Reviews

Cognitive Dominance: A Brain Surgeon's Quest to Out-Think Fear by Mark McLaughlin, Shawn Coyne

bobisphere's review

5.0

I find reading growth books are highly subjective, and highly dependent on your place in life. That being said, this book was objectively excellent. The medical stories are fascinating and the author does a great job of walking you through what's happening so that you can relate. And that's what he does so well - he bring his experience of brain surgery and patient care to your own life experiences. He intentionally balances left-brain logical, intellectual thinking with right-brain emotional, creative energy. The book is called Cognitive Dominance, but it could really be called Harmonizing Your Mind: Break Free From Fear and Engage Your Life. He teaches how to master "reptilian brain" impulses with logical thought processes, mastered by your own worldview, moral center, and higher life order. He includes charts and workflows for the more logical reader, and inspiration for the more creative. He is open and vulnerable, explains what he struggles with, and his personal humility is fully on display. This is one of the few books I feel I need to read again after I have grown, just so I can truly gain what is offered.

I highly recommend this book. I took my time with it, read it over 5 weeks, and alternated between reading and listening to the audiobook. Like any great growth book, it is read by the author. Nothing beats listening to a book read by the person who wrote it. The story of his father utterly broke me down, and many of his stories had strong emotional impact. You'll be better for reading this book.

jpearson's review

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

This was a difficult book for me to finish. It tackles a very difficult subject (understanding & overcoming fear, in all its variants) and uses the studies of psychology, physiology & philosophy as backdrops to unpack & plan an attack against it. I didn't want to miss any lessons or any storytelling contained therein, so I ended up treating it somewhat like a textbook.

I'm glad i did because I learned a lot and enjoyed the book immensely. The sheer scope of the endeavor to document a taxonomy of fear is what made the book so challenging for me, but the surgeon's storytelling is what made it so enjoyable. As I studied & studied, I kept returning to one repeating appreciation. Dr. McLaughlin shared a few instances of his personal struggle between thinking laterally and linearly at different parts of the book, but the way his writing balanced the two kept striking me. Some chapters would dig deep into organizing and defining the gradients of fear, others would deliver a compelling narrative of a patient's surgery, and still others would provide tactical advice for implementing our own cognitive dominance in the presence of fear's many faces. Like the branches of a tree, those topical areas would branch out laterally, but the book's central narrative always moved forward linearly like the tree's trunk. 

From my many excellent takeaways from reading this book, I'll note my favorite, the most overarching. Like the extreme scope of this book's key endeavor, doing the hard work to unpack discomforting events is extremely meaningful. If "the only thing we can absolutely be sure of is death and destruction", then why not "simply choose to make life less tortuous and meaningless by taking the heroic creative approach? It’s a lot harder to act out than the destructive and nihilistic approach, but it will certainly make your days here a bit more bearable." Count me in, Doc. The heroic creative approach it is!

Thank you, Dr. McLaughlin, for doing all the hard work to share this important study and story with us.