Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to Maximize Imagination, Productivity, and Innovation in Your Life (Harvard Health Publications) [Paperback]

"Your Creative Brain" is a must-read for anyone who is looking to find solutions to the challenges they face in everyday life. From how to do your job better to how to handle a challenging relationship to how to create a piece of art, Dr. Carson shows you how learning to be more creative (and you can learn!) can help you be a more successful person.

I got an advanced copy of this book from a friend of mine in the media and I really enjoyed it. I know that Dr. Carson has been teaching at Harvard for years, but her voice and tone was anything but Ivy League Elitist. She makes the case that creativity allowed the cavemen to move beyond their basic way of life to pave the way to our modern accomplishments. She winds the ribbon of the caveman throughout her book in the form of lighthearted cartoons that provide unexpected and much enjoyed comic relief.

This book is packed with information, no doubt about it - each chapter is a description of one of the seven brainsets Dr. Carson sees as being involved in the creative process. Within each chapter is also a set of steps you can do to increase your ability to do that particular brain set. After going through the whole book, I felt like I had got the expertise and know-how of a whole semester course. My recommendation is to go slowly through the book, take your time with each chapter and allowing a chance for the information to sink in before heading into the next one.

I read lots of books that are supposed to help me do something, like be better at this or do that, and very few actually have me finishing them up thinking I really learned something. "Your Creative Brain" doesn't just regurgitate the same old tips on creativity you've heard 1,000 times - this is much deeper, much more insightful, and much more worth your time than any other self-improvement out there right now. I give this book five very enthusiastic stars!

This is a good guide for anyone who wants to become more creative. The author's premise is that there are different mindsets that contribute to creativity and innovation. She claims that we tend to prefer one or more of these mindsets, and to get full use of our creative brain, we need to access the other mindsets. For example, someone who prefers the Absorb and Envision mindsets can take in a lot of new information and visualize how their ideas will look, but may not be able to evaluate and implement those ideas. They may need better access to their Evaluate and Reason mindsets. The author provides a lot of exercises for each mindset to help the reader develop that particular mindset. Be aware though that she has not confirmed these exercises via testing but they do make sense intuitively. She also provides neurological descriptions for each mindset which basically boil down to which parts of the brain are activated and which not in each mindset. I know that this is the part of the text which I'm going to forget because in the end it doesn't really matter - it's the exercises and the application that are important. The author also encourages the reader to use the token rewards system, a system that has proven effective in creating new habits for things as serious as addictions. I have not had the chance to try it but I think it should work in improving access to each creative mindset.

Finally, after struggling and searching to find my way, Your Creative Brain has become my new GPS. It's given me not only the answers to my questions about where to go and what to do in retirement, it's encouraged me and inspired me, and excited me. Anyone who's been stumbling with the direction of their life, absolutely needs to read Dr Carson's book and embrace her words. Kudos to you, Dr Carson, from a grateful reader!!