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The Evolutionary Glitch: Rise Above the Root of Your Problems

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Humanity isn't perfect, and in fact often works against itself. "The Evolutionary Glitch: Rise Above the Root of Your Problems" delves into how people create personas that end up dictating their behavior instead of logic, which often leads them into continuous loops in their life. Albert Garoli gives advice that can help readers break these habits, find out what they truly want, and act on it. "The Evolutionary Glitch" is thought provoking and intriguing reading, not to be missed.

Once in awhile, a book comes along that changes everything. The Evolutionary Glitch was that book for me. This book gave me a whole new way of looking at the world, myself, and the people around me. Reading its pages was like removing the blinders from my eyes for the first time, that I didn't even realise were there. Written in a user-friendly, easy-to-understand way, this book has become my user manual for life. Since reading The Evolutionary Glitch, I see the world by its terms. I am armed with the knowledge about Personas; this helps me when I interact with people because I recognise the Persona in them, as well as the Persona in myself. I have become acutely aware of the signs in my life, and am getting better all the time at following them. The Evolutionary Glitch doesn't only provide life-changing information, it actually gives step-by-step exercises and tools to use to change destructive habits, and get back on track with your true life goals. The Evolutionary Glitch is a book that I come back to time and time again, and get something new and useful out of it every time. Albert Garoli has given the world a great gift with this book, and how different the world would be if everyone could read it!

This is an amazing book to say the least. It's written in a very simple and easy-to-follow format but really gets at the nitty gritty of our personal, social, and functional problems. It tells us how this 'glitch' in our metal makeup came to be, how we continue to foster it and reinforce it, and what we can do to overcome it. Based on modern neurobiology, mixed with ancient philosophy and an alchemical approach, this unique perspective on the human mind provides the perfect resolution to conflicts, problems, and dysfunctions. But it doesn't stop there! It then continues to push us even further and motivate us to reach our highest potential. It doesn't suffice to merely overcome a present problem but then to make the most of ourselves and thus provide a positive impact on our society and world around us. This book has touched me deeply and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to make a significant change.

Hundreds of self-help books are out there, some more useful than others, but all purporting to give you the answers that will help you to overcome the obstacles in your life so you can be, do, and have everything you want. "The Evolutionary Glitch," however, is a new book that really gets at the root of our problems; it explores why we have those obstacles in the first place, and the importance not only of rising above obstacles, but how to remove those obstacles from our paths.

Beyond many self-help books that seek to inspire and motivate, "The Evolutionary Glitch" looks at the human condition from a psychological perspective, digging into the different personas humans create to protect themselves or to adapt to their conditions. Dr. Albert Garoli makes it very clear that the persona we create is not the person we truly are. Instead, that persona is a mask we wear, developed according to rejections we've experienced and how we've learned to adapt to what society wants. When we rid ourselves of our individual personas, we can succeed by letting our true nature shine forth.

Dr. Garoli gives a practical example of how we create such masks by asking us to consider how:

"In our education, many of us have blindly memorized material in the hopes of obtaining a good grade. The aim was not the information, nor the topic, nor the grade. The aim was to obtain acknowledgement. Our innate human tendency is to seek acknowledgement as confirmation of our value to society. Anything we are praised for leads us to consider ourselves worthy. If rewarded for an action we will tend to perform it again, even if it is not our favorite action or our tendency."

That statement resonated with me specifically because I've always been an overachiever, often to the detriment of my personal happiness because I learned instead to be a people pleaser. Such examples helped to open my eyes and make me aware of the persona I had developed as a result of social conditioning, which has often been at odds with who I truly am or what I truly want.

Dr. Garoli's information reminds me a lot of codependency and other dysfunctional behaviors we adapt as coping mechanisms, but he goes farther by breaking down and grouping dysfunctional behaviors into six distinct personas. Although Dr. Garoli uses the word "ego" sparingly, it's apparent that the ego and a persona are basically the same thing, only the six personas he identifies are different manifestations of the ego. We know the havoc the ego can wreak in its efforts to control us and even more so to survive when we threaten it by embarking on self-help ventures. Dr. Garoli's explanation of the personas, therefore, is not only helpful in identifying them, but in helping the reader to understand, once he knows what type of persona he has developed, what to expect of that persona and how to identify its sabotaging and controlling behaviors.

The six personas are the Ephemeral/Sanguine, Grinding/Lymphatic, Controlling/Nervous, Egocentric/Melancholic, Rebellious/Bilious, and Minimalist/Phlegmatic. I encourage readers to discover which persona describes who they are by reading this fascinating book. Beyond just helping us to identify our individual persona, "The Evolutionary Glitch" provides a series of exercises to help us realize when and how we individually created the persona. In one exercise, Dr. Garoli asks us to think of ten times in our lives when we experienced rejection, and how we've learned to protect ourselves as a result. He goes on to explain, in this exercise, how rejection is really not about the rejected person but the rejector, and he gives the example of how Edison rejected Tesla's ideas not because Tesla's ideas were faulty but because of Edison's own moral and intellectual shortcomings. I heartily agree with Dr. Garoli when he says, "A lack of imagination is your mind's worst limitation," and in this case, Edison, who was otherwise a genius, displayed such a lack of imagination. How often have we experienced rejection from someone, yet later had others recognize and appreciate our value?

While "The Evolutionary Glitch" has a scientific basis and is more in-depth than many of the more popular self-help books pumped out by celebrities and other public figures, it is not difficult reading. In fact, I easily got through the book in a few days, although I have gone back to do the exercises, which Garoli suggests committing several weeks to so they sink into your brain.

Whether you've never read a self-help book before, or you are a practicing psychologist or scientist interested in the human psyche, "The Evolutionary Glitch" provides a great deal of food for thought and realistic applications to better your life in realistic and practical, but life-changing ways. Digging this deeply into the persona may be a bit frightening for some, and Garoli himself warns early on that this book is not really self-help but "self-challenge," but reading this book will be a worthwhile experience for everyone who takes up its challenge.

-- Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D., and author of the award-winning Narrow Lives

Reading this book I found myself thinking many times thinking about Ken Wilber's books. Like Wilber, Garoli's unique work is insightful, complex, inspiring and embedding Eastern and Western philosophy. Like Wilber's work, this book is taking you to an interesting journey of self-exploration that you know where it starts and you have no idea where it will end.

This book, at least for me, was something that should be consumed in small pieces to get the most out of it. I read sentences such as "While your Persona lies strong, your deductive capabilities are too biased and cannot function as a reliable source of observation" and need to put the book aside for a little while and digest what I just read. If I compare it to food, this is by no means a light snack or a quick lunch, but more of a long and gratifying French-style dinner.

Garoli presents in this book an holistic approach based on physics, philosophy, neurobiology and physiology uncovering the 'glitch' in our nervous system and providing a detailed road map to get ourselves better and get rid of these flaws.

If you're willing to dig deeper into yourself and explore the roots of your own persona, break down familiar patterns and find ways it seems we already lost to natural well being, this book is for you. It doesn't have in it the secret for happy life or some vague promise to fix all your problems in 12 simple steps, but it does include an invitation to a unique journey inside your own mind and body that can result in beneficial self-discoveries.

Last but not least, this book is printed on FSC-certified paper!

Disclosure: We received a copy of this book from the publisher.

This book participated in Eco-Libris' Green Books Campaign [..]

First of all, anytime you choose to delve into brain functions you are in for some deep study and thought. It is no different with Albert Garoli's "The Evolutionary Glitch" because he takes us deep within neurobiology and quantum physics. Combine that with ancient wisdom and modern psychology and you get a thorough understanding that our emotional, mental and physical health is driven by social conditioning and learned experiences.

For example, Garoli states that social conditioning "can generate a sense of inadequacy, low self-esteem, doubt, anxiety, frustration, stress, and a myriad of other negative outcomes." In response to these results we create a "neural mask" aka Persona. The strength of the Persona is dependent on the pain, fear, or resentment that is ingrained into the being.

Garoli claims there are six different Personas: Ephemeral, Grinding, Controlling, Egocentric, Rebellious, and Minimalist. He gives a thorough explanation of each behavior. After getting to this point in "The Evolutionary Glitch," I was deciding, like I'm sure all readers, on which Persona I was. But, with abated hesitancy I read "the Persona you have identified as yours is not YOU." Garoli further explains our job is to challenge ourselves to overcome our Persona because it is only a mask we created due to circumstances.

Once we understand which Persona needs adjustment, we are encouraged to do exercises provided by Garoli. The exercises are intense and it is suggested we take several weeks to do each one. The importance of this is to retrain the brain and free oneself from the Persona.

There is so much more to this book! Garoli provides a developmental program and understanding that is time-sensitive, cutting-edge, and a forerunner in the field of neuropsychology. Our society is finally grasping the fact that our behaviors, actions, and thoughts are driven by our internal conflicts. Albert Garoli, in "The Evolutionary Glitch" gives us the insight needed so we can make the changes within ourselves and create our own world that is problem-free.