Book Review – How to be a Brilliant Thinker, by Paul Sloane

The unkind would describe this as a puzzle book packaged up as a serious attempt to make us, the people, use our brains better and more effectively. The unkind would be wrong. This book is an effective way of boosting the capabilities of your brain using relatively simple techniques. These techniques are designed for the reader to question perceived ways of thinking in order that more creative and appropriate solutions are found to problems.

Anyone who has had children will know that the most difficult question that you can be asked as a parent is ‘Why?’. Most of us will trot out the standard answers, but this book will allow you to think that there are different ways of doing things.

From getting you to be a better conversationalist, to being able to grapple with previously daunting maths problems this book promotes a different path. It says that the brain is a muscle that needs to be exercised similar to other muscles in the body, and that repetitive thinking will only hasten its decline.

By following the simple techniques identified in this book, Paul Sloane is trying to get us to be better people; to be the people that we know are inside us; people that we want to be.

‘How to be a Brilliant Thinker‘ is essential if you want to be more than you are, and are not afraid to think outside the box to achieve it. If you don’t know how to do this, then Paul Sloane’s book will tell you how. It is to its credit that I have tried some of his techniques and although I still cannot tell jokes, I am trying. This is a book that can literally enhance lives.

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Book Review – Use Your Head, by Tony Buzan

How much of your brain do you use? And, do you use it creatively and effectively? And, what about being able to boost your brain to take advantage of the greatest computer we will all ever own? It is a fact of life that we all under-use our brains, and as a result of ‘life’ have the creativity that it can offer stamped out over a lifetime. This is not a good thing as we are all being told that in order to survive economically we need to be thinking smarter, not just harder. Use Your Head, by Tony Buzan has now been published for over 40 years now, and is the result of a lifetime of experience on the part of the author. Tony’s interest in the brain was started after a visit to a library and being told that there wasn’t a user manual for the brain. Fast forward to 1974 and a version of this book was used as a BBC TV Tie-In for a 10-part series of the same title.

I would describe this book as part text-book, part brain exercise and part story of the brains’ evolution. This is not a book that should gather dust on a shelf, as this can become a starting point to getting the most out of your mind to everyone’s benefit.

With sections on understanding concepts such as IQ, natural acumen and memory, the book then goes on to discuss mind mapping, recall techniques as well as  whole selection of exercises to work through that should stretch the most important muscle you have. The book is structured in such a way that engages the reader so that if you have an enquiring mind (and you will if you’ve bought this book), then there is plenty of information and problem solving to chew on.

With more neural connections in the brain than there are atoms in the known universe, can you afford not to boost your brain power.

This book review was originally published on Family Friendly Working, a site packed with advice on flexible work for mums and dads.

Have you enjoyed this review? If you have, click through and buy the book HERE!