This is a fascinating book for those who want to think about and remember more useful information. It combines some common-sense advice with the author’s experience in the field of cognitive science. While I didn’t find every point helpful, there is much to like.

According to Markman, smart thinking is “the ability to solve problems using what you already know.” That sounds simple, but the book explains how we can put better information into our brains and then get better at recalling that information. As a result, we become better thinkers. That’s an appealing idea.

Markman’s formula goes something like this: We should develop a habit of acquiring high-quality knowledge which we then apply to problem solving. It doesn’t seem to be the author’s intent to present startling new methods, but rather to use his knowledge of how the mind works to give us basic ideas to improve our thinking. This can mean thinking outside the box, which is hardly a new approach. Or, applying what we know from one field to a totally different one to arrive at a solution.

Markman spends a chapter or more on the topic of habits. He suggests that if we develop good learning habits, we make it easier for our brain to think. This in turn relieves mental stress and preserves energy for more challenging tasks. We likely haven’t thought a lot about how much energy we use in thinking, but Markman wants us to understand that we use mental energy in much the way we consume physical energy. When we are in our comfort, or habitual, zones of working with familiar subjects, thinking seems to come easily and without much stress. So, he posits, our goal should be to make more subjects familiar ones.

For instance, are you able to move about a room in the dark? If so, that’s because you have made it a habit to maneuver around furniture and other objects by making a connection between an action (your movement) and an environment (the room). When we make that connection in other learning situations such as a classroom or meeting room, it helps our brain to retain the information.

That example works well. But much of Markman’s discussion of other types of habits, such as smoking or overeating, is belabored. They aren’t bad suggestions; it’s just that we have read these ideas in many places before. Still, a helpful tip from the book is that if we want to change or drop a negative habit it works better if we replace that habit with a good habit. Markman adds that keeping a diary can be effective for some people.

I felt the most helpful and interesting discussion was on the subject of memory. Markman suggests that because our memory has capacity limits, it is important to take in information in a smarter way in order to retain more valuable knowledge. He uses a concept called the “Role of 3” to make his point. Even though there may be a lot going on around us, we are capable of absorbing only about three aspects at a time. Further, what we retain in long-term memory is even less detailed. For example, can you remember an early childhood birthday? Being honest, you may recall that there was a party that likely was in a home you recall and likely included certain friends. But you can’t recall much detail with certainty, including how you felt about it. Markman’s bottom line is that if you are having trouble remembering something, you did something wrong on the intake end.

Being aware of the Role of 3 can also be used to our advantage when we are delivering information, as we might in making a presentation or while teaching. We may want to tell our audience or colleagues everything we know, but this could result in their retaining the less important information. It’s better to stick to three main points. In fact, the author repeats common speakers’ advice: Tell them what you are going to say; say it; then tell them what you said.

Markman also says that we miss much of what is right in front of us. He calls it “change blindness,” explaining that although our eyes may be constantly scanning our surroundings, we only notice a small part of what we are scanning. We see examples of this when witnesses to a crime have difficulty describing the perpetrator with much detail, or describing accurately.

The book also claims that it is easier for us to learn new information that is related to something we already know than when it is a totally new topic for us. We can accept this as likely and use this to make us work harder when we are in new learning territory.

Why do we even want to become smart thinkers in the first place? Why not! It can help us in school at any level; in work and careers; and in social interaction. In showing us why we think the way we do, Markman’s book is a useful one, even if not every point is fresh. And if some of his suggestions seem to take too much effort or seem too challenging, we can still learn how to be more alert to what we absorb—and hopefully become more interesting people as a result.

Smart Thinking: Three Essential Keys to Solve Problems, Innovate, and Get Things Done
Perigee, Penguin Group, December, 2012
Paperback, 272 pages
$15

Kindred fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective will find themselves deep inside the mind of their beloved protagonist.

Konnikova, a Harvard graduate, is also a doctoral candidate in psychology at Columbia University. She currently writes a column for Scientific American. In Mastermind, she provides a bounty of excerpts from Doyle’s stories along with her own analysis to illustrate the clever ways that Holmes approaches each mystery before him. Through examining Holmes’s thinking, she writes, we will learn “how to apply his methodology to our everyday lives, to be present and mindful and to treat each choice, each problem, each situation with the care it deserves.”

Throughout the book, Konnikova uses the terms “Holmesian” and “Watsonian” to describe two different ways of thinking. Whereas Watson — Holmes’s sidekick in Doyle’s stories — sees, Holmes observes. The former is naive, Konnikova tells us, while the latter is aspirational. Unlike Watson, Holmes pays attention to things that may have been right before Watson’s eyes but that he did not in fact realize because of his failure to look beyond the obvious. Because “our minds love nothing more than jumping to conclusions,” as Watson’s sometimes does, Konnikova says that the goal is to “move from passive absorption to active awareness.”

This transition we want to make from passive to active, the author states, is dependent on what Holmes calls our “brain attic” — its structure (how our minds work) and its contents (things we have absorbed from life, and our experiences). Holmes considers that “a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.” And though we often think we know certain facts and not others, we can, through observation, imagination, creativity, and education, draw upon our attics when faced with any kind of situation, mystery or not. “At any given moment,” Konnikova explains, “you only think you know what you know. But what you really know is what you can recall.”

Konnikova tells us that mindfulness and meditation are fundamental to thoughtful deduction, which is accomplished through reflection, inhibiting your initial intuition, and editing it accordingly. By isolating facts that are crucial from those that are incidental, we can effectively deduce something, she says. As Holmes puts it, it such deduction is really just “systematized common sense.” This is essentially that last mental look around the attic, when we discover the fact we’re looking for. It’s easy to imagine Holmes having that aha! moment upon realizing he has solved the mystery.

Because Konnikova uses selections from Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries as the foundation for her book, she includes background information for those readers who are not familiar with the stories. At the end of each chapter of Mastermind, she provides the quotes from Holmes that she has used in that particular chapter, as well as the plot and specific location in the book from which they came. Whether you come to Mastermind with this background already or absorb it only through Konnikova, you might find yourself adapting the author’s terminology. If you’re a fan of TV crime dramas such as NCIS, Criminal Minds, SVU, or Elementary, you may start analyzing whether the show’s characters are using Watsonian or Holmesian thinking.

While reading Mastermind, I was reminded of another recent book: Shlomo Breznitz’s Maximum Brainpower. Specifically, the act of “satisfycing” caught my attention again—the term for when you stop looking for an answer upon arriving at one that is simply “good enough.” Like Breznitz, Konnikova posits that when we multitask, all of the various tasks we’re performing are not done to their full potential. But Konnikova has her own trove of tips worth reading.

“If you get only one thing out of this book, it should be this: the most powerful mind is the quiet mind,” she writes. Mastermind shows us that by quieting the mind, we are then freed to look through the attic’s contents in a way that is productive rather than haphazard. This method serves Holmes well, paving the way for him to correlate pieces of information that may have appeared at the outset to be unrelated, or that may never have been considered in the first place.

Konnikova does a splendid job of illuminating the importance of details and seemingly stray pieces of information. Although many readers of Mastermind may begin the book by finding that their thought process is more like Watson’s, they will come away with the tools to solve problems like Holmes.

Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes
Viking Adult, January, 2013
Hardcover: 288 pages
$26.95

Dr. Pennebaker, psychology department chair at the University of Texas at Austin, has made his mark on social psychology in the last 30 years. His latest book, The Secret Life of Pronouns, is a treasure map to his most recent research.

Though first interested in content words (which have inherent meaning, such as “old” or “woman”), Pennebaker and his team soon realized that function words (which connect and organize content words) were far more prevalent, accounting for 55 percent of our words. Pronouns — I, she, it — are the most obvious function words. Other word categories important for their function, rather than meaning, include articles, negations, and quantifiers.

Without statistics and a computer, picking up the subtle nuances of language is difficult. Luckily, the team has both. Each chapter discusses different studies conducted to analyze function words in different contexts, which revealed the relationships between pronouns and poets, presidents, and the public.

As Pennebaker puts it:

Our emotions influence our thinking, which is reflected in the ways we use function words. By extension, function words can give us a sense of how other people are thinking and feeling. They also serve as public announcements alerting others to our own emotional states, our thinking patterns, and where we are paying attention (p. 130).

The chapter on personality and pronouns was especially interesting. The researchers used the idea of a projective test, in which people are thought to project aspects of their unconscious onto a picture they are describing. (Think of the infamous Rorschach inkblots.) Though helpful for understanding people in therapy, most psychologists dismiss these tests beyond that, because they are impossible to score objectively.

In Pennebaker’s experiment, subjects were asked to describe a photograph of a water bottle. The twist came when Pennebaker ran these descriptions through his word analysis program. Distinct personality traits emerged that correlated to the way people described the bottle. For example, among college students who described the bottle, those who focused on light and shadow made higher grades, attended more art shows, played computer games, and enjoyed vacuuming.

Pennebaker’s book is accessible to casual readers and stimulating for highly educated readers. Psychologists will be a bit bogged down by descriptions of basic concepts such as the Rorschach test and Freudian slips, but will enjoy the flow of the chapters, which together form a much more comprehensive picture than a single study. Pennebaker ties together strings of years of research and seemingly unrelated findings under headings such as The Words of Age, Sex, and Power and Lying Words.

Regardless of background in psychology, the book is fun to read for the new awareness of words it creates. Pennebaker equips the audience with practical ways to understand the language swirling around them. He instructs readers to put the book down and visit his website, to try a mini-version of an experiment he’s done. He discusses how he felt when he analyzed his own emails and discovered inherent status hierarchies embedded in his writing, and points readers to the same word analysis program. Never too lofty or caught up in abstractions, Pennebaker constantly gives concrete applications. The end of the book includes “A Handy Guide for Spotting and Interpreting Function Words in the Wild.”

I felt like a language ninja after I finished reading: aware of pronouns, word usage and speech patterns that no one else could detect. Everyone from statisticians to beauticians will enjoy becoming “word sleuths.” This is real research that’s as fun as pop psychology.

If you’re interested in Shakespeare, Carroll, the tweets of Paris Hilton, the Federalist Papers, clues to deception, campaign speeches, psycholinguistics, or anything in between, this book is for you. Find it at an online bookseller for $20, and begin your foray into the secret life of pronouns.

Flynn’s previous book, What Is Intelligence? Beyond the Flynn Effect, closely studies the effect itself as well as its significance both historically and socially, and finally tries to understand these IQ gains and suggest a “new theory of intelligence.” While Are We Getting Smarter? is not simply an updated version of What Is Intelligence?, it is based on the ideas presented there: Flynn includes a summary of the earlier book in one of his opening chapters. For those who have read the earlier work, this is especially interesting. As Flynn writes, “when a book is condensed, connections emerge that were not so clear in the lengthy original.”

In Are We Getting Smarter?, Flynn meticulously analyzes IQ research to help demonstrate how IQ scores affect our understanding of major issues such as the death penalty, the diagnosis of memory loss, the distance between Western adults and teenagers, the debate over genetic or environmental factors on gender and race performance on IQ tests, and the “cognitive trends in both the developed and the developing world.” These societal issues are divided into chapters where Flynn examines research studies and cases that highlight the importance of how IQ results are understood. For example, he looks at the significance of accurately measuring IQ when it is a factor in deciding if a felon can be given the death penalty. He particularly highlights the pertinence of norming IQ scores, and the dangerous effects of ignoring this part of the assessment.

Each chapter begins with a well-crafted paragraph that explains how particular areas (gender, age, death penalty, politics, etc.) are affected by IQ scores and, most important, how those IQ scores are interpreted. The author also carefully outlines the points he intends to prove in each section. These outlines are extremely helpful as they serve as a structure for the ample research presented. Flynn is articulate and thorough as he looks at a wide array of study results — as well as what the proper interpretation can tell us about various aspects of our society.

While I found Flynn’s book fascinating, readers should be warned that this is not light reading. Everything is dutifully researched and there is a large amount of statistics — wonderfully helpful if you are doing research of your own, but potentially overwhelming to those looking for simple answers or a quick read. I would also suggest looking to his opening chapter, as he provides detailed but brief descriptions of each following section, so you can tune-in to your specific interests first. (He does, however, reference arguments in other chapters, so there is much benefit to reading straight through.)

Flynn asks poignant questions and works hard to provide clear, thorough, well-researched answers. He infuses cold statistics — like full-scale IQ gains on various IQ tests or the estimates of IQ gains per year — with real-life meaning and adds to sociological discussions on some of today’s most pressing topics. This is a very worthy read by a leader in the field — again, especially useful for those working in it.

And, in case you’re simply dying to know Flynn’s answer to the question in his title, I will leave you with the opening lines to his book. He writes: “Are we getting smarter? If you mean ‘Do our brains have more potential at conception than those of our ancestors?’ then we are not. If you mean ‘Are we developing mental abilities that allow us to better deal with the complexity of the modern world, including the problems of economic development?’ then we are.”

But the answers aren’t that simple. Flynn goes on to approach another question posed by scholars: that of whether or not we’re getting more intelligent. To find out, you’ll have to read the book.

Are We Getting Smarter?: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century
Cambridge University Press, September, 2012
Paperback, 324 pages
$22.00

As heart failure has been linked to depression and cognitive impairment, Professor Osvaldo Almeida of the University of Western Australia, and colleagues investigated whether this is specifically due to the heart failure itself, or one of its causal factors.

They analysed data on 35 heart failure patients, 56 ischemic heart disease patients without heart failure, and 64 healthy people with neither condition. All were aged 45 years or above and had no obvious cognitive impairment. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the participants’ brains were assessed.

This is the first study of cognitive changes in heart failure to include patients with ischemic heart disease.

Participants with heart failure had a lower volume of grey matter in many areas of the brain than the other two groups. These patients also had lower scores on short- and long-term memory, had longer reaction speeds, and took longer to complete a reasoning task.

Professor Almeida explains, “What we found in this study is that both ischemic heart disease and heart failure are associated with a loss of cells in certain brain regions that are important for the modulation of emotions and mental activity. Such a loss is more pronounced in people with heart failure. Health professionals and patients need to be aware that problems caused by heart disease are not limited to the heart.”

In their paper, the researchers conclude, “Adults with heart failure have worse immediate and long-term memory and psychomotor speed than controls without ischemic heart disease.”

This could make it more difficult for patients to comply with complicated treatment regimes, they warn, stating, “Our findings are consistent with the possibility that patients with heart failure may have trouble following complex management strategies, and, therefore, treatment messages should be simple and clear.”

They add that further studies will have to be done to uncover the process by which heart failure leads to loss of brain cells, to see whether the problems become worse over time, and to discover whether patients could benefit from cognitive rehabilitation.

Natasha Stewart of the British Heart Foundation commented: “Heart failure can affect people in very different ways. More research is needed to confirm the effect on mental processes, so that treatment can be targeted to look after patients in the best possible way.

“The biggest implication of this research is that patients may find it difficult to stick to treatment regimes and forget to take their medication. It is important to speak to your doctor about what is best for you. Together you can find a way to make your meds a part of your daily routine so that they are less easily forgotten.”

Responding to the study, Dr. Christiane Angermann and colleagues at the University of Wurzburg, Germany, say that links between cardiovascular disease and dementia have been observed for decades. In fact, the label “cardiogenic dementia” was first used in 1977.

Smaller studies on humans have investigated the issue, with inconsistent results. A few animal studies have also been carried out, and these studies showed changes to the brain after a heart attack.

Another potential cognitive problem among heart failure patients is an inability to decide what to do if their condition changes. For example, a patient who has a cognitive problem and experiences sudden weight gain may not think to notify their physician. Their condition could worsen over time, resulting in an avoidable trip to the emergency room.

Richard S. Isaacson, MD, a neurologist at the University of Miami School of Medicine, recommends that patients bring a family member or caregiver to doctor appointments to help understand the treatment regime and the importance of taking medication consistently.

“People with heart failure are going to have trouble understanding because their thinking skills are not as strong as they used to be,” Isaacson says. “They often have multiple medical problems and difficulty understanding what they can do to help themselves.”

He supports the use of handouts to explain heart failure and its treatments, to help remind patients of what they need to do and why.

References

Cognitive and brain changes associated with ischaemic heart disease and heart failure. Almeida, O. P. et al. The European Heart Journal, February 1, 2012. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehr467

Cognition matters in cardiovascular disease and heart failure. Angermann, C. E., Frey, A.. and Ertl, G. The European Heart Journal May 29, 2012 doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehs128

This is the thesis of Wired for Success: Using NLP to Activate Your Brain for Maximum Achievement.

NLP — neurolinguistic programming — is a therapeutic technique used to recognize, understand and reprogram unconscious thought and behavior patterns in order to make your subconscious processes work for your benefit instead of against you.

Jago is a trained psychotherapist who uses NLP at the core of her practice. She is a master practitioner and NLP coach. Jago has already written many books on the subject.

For anyone interested in NLP, Wired for Success is a solid starting point. Jago does a good job of explaining the technique in straightforward language, while not oversimplifying to the point of losing substance. The book is divided into three sections: the first sets the stage, explaining what NLP is, teaching the reader how the mind shapes different experiences, and providing exercises throughout each of its 13 chapters. The second section expands on the first’s teachings, showing paths to help the reader approach real-life situations in newly programmed ways. The final section provides a brief conclusion.

The underlying idea behind NLP is that we can quite literally change our brains. In order to do so, however, we must first understand what is going on within them. To this, Jago writes: “We all have the same essential mental filtering mechanisms for doing this, although we use them differently. NLP calls these meta-programs, and this book shows you how to use them with more awareness and more flexibility.”

These “meta-programs” are at the heart of understanding NLP, and Jago articulates well how our brains “map the world” through them. They act as “mental structures that operate at a high level of generality to organize a mass of more specific information,” in effect becoming templates or filters “that let through certain kinds of information while blocking others.”

This sounds vague, but throughout the book, greater comprehension and a fuller understanding are gained as Jago introduces different examples and exercises. Once we understand how they work and what they’re doing, we can begin to alter them and “use that perspective to have internal conversations that create fuller possibilities for action.”

There doesn’t need to be a specific behavior to be targeted for improvement to use NLP. It certainly can be used to recognize and correct negative thought patterns and behaviors. However, it can also be used to simply improve patterns and skills. Jago cites prioritizing, negotiating, de-stressing, making decisions and finding opportunities as some areas where NLP can create positive results.

Although the two methods are strikingly different, the net effects of NLP and mindfulness meditation are very similar. Both involve observing thoughts. However, they each attack the problem from different angles. Even so, NLP  has the capacity to provide quick results, just as meditation can. Jago writes: “The strategies start helping you as soon as you begin to view yourself from outside and to ask yourself questions. Once you do, you become your own investigator, explorer, tutor and supporter. You will be working in one of the most enabling partnerships possible: the partnership you can have with yourself.”

This desire to better understand oneself is part of a wave of more psychologically-tinged self-help books in recent years. Forgoing positive thinking and spirituality, more and more works in this area aim to tap into the psychological roots of behavior rather than abstract or divine elements. If this is the kind of approach interests you, Wired for Success is a good primer. Jago throws a lot of information at the reader, but it’s all useful and very well-organized.

Jago writes very objectively and very clearly. She provides plenty of information, but she doesn’t overwhelm. Jago strikes a perfect balance between readability and education by providing practicable tools “that can benefit everyone, even children.” Embracing NLP as a useful mode of personal development can open doors and alter perceptions: “Using your filters differently will produce different results; using them with understanding and flair can produce results that can be richly and productively different for you and for those around you.”

Wired for Success: Using NLP to Activate Your Brain for Maximum Achievement
By Wendy Jago
Tarcher: October 11, 2012
Paperback, 288 pages
$15.95

This anthology of stories is accompanied by advice from renowned brain expert Dr. Marie Pasinski. She wrote it with the help of medical writer Liz Neporent.

The arrangement of the book is ingenious. Each of the six chapters begins with several inspirational, first-hand personal stories, provided by contributors. The stories are followed by medical explanation and further advice. The book is written for anyone interested in taking advantage of the recent breakthroughs in neuroscience. It shows that the brain is dynamic and capable of transforming.

As Marie Pasinski writes, “As the stories so eloquently illustrate, itʼs possible to change the direction of thoughts, emotions and behaviors, which in turn may transform a moment, a day – or even an entire life. It is thrilling to share with you the explanations of the exciting neuroscience that allows this to happen.”

Chicken Soup for the Soul is a series of books featuring a collection of short inspirational stories and motivational essays. More than 100,000 personal stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things have been written in this series.

“Boost Your Brain Power!” is uplifting and educates with cutting-edge discoveries in neuroscience and through storytelling. It aims to fulfill the original goals of the “Chicken for the Soul” founders, Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield. It is therapeutic in the same sort of way chicken soup is healing for the body.

The first chapter, Invest in Your Brain, covers what I feel to be a very important fact. As Paskinski states, “Regardless of your age, your brain has the ability to make new neurons and construct new neural pathways throughout your life. Every time you engage in new activities, think in novel ways, learn a skill or do things differently, new pathways are forged and your cognitive reserve expands. This process, called neuroplasticity, has been a revelation in neuroscience.”

In recent years, thereʼs been an enormous amount of research in neuroplasticity. “For example, the scan of an accomplished pianist will show expansion of the cortical areas associated with finger dexterity while those of experienced cabdrivers reveal enlargement of regions dedicated to spatial navigational skills,” writes Paskinski. However, donʼt worry if musical intelligence or spatial intelligence are not your cup of tea.

Chapter 6 discusses the work of Howard Gardner, a prominent Harvard researcher, who believes that intelligence isnʼt limited to a quantifiable IQ or how well some performed in school. He wrote a book entitled, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, wherein he suggests that intelligence isnʼt limited to a traditional interpretation, but instead includes a broad range of abilities.

As Pasinksi points out in Chapter 1, “The possibilities to expand your intellectual horizons are endless. Whether you learn to play a musical instrument, take a computer class or dedicate yourself to the art and sport of horseback riding, have fun with it. All of these are wonderful examples of complex activities that require multiple cognitive skills and challenge your brain to think and grow in new directions.”

Pasinski and Neporent touch on another major point in Chapter 3. A study published in the medical journal, Lancet Neurology, found that roughly 50 percent of all cases of Alzheimer’s disease can be traced to what doctors refer to as “modifiable risk factors.” 

What does that mean? It means they can trace Alzheimer’s back to choices that individuals made. Of the seven risk factors identified in the study, physical inactivity was the most significant contributor to the disease in the United States. As Pasinski notes, exercise is, “… the most potent brain booster of all. It is guaranteed to enhance the very structure of your brain, improve your memory, uplift your mood, protect against stroke and decrease your risk of Alzheimerʼs disease.”

“Boost Your Brain Power” is packed with many other useful points including the importance of diet, techniques to improve memory, tips on how to trigger creative thinking, and the use of meditation. This book is appropriate for a wide audience ranging from people recovering from a traumatic brain injury to academics with multiple PhDs. It is highly successful in motivating and inspiring its readers to enjoy life and make the best use of their brains.

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Boost Your Brain Power! You Can Improve and Energize Your Brain at Any Age
Dr. Marie Pasinski with Liz Neporent
Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing, LLC, May 22, 2012
Paperback, 224 pages

I homeschooled our son until he started college at age 16. But mentally, I wasn’t done homeschooling. So I wrote a series of math books, showing how I taught my son, and began tutoring kids who were struggling in math. Of all the kids I tutored, there were two that struck me as oddly similar. Just looking at them you wouldn’t see any similarities, but when it came to learning, they were identical.

They were both smart, but neither one of them knew it. They both had the ability to learn, but they were so easily distracted that they had a hard time concentrating. They both paid so much attention to every detail that even the slightest change in scenery would bring about a whole host of questions. Every foreign object would be questioned. Every sound would need an explanation. For them, holding still and listening was as hard as learning math.

These two kids wanted to learn, but it was as if there was something constantly pulling their attention away. Imagine yourself having a conversation with the most boring person you’ve ever met. You are looking at the person and you can hear him, but you are actually paying more attention to the interesting conversation going on behind you. You have the ability to follow this conversation, but your attention is being pulled behind you. That’s how these two kids seemed to me. I couldn’t hold their attention long enough to get through a whole lesson. There was always something else in the room that got their attention before I did.

My husband overheard us and he bluntly told me, “You need to discipline those kids. They need to sit still, stop playing with stuff, and pay attention.” I agreed with him, but when I tried to be stern with one of the boys and make him sit still and pay attention, it was as if he started melting. In fact, he almost fell asleep. I could actually see his eyes rolling back as he slowly blinked. That wasn’t working for me.

The next day, the boy happened to discover a little piece of foam, some leftover packaging material. This piece of foam immediately became his main focus. He picked it up and fidgeted with it while I tried getting through a few math problems. However, his fidgeting quickly developed into throwing this piece of foam and catching it as it banked off the couch.

I started getting a little agitated with his behavior, so I reached out to take away the piece of foam. But just then I stopped and said, “Throw it here.” He quickly threw the foam to me. I asked him, “What is seven plus seven?” As I threw the foam back to him, he thought for a second, answered “Fourteen,” and then threw the foam back to me. I asked him another math question and continued the game of catch.

At that moment I had a breakthrough. I realized that if I mildly entertained the part of his brain that was curious and fidgety, his intellectual side was ready to receive knowledge.

About that time, my husband walked by again. He couldn’t believe we were playing catch when we were supposed to be learning math. He was appalled that I was letting him get away with that kind of behavior. But then he stopped and listened. He heard the boy solving math problems with enthusiasm. He was amazed: The boy was answering math problem after math problem.

I couldn’t believe it. Once his hands and eyes were occupied, I was left with an intelligent brain waiting for information. He was a very smart boy, but when he was told to sit still and listen, he nearly had an internal meltdown. He didn’t seem to have an “off button” for his curious, fidgety side, so trying to suppress that behavior became his main focus. He couldn’t receive new information because on the inside he was in the middle of a war.

I tried this same technique with a young girl. When she showed up for class the next day, she quickly spotted a Mr. Potato Head game in the corner of the room. This became her main focus. She was not going to be able to listen to me until she had had a chance to play with the toy, so I let her spill out all the pieces. As she plugged in the different eyes and ears, I used that opportunity to explain the Slope Formula to her. If you aren’t familiar with the Slope Formula, it looks extremely complicated and confuses a lot of math students, but I have a very simple method to teach it. Within minutes, she learned the Slope Formula and said, “That was easy.” The whole time she was building a Mr. Potato Head face.

Oftentimes these kids are told they have a learning disability, such as ADD or ADHD. I say they are extremely observant people with a unique learning style that has the potential to make them highly knowledgeable. I would like to see this learning style get a new name, because when you give a young person a label that ends in the word “disorder” or “disability,” you tear down their self-esteem instantly. I prefer the term “active ntellects.”

I hope this helps you understand that you are teaching a wise, energetic person who is fully capable of learning. Embrace your child’s gift. Realize that he has the ability to multi-task. Recognize that once his hands and eyes are mildly entertained, his brain is a sponge waiting to soak up knowledge. “The heart of the prudent getteth knowledge; and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge.” (Proverbs 18:15)

Copyright 2012, used with permission. All rights reserved by author. Originally appeared in the January 2012 issue of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, the trade magazine for homeschool families. Read the magazine free at www.TOSMagazine.com or read it on the go and download the free apps at www.TOSApps.com to read the magazine on your mobile devices.

Me: Can you tell me a little about your learning disability and what you need from me?

Student: I have ADD.

Me: That can be really challenging. Can you tell me how it is going to affect you in my class?

Student: I can’t concentrate. Sometimes I kind of zone out and miss a lot.

Me: Yes. I understand that. Can you tell me how you have managed that in the past?

Student: Well, I always had a note taker in high school. Teachers would send me to the library to take quizzes and tests. And my mom always helped me clean up my papers. She’d ask me questions so my papers didn’t go all over the place. Oh, and my teachers would check in with me when they saw me looking blank.

Me: Did any of that help?

Student: Sure. I don’t always know what to write down so the note-taker’s notes were better. But sometimes I couldn’t do the quizzes even in the library.

Me: So, then what?

Student: Well, some teachers let me take the test orally. Like, if you read me the questions and ask about it, it can keep me focused. Some teachers didn’t want to do that, though, which is unfair since I can’t help it. My mom says she can keep helping me on papers by email.

Me: Hmmm. So how much do you know about ADD? And what have you figured out so far about how you can be independent and keep up with things in spite of it?

Student: I don’t know what you mean. I told you what teachers and my mom do to help. . .

This is a big problem. This student’s idea of managing her disability is to rely on other people. It’s long past time for her to learn strategies for helping herself. The reality is this: The further she goes in her education, the less she can expect others to take her notes, provide her with a quiet place, or clean up reports and papers. Once she gets into a profession, most employers would be dumbfounded if she said, “Well, I have ADD so I can’t do this report by myself or on time and you need to accommodate that.”

It isn’t solely the student’s fault that she’s entered college without important skills. In spite of the fact that more and more kids with learning disabilities are going on to college, the majority of high schools don’t provide good transition planning. In their desire to be supportive, well-meaning parents may have been over-involved in their kids’ school work since elementary school. Teenagers often don’t have the perspective to know how important it is to learn how to compensate for a significant learning difference.

Regardless of whose fault it is, though, if you have a learning disability and are headed for college, it now falls on you to do some preparation. Now it’s up to you to master the learning disability so it doesn’t get in the way of academic and professional goals. There are many things you can do to ensure your own success.

10 Strategies for Success for Learning-Disabled College Students

1. Research your disability. Know what you are dealing with inside your own brain. Be able to explain it clearly to your professors and to service providers. If you had an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) in high school, it may be a useful source of information.

2. Get acquainted with the services available at your college. The staff at the advising center can be good advocates for you if you need help negotiating with a particular professor. Many schools have a writing center where advanced students are available to help you organize and edit your papers. If there is a tutoring program and you generally need some one-to-one help to master material, sign up immediately. Don’t wait until you are behind. And please don’t be shy about signing on for some therapy if the school has a mental health center. College can be stressful for anyone but particularly so for those with learning differences. A therapist can help you learn more ways to cope if things get tough.

3. Whenever possible, choose classes that are more compatible with your learning needs. Consider size of the class, time of day, and whether you need a free hour before or after to organize your thinking.

4. Fill out the appropriate forms and take them to your professors on the first day of class. Most will be happy to provide those reasonable accommodations. Most are not happy to be presented with a form halfway through a semester when you are already way behind.

5. Be proactive and stay in communication with professors. Go to office hours and help sessions. Ask for clarification of an assignment if you don’t quite understand what is expected. Faculty are most supportive of those who show they are engaged in their own learning.

6. Understand what is not fair to expect of your professors. You are entitled to reasonable accommodations. You are not entitled to a one-on-one session after every class. You are not entitled to a good grade for work that doesn’t meet the goals or the standards of the course. Professors usually can’t be responsible for tapping you on the shoulder every 10 minutes to make sure you are tuned in or for reminding you of deadlines.

7. Know your strengths and work with them. If you are great at organizing material but not so great at public speaking, volunteer for the organizing part of a group project and ask someone else to take on the bulk of the presentation. If you do better taking in information by hearing it than by reading, sit up front and pay close attention to the lecture.

8. Work on time management and organizational skills. Accept that calendars, lists, and schedules are your best friends. If well-intended parents and teachers have always served as your personal calendar keepers and organizers, give it up. It’s now up to you. If you have a history of being late with assignments, forgetting details, or getting overwhelmed by expectations, face it and take charge. When given an assignment, put the due date on the calendar, map out what you need to do each day to meet it, and make lists of what materials and resource you’ll need. It’s very satisfying to check items off as you go along.

9. Develop “workarounds,” a series of strategies for working around your disability. Some students I know go to two sections of the same class in order to give themselves two opportunities to hear the same material. Some schedule classes so they always have an hour after each class — while information is fresh — to go over their notes. Others rewrite their notes right after class as a way to impress the material on their memories.

Maybe you need to record classes or take advantage of note-taking services. Maybe you need to allow twice as much time as your roommates to do assignments. Accept that you do need to make accommodations for yourself.

10. Take good care of yourself. The problems of learning disabilities are multiplied if you don’t get enough sleep, if you don’t eat right and get some exercise, or if you don’t balance your school tasks with some fun. Stress and poor habits make things much, much worse.

A learning disability is not a sentence. It is part of you, just as surely as your height, the pitch of your voice, or whether you are right- or left-handed. Ignoring your disability won’t make it go away. Relying on others to take care of it for you only limits your potential for success and makes you ever-dependent on the tolerance of others. Taking charge of it, on the other hand, means you have as much potential as everyone else.

It’s true that almost half of college students with learning disabilities don’t complete their degrees. But it’s also true that 54 percent do. It’s largely up to you which group you belong to. You are certainly smart enough to do college work. By accepting your disability and adopting supportive strategies, you can earn that diploma.

Richardson highlights the significant role Knox played in devising methods of screening immigrants for mental deficiencies during Knox’s brief four years as an inspecting physician at Ellis Island, from 1912 to 1916. Knox and his colleagues were charged with assessing immigrants’ mental capacities, because federal law then mandated that anyone deemed to be an “idiot,” an “imbecile” or “feeble-minded” be denied admittance to the country on the grounds that they would pose a burden to the state.

Under significant public pressure to carefully cull the arriving groups for those deemed mentally deficient, Knox, with help from colleagues, devised a battery of pioneering “performance tests.” They were the first to attempt to measure intelligence in a “culture-free” way — one that would not penalize test-takers whose first language wasn’t English or who had grown up with skills and cultural knowledge very different from those one would acquire living in the United States.

As Richardson shows, Knox’s contributions to intelligence testing ultimately reached far beyond the immigration center in New York Harbor to influence towering figures in the field. Richardson discusses the eugenics movement that flourished during this period and, most significantly, provides a comprehensive history of intelligence testing in the first half of the 20th century.

The result is an exhaustively researched book that will surely appeal to historians of intelligence testing and historians of science, as well as professionals with a particular interest in the developmentally or mentally disabled. However, it is likely to prove too detailed and scholarly to sustain the attention of most general readers.

Knox is a fascinating figure, a young general physician who seems to have fallen into this area of research almost by accident. He was posted to Ellis Island during a time when screening immigrants for mental deficiencies was both a legal mandate and a topic of broad public concern. As Richardson writes:

For just four years, between 1912 and 1916, Knox was not just a conscientious physician and government employee; he was also a highly prolific scientist at the forefront of developments in the construction of intelligence tests.

Richardson argues that even though Knox’s contributions to intelligence testing were largely overlooked and forgotten, especially in the decades after the Second World War, he should be looked at as “a major figure” in the field. His work provided a key link between earlier pioneers, such as those whose work formed the basis of the famous Stanford-Binet IQ tests, and later, even present-day, researchers.

In particular, Richardson convincingly argues that Knox’s approach was groundbreaking because he set out to create tests that, at least in theory, would not rely on immigrants’ verbal knowledge or familiarity with norms of American or Western European culture. These “performance tests” were adapted and incorporated into intelligence testing and cross-cultural research around the globe in ways, Richardson says, that Knox himself “could scarcely have imagined.” 

Knox’s ideas about the importance of nonverbal testing were an inspiration for the developers of many later tests, including large-scale mental testing carried out on Army recruits during the First World War; cross-cultural research on ethnic minority populations around the globe; and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, which are still among the most commonly used assessment methods. One included a version of one of Knox’s tests until its 2008 revision.

Despite his obvious respect for Knox’s achievements, Richardson is ultimately critical of Knox-style performance tests’ ability to be truly “culture-free” and to rely on completely nonverbal means of administration and execution. Richardson cites research, for example, showing that ethnic minorities’ scores on performance tests in many different areas of the world have been higher depending on the extent to which they were exposed to Western culture by being educated in Western-style schools. In the end, Richardson writes:

The tests are artifacts constructed within a specific culture, and they cannot be expected to transfer to different cultures from the one in which they were constructed.

Unfortunately, most of Richardson’s apt analysis doesn’t come until the end of the book. He spends most of Howard Andrew Knox presenting a straightforward and detail-laden history that relies heavily on archival research but tends to bury the readers in facts, with little guidance as to how to interpret their significance.

Richardson seems to have combed the historical record thoroughly, so the lack of analysis may be due in part to gaps in the available source material. For example, although he provides a thorough examination of Knox’s academic and popular writings describing and publicizing the tests, Knox doesn’t seem to have kept personal journals or to have carried out extensive personal correspondence that would allow more in-depth insight into the rationale and motivation behind his work.

As a result, we get a detailed picture of the tests he developed – or helped develop, since evidence is lacking about exactly what role his colleagues at Ellis Island played in devising the tests. But the picture of Howard Andrew Knox the man is more thinly fleshed out, including the intriguing question of why his involvement in the field of intelligence testing was so brief. After just four years, he left Ellis Island to become a “country doctor” with no involvement in the field of research or even in administering the tests he created.

Still, the book provides an important account of the role that one man played during a fertile and important period in the history of American immigration and intelligence testing.

Howard Andrew Knox: Pioneer of Intelligence Testing at Ellis Island
By John T.E. Richardson
Columbia University Press: November 22, 2011
Hardcover, 352 pages
$55

Author Daniel J. Siegel structures his book to be read in any order. He encourages readers to “flip the Pocket Guide open to any page and you will find an ‘entry point’ that guides you to explore, in your own way, the web of integrated knowledge.” The table of contents cover varied and numerous topics such as ‘Mindful Awareness,” the “Brainstem,” “Attachment,” and “Un-Health and Dis-Ease.” In his chapters, Siegel defines and expands his concepts as well as ensures that his readers pay attention to key ideas for the comprehension of the IPNB model. He also discusses the implication these specific concepts have for our lives.

Siegel illustrates some of his intricate ideas with visual representations. For example, he uses the “triangle of well-being” to explain how IPNB views the mind, brain and relationships as a single component rather than three separate entities.

Siegel describes integration as “the mind’s process of linking differentiated parts into a functional whole   . . . to be the fundamental mechanism of health.” He emphasizes how integration becomes the context for looking for dysfunction and the energy/informational flow becomes the focus for correcting the dysfunction. The premise is that integration creates harmony and that impaired integration leads to chaos and rigidity. When an individual’s brain or relationships are not integrated, they move into a dysfunctional state and the brain is unable to balance things in a flexible manner.

Siegel recognizes each individual’s inherent potential to become whole by their capacity to release the specific blockage that may be inhibiting their ability to integrate. He further stresses that the role of the mental health professional, teacher, or parent is to facilitate the potential for integration that is innate in everyone.

Siegel implements several methods to communicate interpersonal neurobiology’s concepts clearly and simply. I admire his efforts to draw from a wide range of fields — including genetics, anthropology, and evolutionary psychology — to incorporate into his INBP model. At times, however, his message becomes convoluted from trying to incorporate perspectives from so many other disciplines.

Someone unfamiliar with Siegel’s subject matter may have some difficulty following along. The Guide may be easier to follow for those who are already a fan of Siegel’s work in IPNB. Nonetheless, Siegel’s book does an amazing job reflecting his vast knowledge of how our brains and our relationships interact to shape our lives.

Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: An Integrative Handbook of the Mind
By Daniel J. Siegel
W. W. Norton & Company: April 2, 2012
Paperback, 560 pages
$29.95

People are hungry for community these days. Cell phones and computers keep us connected more than ever, it’s true. But they keep us connected primarily to people we already know or people we’ve never met. The irony of all that connection is that people’s circles of actual practical support may be quite small. Although relationships made online can certainly be meaningful and intense, it’s also true that people we game with who live hundreds of miles away aren’t likely to drop by for coffee or help out after a storm. The challenge of our times is to figure out how to use the wonderful worldwide resource that the Internet provides but not lose our immediate, in the flesh, daily reciprocal connection with those who live around the corner.

As Adler so eloquently stated, the feeling of belonging is central to our comfort, our safety, and our sense of ourselves as being worthwhile. When people feel part of a larger community, they are more likely to show up and to be supportive, both in times of tragedy and times of celebration. Those who are fortunate enough to belong to a community of faith know how this works. When a family is in need, people they’ve barely said hello to still respond because there is a sense that what happens to one matters to all.

There are only a few other places in present-day towns and cities where people can get to know one another over time simply by being together on a regular basis. Some towns have created lively community centers. But in times of economic hardship, recreation departments and community services often get cut back. The place that usually survives and thrives despite these challenges is the town library. It’s valued as a place that contributes to a town’s identity and that connects people with resources and with each other.

I do have libraries on my mind these days. A local, small (very small) town is trying to collect enough money for a matching grant to build a new library. The current library is certainly dear, but antiquated. It’s so tiny people have to use it in shifts. With no running water, a composting toilet, and a minimal staff, it nonetheless hosts storytimes, provides an Internet hotspot in a town where there’s little access, and creates a meeting place in a community that doesn’t even have a convenience store. (A link to a video about the library is at the bottom of this post.)

Those who use the library are passionate about it. Why? Because, despite those who see libraries going the way of video stores, a library is not just about books. It’s about community, discovery, and valuing the written word. It’s about teaching children to love books and stories. It’s about the value of those fly-bys where we have a minute with a neighbor we haven’t seen in weeks just because we happen to bump into each other when picking out a book. When people regularly connect to each other, even peripherally, they experience themselves as belonging to something larger than their immediate family and their own group of friends. It fosters community pride and community participation.

One of the few truly democratic gathering places, a library welcomes the young, the old, teens, students, professionals and tradespeople. Anyone who wants to read, to search, or to simply be in a quiet place can find information and social connection. There is room for those who want to quietly chat. There’s respect for those who prefer to enjoy the quiet companionship of being with others without verbal exchanges. Regulars soon learn who needs what and find their own niche.

For parents of young children, the library can be a lifesaver. When youngsters are antsy because it’s the third rainy day in a row, all a parent has to do is scoop the kids up and go. A library visit is an inexpensive and rewarding way to spend a few hours. The kids get to choose old favorites or new books to look at. Parents can snuggle up with children to read and look at pictures. Kids and parents can get to know other families. What started out as a stressful afternoon becomes a shared adventure.

The library gets teens out of their personal room-caves and into the community. Not every student has a computer at home. Not everyone knows how to surf the Internet for that tough history assignment or how to write a bibliography. Doing homework and research at the local library opens up the world of information and encourages kids to ask for help when they need it. Librarians show them how to broaden or narrow the search, how to look at databases and how to find new topics.

Some kids use the library inappropriately as a hangout and are inconsiderate of others, it’s true. But most of the time they can be redirected. Hopefully, they learn something about civility and community courtesy in the process.

And for us older folks? Some of us belong to book clubs and would rather borrow than buy the book of the month. Others enjoy reading the local newspapers or exploring international magazines. Still others like to reduce the isolation of working from home and set up in the library for an afternoon of working companionably with others. Those looking for work can surf the want ads, learn more about how to market themselves, and perhaps find like-minded people with whom to compare notes. Those who feel isolated at home can meet at the library to read, to chat quietly, or use a computer without the noise and distractions of the local coffee shops.

Libraries aren’t just a place to borrow books or get on a computer. They are places where we can feed the mind, affirm our membership in our community and maintain our sense of belonging. Adler would have seen them as an essential support for a community’s mental health.

To see the video from the little town that is trying so hard to make a community center and library, click here.

Here are some other fun videos about how libraries serve the community:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac91qqoRL2o&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHD4h5KONP8&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMBHLlswnII&feature=related

Okay, you made it through that dreaded junior year, the supposedly make-or-break year that colleges will be very influenced by in making their decisions. Now you are starting the rising-senior summer when most students and parents begin to seriously look at what colleges to apply to. This has become a time-consuming, highly stressful process that doesn’t end until next spring when the desired acceptance letter does — or does not — arrive. Why is there so much anxiety about getting into the “right” school, which often leads to many students applying to more than a dozen schools? The process has gotten out of control, largely due to misconceptions about what is really important about the college experience.

The myth is that if you go to the best rated college possible it increases the likelihood of a more successful career or a better life. But that assumption is simply not true. Based on the data I’ve seen, there is no significant relationship between the college one attends and the career or life success one achieves.

Typically there is too much focus on career success. But what do we mean by career success – amount of money earned – happiness with what one does – prizes won – public recognition…? The list goes on. If it’s money you’re after, which college you choose means the least? If it’s a Nobel Prize, then college choice may be more of a factor. If it’s just finding a career you really love, well, forget “which college.” Most students change majors and still leave college with little certainty about career choice.

The typical post-graduation vision of a career changes, sometimes often, over the next several years. More and more, adult lives are being characterized by at least two careers, often unrelated. If you look at that kind of big picture before you start the process of selecting a college, you should be able to reduce the stress as well as use a very different set of criteria for your selection process.

Choosing a Place to Live

I believe that college should be viewed as a life experience. The academic piece is simply one part, and, frequently, not the most important part. For many, here is the one time in your life that you can actually choose where you would like to live. What part of the country or world; an urban, suburban or rural place; a small, medium, large or huge campus; the makeup of the student body?

These are the key questions for most. There is the exception for a select few that truly have a calling that is likely to sustain itself and if it’s a narrow one, you will need to pick a school that offers the coursework you need. But even that can be questioned. For virtually every profession or career, any solid liberal arts background can be ideal — even if it means, later on, taking an advanced degree, or picking up some extra courses to enable you to enter a particular career.

So where do you want to live? For most teens, whose geographic exposure is limited, that alone can be a daunting question. Sure, UMiami or one of the southern California coast colleges sounds dreamy. The skiers may want to head for the mountains. The adventurous may be off to a big city or across a border. But this is the first question to address and explore.

Entering this landscape is Smart Thinking, by Dr. Art Markman. This book draws on two impressive strengths: an examination of 50 years of interdisciplinary studies, including but going beyond cognitive science, and Dr. Markman’s deep expertise in developing and teaching the skills associated with innovation. The book is written in clear and straightforward prose, and filled with everyday examples to help the reader see the precepts operating in his or her daily life.

What is “smart thinking”? If you’re intelligent, don’t you do smart thinking? Not necessarily. Smart thinking is the ability to solve new problems using your current knowledge, and it’s a skill you can develop.

One great example of smart thinking offered in the book is James Dyson’s vacuum cleaner. Dyson realized what we all know: that vacuum cleaners don’t work all that well. Brushes pull up the dirt, and suction pulls the dirt up into the bag – until the bag starts to fill with dirt, which minimizes the suction. Dyson created an entirely new kind of vacuum cleaner and created a company that makes over $100 million in profits a year.

But surely he was some kind of genius; surely there is just something uniquely creative about the way he thinks. Dr. Markman argues instead that Dyson simply relied on his existing knowledge (about the way things work), applied it from one area to another, and he was persistent – all skills that can be learned.

The book is organized around three core elements of smart thinking: developing smart habits, acquiring high-quality knowledge, and applying knowledge. The material in Chapter Two, “Creating Smart Habits and Changing Behavior,” is fascinating and practical, and reassuring (especially “the worst way to try to stop a habit is through what we usually call willpower”!). Instead, developing smart habits essentially involves two steps: stopping the performance of an old behavior, and replacing the bad habit with a good one. This chapter breaks those two steps down into clear and simple processes that will leave you less distracted by inefficient thinking, and ready to spend your mental energy on more creative and productive things.

Chapters Three and Four focus on the acquisition and development of high-quality knowledge. I found these chapters fascinating, because they highlighted specific ways out of my own muddied understanding. Chapter Three explores the ways our memories do and don’t work. It offers very practical advice on ways to pay attention and obtain the information before us, as well as ways to help others pay attention – a unique aspect of this book.

Chapter Four focuses quite closely on causal knowledge: the answer you give to questions that begin with “why” or “how.”  How does a ballpoint pen write? How does a flush toilet operate? How does a zipper work? The issue here is not that it’s important to know how a ballpoint pen writes, for instance, but that we operate too often with vague, hand-waving understandings of things. Developing the skills to answer these questions will bring far-reaching benefits: you’ll have complete, specific, understandable knowledge; you’ll develop the habit of teaching yourself as you go along; and you can ask for this level of explanation from people around you, which helps promote good thinking habits in others!

In Chapters Five, Six, and Seven, Dr. Markman moves into applying the high-quality knowledge you have obtained. These chapters, like those which came before, focus on practical strategies to help you access the knowledge you have, when you need it.

Chapter Five explores the concepts of similarity and analogy. It provides a number of great examples of the power of analogies to communicate and to solve new problems. Chapter Six returns to how our memory works and provides a number of specific strategies to help it work better. (As a middle-aged person, I found these strategies quite useful.) Chapter Seven brings it all together and provides a four-step process to solving problems.

Finally — and this is a unique strength of this book — Dr. Markman steps back and explores ways we can all contribute to a “culture of smart.” Very few of us work alone, and it’s not enough for one or two team members to do all the smart thinking for the entire group (as we know if we’ve been the one doing the heavy lifting). This straightforward chapter should be required in every business class, and handed out to new employees of every company. Readers who take this material to heart, and take it to their jobs, will be on the way to making everyone else a smart thinker too.

With succinct takeaway summaries at the end of each chapter, key concepts pulled out and highlighted, and the three main points of each chapter listed under the chapter title, this wonderful book practices what it preaches. At the beginning of the book, Dr. Markman (again, practicing what he preaches) advises readers to move slowly through the book, stopping to think when he recommends doing so, explaining the material to yourself as you read, and doing the exercises provided in the book. I wanted to read it that way, and I’ll probably read it that way my second time through. In my first reading, though, I was so engaged by the clarity of explanation, and the lovely examples, I just kept turning pages, underlining passages, flagging details. As I read, I saw too clearly my own muddy thinking, the gaps in my ability to think logically through causal knowledge, and my lazy habits – but the book left me energized and motivated to address them.

This book would be a great addition to your library; it will be the gift I give every college graduate, to friends who are beginning a new career, or to those of any age who feel stuck and unable to be as creative as they believe themselves to be.

Smart Thinking: Three Essential Keys to Solve Problems, Innovate, and Get Things Done
By Art Markman, PhD
Perigee Trade: January 3, 2012
Hardcover, 272 pages
$25

While we can all acknowledge Carlin’s linguistic wit, we may not agree with his utter disdain for self-help books. Some people cannot afford a therapist; some don’t want to go on medication; some just want to read something inspirational — something that gives them hope. There are many reasons to reach for a self-help book.

Kiss That Frog! is the newest book by Brian Tracy, coauthored by his daughter Christina Tracy Stein. (For the purposes of this review, the authors will simply be referred to as the Tracys.) Kiss That Frog! is meant to be a short read, providing concisely written, easily applicable, unassailably practical methods for transforming one’s “negatives into positives” in “life and work.”

The central metaphor the Tracys use comes from the fairytale “The Frog and the Princess.” All the princess ever wanted was to marry a handsome prince. When she happened upon an ugly frog, she was at first disgusted. But when the frog told her if she kissed him he would turn into the man of dreams and whisk her away into marital bliss, she overcame her fear, took a leap of faith, and had her life forever positively changed as a result.

The Tracys outline the moral of the story, which is the underlying basis of their thesis: “It seems that almost everyone has a block, or more than one, that holds him or her back from becoming a truly happy, healthy, joyful person, looking forward to each new day with excitement and anticipation. What is the ‘frog’ in your life that you need to ‘kiss’ before you can achieve all that is possible for you?”

The metaphor is perhaps a tad elementary and cheesy, but it’s easily understandable: many people who are not as happy as they’d like to be have “blocks” or “frogs” that are preventing them from living a better life. By confronting and dealing with these obstacles, one can make them things of the past, and begin living a better, more enriching, happier life.

This idea is not novel. Many people understand that they have something holding them back, and many do in fact understand that they need to address whatever these things may be. That said, one must have the proper mindset in order to begin eliminating these blocks and frogs. One must have the proper motivation — the proper tools in place.

This is one of the reasons the market gets flooded with self-help books. While most talk more or less about the same central issues, they differ in how they instruct the reader to perceive them. Because of this, not all self-help books are universally helpful.

To this, the Tracys write: “Psychologists have described fully functioning, self-actualizing people as genuinely happy, at peace with the world and themselves, self-confident, positive, personable, relaxed, feeling that they are fulfilling their full potential, grateful, energized, and generally feeling terrific about life. If this description is a good goal for you in the months ahead, this book will show you how to become that kind of person” (italics in text). Even though these characteristics are a bit broad, they nevertheless paint a picture of how confident the Tracys are in their program.

Kiss That Frog! contains twelve chapters, with each giving a chief direction, e.g. “Imagine Your Handsome Prince.” After some succinct preliminary information, there are then sections that provide exercises, and detail why they work and what they do for you.

For example, in Chapter 3, “Look Your Frog in the Face,” the Tracys ask us to “Analyze the Situation” by posing four questions:

• What exactly happened (in our past)?
• How did it happen?
• What can be done?
• What actions will we take now?

By addressing these questions and coming to grips with the fact that events in the past need not control our future, we can learn to attain our ideal qualities.

All of this is well and good: sensible, practical, for the most part inarguably valid statements and solutions. But the Tracys get into dicey territory when they paint overly broad strokes, perhaps trying to be overly inclusive in their rhetoric. By presenting their ideas and methods as facts instead of as useful tools, they open themselves up to legitimate criticism that their book is overly idealized and even foolishly impractical. By essentially saying, “This will work,” the authors fail to cover their bases if it does not in fact work.

While this can certainly be said of many self-help books, it is particularly relevant to Kiss That Frog! On the book’s inside flap, for example, the Tracys quote Shakespeare: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” The sentiment is clear — nothing is inherently bad for us; it just depends on how we view it— but the practicality is ailing. Contrary to the Tracys’ assertion, things can be bad. And it doesn’t just matter how we look at them. Losing one’s job is bad. Yes, such an event can in theory lead to a more rewarding life through countless possible channels. But it is rare to find someone laid off who in the moment claims it’s the best thing that ever happened to him.

Yet that is at times how the Tracys’ writing comes off — that no matter what happened in the past, or how dire circumstances may currently be, it can and will get better if you follow our advice. Perhaps this is too cynical of a reading, but much of what the Tracys have to offer does not seem revolutionary. This is not to say it’s bad advice, but it is to caution against getting one’s hopes up too high. Kiss That Frog! is a system of thought—a method of altering how you perceive your circumstances — and you will only get out of it what you put in. To that, you must fully buy into the Tracys’ program. Halfheartedly going through the motions will not produce tangible benefits.

Kiss That Frog! is not for everybody. Some may find it too short and not detailed enough. Some may find the style too all-encompassing and not specific enough to their particular situation. Others, though, may find it just what they need. Like any self-help book, it certainly has pitfalls. But the writing is confident and engaging, and the content is solid.

Despite its shortcomings, the book is worth checking out if you’re looking for something new in the self-help department. And if you can get onboard with the Tracys’ style, Kiss That Frog! may well be the most useful book you’ve ever purchased.

Kiss That Frog!: 12 Great Ways to Turn Negatives into Positives in Your Life and Work
By Brian Tracy and Christina Tracy Stein
Berrett-Koehler Publishers: March 5, 2012
Hardcover, 192 pages
$22.95