The Art of the Possible: A Compassionate Approach to Understanding the Way People Think, Learn and Communicate [Paperback]

Dawna Markova Ph.D. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1991

The Art of the Possible presents an innovative approach to understanding the way people think, learn, and communicate. According to Dr. Markova, each person's brain organizes, remembers and creates using three different pathways--auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. These combine to form one of six possible patterns. The Art of the Possible helps you identify yours and use it effectively.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Wouldn't it be grand if everyone's mind came with an owner's manual? The Art of the Possible might be the next best thing. Dawna Markova uses six combinations of our main information receivers-audio, visual and kinesthetic (feel)-to describe the basic perceptual modes by which we process information and experience the world. For example, if you best absorb information visually, ponder over it with your mind's voice and output it by building or designing something, you're a VAK (visual input, audio processing, kinesthetic output). The book itself even utilizes all the modes so that everyone can reap its full benefits. Identifying our own style can help each of us maximize our abilities and minimize our frustration. Understanding these variations can be an invaluable tool for teaching and relating to others. -- From The WomanSource Catalog & Review: Tools for Connecting the Community for Women; review by Ilene Rosoff

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

We live in an age when we are being forced to deal with rapidly increasing rates of social and political change. The organization of information and development of human resources are our new frontier. Of necessity, we must learn to facilitate the process of learning. Rather than merely accumulating new theories and more information that will be outmoded in a few years, our focus must shift to learning how to learn.

Unfortunately, we are too often taught to act sophisticated, to stay the same, while pretending to be wise. We hang on to our habitual, known ways of being at least as hard as they hang on to us. That's because one of the worst things to be in this culture is a beginner. The word conjures up feelings of awkwardness, sweaty palms, a throat that needs to be cleared again and again. Yet in the Orient, a beginner is honored for her curiosity, respected for his vitality, welcomed for the freshness he or she may bring. Beginners make sure that ideas maintain flexibility rather than rigidify into dangerous dogma.

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: Red Wheel / Weiser (January 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0943233127
• ISBN-13: 978-0943233123
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #382,345 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly wise about the unconscious & it's inspirations, October 16, 2010

By 

[e-mail] (Austin, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of the Possible: A Compassionate Approach to Understanding the Way People Think, Learn and Communicate (Paperback)

This is the first book I ever read by this author. I was ASTOUNDED by it's applicability in my case at least. I am a mix of KVA and VKA personality types as far as I can tell -- I don't get all hung up on being just one personality type. The diagram tables are GREAT! -- and they are missing from a similar later book.

What KVA and VKA means as regards my unconscious is that auditory "A" is where my unconscious inspirations some from. I assume that each of us is not balanced in our 5 senses as to which we can simultaneously be aware of. Apparently auditory is the one which I have the most trouble with in normal life -- I am primarily a visual learner but also touchie-feelie [ therefore VKA ], but in a solitary environment I can hear my unconscious expressing itself in certain ways, whether literally or metaphorically I am uncertain sometimes. Regardless, I am attempting to become FRIENDLY with my unconscious.

This book is a good technique to begin learning how to address some of the issues which are mentioned in the book Own Your Own Life by Gary Emery. The two combined are a major impact producer in my life. I am tempted to keep it all a secret, because people who are not diligent may tend to make a sham or scam of this knowledge. I decided today to take that risk of exposing the greatness of these two works when combined together. Good luck!

I am ordering some of the author's other works -- based mostly on the table of contents as revealed in amazon's "look inside" feature. Hope it works out for me, AND FOR YOU!

The one missing item is this -- we have 5 senses, not three, and why is it that taste and smell are not addressed in this author's theory ? Perhaps having a 5-layer or 5-level of consciousness in a theory is a bit much for humanity to consider at this time ?

Now here is some physiological basis for my personality bias -- I have a slight hearing problem , wasn't diagnosed as a kid. In large crowds where a lot of people were talking on different subjecs it was all a buzz to me. I am great in small groups, but somehow if the people I am talking to are randomly switching topics, e.g. because they heard someone else nearby switch to another, then I get uncomfortable. So I end up sitting out a lot of such big crowd activities on the sideline from an enforced shyness.

I also did not TRUST my hunches. NOW I am more aware of nomoenclatures, wordplay, and word associations, as well as comparative personality theory , so I have more interaction ability. However, somehow the biological shyness is still there -- i.e. my INTP introvertism DOES GET DRAINED from extensive conversations. So I would like to see books which explain how my improved outgoingness can perhaps learn to get along without downtime -- which is about the ONLY thing which the author does not address in the way of the unconscious.

5.0 out of 5 stars Changed my life, December 14, 2011

By 

ChronicHazard - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Art of the Possible: A Compassionate Approach to Understanding the Way People Think, Learn and Communicate (Paperback)

Came just as the vendor described. There are no other books like this one out there. If you want to expand your understanding of consciousness and learning then buy this book. You will be an enlightened person if you put your heart into to participating with this. All my love, Thank you amazon.