Dr. Richard Restak's The Secret Life Of The Brain

I saw a statistic which says that 95 percent of what we know about the human brain has been learned in the last ten years. Science is just beginning to understand how the most complicated organ in the human body functions. Neuroscientists now have the technology to observe the brain in action through the recent development of brain imaging technology.

Dr. Richard Restak produced a five part series for PBS called The Secret Life of the Brain and he has also written a book with the same title. From the episode on the adult brain, he reaches the following conclusion - "we are not thinking machines, but rather feeling machines that think". The fundamental paradigm shift that this has caused is that logic and reason is not the primary method to persuade and influence people, but

Two people can be selling the same exact product, yet one outperforms the other. The reason is their persuasive abilities. There are basically three ways to get someone to do something that we want them to do - force, negotiation, or persuasion. In today 's business world force doesn 't work very well and negotiation takes a lot of energy and time. Therefore, those who master the science of persuasion are going to be the most effective.

The part of the brain that receives virtually every stimuli is called the amygdala. The amygdala has the option of making an immediate emotional decision or passing the stimuli on to the frontal cortex area of the brain for a laborious analytical evaluation. In his book, The 7 Triggers to Yes, Russell H. Granger has taken this science and additional research and has identified seven factors that result in people making immediate decisions rather than passing the decision on to the frontal cortex for more evaluation.

People who understand these seven triggers and apply them in their interaction with others, will produce greater results. The seven triggers