Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

Beliefs can powerfully affect our success in life. In her book Mindsets, psychologist Carol S. Dweck describes two prevailing, overarching beliefs that can color our assessments of everything in life and affect our willingness to do what it takes to achieve our goals.

Dweck refers to these two beliefs as the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. The fixed mindset is the belief that intelligence, character, and personality are unchanging. You have the talent or knack for something or you don’t. The contrasting growth mindset is that people can improve their abilities by their efforts. If you’re willing to do the work, you can learn and get better.

These mindsets affect the way we view ourselves and interpret everything that happens in our lives. People with a fixed mindset see problems, setbacks and failures as a reflection on who they are. If they have difficulty with a subject, maybe they aren’t smart enough. If a relationship is troubled, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. The fixed mindset comes with a lens of judgment, through which one sees success as a validation of talent or specialness, and difficulty or failures as proof of inherent shortcomings.

People with a growth mindset see failure as a sign of where they are, or their current status, which they can change. If they have difficulty with a subject, they can study harder or ask for help. If a relationship is troubled, they can reflect on things they or their partner are doing that may be producing negative results. With the growth mindset, failures become opportunities to learn and successes are evidence that your efforts are paying off.

Though written in an informal style, Dweck draws on her own and others’ research. She also draws examples from business, education and sports. She illustrates the mindsets in the lives of CEOs, teachers, students and coaches.

There are few points I’d particularly like to remember from this book. First, the fixed mindset is essentially rooted in pride. A person with a fixed mindset sees himself as special or superior to others, and much of he does is oriented to proving that point, at least to himself. A person with a growth mindset doesn’t expect to be good at anything, at least at the start, because he has much to learn and much effort to put into improving; he is humble.

It is important to praise rightly. Praising someone’s talent or ability tends to put them into the fixed mindset. This may make them less likely to take on challenges or put forth effort in the future. Instead, praise the effort, which puts people into the growth mindset and makes them or open to taking on challenging work, even at the risk of failure, in order to learn and improve.

Change is not easy. In particular, one with a fixed mindset must put aside the idea that he is special and let go of the strategies he used to protect that status. He must embrace a new, less idealized, image of himself that is open to challenges, setbacks, and even failures for the sake of learning—all things the fixed mindset guards against. When you adopt growth-minded strategies that produce positive changes, you can’t let up on practice and learning. People can easily slide back into old habit, and the fixed-minded judgment of the backslide can be worse than the judgment of the perceived failures before the change.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Future Bright by Martin E. Martinez

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

9 Things You Must Do by Henry Cloud

Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

Dweck, Carol S. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House, 2006.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Prior to reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, I had seen it referenced by others in relation to the so-called “10,000-hour rule.” This is the concept that mastery of a complex skill takes about 10,000 hours of practice. This idea is not original to Gladwell, but his book popularized the concept.

That is not at all the point of Outliers. Instead, Gladwell takes on myths of success, especially the myths of genius and the self-made man. Certainly people of extraordinary achievement are intelligent and hard-working, but Gladwell shows that they also the beneficiaries of opportunities provided by their culture, sometimes very unique opportunities.

To start, Gladwell tackles our enchantment with intelligence (or talent). He describes research that shows that intelligence matters very little after it reaches some threshold. Once someone has enough intelligence to succeed at something, whether he succeeds for the degree of his achievement is not determined by intelligence. Other things are more important.

One of those other things is the amount of work someone puts into improving a skill (going back to the 10,000-hour rule). Even for a very motivated person, it is hard to put 10,000 hours into learning and improving any complex skill, especially while relatively young. Drawing from many cases (including Bill Gates and Mozart), high-achievers were enabled by opportunities provided by the culture (family, economic situation, law, technological development, etc.). In addition, they gained their mastery at a time when those abilities were highly valued (another cultural contribution that is often time-limited).

After establishing this foundation, Gladwell looks at other aspects of culture and success. Culture can contribute to success and hinder it. Cultures are persistent, yet some have found ways, at least in certain contexts, of overcoming limits to opportunities and opening the doors to success.

Culture matters. We like stories of the lone genius or plucky rag-to-riches go-getter. Without discounting their talent or effort, Gladwell shows that these stories typically veil the many opportunities and lucky breaks that were available to these successful people that very often were not available to others.

The implication is that we rely on luck to produced highly successful people, and luck doesn’t strike often. We could create cultures that provide more opportunities for more people. There are plenty of smart-enough people. Many of them are willing to work hard at something meaningful (itself something that is a cultural heritage). We might have many more successful people, and even more of those extraordinary performers, if we got serious about providing opportunities for everyone.

Malcolm Gladwell also wrote

Blink

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The First 20 Hours by Josh Kaufman

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008.

Complaint Free Relationships by Will Bowen

Complaint Free Relationships is a follow-up to Will Bowen’s previous book, A Complaint Free World. The fundamental premise of the first book carries over to the second. Our thoughts create our lives. Our words are indicators of our thoughts. When we become aware of complaining, and the negative thinking it represents, we can choose to think more positively and gain happier results.

Bowen notes that one of the most common things people complain about is relationships. He focuses on the “relate” in relationship. To a great extent our relationships are the stories we tell ourselves about other people. When we complain about someone, aloud or in our minds, we are telling ourselves a story about that person’s behaviors of features that we dislike, and usually ascribe to them negative motivations and traits.

In addition, Bowen says people can pick up the negativity of our internal stories and will generally respond in kind. If you expect the worst of people, you’ll usually get it, and they’ll have a negative view of you, too.

You can reverse this by telling yourself a different story. Have compassion. Don’t leap to conclusions about someone’s motives or personality. Tell yourself a story that is compassionate, understanding, and positive. People will sense this as well, and will respond positively.

Of course, we can’t always change are minds with the snap of a finger. In some cases we must deal with truly difficult people. Sometime we are troubled by ingrained problems of our own.

Bowen offers advice for dealing with these tougher cases. We can understand our own, or others, motivations to complain and deal with them. We can take responsibility to see that our needs are met instead of complaining about our frustrations. Instead of venting our anger (it only makes us angrier), we can undertake to process our emotions. Many of these techniques can be adapted to improving the relationship we have without ourselves, which affects all our relationships.

Complaining is particularly damaging to relationships. Research sited by Bowen demonstrates that complaining is a major cause of the failure of relationships. You don’t have to live with bad relationships or watch them fall apart. If you’re willing to change your perspective and take on the challenges of personal growth, you can see you relationships improve, and even become sources of fun and joy.

Will Bowen also wrote A Complaint Free World. If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

The Solution by Lucinda Bassett

Stop Whining, Start Living by Dr. Laura

Bowen, Will. Complaint Free Relationships: How to Positively Transform Your Personal, and Love Relationships. New York: Doubleday, 2009.

How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

As you might expect from the creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams is skeptical of the value of life advice from a cartoonist, even if he is that cartoonist. Even so, Adams has had very great success in his profession, so he might be doing something right even if he has a very wrongheaded explanation of it.

That is a point Adams makes in his book How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big. Some things work even if we don’t understand them. Some beliefs help us move toward the life we want even if they aren’t correct—often even if we know they’re wrong. Adams expresses skepticism about a lot of things, and encourages his readers to use discernment, but he is willing to use what works with our without a good explanation.

One of those things is affirmations. Adams does not believe that affirmations shape the universe, or that the human mind or will or being has the ability to do such a thing. In a late chapter of the book, he speculates on why they might have some effect or, more likely, how people might convince themselves that affirmations work. In any case, Adams correlates some of his greatest successes to his use of affirmations.

Of course, Adams’ life has not been one of uninterrupted success. The title of the book acknowledges his failures. He doesn’t get hung up on them. His view was that if he learned something or gained a new skill from a failed enterprise, he still gained something. In his estimation, “every sill you acquire doubles your odds of success.”

“Odds” is a good way to put it. When it comes down to it, success is a matter of luck. Adams believes that you can take steps to improve your ability to take advantage of the luck that comes your way

The way you do this is by implementing good systems. Adams doesn’t believe in goals. You feel like a failure if you haven’t achieved your goal; you lose your motivation when you complete your goal. Systems are things you can continue doing as long as they are useful. If you do something to implement your system, you’ve succeeded. A system is anything you do regularly in improve the likelihood that you’ll be happy in the long run.

To Adams, happiness is the heart of success. If you can sustain happiness, you’re successful in the ways that matter most. He describes it as a “chemistry experiment.” The idea is that we know a lot about what makes us happy and we just need to find the right mix of elements that fits our particular needs. To be happy one needs to maximize control  over their schedule, find ways to improve skills for a long time (especially in their careers and hobbies), imagine a better future, take care of health (diet, exercise and sleep), help others, and reduce daily decision-making by creating routines.

The book includes a host of other advice. Most of this advice is told in the context of Adams’ life story. He particularly focuses on his business and career failures (from which he learned useful things), the rise of Dilbert and his battle with a unique health problem.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar

How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Simple Pictures are Best by Nancy Willard with illustrations by Tomie De Paola

Toxic Success by Paul Pearsall

Adams, Scott. How to Fail at Almost Anything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2013.

Smarter Faster Better by Charles Duhigg

You may be like me in the sense of wanting to get more done and falling short. I realize I can’t do all the things I imagine I might do. There aren’t enough hours in life for it and I can let much of it go. However, there are some things that are important to me. It bothers me that I make so little progress on them.

Journalist Charles Duhigg considers this problem of productivity in Smarter Faster Better. Rather than turning to standard self-help fare, he sought out scientifically supported strategies.

For instance, there is a lots said in self-help books about motivation. Duhigg makes the interesting point that motivation can be learned. We can learn to push ourselves to make decisions and take action.

That is a neat concept. If you see motivation as a skill, you can quit beating yourself up and accept that you are not good at motivating yourself yet. Instead, you can focus on improving the skill. You can reward yourself for the effort—however imperfect—and seek lessons to do better next time.

You might start with Duhigg’s tip to think of what it feels like to be in control and how good it is. The memory, and the positive emotion attached to it, may be the boost that gets you moving. Also ask yourself why you are doing something; uncover why it is meaningful to you.

You can learn to pay attention to the right things at the right time, too. Productive people have good mental models that help them ignore the noise and see the details that make a difference. You can develop these models by telling yourself stories throughout the day about what you expect, why you expect it and how your experience matches or varies from the tale.

This imagination can help you make decisions. We can’t know the future, but if we accept uncertainty and imagine the possibilities—good and bad—we can make good guesses.

Another bit of advice from Duhigg is that when you learn something new, you should do something with it. In the last chapter of the book, he recaps by showing how he used the strategies to get his research and writing done.

Charles Duhigg also wrote The Power of Habit.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

A Mind for Numbers by Barbara A. Oakley

The Big Thing by Phyllis Korkki

Future Bright by Martin E. Martinez

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

Get Smart! by Brian Tracy

Learn Better by Ulrich Boser

Level Up Your Life by Steve Kamb

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel

Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

Duhigg, Charles. Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets to Being Productive in Life and Business. New York: Random House, 2016.

Late Bloomers by Rich Karlgaard

The heroes of our age are young. Mark Zuckerberg, the man who made millions on Facebook while still in his 20s, is a notable example. Though Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak and Tiger Woods are no longer youngsters, they achieved fame and wealth early in life and that is at least one reason why they remain famous. Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard is concerned that our focus on early achievement is depriving our society of the untapped potential of many—probably most of us—who develop at a slower rate. He discusses his concerns, and what we can do about it, in Late Bloomers.

 An industry has developed around seeking early achievement. You have to do well in school and get great SAT scores to get into elite colleges. You have to go to elite colleges to get jobs with the best companies. You have to work for the best companies to get ahead in life. If you have the right stuff, you can skip some of these steps and create your own successful business in your 20s.

 Except it’s not really so. Becoming equipped to succeed on this narrow path, which depends on early achievement, does not necessarily prepare one to have sustained success or achievement in any other area of life.

 In addition, most of us don’t have the mental equipment to make wise choices and stick to them while where young. The brain doesn’t fully mature until we’re in our mid-20s. Though the brain starts to slow down after that, certain types of intelligence—based on knowledge—continue to increase into our 40s and can be sustained well into old age. This late-developing intelligence can more than make up for the slower processing speeds of older brains.

 Kalgaard shares the stories of some late bloomers. Martha Stewart started her catering business at age 35, and published her first book at age 41. Toni Morrison published her first book, The Bluest Eye, when she was 39. More up my ally, Raymond Chandler was 51 when The Big Sleep, his first book, was published. Karlgaard pulls examples from the arts, business, sports and other fields.

 Karlgaard describes himself as a late bloomer. He didn’t do well and struggled in dead-end jobs until he was 25, when his brain finally matured enough for things to start clicking. This was when he was able to get a job that most of us would consider  ordinary, and he still had a ways to go before his career took off.

 Late bloomers have several skill, some hard-won, that help them succeed in their own time. They retain curiosity; they do not specialize to early and they do no avoid failure they way early achievers often do. The have compassion for other and themselves; they’ve had to overcome failure. They are resilient; they have developed perspective and support networks. The have learned to stay calm. The have insight gained from varied experience. The have wisdom, the elusive quality that arises from a maturing brain and a wealth of experience. The have learned when to doubt themselves and when to trust themselves. They know when to stick and when to quit. They are patient.

 As a society, we need to recognize that early achievement is not the norm. People develop at different rates and may peak in different ways at different ages. If we want to enjoy the full potential of people, we have to value the contributions of late bloomers.  We also have to open pathways for them through life-long learning and late-career pathways that force people out just because there is no more ways for them to move up the corporate ladder.

 If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The First 20 Hours by Josh Kaufman

Future Bright by Martin E. Martinez

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

Learn Better by Ulrich Boser

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Quiet by Susan Cain

Self-Love by Robert H. Schuller

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

 Karlgaard, Rich. Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement. New York: Currency, 2019.

A Mind for Numbers by Barbara A. Oakley

I was bad at math. Possibly I still am. I missed a lot of recess in third grade as I struggled with multiplication tables. I had to take Calculus II twice in college.

This isn’t an inherent quality of mine. My struggles with math stemmed from lack of effort, poor study habits and inadequate preparation leading to falling farther and farther behind. (Incidentally, I managed to earn and engineering degree in spite of myself.) These are things that can be overcome by learning skill and developing good habits.

In A Mind for Number, Barbara Oakley describes the learning skills and habits needed to master math and science. Actually, you could use the advice in this book to improve you’re learning in any field. I started a new job a couple of months ago and I’m using some of the techniques to get up to speed as fast as I can and develop a deeper understanding of the industry I’m working in.

People tend to associate math and science with focused thinking. It is necessary to focus, especially when you are taking in new material. However, it is also very important to take breaks to allow for diffuse thinking, something like daydreaming, so the brain can stumble upon connections between thoughts, ideas and memories that are not obvious, or even available, when you are focused. This diffuse thinking helps one to gain a broader understanding of a subject that makes acquiring new information easier when you return to focused thought.

That broader understanding is important. Math and science is more than a great pile of facts. There are concepts that link these facts, and understanding these concepts helps you to understand and remember the facts. As Oakley points out, mastery of math and science is not only about knowing techniques for solving problems, is also about recognizing when to use a technique.

You brain can be your friend or enemy when it comes to learning. Oakley gives readers tips on how to get friendly with your brain. Struggling with a subject can be the result from leaning on our brains weaknesses. We can learn to apply our brains strengths to learning. Some of the things our brain is good at are remembering locations, remembering images (the wilder the better) and forming powerful habits.

Oakley doesn’t just talk about learning skills. Her book is structured in a way that demonstrates and encourages readers to use the techniques she describes.

I wish I had come across a book like this when I was much younger. Learning is a skill, and improving learning skills can help you improve in anything you want to learn.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel

Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson

Oakley, Barbara. A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra). New York: TarcherPerigee, 2014.

Women's History Month 2016

For Women’s History Month, I’ve listed below books by or about women (a few fictional), along with some other interesting links.

A Professor, a President, and a Meteor by Cathryn J. Prince

Ada's Algorithm by James Essinger

Double Your Brain Power by Jean Marie Stine

Esther

Fic by Anne Jamison

The Introvert's Way by Sophia Dembling

Make a Joyful Sound by Helen Elmira Waite

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

Miss Leavitt's Stars by George Johnson

Miss Mizzou by J. B. Winter

On a Grander Scale by Lisa Jardine

The Power of Nice by Linda Kaplan Thaler & Robin Koval

Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore

Small Move, Big Change by Caroline L. Arnold

The Solution by Lucinda Bassett

Switch on Your Brain by Caroline Leaf

Tech sector hiring more women, data shows... or is it? (@BonnieGrrl in Crave)

Waste and Want by Susan Strasser

Women's History Month Links 2013

Women’s History Month Links 2011

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

We may convince ourselves that we are decisive beings, making choices and reasoning our way through problems. Duke University researchers found that 40 percent of our daily activities are habits. Psychologist William James put it more starkly: “All of life, so far as its definite form, is but a mass of habits.” These are just a couple of the sources Charles Duhigg draws from in The Power of Habit.

Habit formation is built into the structure of our brain, as Duhigg describes in the early chapters of the book. It is a matter of efficiency. Thinking and deciding are demanding mental tasks. The brain gains efficiency through automation, chunking together even complex activities into routines we can perform with very little mental effort or attention.

The difficulty with this biological economy is that we form many habits without consciously choosing. Some of those habits may have negative consequences. This is the central point of the book. Habits can make or break us, so it is important to understand habits, how they are formed, and how they can be changed.

There is good news and bad news about habits. The bad news is that the encoding of habits in the brain seems to be permanent. The good news is that they can be overwritten with new, more powerful habits.

Duhigg breaks habits down into parts. A cue triggers the habit. We perform routine. Finally, that routine produces or acquires a reward. Eventually, we conflate the cue a reward, having a strong anticipation of the reward that creates a craving. This craving gives the habit its power. Changing habits involves inserting a new routine between the cue and reward that satisfies the craving (and hopefully producing a more positive result than the bad habit you’re hoping to change).

Changing a habit is difficult. Some habits can only change with much time, effort, and support. There is not one-size-fits-all approach to changing habits, but Duhigg presents a general framework.

·         -First, identify the routine you want to change.

·         -Next, experiment with rewards. By substituting different rewards, and tracking how you feel about it, you can isolate what you are really craving.

·         -Isolate the cue to see what is triggering the habit. Duhigg offers a simple handful of questions that can narrow down your search. Figure out what is happening just before you feel the craving.

·         -Finally, develop plan to implement a new routine that satisfies the craving. It will also be good to plan how you are going to handle the inevitable setbacks you’ll experience as you change your habits.

I was surprised by the moral stand on habits Duhigg took in the latter chapters of the book. He argues that if you know you have a habit that is dangerous or destructive, you have an obligation to do something about it. Fortunately, awareness of a habit puts you on the path to being able to do something about it. Unfortunately, that may be a rocky, uncomfortable, and difficult path.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Changing for Good by James O. Prochaska, John C. Norcross & Carlo C. DiClemente

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

No Excuses by Brian Tracy

Small Move, Big Change by Caroline L. Arnold

Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business. New York: Random House, 2012.

Learn Better by Ulrich Boser

Learning is not easy. It takes effort. Too often, people squander their effort on ineffective activities. Ulrich Boser seeks to correct this by describing effective, research-based learning techniques in Learn Better.

Learning begins with value. You won’t put effort into learning something you don’t care about. When I was in third grade, I found very little value in memorizing how to spell words or recite multiplication tables. When my teacher tied my performance on multiplication tables to my attendance of recess, something I valued quite a bit, I found the will to exert myself.

“Motivation is the first step in acquiring any sort of skill,” Ulrich Boser, Learn Better

Once you’ve squared away the motivation, you can get on with the doing of learing. Learing is at heart doing. It is a mental activity, though it is often paired with, supported by, or supportive of physical activity. If you’re actually learning, you’re probably experience some struggle and feel like your pushing yourself a little, but not so much that you’re lost.

In a sense, Boser’s book is organized around different types of doing appropriate for different stages of learning. In the early stages of learning, you decide what you want to learn and plan you learning process. When you have a foundation, you can concentrate on improvement. As your skills improve, you can shift to deepening your knowledge and exploring more complex applications. The best experts add to this a strong sense of the patterns and connections. From beginning to end, learning requires humility, and the people who sustain and grow mastery over time evaluate their knowledge and reflect on what they are doing.

The book is full of ideas you can use. For instance, I created for myself a simple process of spaced-out learning to polish some skills I wanted to improve at work. When I started writing reviews and summaries of books, even before I started this blog, it was because I found I could remember the major points better if I summarized them in my own words, even if I did not return to my notes. I was using form of retrieval practice, which is one of several techniques Boser describes.

Though Boser draws on research, the book is intended for a broad audience. If you’re looking to improve your own learning or for ways your children or employees can get more out of their learning efforts, you’re likely to find something you can understand and use in Learn Better.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

The First 20 Hours by Josh Kaufman

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

How to Improve Your Memory by James D. Weinland

How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard

Idea Mapping by Jamie Nast

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

The Organized Mind by Daniel J. Levitin

Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman

Your Intelligence Makeover by Edward F. Droge, Jr.

Boser, Ulrich. Learn Better: Mastering the Skills for Success in Life, Business, and School, or, How to Become an Expert in Just About Anything. New York: Rodale, 2017.

Switch on Your Brain by Caroline Leaf

The brain is malleable, and we can, by conscious effort, change our patterns of thought and the structures in our brains. These changes can lead to improved thinking, joy, and physical health. Caroline Leaf considers how to take advantage of our brains ability to adapt, neuroplasticity, in her book Switch on Your Brain.

The first, and longer, part of the book is devoted to making the case that the brain can be changed and that people can change their brains intentionally. People are not biological automata. They can control how they react to the situations they encounter, even if they can’t control those situations. Therefore, they can control the types and intensities of emotions attached to memories, and the patterns of thoughts they form. They do not have to default to toxic thinking (leading to stress, bad health and poor decision making), but can choose healthy thinking.

The central scientific notion that Leaf appeals to is neuroplasticity. She also finds support for her views in other related science, especially related to the structure and functioning of the brain (her appeals to quantum physics strike me as much weaker).

Leaf has a particular religious view as well, and frequently appeals to the Bible. I think it is fair to say that Leaf comes from a particular religious point of view relating to the power and nature of faith, one in which she is comfortable ending her prologue with a quote from Peace Pilgrim.

The science and scripture are in agreement in Leaf’s presentation. Both come across to me as being cherry-picked. Admittedly, this is a self-help book, not a scientific text. The potential damage of being over-selective with scripture is more troubling, though I don’t think Leaf twists them nearly as much as others I’ve heard.

The blunt conclusion of the first part is “mind over matter.” Leaf keeps this to the narrow notion that we can choose our reactions and therefore can alter structures in our brains that encode and manage memories and thought patterns. Of course, these have consequences in our health, happiness, and success in life.

The second part of the book is devoted to a five-step process to weaken toxic thoughts and implant and strengthen healthy thoughts. It begins with awareness of your own thoughts and feelings. This is followed by deep thinking and reflection on those thoughts, especially toxic thoughts you want to weaken and alternative thoughts you want to strengthen. Writing is used to aid this process. After writing your thoughts, you review them with an intention of finding solutions, new ways of thinking, and ways to reinforce those new thoughts in action. Finally, you take action by saying and doing things that reinforce the new thoughts.

This process has analogs in other psychology and self-help literature. Cultivating awareness is encouraged by proponent of the mind-body connection. Awareness and reflection both relate to forms of meditation. Even the 21-day length of the program (based on the amount of time it takes to form new structures in the brain) is in keeping with other literature on making new habits.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Change Your Brain Change Your Body by Daniel G. Amen

The First 20 Hours by Josh Kaufman

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

Idea Mapping by Jamie Nast

Mindset by Carol S. Dweck

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson with Miriam Z. Klipper

Leaf, Caroline. Switch On Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2013.