With this book, Rock has written an owner's manual for the human brain.  Tapping into current neuro-scientific research, Rock uses the power of the story to help readers understand how the brain responds to the events of our everyday lives, including solving problems and making decisions, stress and pressure, collaborating with others and facilitating change.

Rock explains several recent research discoveries about the human brain.  When we understand our own brain, Rock contends, we are better able to use it powerfully and productively. 

One powerful example of optimizing our brainpower comes from research findings on our currently popular process of multi-tasking.  When we multi-task, we work against our brains preference, not with it.  The prefrontal cortex, that region of the brain responsible for thinking things through, can handle only one to four ideas at a time and consumes large quantities of metabolic resources, the fuel in the blood stream.  "Memory starts to degrade when you try to hold more than one idea in mind." (Page 31) Remember that the next time you try to participate in a conference call and reply to emails at the same time-one of the tasks will suffer.  "While you can hold several chunks of information in mind at once, you can't perform more than one conscious process at a time with these chunks without impacting performance." (Page 33)  To use the brain most effectively, Rock suggests that we prioritize our tasks and schedule those demanding the most conscious attention for the times when we have the highest energy. 

Simplify information by focusing on an idea's salient elements, rather than trying to retain all the detail.  Write the details down so they don't take precious brain resources to hold in place.