Brainstyles: Change Your Life Without Changing Who You Are

I had the opportunity to have Marlane Miller teach a seminar on this book while getting my MBA and it was a wonderful experience. I had taught for several years prior to this and have gone through many of the personality assessments with students - none hit the nail on the head like this book since it has a different approach. It figures out how your brain works and instead of telling you to improve some aspect of your personality/capabilities that your brain is just not wired for, it teaches you to contribute based on your strenghts. It lifts a weight off of your shoulders to realize why you are the way you are and not feel like you need to change something. Highly recommended.

I have educated children, young adults, and adults in every setting from Kindergarten through college, in consultative settings, and in workshops and training for over 25 years. Never have I encountered such an empowering and spiritually-gratifying text as this. As an independent consultant for over seven years, I've obtained a couple dozen certifications to teach various authors' systems and models. Two years ago, I read BrainStyles and met the author. After certifying to coach and instruct in the BrainStyles system, I now lead with BrainStyles in my approach to clients, my own business process, my family and my marriage. Breakthroughs are common occurences as a result. This is a must-read as it supersedes all dimensions of "differences" or "diversity" and challenges you to be your OWN role model by leading and living from your hard-wired strengths, and expecting others to do likewise. This is powerful and challenging, as our strengths are invisible to us. We focus on our misfits, mistakes, and we waste energy. Then we double the loss by focusing on others' shortcomings (in our perception), damaging teamwork, self-esteem, and motivation in the process. Read this text and take the inventory it includes. Begin to shift your vision of yourself and others and serve the world from your gifts. Marlane Miller teaches you how in Chapter 8.

After reading every book of this ilk I could find, now I understand "why I am the way I am" and if I know you, I understand you, too. Read it--it could save you years of therapy, jobs that pinch, wrong relationships. This book is the best guide to understanding yourself and other people I've ever found. As a right-brained CONCEPTOR/CONCILIATOR, I learned to see the benefits of having left-brained friends to keep me on track and right brained ones to share the way I discuss things--not in a straight line.

I first encountered this book when it was used to resolve communication issues with my significant other. The insights it provided were nothing short of stunning, and we saw immediate improvement in our relationship. Since then, I have gone on to apply the concepts in every dimension of my life and found them particular useful in my consulting practice. BrainStyles is different from the dominant personality profile systems, DISC and Myers-Briggs. For one thing, it focuses on our responses in "time-zero events" (unique events that do not easily lend themselves to previous solutions.) And since today's chaotic world is FULL of time-zero events, this is important information. Second, BrainStyles is a philosophy that urges people to "play to their strengths" and quit spending inordinate time improving on their "weaknesses" (which author Marlane Miller calls "non-strengths"). Instead, work to the strengths of the team around you,! with each of you doing that which you do best.This is a book that is well worth reading several times--you will gain new insights with each reading.

Brainstyles is a perfect companion piece to the highly acclaimed "Art of Thinking". These two books represent the two separate sides of the common psychological debate of nature vs. nurture. Brainstyles provides a keen insight into how the science of the physical connections of the brain control how we view the world around us, and also gives expert advice on how to best use the hand we were dealt in day-to-day life.Being a "Left-brained Deliberator", I have had quite some trouble discovering what type of person I am. I seem to change my opinion on various subjects depending on the situation. I often viewed myself as somewhat wishy-washy, but after reading this book, I found that the strengths of this brainstyle are very applicable in my life. Not only did this book show me how I fit in the bigger scheme of things, but it also showed why this particular group of people have such a problem in self-definition.I highly recommend this book to anyone that would like to know more about themselves and the people around them. So often, while reading about the other brainstyles, I found myself exclaiming something to the effect of, "That's why she's like that!".