The Mind Gym: Wake Your Mind Up - Mind Gym

The Mind Gym is a book written by management consultant Octavius Black and business psychologist Sebastian Bailey, based on a series of workshops they had done for British companies such as Diageo, BT, GlaxoSmithKliene and Norwich Union. It's one of the few books in the business psychology genre written by Brits.

The aim of the book is to make you aware of how you think and behave with a view to sharpening your brain and therefore ...
...of it.

The book is divided into five sections:

* "Taking Control" is about understanding your mindset; it explains how your mindset affects how you perceive and this section explains how flaws in perception occur - people with undiluted optimism often duck responsibility for instance, whereas people with undiluted pessimism misallocate responsibility (they are often too hard on themselves). Once you are aware ... more

The Mind Gym is a book written by management consultant Octavius Black and business psychologist Sebastian Bailey, based on a series of workshops they had done for British companies such as Diageo, BT, GlaxoSmithKliene and Norwich Union. It's one of the few books in the business psychology genre written by Brits.

The aim of the book is to make you aware of how you think and behave with a view to sharpening your brain and therefore your performance. I imagine business/management types are most likely to read this, but anyone interested in thinking and how their brain works will get something out of it.

The book is divided into five sections:

* "Taking Control" is about understanding your mindset; it explains how your mindset affects how you perceive and this section explains how flaws in perception occur - people with undiluted optimism often duck responsibility for instance, whereas people with undiluted pessimism misallocate responsibility (they are often too hard on themselves). Once you are aware of how you think this section then goes on to describe how to break thinking cycles, how to get out of ruts and also has a very useful chapter on how to avoid procrastination.

* "The Right Impression" deals with how people interact. They start off explaining how people behave differently with different people, and how to assess your impact on others. They then go on to identify nine techniques people use to influence each other and how people connect with each other (including describing body language techniques such as matching and mirroring work).

* "Tough Conversations" deals with difficult situations: how to handle conflicts and arguments (including how to avoid getting drawn into arguments by others) and how to deliver bad news with the minimum of negative feeling.

* "Stress and Relaxation" deals with optimum stress (when the pressure makes you perform better) and at what point it becomes distress (when the pressure makes you perform worse), and how to recognise which stage you are in. They give techniques for how to overcome negative stress ranging from organsational tactics right through to techniques for relaxation (such as breathing and visualisation).

* "Creative Juices" is all about stimulating creativity. They have several techniques to help you think laterally, to problem solve and to be creative.

The book starts with a questionaire designed to highlight which chapters are most relevant to you, and the authors recommend you go straight to these rather than read the book chronologically. My relevant chapters were on procrastination and creativity. All the sections have additional questionaires designed to help you understand your thinking processes as well as anecdotes and exercises to do.

I enjoyed the section on creativity - especially the bit on locus of control. Briefly, some people have an internal locus - they always have a running commentary inside their head, a stream of consciousness type conversation with themselves. Others have an external locus - they are acutely aware of what is going on outside of them, sounds, sensations, colours, concentration and awareness is very acute. Everyone switches from one locus to another from time to time, sometimes on a daily basis, though they will have one dominant locus. I realized after reading this that when I'm just about to be creative, say write a story or a poem, I'm in external locus. When I'm stressed, I go into internal locus, and I simply cannot write.

There is a web-site that goes with this book - themindgym.com - and inside the front cover of the book there is a password to allow you to access the site. The web-site consists of more advanced questionaires and exercises and also has a members discussion forum.

If you work for a major company (esp in management) chances are you will come across some of the techniques in this book already (your firm will have sent you on a course). I had come across the some of material on influencing people and delivering bad news before. However some of the material was fresh and new. The style of the book was recognisably British - plenty of humour, lots of examples that most people working in British firms have come across - much easier to stomach than the American business books which tend to be too intense and well, American. You will enjoy this if you are interested in how you tick, or if you are interested in improving your performance or efficiency (at home or at work).

There are actually two Mind Gym books published. This review is of The Mind Gym subtitle "wake up your mind" - the one with the dark green circle on the cover, not to be confused with The Mind Gym subtitle "give me time", the follow up book with a pink circle on the cover.

The recommended retail price is £12.99; it can be found on amazon.co.uk from £5.49 new and £5.50 used.

Finally, no book about business and applied psychology is complete without the famous fisherman joke, (which is retold in this book), which goes as follows:

"A businessman is on holiday by the sea, sitting on the beach and watching the locals fishing and lazing in the sunshine. In the bar that evening, he decides to give one of the fishermen some advice.

'You are wasting yourself here,' he tells the fisherman. 'You should use your brain, make some money. Have you ever thought about opening a restaurant? Fresh fish dishes, you could make a fortune. And once the first restaurant works, you could set up another, and then another. Before you know it, you've got a whole chain on your hands. And if it works in this country, why not abroad? Then all you have to do is float your cmpany on the stock exchange, retire to the coast, and spend the rest of your days fishing and lazing in the sunshine'

'Another beer?' smiles the fisherman." 

...less