Your Brain at Work

Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long

By: David Rock

Narrated by: Bob Walter

Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

Meet Emily and Paul: The parents of two young children, Emily is the newly promoted VP of marketing at a large corporation while Paul works from home or from clients' offices as an independent IT consultant. Their lives, like all of ours, are filled with a bewildering blizzard of emails, phone calls, yet more emails, meetings, projects, proposals, and plans. Just staying ahead of the storm has become a seemingly insurmountable task.

In this book, we travel inside Emily's and Paul's brains as they attempt to sort the vast quantities of information they're presented with, figure out how to prioritize it, organize it, and act on it. Fortunately for Emily and Paul, they're in good hands: David Rock knows how the brain works - and more specifically, how it works in a work setting. Rock shows how it's possible for Emily and Paul, and thus the listener, not only to survive in today's overwhelming work environment but succeed in it - and still feel energized and accomplished at the end of the day.

Your Brain at Work explores issues such as:

• Why our brains feel so taxed, and how to maximize our mental resources
• Why it's so hard to focus, and how to better manage distractions
• How to maximize your chance of finding insights that can solve seemingly insurmountable problems
• How to keep your cool in any situation, so that you can make the best decisions possible
• How to collaborate more effectively with others
• Why providing feedback is so difficult, and how to make it easier
• How to be more effective at changing other people's behavior

©2009 David Rock (P)2011 HarperCollins Publishers

know thy self as a key to success.

this book provides scientific and practical knowledge on how the brain works in everyday situations, how we react and respond to situations? and how that impacts our interactions with others. by understanding how our brain works we can cultivate awareness and habits which can make us happier people and more effective leaders.

One of my favorite "Work Books"

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Lot's of science backed strategies to reducing the amount of stress we put ourselves into every day at work and home.

Which scene was your favorite?

The lessons in the final 1/3rd of the book are about understanding other people's motivations when you are trying to influence them. I've made good use of these lessons when making my case internally to management or coworkers and more importantly with customers during formal or informal meetings.

Helpful Insight - I've Made Strides at Work

The format describing anecdotes at work and home for two different professionals and their roles as parents was very effective. The neuroscience was amazing, and insightful.

I can't count how many times the author described scenarios I have at work, which led to more understanding of the context to what was happening - and best of all ideas to make things flow more effectively.

I would attribute my success on major project at work this year to what I learned in this book. It has helped me evolve my diet, my sleeping and my schedule to best leverage my intuitive and intellectual skills.

Great book. Poor reading.

Would you listen to Your Brain at Work again? Why?

No. I would buy the paper or kindle version instead.

What didn’t you like about Bob Walter’s performance?

As another review stated, the narrator's tone is crazy, unnatural sounding. I found myself paying attention to the awkwardness of the speech pace over the story itself a few times.

Any additional comments?

You can realy picture the scenes in the book and apply that to your life.

A powerful book, but hard to listen to.

The subject of this book is incredibly powerful and the author uses a unique style to explain the physiology of the brain and how it impacts our moment by moment actions as individuals. I've listened twice to grasp all of the practical advice for implementation in my everyday life, from the corporate environment, to my personal and family relationships.

Over the last couple of days I've had to fast for medical reasons, and along the way, I found myself drawing on learning points from the book about brain physiology to understand why I was feeling the way I was (physically, mentally and emotionally) at certain times during the fast. I could "label" my thought patterns making them easier to deal with and to communicate to others. I could recognize when my pre-frontal cortex needed fuel to control the emotional brain functions. It was very enlightening!!

But all the good could be undone by the narrator. This reading is incredibly syncopated and difficult to tolerate. The reader has a naturally slow tempo that for some reason (I can only imagine poor editing) suddenly speeds up, and then just as quickly sloooowwwws down again. I had too listen to the first reading at 1.5x speed to tolerate the narrator.

Overall, however, this book has excellent material. It is so powerful that I will be buying a text version so I can highlight and review brain improvement techniques regularly!!

Concepts really useful, don't mind the narrator

What did you love best about Your Brain at Work?

The book invites you to " know thyself" with a different set of tools, and it is really helpful.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Your Brain at Work?

The use of storytelling to illustrate the points makes the listening pleasant and helps you mirror your own emotions and interactions to decipher what is happening in your brain.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The lack of variety in the narrator's tone of voice makes it difficult to go through the self congratulatory beginning and the biochemistry parts - which are mostly dispensable anyway.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Once you understand the relevance of the reflections it contains, you want to finish the book and incorporate the new skills a.s.a.p., so critical they are.

Great insight for the workplace!

I loved the narrator's voice and the clear message from the author. I need to re-listen a few more times to engrain some concepts in my subconscious but I've already retained quite a few strategies on how to best handle foes at work or learn how to be a better manager as well as understand my own managers. These are well known concepts at a primal level but I've been a prisoner of my own emotions without understanding where they're coming from. Now I have a clear image of what to expect from my brain and how to make it adapt to my own will. Love it!

valuable

chock full of useful succinct points.
will save valuable time toiling with people and your life if you can bring yourself to read it. 😏

Solid clear suggstions and stories that make it st

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, I would definitely recommend this book. I have listened to a few books that deal with brain science and this is probably the best to date. The concepts are explained well and concisely, but it's the stories that are just right, not too simplistic or complex, that make it stick. Each story has an A/B ending showing the situation with and without the techniques suggested in the book. The techniques are for interactions with other as well, which is not well hinted at in the subtitle.

Application of Brain knowledge

Now I understand why I feel tired somes times and unproductive , it is not my motivation level but the capacity of brain.Practical and to the point.