Jump Start Your Brain (Paperback)

by Doug Hall (Author) "I'll warn you up front: Jump Start Your Brain is not a scholarly work..." (more)
Key Phrases: wicked good ideas, start your brain, newborn ideas, Stimulus Response, Trained Brains, Richard Saunders International (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The techniques for jump-starting your brain are wacky as presented here by freelancer Wecker and Hall, founder of the Richard Saunders International Eureka! Mansion in Cincinnati, Ohio, home of the Eureka! Stimulus Response learning system, which taps into your B.O.S., or Brain Operating System. (If you're wondering why a guy named Hall would call his school Richard Saunders?it was Benjamin Franklin's pen name). Frequently quoting Franklin and Hall's five-year-old daughter Kristyn, the authors set about turning readers into Trained Brains. They suggest you become adventurous ("Have dinner at the fourteenth restaurant listed in the yellow pages"), believe in magic, analyze yourself (do you see yourself as sophisticated? boring?) and relax your dressing style ("Wearing a tie to a Eureka! Stimulus Response effort is a hanging offense"). Readers are likely to find the toys in this playpen too distracting to move on to problem solving. Fortune Book Club, Executive Program, BOMC and QPB alternates.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
Sandwiched in between a ton of exclamation marks, big type, and silly clip art is Hall's rather elemental idea: to be creative, you need to stimulate your brain with external "things," ranging from dime-store toys to Sears & Roebuck-like catalogues. Included are a psychological rationale for his approach to creativity and 36 brain programs, the actual techniques used to undrain the brain. By using disguised case histories and national publicity as evidence, he and his coauthor sell us on the right way to train brains. Corporate types might prefer a tamer version, but his substance and his premise (that U.S. businesses are decidedly noninnovative) are on target. Barbara Jacobs --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1 edition (January 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446671037
• ISBN-13: 978-0446671033
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #732,866 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Jump start Doug's ego...buy this book., January 28, 2000

By	Laser Wolf (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews

It seems to me that this book could have had a lot more impact and would have proven much more credible if the author had spent more time on the real subject and less time on the subject of himself. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of good ideas in here. The message gets really bogged down though, with all this talk of "I did this...I did that....I'm Ben Franklin reincarnated...yadda yadda yadda". Hall ends up spending so much time off of the subject that it's easy to get lost and discouraged with reading this book. I'm glad if anyone finds something great in here, but I would have been happier with a shorter, leaner, and therefore, more effective version. If I were to write a book and get as far off of my subject as Hall has with this one, I would hope my editor would have the sense to hit me in the face with a humble pie.....oooh, now wouldn't that be creative!

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars 400 pages of gas, August 1, 2003

By A Customer

The book is garbage, one big fat self-serving ad for his own products and services (I've never seen so many "TM"s and "R"s per page -- all for other stuff he wants to make money from -- along with endorsements from corporations like Disney). Basically, the guy says that in order to be creative you should act like a child and be random. His favorite tool to encourage the former is the Woopee cushion, which he mentions half a dozen times in the first half of the book, as if it were some sort of brilliant new invention. (Maybe he has stock in the company.) Here are a few of the other ways to release your inner child so as to be rich and successful: throw water balloons and shoot people with squirt guns; spin until dizzy; play catch in the office hallway; blow bubbles in the faces of your fellow concert-goers; let food dribble out of your mouth next time you go to a restaurant; give your boss a wedgie... you get the idea. In other words, be a big fat pain in the ... and accuse anyone who doesn't think you're funny of being brain dead (one of his favorite terms for people who don't see things his way). Dude, get a clue. There are other reasons people might not to want to get a water ballon thrown at them. Anyway, this is pretty much his one insight, repeated over and over, interspersed with trite comments about the magic of childhood and quotes about Doug Hall from his family members and former bosses. Of yeah, he also has suggestions for stimulating creativity by being "adventurous," such as "Take a different route to work or school" (gee, I've never heard THAT one before) and "Purchase the #1 paperback on the best-seller list." Anyway, once you've learned how to fart at will and do daring things like eat at a restaurant you've never eaten at before, you'll start getting lots of "wicked good" ideas (another of his favorites) and make lots of money, just like Doug Hall.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars disjointed book, November 1, 2000

By	Irby F. Stewart (426 Heather Cr., Thunder Bay, ON P7E 5K7) - See all my reviews

Disjointed book - incomplete sentences; too much talk about self; jumps all over the place; much of it is poorly written; very difficult to follow because he doesn't write in complete sentences; his goal seemed to be how many words he could use so that the book will be "big or long."

I tried to follow his line of reasoning or rationale but he lost me after page 262.

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