I listened to the audiobook. The author/narrator tells a good story of Ben’s turn around from being the “Answer Man” to the “Question Man” and from the “Judger” to the “Learner” mindset. As stated in the book, “Great Results begin with great questions.” It takes discipline and practice to move away from withholding the answers and becoming the “learner” by asking questions and allowing others to provide the answers. I particularly like the Q-storming instead of brainstorming. Sometimes it may seems to be playing the Double Jeopardy.

Overall, I learn to be more conscientious of which role I’m playing when and if I run into a sticky situation. The switching questions help. Ben’s story may be a bit juvenile and dramatic but it drives home the point that being the Judger affects negatively a person’s work and personal life. To be successful as a leader, asking questions is more effective.

The 10 tools are:
1. Empower your observer: Be present with yourself and others.
2. Use the Choice Map as a Guide: choose to be on the Learner path, not Judger path, use switch lane. Use the ABCC (Aware – Am I in Judger?, Breathe – Do I need to step back and look at this more objectively?, Curiosity – Do I have all the facts? What’s happening here?, and Choice – What’s my choice?) Choice process.
3. Put the power of questions (internal and interpersonal) to work.
4. Distinguish Learner and Judger mindsets and questions.
5. Make friends (be aware of) with Judger.
6. Question assumptions.
7. Take advantage of switching questions. (Am I in Judger? Is this what I want to feel? Is this what I want to be doing? Where would I rather be? How can I get there? Is this working? What are the facts? How else can I think about this? What assumption am I making? What am I missing or avoiding? How can I be more objective and honest?
8. Create Learner Teams
9. Create breakthroughs with Q-storming.
10. Ask the top twelve questions for success. What do I want? What are my choices? What assumptions am I making? What am I responsible for? How else can I think about this? What is the other person thinking, feeling, and wanting? What am I missing or avoiding? What can I learn? From this person, situation, mistake, failure or success? What action steps make the most sense? What questions should I ask myself or others? How can I turn this into a win-win? What’s possible?

This book describes the history of Hawaii, how it was like originally in its own kingdom, which was savagely consolidated by King Kamehameha, to its being annexed by the United States and its statehood. In a way, all the people, the whalers, sailors, imported labors and the foreign conquerors are all unfamiliar fishes to the native Hawaiians.

The incestuous tradition of the early Kamehameha kingdom was not different than the Egyptians. Also, the Mormons were one the earliest settlers that influenced the religion of people and gave them their written language there. But given the economic necessity of growing sugar canes, many of the Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos workers were imported into the islands. The islands turned into a melting pot. After many generations of mixing, the people are all “cousins” as they often referred to one another.

The politics of US’s annexing Hawaii in the early 19th century coincided with the peak of imperialism was rather interesting. Politics have a way to explain away all evil doings in the name of precedences and strategic importance for the future.

This book also gave the history behind the famous Hawaiian song, Aloha Oe, written by the last Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani, who sang this song to Teddy Roosevelt during his inauguration. Of course, this book would probably not be of interest to people if it were not for President Obama’s being born and growing up in Hawaii.

The organization of the book is bit hard to follow on audiobook which I listened to. The author’s voice is not your usual professional voices but OK and there were many quotes voiced by a few famous people including Keanu Reeve. Overall, it was a casual, interesting book – well researched, not too serious and occasionally funny. I’ll be sure to bring this book along next time I plan to vacation there.

The author went to a great length to convince me and readers that our brains are plastic (changeable, not local/non-changeable) and are capable of changes if we push ourselves to use the under-/un-developed areas of our brains. Neurons that fire together stay together in the same area of the brain and neurons that stay apart in the brain if not used together. This is the reason why the sensors for our arms got mapped to our chins/lips, where the phantom pains/itches often got mapped into for those who got their arms/hands amputated.

The author also covered topics on sexual plasticity (addiction to porn) and presented evidences that autism may be affected by noisy environment that cause many unrelated neurons to be firing, resulted in the malfunction of our neuron filter that screens out unimportant/unrelated signals. Very interesting theory. Of course, one cannot rule out the gene defects as the possible causes.

There are examples of masochism/sadism that can be related to the brain development, which requires its re-wiring to be cured. The effect of Oxytocin is mentioned. Evidences of the brains’ being re-wired after a stroke are presented. The last example described is about a half-brain woman who didn’t have a left hemisphere at birth and how she was able to have the normally left-brain functions remapped to the right brain – a solid evidence that the brain is capable of rewiring.

Overall, this is a good read. A bit technical but full of supporting examples and evidences. It further encourages me to explore new areas of learning like a new language at my age to extend the brain health or suffer the atrophy of the brain. As the author repeated throughout the book, “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” And if you use it or learn new skills to nurture the unused areas of the brain, you’d see your renaissance at your old age.