Smart Thinking by Art Markman

This is an interesting book that gives an insight into the mechanisms of the brain. It explains why we think in certain ways, what the inhibitors to thought are and how we can start to manipulate our own thought processes to be more effective and powerful.

Unfortunately the conclusion you reach on reading the book is that it is going to take a long time and a lot of effort to improve your performance significantly. I can’t see myself waking up any time in the near future as the next Leonardo Da Vinci. That said, the book does have some real nuggets that I will be taking away and I have already started to apply to my working life.

The advice on how to break bad and lazy thinking habits is interesting, and I’ve already used it to good effect. Some of the concepts mentioned were already quite well known, such as abstract association to aid memory, but again it was useful to have a more in-depth understanding of them.

In summary, this is a thought-provoking read but from a business perspective I don’t see it having any meaningful impact on my cash flow or bottom line tomorrow.