach are built to help people see their own operating system, whether it’s to support them on mental health journeys with therapists or coaches, or simply to heighten self-awareness and discover paths to self-improvement.
Why this book is worth reading
The book is written for anyone who has ever walked away from a conversation certain they were right, and equally certain the other person believed the same thing. That experience, ordinary and universal, is the book's entry point, and it is why the framework travels so easily between a marriage, a team, and a client relationship: the mechanics of two people missing each other are the same in each setting, only the stakes change.
Three reasons the book earns the time it asks for:
It names a gap most people feel but have never had language for. IQ and EQ do not explain why capable, caring people often miscommunicate with the people closest to them. RQ does, and once named, the pattern becomes visible in relationships the reader has lived in for years.
It is built to be used, not just read. An integrated companion workbook turns each chapter's idea into a prompt, an exercise, and one carried-forward line, so a reader finishes not with a theory but with a short, personal, working framework of their own patterns.
It comes from someone who did the work first. Zwicky is candid throughout about his own blind spots, missed signals, and relational mistakes. The book asks nothing of the reader that the author has not already asked of himself, and answered honestly.
Who should pick it up
Anyone navigating a relationship, romantic, familial, or professional, where the same friction keeps recurring despite good intentions on both sides. Managers and founders responsible for a team's culture, hiring, or retention. Anyone already in therapy who wants language and structure that can deepen that work, and anyone not yet in therapy who wants a place to start.
About Memores Software Inc.
Memores Software Inc., based in Victoria, BC, builds SPARKS, a predictive Relational Intelligence platform for workforce wellbeing, employee engagement, and burnout prevention, deployed to individual users, enterprise organizations, and insurance carriers. Founder and CEO Richard Zwicky has had 20 patents issued in artificial intelligence (AI), behavioral targeting, search engine algorithms, fraud detection, SEO, and predictive analytics.
Richard Zwicky
Founder and CEO,
Memores Software Inc.
richard@memores.me
Memores Software Inc., based in Victoria, BC, builds SPARKS, a predictive Relational Intelligence platform for workforce wellbeing, employee engagement, and burnout prevention, deployed to individual users, enterprise organizations, and insurance carriers. Founder and CEO Richard Zwicky has had 20 patents issued in artificial intelligence (AI), behavioral targeting, search engine algorithms, fraud detection, SEO, and predictive analytics.
About Richard Zwicky
Richard Zwicky is an international business leader, strategist, and inventor who builds cultures of innovation where teams reach their full potential. Over three decades, he has founded and scaled ventures on four continents, growing teams to over 500 people and operations to over forty million in annual revenue.
He advises companies globally due to his rare ability to pair strategic foresight with data-driven insight, a combination that enables him to pinpoint the stress points within an organization and design solutions tailored to them rather than borrowed from a playbook. His leadership is transparent and adaptable: He leads by example and champions open communication that drives transformational change.
Zwicky authored more than twenty issued patents spanning behavioral targeting, artificial intelligence (AI), Relational Intelligence (RQ), predictive analytics, search algorithms, and fraud detection, with more patents pending. He advises on relational intelligence and the human dynamics behind high-performing teams, holding to a simple conviction: the best businesses strengthen their people and the communities around them while they drive revenue.
A graduate of McGill University, he is fluent in multiple languages and brings a rare global perspective to the teams he builds and advises.
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