A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

Clearly Pink is on to something here. However, he doesn't help us put all the pieces together. The book was well written and thought provoking, but it left my right brain searching for the holistic meaning behind his writing. Where does this "theory" fit into the bigger picture of my life?

First, Daniel Pink is right about IT jobs going overseas. The only IT most people will need created are web pages which are graphical. But how does he figure that 150 million people are going to be gainfully employed in graphical arts. It is also true that people need to have the ability to piece together small insignificant facts and grasp the big picture from them in order to do business and be successful, but this has always been a requirement. Right? It is also true that people need to almagamate different and sometimes disparate skills in order to gain success, but this also is nothing new. After listening if one were to read my comments they might think that I missed the point of the book, but, I get it, and the book is interesting enough but it is not awe inspiring or super insightful by any stretch of the imagination. Check it out if you are interested but don't go out of your way.

I agree with Joseph "a hole in my mind". I just couldn't get into this and was glad when it was over. There was nothing particularly interesting or fresh. The first half was better than the second. I found myself fast forwarding to get it over with. His voice started to irritate me too. Why do so many of these authors have to read so slowly?!

I am logical. No, I am creative. No, I am logical. No, I am creative. Do you ever feel like you are pulled between these two sides of your brain? Some days, you feel a little more logical – spreadsheets and word docs make you happy, while the thought of having to draw a happy face makes you frown.

Well, Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind, invites you to re-think the sides of the brain. He takes you on a journey through research and brain MRI’s that show how you respond to certain stimuli. The book is a fascinating look at the way our brain functions, responds to events, triggers memories and pulls the pieces of situations into a coherent picture that we understand.

The design industry uses the right brain to help create new art pieces, new furniture and who knows what else. The left brain is our logic side – calculations and critical thinking are found here. However, Daniel identifies and stipulates, that the best individual is one who can pull the right information from the appropriate side of the brain and put it together to fit the situation. Sometimes we need more logic and less creativity and vice versa.

He explains that when someone has a stroke on the right side of the brain it affects their left side and vice versa. Sometimes we encounter people who appear to not understand what we are saying – that might actually be because that person doesn’t have full use of that particular part of the brain. I could be jesting about something and the person may take me literally.

Daniel suggests that we need to develop “a whole new mind” to evaluate situations and events that utilize both sides of the brain in equal amounts. This book focuses on the idea that right brain thinking will be depended on heavily in the future as we grow and change the way we interact.

This book was fantastic! If you are a research junkie, you will not be disappointed. If you work in a logical business (engineering for example), I would highly suggest that you challe

The audio book bored the hell out of me. Bob Lutz, the genius who will make GM! Funny how this book can totally collapse in the light of the economic change over the past few months.

The author over stretches his point to incredulity. So, there are companies employing comedians to keep employees happy...still think jokes are the key to survival in this economy?

I think this one tries to be Freakanomics but ends up far short and pointless.

And, yup. I'm a creative problem solver.

The audio book bored the hell out of me. Bob Lutz, the genius who will make GM! Funny how this book can totally collapse in the light of the economic change over the past few months.

The author over stretches his point to incredulity. So, there are companies employing comedians to keep employees happy...still think jokes are the key to survival in this economy?

I think this one tries to be Freakanomics but ends up far short and pointless.

And, yup. I'm a creative problem solver.

I had low expectations and was happily surprised. The book had a very interesting perspective on the current direction of society and the economy. It was very enlightening and I was delighted.

Our society's past is littered with the fallout of linear thinking, that is, believing that life is a series of if-then or either-or choices. In this book, Pink outlines the fallacy of this approach as we wend our way through the 21st century. We can no longer rely on left-brained thinking to analyze our way through sticky situations. Despite the subtitle, Pink is actually positing that in order to succeed in today's world, we must combine both brain hemispheres into whole brain thinking. (For those unfamiliar with the brain hemispheres, the left brain is sequential, logical, and analytical, and the right brain is non-linear, intuitive, and holistic.)

Pink's proposition provides another framework for systems thinking. As we move from the information age to the conceptual age (a transformation similar to moving from the industrial age to the information age), those who will be successful will demonstrate high concept (an ability to detect patterns and opportunity, create artistic and emotional beauty, craft a satisfying narrative, and tie unrelated ideas into something new) and high touch (an ability to empathize with others, understand subtleties of human interaction, find joy in one's life and elicit it in others, and to stretch for purpose and meaning). He further defines these two concepts into six essential aptitudes: design, story, sympathy, empathy, play, and meaning.

Pink devotes a chapter to each of these six senses, as he refers to them, and at the end of each chapter, he outlines what he calls a portfolio: a list of resources, exercises, and instruments to help the reader practice each of the six senses. For anyone interested in thinking outside the box or practicing systems thinking, this book is a must read. The audio version, which I listened to, has Pink reading the book, which is extremely effective.

A wasted credit. 6 hours long and I got just over 3 hours in and regretted every minute. Small useless bits of information that could be reviewed in a condensened form is dragged out by the author. Others reviewed this book as "insightful?" are you kidding me? Vanna White's "Vanna Speaks" is better than this. If this book was correctly review by others I would have passed on it, sorry but a 3 minute theme dragged on for over 6 hours should never get anywhere near 2 or 3 stars!

The remainder of the book basically restated the original premise.