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Design Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: The Science of Storytelling

The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr. A British author, journalist and former photographer, Will has been a contributing editor at Esquire and GQ Australia.

The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr

Will has been featured in The Guardian Weekend, The Telegraph Magazine, The Times Magazine, The Observer Magazine, and The Sunday Times. Will has been named New Journalist of the Year, Feature Writer of the Year and has won a National Press Club award for excellence.

Storytelling is the true cornerstone of a presenter. Since the launch of PowerPoint this narrative shifted to the digital era. In fact, too many presenters forgot about storytelling and spent too much time playing with fonts and bullets.

In order to recapture the audience, it is critical for anyone to understand the craft of storytelling. There have been a good set of references that can guide you to present effectively. Most ask you to move beyond fiddling with fonts and bullets.

Will is able to move this effort forward. So this book reveals the essence of storytelling as a science, focusing on a topic that not many others have attempted. So Will is going deep inside our minds to help us learn how to achieve via psychological research and neuroscience to deliver powerful stories.

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Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: The Leading Brain

The Leading Brain: Neuroscience Hacks to Work Smarter, Better, Happier by Neuropsychologist Friederike Fabritius and leadership expert Dr. Hans Hagemann.

The Leading Brain

They collaborate combining expertise in both neuropsychology and management consulting to present a series of powerful brain strategies for organizations and individuals to gain peak performance.

I was very impressed with this book. There is much to learn about recent neuroscience technology revolutionizing our understanding of the human brain. There are certainly a lot of business books addressing peak performance. Most seemingly appear to be based upon well intentioned goal setting and had limited access to scientific data to support their theories how organizations can thrive.

However this book reveals how science and recent technology advances can now enhance the following brain abilities: Sharpening focus, Achieving the highest performance, Learning and retaining information more efficiently, Improving complex decision-making, Cultivating trust and building strong teams.

Light touch of science

Everyone will certainly discover a unique introduction to dopamine, acetylcholine, and noradrenaline. But worry not there is no test, only learning about how technology advancements in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machines can now identify specific brain conditions due to understanding of quantum physics that impact performance. Seemingly legacy approaches were simply well intentioned wild guessing.

With this new understanding of how the brain behaves during various workplace scenarios and stress levels we see examples. The first chapter story of how US Astronaut Gordon Cooper handled stress (gentle reminder he fell asleep in the capsule) of the Mercury Atlas 9 during several delays prior to launch.

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Education Reading

Latest Read: Incognito

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by neuroscientist David Eagleman. One cannot help but ponder how interesting a class on neuroscience and cognitive behavior would be if taught by David Eagleman? He is an adjunct professor at Stanford University.

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman

There are certainly several instances throughout the book where I was catching myself laughing out loud. Yet, there are segments where the dark side of the brain’s human behavior is brought into light. Indeed, it is like experiencing a David Lynch movie.

Likewise, David provides deep insights to various parts of the brain and has selected a worthy collection of stories.

I found the fourth chapter, “The Brain Is a Team of Rivals” certainly the most fascinating of the book. In this chapter David is addressing the brain under duress. Subsequently multiple unique experiences resulting in the brain’s changing state of processing reactions. For this reason I find the book such a refereshing read.