Customer Reviews

The Mother of All Minds

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Highly recommended for any personal or community library Self-Help/Self-Improvement reading list or reference collection, The Mother Of All Minds by Dudly Lynch (President of Brain Technologies Corporation, Plano, Texas) is thoughtful and thought-provoking self-help guidebook to improving personal thinking skills. Offering effective and practical strategies to combine and take full advantage of the Alpha mind (that which is fixated on helping one survive), and the Beta mind (the more recent evolution that strives to cope with new complexities, technologies, and social forms), The Mother Of All Minds is a life and adventure-affirming guide to better understanding will and the power of harnessing one's own thoughts.

What is the best way to help people as a coach or consultant? The answers are in this well written book of Dudley Lynch. First of all know yourself. With the theory of Clare Graves and an excellent guide as Dudley you discover where you are and how developing takes place. After that it is much easier to be the great coach or consultant you are. You can really facilitate your clients because you know where they are and what kind of difficulties they are dealing with. For professional who are prepared to go meta. And all others who have the feelings of going the next step of personal development.After his great book " Strategy of the Dolphin" This book "MOAM" is a worthy sequel.

The Mother of All Minds is the complexity-embracing, big-thinking mind that Dudley has named "Beta." It is the latest stage of mind identified by Clare Graves whose developmental model (often called "Spiral Dynamics") of human psychology has proven quite useful and powerful in business and personal development.

I've been studying Graves since the mid-eighties, and was eager to get Dudley's recent thoughts on his model. Dudley believes (as do I) that our modern era of complexities within complexities is proving overwhelming to the six developmental stages of the "Alpha" mind, the mind that has done all of the work over millennia to get us where we are today: we have survived. We have much to thank Alpha Thinking for, and Beta has arrived not a moment too soon.

Still ... the leap from the last stage of Alpha to Beta is daunting and difficult. And in that lies the true beauty of this book.

I found myself with tears in my eyes and a resounding inner "YES!" as I read Dudley's description of the crossing. He was describing one of the most difficult periods of my life and when I realized what I had actually been doing then in terms of my own development, I closed the book for a minute to really feel my gratitude for that gift.

He explains that the leap is not so much intellectual ... not even so much experience-based as it is ... emotional! It is in moving all the way through the difficult, sometimes painful, emotions that come from crossing over into unknown territory that the chasm is crossed.

Dudley has done a terrific job of simplifying the complex ... and of complexifying the simplistic. BETA is about living in the paradox. In Mother Of All Minds you'll see the future and know that we are it.

I love a book that evokes and encourages my thinking. I also enjoy a book that approaches a challenging or complex subject, explains it in a simple manner while at the same time not making me feel like the author is talking down to me. And I very much appreciate a non-fiction book that is also entertaining while being informative.

And since I found Dudley Lynch's book, The Mother of All Minds, accomplished all of the above, I give it a 5-star rating. After all, we humans are pretty complex creatures, with a complicated 'operating system' housed in our mind. And we're evolving all the time. So, to understand how we think and that we aren't all working with the same operating system, helps to make it a little easier to navigate through this complex world.

I found Lynch's metaphor of the different levels of our thinking as different versions of a computer program made this subject easier to grasp, and the idea that we're now evolving to a whole new "beta version" is both exciting and inspiring.

Am I a beta thinker? Hummm. I'd like to think that at least in my finest moments I might step into that realm of possibility, although I do admit that one of the things that had me read this book a bit more slowly, was needing to stop and ponder upon the many times I've clearly been operating from some of the lower level versions. Oh well, this awareness may allow me to transcend those lower level a bit more often. We'll see. Well done, Mr. Lynch. I would say your book can be a valuable resource for others who desire to live a more purposeful and meaningful life.

Oh, and one last observation regarding a comment in another review. Who says that a self published book's content is any less valuable? Remembrance of Things Past, by Marcel Proust and Ulysses, by James Joyce were both self published. Other now famous authors who self published include: Mark Twain, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Stephen Crane, George Bernard Shaw and Carl Sandburg. I wouldn't mind being included in such company.

Dudley Lynch and Paul Kordis set the stage with "The Strategy of the Dolphin," a book that called attention to the need to explore our "home thinking base" if we are to make any significant improvements in our lives.

Now, Dudley Lynch goes much further in describing how we need to vastly morph the way we use our brain if we are to match the dizzying speed of change in the new millennium. The book masterly reviews Dr. Clare Graves' scale of values and brings to life his teachings by suggesting a road map to reach breakthrough developments in our lives.

"The Mother of All Minds" should be required reading for all leaders, managers, coaches and entrepreneurs aiming to go beyond their current limitations and helping their companies and families to transform themselves from the inside-out, from puppa to winged marvel like a butterfly.

The MOAM is an honest, fully researched, head-on, "get real" wake up call to all readers. You will never forget its lessons.

In his erudite and inimitable style Dudley bursts again onto the stage, sweeping the cobwebs of outmoded behavior and cherished but dysfunctional ideals into the laps of the audience. A new brain has arrived that was unanticipated but long sought out, and Dudley has made clear the path to its realization. His expert insight into the work of Clare Graves and his journalistic acumen makes Dudley's work a treatise that cannot be missed. If you want to know what the future holds for humankind, or what it might hold if we get our act together, this book is a must read.

Reading this book is a waste of time. If I thought I could get my money back I would. My first clue should have been that the book was self published. Lynch was successful with his Strategy of the Dolphin. It would seem that some publisher would want to pick this one up if it were at least mediocre.

Lynch refers to the Graves material as the foundation for this book. I have been studying and working with Grave's material for several years. I have had training from both Beck and Cowan, and use it in my work and life. In my opinion, this book does not suggest anything more than that Lynch may have met Graves.

The Mother of all Minds is a catchy title, and my expectation was that something of substance would be presented. However, this book doesn't do that.