The Power of Impossible Thinking: Transform the Business of Your Life and the Life of Your Business

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Summary: A truly excellent book
Review: Brilliant book. It is especially powerful because it is superbly structured, easy to read, and free of jargon. There are many important messages in the book, almost one on every page. Individuals, companies and organizations can use many of the ideas in "The Power of Impossible Thinking" to re-shape their thinking and to help change their corporate cultures and processes. If you enjoy the intellectual challenge this book is a MUST read .There is much to be learned from this book and much to be reflected upon. Simple but profound. A very important, and great book.

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Summary: Learn how to impact the way you think
Review: Great read - explains in layman terms why we think a certain way and how/what can change the way we think about/percieve things. Perfect for those of us who have problems applying some of the skill sets/approaches that are successful for us in business but we can't seem to bring over to our personal lives.

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Summary: Discover new ways of looking at the world and your life
Review: I have read this book five times (shamelessly marking it up and writing in the margins), recommended the book enthusiastically to others, and purchased the book for others as well. Here's why: this book shows a way of understanding without being prescriptive or ideological. It's a guide book to chart unknown waters and rapids. It's like a wise mentor who does not have the answers, but who can tell you how you might find those answers yourself.

To me, this is a book of discovery, no matter where you start. You will wind up in places that you never imagined if you question and seek to understand the power and the limits of the models that you use to understand your world.

If you take this book seriously, it's a lot of work and effort to understand and apply, but I believe the striving and effort will be well rewarded!

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Summary: I want my money back
Review: I've probably ordered over one hundred books from Amazon, and have never been driven to write a user review or give feedback until today. <u>The Power of Impossible Thinking </u>is an awful, awful book. It reads like a Master's thesis with no ostensible purpose. Based on other Amazon user reviews, I expected new ideas that would challenge my way of thinking and aid my business development skills. What I encountered was a very lazy attempt at a self-help book with hackneyed ideas and uninspiring examples. I was actually angry during the entire read flipping each page with disgust (If it weren't for my obsession with finishing things I've started, I would have quit several chapters in). The author's basic message is - We have a mental model that has been formed by our experiences up until this moment. We must challenge these models. We challenge these models by speaking to people with vastly different experiences, gaining experience in different fields thus building intuition, and constantly changing focus to avoid losing sight of the big picture. The author then finds about 500 different ways of delivering this same message over and over again. Do not trust other recommendations here with promises of "changing the way you think". Anyone affected in such a way is a dolt. I expected a lot more from a Wharton School instructor. I did not learn one thing from this book.

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Summary: Less than satisfying
Review: If you want to read some good philosophical work on "Thinking" and/or "Perceiving", then this book is certainly not it!

This 'pseudo-philosophical' discourse is regurgitating a lot of Descartes' mistakes. Unfortunately, this book lacks the dramatic, albeit logically flawed, effect that Descartes achieved with his famous 'Cogito, ergo sum'.

I could find nothing in the book that lived up to the expectations created by its very teasing title. Most of the content of this book reminded me of nursery school, not business school.

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Summary: Not a CEO? No problem.
Review: The Power of Impossible Thinking is a very relevant read. With so many business books geared towards upper level decision makers, it is refreshingly applicable to anyone in the business world regardless of experience or rank. It is filled with thought provoking examples and presented in a format that is surprisingly simple to follow. The concepts offered are easy to apply to your own challenges as well, so if you are looking for ideas to suppliment your current mode of thought, pick this one up.

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Summary: Read this book if you are an arrogant perfectionist!
Review: This book is the handbook for arrogant perfectionists. It advocates the idea that anything that isn't "impossible" or "the best", isn't good enough. There aren't a lot of "bests" in the world, and as is the case in most situations there isn't necessarily a "best".

I think improvement needs to be done in baby steps. You crawl, then you walk, then you run, and so on and so forth. The mentality of this book though, is that you should just start out running because it's the "impossible" thinking method. This book comes off to me as being very arrogant.

We don't live in a perfect world and fault can be found in virtually anything if we look hard enough to find it. This book is written on the false premise that anything that isn't "the best", simply isn't good enough. This is very similar to a classic form of pseudoreasoning whereby anything that is not perfect (i.e., "the best"), is rejected.

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Summary: Small Business Owners Should Read this Book!
Review: This book really helps you to see how skewed we all view certain things and events in our lives. It also helps you to learn new ways of seeing things, that before my have been holding you back without you even realizing it. I would recommend this for anyone who owns a business, or has a managerial position within a company.

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Summary: The Real New Way
Review: This is the real new way of thinking. Simple, effective with outstanding results. A must read book for everyone.

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Summary: Finally, a useful guide to mental models
Review: Unlike so many other books of this type, this one resonates with the voice of experience and the sharing of solid research. Above all, this book is clear and practical; it provides very specific techniques to develop different mental models. I have been meditating for a number of years but had never conceptualized my practice in the context of my moods. I am finding The Power of Impossible Thinking's simple and direct writing useful in helping me understand how I can integrate mental models with external realities. I am a management consultant and will recommend this book to my clients, most of them are C-level executives (CEOs, CFOs, COOs, etc). The authors have provided us with a down-to-earth tools and methodologies to leverage our mental powers.