A worthy, tightly organized, and intriguing program for rethinking thinking.
A “toolkit” focuses on understanding and improving the brain’s performance.
In his slim debut guide, Watts begins with the simple assertion that the human brain is “buggy.” He proceeds from that declaration to offer readers insights into how the brain works and how to fix its stubborn shortcomings. The author’s 10-year history in software development informs his use of terms like debugging. He combines this expertise with a psychological approach centered on introspection and cognitive behavioral therapy to create a method of reworking old thought patterns and rewiring dated habits. Key to this technique is the differentiation between what Watts calls the “inner” and the “outer” brain, the inner being the more instinctual, unthinking center of visceral reaction and the outer being the more rational and evaluative part. This reality—that humans feel first and think second—prompts the author to imagine a software-style “Input-Process-Output” model that can be modified in one of two ways: either Input-Habit-Output or Input-Mindful-Output. Watts furnishes many hypothetical situations (quite a few from his personal life) that his readers will find immediately recognizable and follows all of those scenarios with quick and incisive analyses. In all cases, some variation of CBT is his suggestion for resolving the problems he poses. In friendly, engaging prose, he urges his readers to talk things out with a friend (or a rubber ducky if no cohort is available at the moment), write things down, and even read some fiction to help with the brain’s processing techniques. Most of his procedural suggestions boil down to common sense (think about your own actions; express yourself; be a good confessor and a superb listener), but they’re no less valuable for that, particularly when delivered with the energy and optimism Watts employs throughout his book. Regardless of their stance on CBT, readers will find a great deal of useful advice here.
A worthy, tightly organized, and intriguing program for rethinking thinking.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-578-75503-8
Page Count: 94
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.
Want to get ahead in business? Consult a dictionary.
By Wharton School professor Berger’s account, much of the art of persuasion lies in the art of choosing the right word. Want to jump ahead of others waiting in line to use a photocopy machine, even if they’re grizzled New Yorkers? Throw a because into the equation (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”), and you’re likely to get your way. Want someone to do your copying for you? Then change your verbs to nouns: not “Can you help me?” but “Can you be a helper?” As Berger notes, there’s a subtle psychological shift at play when a person becomes not a mere instrument in helping but instead acquires an identity as a helper. It’s the little things, one supposes, and the author offers some interesting strategies that eager readers will want to try out. Instead of alienating a listener with the omniscient should, as in “You should do this,” try could instead: “Well, you could…” induces all concerned “to recognize that there might be other possibilities.” Berger’s counsel that one should use abstractions contradicts his admonition to use concrete language, and it doesn’t help matters to say that each is appropriate to a particular situation, while grammarians will wince at his suggestion that a nerve-calming exercise to “try talking to yourself in the third person (‘You can do it!’)” in fact invokes the second person. Still, there are plenty of useful insights, particularly for students of advertising and public speaking. It’s intriguing to note that appeals to God are less effective in securing a loan than a simple affirmative such as “I pay all bills…on time”), and it’s helpful to keep in mind that “the right words used at the right time can have immense power.”
Perhaps not magic but appealing nonetheless.Pub Date: March 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780063204935
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Harper Business
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
© Copyright 2023 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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