Now You're Thinking!: Change Your Thinking...Transform Your Life [Kindle Edition]

Judy M. Chartrand (Author), Stewart Emery (Author), Russ Hall (Author), Heather Ishikawa (Author), John Maketa (Author)

Book Description

If you can change the way you think, you can change the world.  That’s the theme of Now You’re Thinking! as it tells the story of how a 2-year old Iraqi girl’s life was saved through determination, courage, and critical thinking.  The book begins with the heroic story of how a Marine battalion beat the odds to save this little girl, and ends with a model of critical thinking that will help you STOP and THINK to recognize your emotions, evaluate arguments, and draw conclusions to make better life decisions.  This book also provides the opportunity for you to take the My Thinking Styles assessment for free to learn your natural thinking preferences, strengths, and biases. This short read will give you a real-life example of great thinking plus tons of resources to guide your further interest in effective thinking.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Henry Ford was right: “Whether you think that you can, or that you can’t, you are usually right.”

 

“Your mind is your most powerful tool. This book can help you chart a course for sharpening your critical thinking skills so you can make better decisions in all areas of life.”

--Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind

 

“While writing The Speed of Trust it became clear to us that people would not trust others to lead them if they did not trust their thinking. If you read and apply the principles in this book, people will come to see you as a leader.”

--Stephen M. R. Covey, author of The New York Times and # 1 Wall Street Journal bestseller, The Speed of Trust

 

“A big part of being a leader is making decisions--but how often do we stop and think about our own decision-making processes?... The authors illustrate a five-step model we can all use to more effectively process our own thoughts toward successful decisions.”

--Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager and Full Steam Ahead!

 

“If you are striving to be better, faster, and different in life, to have more fulfillment and success, you need this book. A great primer to increase and enhance your thinking skills and processes.”

--Harry Paul, coauthor of FISH! A Proven Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results

 

Living the good life and want to make it great? Desperate to give your career an “extreme makeover”? Either way, the changes you want start inside your own head, with the way you think.

 

This book is the blueprint you need to build greater success by teaching you breakthrough techniques for thinking far more effectively. That’s the secret of making better decisions: whether you’re working toward a promotion or considering refinancing your house. Some thinking processes simply work better than others, and this book teaches you the ones that are proven to work best.

 

The authors start with the extraordinary true story of Amenah, just two years old, dying in an Iraqi village and in desperate need of complicated open-heart surgery unavailable in her own country. The authors reveal the extraordinary thinking and courage that saved her life and show how you can use the same approaches to transform every aspect of yours.

About the Author

Judy Chartrand is a recognized thought leader in the areas of critical thinking and career development. Chartrand works as a consulting Chief Scientist with Pearson. As a psychologist, Chartrand has helped hundreds of clients increase their personal and career satisfaction. She frequently speaks at national and international conferences and has published more than 50 articles and books. Chartrand lives in Minnesota with her husband and has two grown children.

 

Stewart Emery is coauthor of the international bestsellers Success Built to Last and Do You Matter?: How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company. He has a lifetime of experience as an entrepreneur, creative director, corporate culture consultant, and executive coach. He has led workshops and seminars and delivered keynotes all over the world.

 

Russ Hall is author of fourteen books and coauthor of numerous other books. He has also had short stories, essays, and articles published in a wide array of media and has received several awards.

 

Heather Ishikawa is the National Sales Director for Pearson TalentLens. Ishikawa has extensive experience in architecting corporatewide, assessment-based leadership development initiatives. Ishikawa has delivered workshops to hundreds of leaders on the topics of critical thinking, leadership, teambuilding, communication, and change management. She lives in California with her husband and two children.

 

John Maketa is the Director of Strategic Partnerships for Pearson TalentLens. Maketa is a dynamic leader in enterprise growth, developing bold and creative strategic alliances that catapult global performance and profit. Maketa is known throughout the learning and development industry as a major connector who is able to strategically align initiatives for parties on both sides of the table with unparalleled financial and professional success. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and son.

Product Details

• File Size: 775 KB
• Print Length: 176 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Up to 5 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits
• Publisher: FT Press; 1 edition (June 13, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0056A8VLO
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #245,160 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 44 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A summarized introduction to critical thinking October 11, 2011

By Jamie R. Wilson VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I am basing my review on a 145-page advance review copy of the book. I don't know how much it differs from the published version.

The entire book is based on the extraordinary true story of how Marine Major Kevin Jarrad and Navy Captain John Nadeau, a surgeon, overcome a series of nearly insurmountable obstacles to get a young Iraqi girl with cyanotic congenital heart disease out of a war zone and into the United States where she could receive the life-saving surgery she needed. Nothing about that task was easy. Dealing with cultural challenges and distrust from the girl's family, fighting through military bureaucracy, finding transportation out of a war zone with a very sick girl, bringing together medical staff in the United States, raising money to pay for everything and so much more--all with the ticking time bomb of this girl's condition--makes for a gripping tale and serves as a really great example of critical thinking in action at each step of the way.

The book is a very basic and summarized introduction to critical thinking, though. Despite the tag line of "Change your thinking. Revolutionize your career. Transform your life," the book doesn't spend much time on teaching much on how to do these things. In fact, nearly a third of the book consists of nothing more than the story I mentioned above. Most of the rest of the book is spent talking about this story and using it to illustrate points the authors are making about critical thinking. There isn't much in this book that isn't somehow connected back to that story--which isn't bad in itself, but the reliance on that story to illustrate other points gives me the feeling the book over-promised and under-delivered.

I estimate that less than half of the book is spent providing practical tools for helping "change your thinking, revolutionize your career, transform your life." Nearly 20% of the book is spent on blurbs about the people from the book's central story and references to other sources on critical thinking. Though there is some useful information on critical thinking, it will be most helpful as a very basic summarized introduction for readers who aren't familiar with the topic. That's not to stay there isn't useful information here, but that more of the book should have been dedicated to putting those principles into practice.

If you like a stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, then you'll love the story this book revolves around. If you want to "transform your life," you'll probably be disappointed with what this book offers.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptionally Valuable and Important for All August 30, 2011

By Fred Howard

Format:Hardcover

Now You're Thinking is an incredibly valuable guide to making better decisions and solving problems. The book describes a real situation in which an Iraqi girl with a serious heart problem was taken to the U.S. for an operation by a group of Marines. The first part of the book describes what happened and the second part shows how the various challenges the Marines faced were resolved by applying basic critical thinking skills.

In a world where thinking has sometimes become a lost art, and we get our information from sound bites and even some of our media outlets have cast aside objectivity to advocate a point of view, it is refreshing, informative and enlightening to learn tools that help differentiate what appears to be true from what is really true. And how using some simple techniques of challenging the obvious, differentiating fact from opinion and then making decisions based upon what is real can lead to such a successful outcome.

Now You're Thinking is much more than a simple self-help book. It presents extremely valuable information in a concise and useful format and reinforces the tools it teaches with a story that shows how these tools were applied in a true life situation. It is written at a level that can be beneficial for the person who is hearing this information for the first time to the individual who has studied critical thinking and learns by seeing how others reacted in the Iraqi girl's story.

As a bonus it provides a complete resource list from online sites, to blogs to social communities to get additional information and support.

I highly recommend this book both for personal and professional growth.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartwarming and Insightful July 22, 2011

By Breanne Harris

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I gave my mom a copy of the book, and this is the review she wrote to the authors and asked me to share here: Just wanted to say how much I love the book. My daughter shared it with me and once I started reading, I couldn't put it down. I'm fascinated by how many challenges the Marines had to overcome to save the little girl, and the fact that they never gave up. They just re-assessed the situation and came up with a better plan each time. It definitely made me proud to be an American, and made me think about how I approach decisions. Plus, I like that this isn't just a heartwarming story, but there are real tips for how to be a better thinker. Great job!