Wendy Jago

I was only vaguely familiar with NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) before reading this, and had the impression that some of its theoretical underpinnings were rather dubious (particularly the linguistic part), but most of the material presented here captures important truths and is imminently practical.

Most people take the way their own mind works for granted, often assuming that everybody else operates in much the same way. But in fact, in a variety of areas there is actually a spectrum of possible approaches, and most people fall more toward one side or the other. A couple of the more obvious examples that Jago discusses early on are whether you are more detail oriented or tend to take more of a big picture view (or what she terms "big chunk" or "small chunk"), or whether you're a task-person or a people-person. Some of these are similar to various personality theories, but she doesn't like the idea of these as being innate, fixed personality traits and instead argues that once you're aware of the opposite approach you can (in good Aristotelian "natural virtue" fashion) learn to drag yourself away from your default setting and toward the other end of the spectrum. Some of the traits were particularly interesting, such as the discussion of how you experience time (what she describes as being "through time" or "in time"), which had never occurred to me before, or seemed especially fundamental, such as whether your attention is drawn more by differences or similarities. Also fascinating was the discussion of how all mental processes must be in the form of some sense modality, a fact which I thought I had discovered through discussions with my partner (whose mind tends to work in a different mode than mine), but which I'm glad to see is already known in at least some circles in psychology.

Then there is a sort of transitional chapter about various senses of "modeling" and how to use it to develop your mental flexibility, and then part two applies all these mental tools to various real-life situations, from prioritizing and handling stress more effectively to working in team settings, learning to spot opportunities better, and making decisions. I'd quibble with a few points in this book, but most of the material is fascinating and invaluable.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2OROH6XF4N8KZ… (más)