University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Power Up Your Mind
Book

Power Up Your Mind

Learn Faster, Smarter

Bill Lucas
Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2001
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Scientific
  • For Beginners

Recommendation

In Power Up Your Mind, Bill Lucas attempts to teach readers how to learn. To accomplish this goal, he sets out to provide a blueprint to the workings of the human brain through easy-to-grasp descriptions and illustrations designed to explain how the brain ingests and processes information. What’s lacking is a comprehensive review of the basic theories of learning that experts have deduced from the biological structures and mental functions that Lukas describes. Nevertheless, getAbstract recommends this book for its theoretical insights and practical advice about learning and memory.

Summary

Understanding Your Mind

Most people know more about how their cars work than how their minds work. To improve your ability to learn, you must first understand how your mind works.

The common notion of intelligence has been warped by the widespread acceptance of Alfred Binet and William’s Stern’s IQ or intellectual quotient. IQ as a measure of intelligence places too much importance on the use of language and figures at the expense of other types of intelligence like creativity, common sense and control of emotions.

Psychologists have identified at least eight types of intelligence, and scholars like Daniel Goleman are paying more attention to new concepts like emotional intelligence.

Paul Maclean has proposed that every person actually has three brains, rather than one:

  1. The primitive or reptilian brain, which sits at the bottom of your brain and governs your most basic survival instincts, such as the fight-or-flight response, blood circulation, breathing and digestion.
  2. The limbic brain, which sits like a collar on top of the reptilian brain, processes emotions, sensory input and long-term memories. Human beings share...

About the Author

Bill Lucas is the founding CEO of the Campaign for Learning. He is a well-known speaker, facilitator, strategist and consultant in the learning field, and he has advised many organizations, including Lloyds TSB, Accenture, Centrica, BT, and the Department of Trade and Industry and Education in Great Britain. He is co-author of more than 20 books, including The Future of Corporate Learning.

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