Brain Rules (John Medina, 2008) 8.0/10
How The Mighty Fall (Jim Collins, 2009) 6.7/10
World Wide Rave (David Meerman Scott, 2009) 7.2/10
The Element (Sir Ken Robinson, 2009) 8.2/10
Jeff Immelt and the New GE Way (David Magee, 2009) 5.0/10
The Talent Code (Daniel Coyle, 2009) 6.5/10
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Robert B. Cialdini, 2007) 7.0/10
The Ten Commandments for Business Failure (Donald R. Keough, 2008) 7.3/10
The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets (Peter D. Schiff, 2008) 5.2/10
The Brand Bubble (John Gerzema and Ed Lebar, 2008) 6.0/10
A Sense Of Urgency (John P. Kotter, 2008) 6.5/10
Who (Geoff Smart and Randy Street, 2008) 6.8/10
Reality Check (Guy Kawasaki, 2008) 7.2/10
Tribes (Seth Godin, 2008) 4.7/10
Talent (Edward E. Lawler III, 2008) 5.8/10
Business Stripped Bare (Richard Branson, 2008) 7.8/10
Call Me Ted (Ted Turner with Bill Burke, 2008)
Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell, 2008) 6.0/10
Winning (Jack Welch with Suzy Welch, 2005) 8.0/10
Tuned In (Craig Stull, Phil Myers & David Meerman Scott, 2008) 7.2/10
Inside Steve's Brain (Leander Kahney, 2008) 6.0/10
Yes! (Robert Cialdini, et al, 2008) 6.7/10
The Answer (John Assaraf & Murray Smith, 2008) 7.2/10
Six Disciplines Execution Revolution (Gary Harpst, 2008) 4.0/10
The Future of Management (Gary Hamel and Bill Breen, 2008) 7.3/10
Meatball Sundae (Seth Godin, 2007) 7.0/10
“If you’re going to take one idea away from this book, take this one: Whenever you make a decision, be aware of the kind of decision you are making and the kind of thought process it requires.”
If you think about a book on human behaviours, unexpected findings, and researches, you could probably think of a lot of them. If you add neuroscience to the mix, you would probably think of a few. But if you think of that kind of book with a practical and solid guideline for you to change how you live your life, I doubt you could find that many. And “How We Decide” by Jonah Lehrer falls in that category.
The book is about ‘decisions’ and how they are made by rationality and emotions from you brain (there are lots of parts within the frontal cortex but I’m not sure which). This is another typical book of this genre but let me tell you why should you ‘decide’ to get this book.
Contents
The Quarterback in the Pocket
The first story starts with the 2002 Super Bowl and how Tom Brady made the decision that led the team to victory. Lehrer moved onto stories of Plato and the very interesting one is the man who had a brain damage and lost emotions and eventually, he just could not ‘decide’. This chapter focuses on ‘emotion’ and how it is crucial to decision making.
The Predictions of Dopamine
The chapter begins with the story of Lieutenant Commander Michael Riley who commanded a British destroyer and decided to do something vital during the Persian Gulf War (I’m not going to spoil the story). The author also wrote about Bill Robertie, a chess master, a widely respected poker expert, and a backgammon champion. By the way, this is not my field but Dopamine is the brain region (or cell, or neurons, or whatever) that links our emotion to expectations.
Fooled by a Feeling
Emotions cannot do everything. The author wrote about Ann Klinestiver, a Parkinson teacher who became a slot machine addict (and lost literally almost everything in life) AFTER her Parkinson’s disease ‘treatment’. The chapter moves onto basketball player’s hot hands, stock investment, and a game show ‘Deal or No Deal’. The epic part of this chapter is about credit card (I am personally moved by this part and it sent shiver down my spine). The core of this chapter that wild feelings or emotions can bring us down.
The Uses of Reason
The story of a firefighter who survive the thick wall of raging fire starts the chapter perfectly because it is about how reasons are crucial at certain times. There is also another heartfelt story about a young girl, Mary, who were a brilliant and bright girl with bright future but one day she became different and ruined her life drinking, sleeping around and became angry a lot. She was eventually infected by HIV because of her brain tumor! Another great story in this chapter is how Captain Al Haynes of the United Airlines Flight 232 could maneuver the plane without basically everything working except the thrust levers.
Choking on Thought
The chapter begins with the opera singer Renee Fleming and how her career went downhill. Likewise, Van de Velde, a golf pro, could not recover from the career slump because of their ‘thoughts’. There are numerous researches in this chapter along with the MRI machine that failed to treat back pain. The point of the chapter is that we can think too much because our brain is not designed to calculate, take into account, and make a decision of 10 choices with 20 factors each.
The Moral Mind
This is also one of my favourite chapters starting with John Wayne Gacy, a psychopath who murdered thirty-three boys. The crucial aspect is how he thought and decided to commit those ‘evil’ (put your baddest word here) crimes without a wink. There are many researches including the one on war. There is also a very eye-opening story about ‘autism’.
The Brain Is An Argument
Within a decision, there are numerous parts of your brain working at the same time and you are likely to decide based on which part is winning be it choosing a political party candidate, shopping, or pundits. There is a story about decision-making failure during the 1973 war in the Middle East.
The Poker Hand
This chapter is mainly about Michael Binger, one of the world’s best poker players and how he applied different tactics in each different round. The chapter ends with the simple guidelines (with explanations, of course)
SIMPLE PROBLEMS REQUIRE REASON
NOVEL PROBLEMS ALSO REQUIRE REASON
EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY
YOU KNOW MORE THAN YOU KNOW
THINK ABOUT THINKING
Coda
It’s the conclusion with another great story
…
I’ll compare “How We Decide” to an ideal business book in my personal opinion a book that is easy to understand, distinct, practical, reliable, insightful, and provides great reading experience.
Ease of Understanding: 9/10: From the briefing above, you will see that there are so many stories and they make it easy to understand the content and the way Jonah Lehrer wrote is a breath of fresh air. Each chapter has its core concept and the explanations are clear. The only confusion comes from the neuroscience. If you are not familiar with the brain parts, you might struggle a bit but that’s minor.
Distinction: 6/10: What can I say? I have read some researches in the book from other books and this book is not the breakthrough of a major finding on neuroscience. However, this book is different in the aspect that it tells you why you did what you did and it tells you how should you do, which brings us to the next part.
Practicality: 9/10: When I first picked up “How We Decide”, I did not have much hope in practicality but this book exceeds every expectation of mine. I might be biased but since I read the chapter on credit card, I really stopped using my credit card (except for online purchases) because the book told me what I thought and it was like a lightning struck on your head. The stories and researches will make you think of yourself and the world around you differently.
Credibility: 8/10: There is no need to not believe the book because of the tons of highly advanced scientific researches regarding the activity in your brain. Every explanation and analysis is written in plain language but scientific proofs are always there.
Insightful: 7/10: When I think of this book, I can think of so many stories (this is probably the book which has stories that I can recall most). I spent hours telling my friends about the stories in this book. There are lots of stories and lots of researches. Yes, it’s pretty insightful.
Reading Experience: 10/10: I love the book. The book changes the way I spend and that alone is much great than the $25 price tag of the book. I changed the way I think of an unfortunate autistic person I know personally because in the past, I think of feeling and emotion for granted but this book says ‘don’t, you don’t have a clue’. Moreover, the book has (I said it for the millionth time) great stories that you will remember.
Overall: 8.2/10: I love the book. Bias? Possibly. “If you’re going to take one idea away from this book, take this one: Whenever you make a decision, be aware of the kind of decision you are making and the kind of thought process it requires.” And trust me that if you start from that idea, you’ll get countless of invaluable ideas, for life.
