Thanks Alan and all previous commenters for the compliments too

I’ve been wanting to read this book. I’m tight on cash now because I’m looking for a job and blogging at the same time, but maybe I’ll just sit at the bookstore and read it . I love the fact that you use mindmaps. I did a post on Bizskoolblog on how to use mindmaps to find your dream job, and it seems to get more page views than any other post I have. Anyways, great stuff.

I love that you publish your book mindmaps. I have been doing this for awhile now and will consider publishing some of mine as well.

Well done and great example.

Cecilia
http://www.getinpower.com

I have an enormous respect for people such as scientists and computer programmers: as a computer programmer myself, it would be hard not to! I also don’t regard right-brain thinking as being superior to left-brain thinking — far from it!

The fact is that computer programming, if done properly, is a highly-creative endeavor — no doubt about that. Top software companies recognize that and pay creative programmers their weight in gold. I am confident that the same is true for science and other similar pursuits.

But it’s also my experience that computer programming can be performed in a cold, ‘left-brain-only’ way. It’s not the most effective or inventive manner, but it’s doable. And, unfortunately, people that manage to survive in their jobs without being that creative are still somewhat common. And those are the ones that won’t be able to thrive anymore according to the book.

The point of the book is not that we should drop left-brain thinking, but that we should complement it with right-brain thinking.

As an example, I abominate things such as pseudoscience. As I see it, in pseudoscience, the ‘right-brain thinking’ replaces left-brain thinking and rigor, and that’s where things go wrong.

And thanks for the book recommendation — will definitely check it out!

The problem, however, is that I don’t own the book. I listened to the audio version and didn’t take notes (something that I regret now). In fact, it’s exactly because of this book that I decided not to listen to long audio books anymore. Since then, I’m keeping my listening to short podcasts only.

In everyone – except for a very few individuals with neurological problems – the brain has a natural tendency for pattern recognition and simplification; there’s simply too much information for the brain to process and store it all. This is a neurological fact, whether you accept it or not. Ones aptitude for logical and rational thought helps stop the brain make grave errors through this habit it has of pattern matching.

Before reading Mr. Pink’s book, I would suggest people read something about how the brain actually works. An excellent little read is “Your Brain, The Missing Manual” published by O’Reilly. This will give you a nice introduction to the topic.

The fact that we have increasing amounts of information is NOT, I repeat NOT an argument to forgo rigor. The fact that the brain so easily fools itself makes it imperative that rigorous mathematical (yes, left brain) statistical techniques are used to correctly seek out, detect and analyze patterns. This was a lesson learned the hard way by cosmologists 20-30 years ago, and one that lawyers still exploit today.

Adrian