A Whole New Mind Book

Hey! Gene Adam is here. Today  I want to make a quick review on A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink.

Why right-brainers will rule the future.

Contents

• Chapter 1. Right brain rising
• Chapter 2.  Abundance, Asia and Automation
• Chapter 3.  High Concept, High Touch
• Chapter 4: Design
• Chapter 5: Story
• Chapter 6: Symphony
• Chapter 7: Empathy
• Chapter 8: Play
• Chapter 9: Meaning

1. Right brain rising

We have "two" minds, not just one... Until recently it was thought that we have 2 hemispheres in our brain that are equally powerful. 

But after numerous discoveries, it became clear that the two brains working almost separately by doing each own tasks. Yet they work synergistically...

Let's say your brain is solving some kind of problem.

The left brain will think literally.

The right brain will think from the 10,000-foot view.

Apparently, this is how it works:

The left brain interprets the "what"...

The right brain interprets the "how"...

If you hear, "Jose has a heart the size of Montana".

Your left brain will not make sense out of it because literally, it doesn't make any sense. However, the right will complete the abstract thought and say "Aha, he has a great heart!" ❤️

Both sides work together but their functions are different.

The left brain: logic, sequence, literalness, and analysis.

The right brain: synthesis, emotional expression, context, big picture.

In short, the right brain is so powerful that without it, it's hard to make complex ideas. And, It's hard not to have an ability to see things from the BIG picture view.

Although we do need both... They are equally important.

The problem is that our world and our society is left-brained. Why? Because we are concentrated on "logic" more than we should.

We are trained to be left-brained people. We go to school, college, university. Then we get a degree. We manufacture perfect accountants, bookkeepers, lawyers, teachers, secretaries and whoever does logical work by following rules.

"Just follow the rules", they say. They will promote you and you will become a leader, manager, and then maybe CEO... and one day you will make more money... isn't that what our society wants us to do? 

We do the work Monday-Friday, 9-5 and come back home wishing to never work again... We hate our job and we have our life... Because there's nothing left up to us... We are not "creative" in our decisions. And if we don't get promoted as we wished we slowly give up... 

As Daniel H. Pink says it's about to change. The old era of left-brained people is about to be over. And the new era of "creative", "emotionally intelligent" beings is about to occupy the top positions leaving the left-brained people behind... 

Don't get me wrong. We still need the left brain. We just need to treat the left and right brain equally.

1. Abundance, Asia and Automation

The paradox of prosperity is that while living levels soared decade after decade, personal family and life satisfaction haven't improved.

We can buy good looking clothes for cheap unlike 30 years ago... We can buy designer's toilet brushes but our families are disintegrating in front of around us.

Even if we get all the best items comparing to 30 years ago, we are looking for the meaning of life and our bright future.

How come there are plenty of electric bulbs on the market and we are still shopping for a designer candle? Did you know that business with candles is a multi-billion dollar business just in the U.S.?

There's also another issue that looming over us. It is the jobs. All the high qualification jobs are moving further away from the U.S.

Lawyers, Accountants, Programmers, Spacecraft developers and almost any other type of knowledge workers are going to India, China, Eastern Parts of Europe and many other low wage countries...

Another big problem for people that are looking for a job will be the computers themselves.

Gary Kasparov played with computers twice. On time he lost to a computer. Another time it was a draw... Between a human and a machine... If a machine with a program is capable to play as good as Gary Kasparov that tells you that the machine age has already arrived... and the robots are around the corner...

If it's not the Indian accountant that will take your job, it will be the Turbotax software...

1. High Concept, High Touch

If you summarized the economic history of the past 100 years in 1 sentence you'll get this.

We've progressed from society of "farmers" to a society of "factory workers" to a society of "knowledge workers". And now we are progressing yet again to a society of "creators and empathizers" that are able to recognize patterns.

In other words, we are moving away from left brain thinking to the right brain thinking.

In the past the right brain was considered irrelevant. Today it's important to use the right brain because it seems that it's the only way to go forward... It's not that the left brain is not important, it's that the left brain is not sufficient enough to move forward. Thus you need to get "a whole new mind."

To survive in this age, one must ask these questions:

• 1. Can someone oversees do it cheaper?
• 2. Can a computer do it faster?
• 3. Is what I'm offering in demand in the age of abundance?

Your survival depends on these questions. Because to win the numbers game you have to bypass the non-creative or cheaper to-do parts of your business.

Your job should be high concept and high touch... It should be something that you can not outsource. Your creation should involve artistic and emotional beauty. You need to detect patterns and opportunities, to craft a satisfying narrative and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into a novel invention.

High touch involves the ability to empathize, to understand the settlties of human interraction, to find joy in oneself and others, and satisfy one's search for purpose and meaning.

1. Design

Recently even an old automaker company like GM said in the interview we are changing our course of the business to a more right-brain kind of business . "Now, we are in the ART BUSINESS, which coincidentally also happens to provide transportation..."

Today the art and design degrees are more important than ever. To diffirantiate it's not about what the product does anymore. It's about what the looks, how it feels and how intuitive it is...

Most logical jobs already moved to India and millions of jobs will be moving there...

Now you have to find new ways to be more creative and inventive... That seems to be the outlook for the future products and services...

Today you have to become a designer first and then a professional.

Here's what happens when you get a better design:

• If you design better hospitals, patients get healthier faster
• If you design better schools, students study better
• If you design better offices people will work more efficiently

Even the design of a regular item like toaster is chosen differently today than 30 years ago. People will buy a toaster based on the design not on the functionality... Why? Because toaster is only used 15 minutes per day and the rest of the time it's just a decorative item in your kitchen.

Become a obsessed with the design first, carry a notebook and write ideas of what annoys you the most of the things you are using everyday. You'll be amazed how much opportunity is out there.

1. Story

Stories are easier to remember. We don't memorize numbers and facts. But we memorize a story and keep it for a long time.

For example, do you remember I mentioned Gary Kasparov's story just a few chapters back... I'm sure you remember it... But you probably don't remember how many times he played chess with the computer...

Once upon a time in the far-off land, lived a hero who was prosperous, happy,  and respected by all. One day,  three visitors arrived. They begin pointing out the heroe's many flaws and told him he was unfit to remain. The hero resisted, but to no avail. He was ousted from his land and sent off to a new world. There, a drift and alone, he floundered. But with the help of a few he met during his exile, he transformed himself and vowed to make his way back. And eventually he did return, where he was welcomed to a place he scarcely recognized, but that he still understood was home. 

Does this story sound familiar? It's a  variation  on what Joseph Campbell called "the hero's journey".

The hero's journey seems to be a prefect structure for any story, whether it's a story about Jesus, Buddha, King Arthur, War and Peace, Hobbit, Star Wars, or the Matrix etc...

In 1949 Joseph Campbell released a book called "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". Campbell argued that all myths - across time and across cultures - contain the same basic ingredients and follow the same general recipe. There are never any new sories, he said - just the same stories retold.

Today, the people who start learning stories are not just the movie makers and script writer but the business people.

Yes, believe it or not you have to learn how to write a narrative and a story to sell your product. Today, successful business men and women around the U.S. are going to Hollywood to study story or hire a professional story writer who could write a compelling story about their product. Why? Because it seems that having a bare product isn't good enough anymore.

Companies like Apple, Xerox, NASA, HP are using stories to spread their message around the globe with huge success.

There were 3 wine bottles. One bottle had a nice label, the second  had an amazing descriptions with adjectives in it and the third bottle had a story about 2 brothers and their family business.  The story went into how they started they business and how the bottle ended up in your hands. In the story they pointed out that they will donate some of the money to a charity... Guess which bottle had the most success?

Story does not run in the left side of the brain but it's very important because the right brain will help a buyer to make a purchase.

What can you do? Start writing stories or mini stories. When you practice you will improve even if you have never written stories before...

1. Symphony

Symphony is like orchestra. You don't hear 1 instrument... What you hear is dozens of instruments playing all at once that produce a beautiful sound.

You can listen to symphonies and try to understand how they work.

If you're not a musician, the best way to understand symphonies is to learn how to draw.

To help you out here symphony is mostly about relationships. Try to learn and understand the connections between diverse and seemingly separate disciplines.

You must learn how to link unconnected elements to create something new.

The people that create something out of the boundaries are the people that develop expertise in multiple fields, speak different languages and find joy in the rich variety of human experience. It's almost like they live multiple lives.

Creativity involves crossing the boundaries of domains. The most creative people see the relationships that the rest of the people cannot see...

Perspective is more important than IQ.

Metaphor is a very important element of symphony. Metaphor means understanding one thing in terms of something else.

Metaphorical thinking is very important because it helps us to understand others. Metaphors are crucial in creating empathic connections and communicating experiences that others do not share.

The more we understand metaphors the more we understand ourselves.

The conceptual age demands ability to grasp the relationships between relationships. The meta-ability has many names – systems thinking, gestalt thinking, holistic thinking etc. In other words it means seeing a bigger picture.

As Michael Gerber says, all entrepreneurs are systems thinkers.

1. Empathy 

Empathy is an ability to imagine oneself in someone else's position or in someone else's shoes...if you want to be more metaphorical  :)

Empathy is NOT sympathy. Sympathy is feeling bad for someone else. But empathy is more like know how they would feel, or knowing what they would do...

Empathy develops:

• Self-awareness
• Bonds parents with a child
• Allows you to work together with the group
• Morals
• Ethics

Empathy is almost like a language that connects people beyond a country or a culture... It's just like reading a smile on someone's face even if you don't understand someone's language. When you smile, people across the globe will know exactly what your facial expression means.

Empathy is related to symphony - because empathic people understand the importance of the context.

Female brain is better at reading facial expressions, because their brain is predominately hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominately hard-wired for understanding  and building systems.

However, that doesn't mean that a man cannot train himself to be more understanding and empathetic and women that could systematize.

It's all the matter of practice and if you could use both, your skills would be superior to most people. 

Empathy doesn't equal intelligence, but it helps us to understand the other  person better and tune-in into what they are trying to convey...

Take acting classes. Actors can imagine how the person they are playing feels, walks, talks, and thinks... You might learn a thing or two about empathy...

1. Play

Play. Joke. Laugh. It can make your life better. Your day could be improved, Some scientists think you can be more healthy, productive, prosperous by laughing every day. 

There's one particular professor dr. Madan Kataria from Mumbai, India that has been creating laughing clubs around the globe where people get together in the morning and laugh.

When you are playful you activate the right side of your brain. "The left brain is limited. The right side is unlimited. So you can be anything you want with your right brain", Dr. Kataria says.

U.S. Army, for example, is also in the gaming business. They created a video game that allowed learners to play the U.S. Army soldier... And be a soldier like in real life. Of course, what could be better to convert a persons that plays a video game about soldiers into a real soldier? The game was so popular that the first year it came out if the U.S. Army charged for this game they would make over half a billion dollars. So even playing games helped someone to make a decision to join U.S. Army and that's fascinating. Who knew?

While most people think that games are bad for people. However it doesn't appear so. There are role play games that actually can help students to study better, medical workers can role play and find what's wrong with the patient. You can fly an airplane in the game or drive a car which essentially can give you a skill...

There are a lot of studies suggest that video games are not bad for people. There's no scientific proof that the gamers become shooters, and after all not all games are shooter games... 

Some scientists suggest video games teach and help others learn new knowledge, new techniques, and let students practice before they make one and only vital mistake in real life.

Humor is considered one of the highest forms of human intelligence. 

Humor isn't only for entertainment. Humor is an asset. Humor can not be replicated by computers... And that's what is valuable in high-concept and high-touch generation.

Laughter could be a medicine and they are studies prove that laughter can decrease stress and in some cases even cure.

Laughter can help people bring together. It can make them work better together. It can improve friendships and relationships!

Joyfullness makes us more productive and fulfilled.

Go t a play ground.  Play outside. Imagine you are a kid again... This might help you to be kid again... You might still have it in you. See, if you can play... :)

Study jokes. It will help you exercise your laughing muscles. 

1. Meaning

Great book to read: Viktor Frankl - The search for meaning.

As Viktor says, that man's meaning isn't to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but to see a meaning in life... Although the pain can help you look for meaning, but it's not a guarantee to finding the meaning of life. Today, we live comfortable lives, better than yesterday for sure, and we should find meaning of our life from the comfort of our home... So how can meaning be found? The combination of  external circumstances and internal will can bring it to the surface. That's the key to Viktor's book.

Viktor Frankl's book that was plotted while he was in the concentration camp in the World War II, and that book was one of his meanings in life while all the terrible things happened to him...

We may already the circumstances that can help us find our meaning. Of course urge helps. Our urges today are:

• Terrorists
• Loss of jobs 
• Computers/robots replacing us
• Pollution 

One scientist found that while we are living our comfortable lives we became more stagnant:

• People have enough to live, but nothing to live for
• The have the means but no meaning

He calls it the fourth grade awakening and material awakening.

Spirituality.
Some scientists say that the answer maybe be spirituality and meditation. They say, that our right brain is wired to "believe in something bigger than ourself."

The studies show that: "With spirituality we can get rid of stress, live happier lives and even healthier lives. "

Not only people but businesses are interested in spirituality as well. And just as people, the businesses are searching for "meaning" as a whole...

Happiness.

Becoming happier improves almost all of the aspects of your life. When monks mediate deeply they can get to a similar state as happiness. The mediation might be the answer to unhappy environments.

Gratitude.

Gratitude is also something that can do wonders. It will give you satisfaction for you and others. Say thank you more to people around you. Write a letter to a friend. Or, just write down the what you are greatful for to yourself. It's proven to have a positive effect on you and others around you.

Obstacle solution.

Do an exercise called "But out"... Do you know what obstacle is keeping you from living a great life, having a perfect job, achieving your dream? Leave the "but" out... and see if you can replace it with "and"..

For example, I'd like to spend more time with my family, "but" I travel a lot because of my work... And now we'll add "and". I'd like to spend more time with my family, and I travel a lot so I have to take my family with me when I travel.

Here's another example. I'd like to eat better, "but" I'm surrounded at work with sugary snacks... And after we replace it with "and" we will get: I'd like to eat better, and I'm surrounded at work with sugary snacks so I should cook small healthy meals at home and bring it to work...

Do you get the point?

1. Summary

Probably the most idea the book is teaching you and I is to realize that your right brain holds your future.  

To survive in this age, one must ask these 3 most important questions:

• 1. Can someone oversees do it cheaper?
• 2. Can a computer do it faster?
• 3. Is what I'm offering in demand in the age of abundance?

Your survival depends on these questions. Because to win the numbers game you have to bypass the non-creative or cheaper to-do parts of your business.

This seems to be the main point of the book:

Your job should be high concept and high touch... It should be something that you can not outsource. Your creation should involve artistic and emotional beauty. You need to detect patterns and opportunities, to craft a satisfying narrative and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into a novel invention.

I hope you enjoyed this book as much as I have... look at the recommended books by Daniel H. Pink:

Recommended books to read:

• "Man's search for meaning" by Viktor Frankl
• Flow by Csikszentmihalyi (I pronounce it as "chicks sent me high". It's really hard to pronounce. I don't know why but I tend to remember his name better that way.. LOL)
• What should I do with my life by Po Bronson
• Mindfullness by Ellen Langer
• Art of Happiness by Dalai Lama

I hope you enjoyed this book as much as I have... I had a blast. For sure, a recommended book ;)

Thank you. And have an awesome day!