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My top ten self-improvement books

6 min read
There are now thousands of self-improvement books out there, many of them just repeating the same ideas. Here are my top ten favourite books that I’ve read in this genre. Each one has practical techniques that actually work. Most of them also cover a distinct area (i.e. I haven’t picked…
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Review of ’59 Seconds’ by Richard Wiseman (2009)

6 min read
’59 seconds’ by Richard Wiseman is a book that claims to offer ‘self improvement’ advice based on REAL findings from psychological studies. The book covers 10 life areas: happiness, persuasion, motivation, creativity, attraction, stress, relationships, decision-making, parenting and personality. It claims that much of the standard advice from self-improvement gurus…
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Summary/Review of ‘Access to inner worlds’, by Colin Wilson (1983)

14 min read
Summary: Our everyday consciousness is flat and uninspiring because we are only using part of our brains. If we add more effort into how we perceive the world our consciousness will change so that the world will feel more real, alive and exciting.    Colin Wilson (1931-2013) was a prolific…
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One year of transcendental meditation

8 min read
For the past year I have been practicing Transcendental Meditation (TM) twice a day. Its main effect on me has been to make me feel generally calmer. Each session lasts 22 mins. The meditation itself is 20 minutes and then there is a two-minute ‘coming out’ period where the meditation…
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‘Pre-suasion’ by Robert Cialdini

3 min read
In 2004 Rolling Stone magazine celebrated 50 years of rock n roll with a list of the top 500 songs from the era. Their top two were ‘Like a rolling stone’ by Bob Dylan, and ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’ by the rolling stones. A corporate publishing version of the…
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Book formats I love

1 min read
Aside from the pleasure of reading, books themselves, as objects, have their own pleasures. I find it strange how differently I feel about different formats of books. For example, I generally prefer paperbacks over hardbacks. I don’t mind hardbacks if they are non-fiction, but I will rarely enjoy reading novels…
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Why computers will never simulate the human brain

8 min read
A summary of ‘The Relativistic Brain: How it works and why it cannot be simulated by a Turing Machine’, by Ronald Cicurel and Miguel A.L. Nicolelis “I strongly suspect our brains are analogue rather than digital. I think it would be rather surprising if it turned out to be digital,…
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Do artistic masterpieces really exist?

8 min read
I was recently looking around Europe’s largest bookshop: Waterstones in Piccadilly, London. It’s a spacious, six-story old art-deco building, housing nearly a quarter-of a million books. Looking around a large real-life bookshop is an increasingly rare pleasure; so many have them have closed-down. It gave me a strange feeling though.…
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3 hidden neuroscience tricks behind Instagram’s new logo

6 min read
3 hidden neuroscience tricks behind Instagram’s new logo Instagram, the photo sharing app, has launched a new logo. Early reactions are dividing fans, but I believe it will become well-loved in the long run as it uses some clever neuroscience tricks to appeal to our subconscious minds. Logos, particularly those…
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What makes Infographics so effective?

3 min read
Infographics have become popular over the last few years. As the web becomes increasingly visual, and people want to absorb information quickly they are a great way of visualising facts and data. They are also more likely to be shared on social media than a text description is. However, I…
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What is neuromarketing?

3 min read
Over the last few decades science has learned more about the workings of our brains than in all of previous recorded history. Therefore its not surprising that market research has been influenced by this revolution. Neuromarketing is perhaps a misnomer: its not so much a form of marketing as of…
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Will Wearables Become Useful For Market Research?

2 min read
Market researchers have a long history of using biometric measurements, such as heart rate and skin conductance, to get moment-by-moment readings of how consumers respond to things like TV ads and other commercial messages. However one of the downsides to this is the expense of bringing consumers into testing locations…
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