Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self by Rosalene Glickman

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Optimal thinking: be your best self, the most easily comprehendible book I’ve ever read in my entire life. The core concept of this book is Optimal thinking, which is all about getting you the best things and giving your best efforts in almost everything you undertake on almost every occasion. The Australia’s most successful woman and the recipient of the Woman of the Year award for National Business Women’s Week® (NBWW) in Hollywood, is the author of this book, Rosalene Glickman. The most successful inspirational speaker who has trained people in almost all the sectors(including the US army) admits that she used to speak on optimistic thinking in her early days and later on realized its inadequacy and created this new theory of optimal thinking.

The book starts with proverbs and inspiring quotes on optimal thinking, next you are asked to evaluate your current thinking process with a simple questionnaire. Then comes the bashing and thrashing of optimistic thinking from the author. The author’s neutrality becomes questionable when she talks about the practicality of optimism. She hits hard but with less practical reasons putting forward her very own examples suitable to vote out positive thinking and its outcomes and this goes through out the book. The section named “why positive thinking falls short” is an utter waste of time and totally deviating from the purpose of this book. I think the author intended to particularly specify what thinking pattern she wants the reader to get into as far as optimal thinking is concerned, but I personally found the first chapter boring and circuitous. Probably, people who hate or have fluctuating beliefs about positive thinking might enjoy it but I have read the concepts of positive thinking by various authors and they are just fine and once again, a guy who has deep understanding in positive thinking wont interpret it as “wishful thinking” because he knows its not. The explanation for all types of thinking in the above chart one by one in the name of Sub-optimal thinking puts u to bed and even sings a bedtime song. Observing the first chapter one can construe the author’s inability to introduce the brilliant concept of being the best self in its sole anatomy and the brazen ineluctable need for a relative concept to prove the superiority of the one at hand is so deliberate end-to-end.

Moving on. The second chapter with the left brain decision making explains how one should analyse the pros and cons of a system or a way taken to solve the problem at hand and take an optimal decision in the end thus giving out the solution thats in your best interest. This way is followed by the entrepreneurs while decision making and is so mature and logical and is wonderfully presented in the book but at the same time this left-brain decision making system awfully resembles the goal setting methodology already written in lots of books(ex: the ones from the pocket mentor UK). Logically approaching a problem and analyzing it in its original form from an outside stand point and then taking the decision thats in your best interest, thats all. The definition for the right-brain decision making totally contradicts the former. This one is all about visualizing what the best means to you in detail. wishful? no, a clash between intuition and the former analytical left brain decision making, fuzzy, I wondered which one should I take to. Exasperated, I went on with the what optimal really means section. I answered all the questions about what the best means to me. I really don’t think I will remember all of those answers I gave as my best, because my best changes everyday. Only a handful of people wont change their mindsets and will refuse to change their likings about stuffs, not me for sure, I change for every impact that life throws at me. Till that point I questioned everything that the author presented and was completely disappointed from not getting what I expected.

“The key to the optimal answer is the optimal question”

The book finally takes pace here after a very long distance from the starting point. A whole set of optimal “what why how who when where” questions, really useful in grooming the mind for optimal thinking. This is the core. Author beautifully explains the experience of optimal thinking. She puts forth four stages of transformation that are involved.

Unawareness of incompetence.

Awareness of incompetence.

Awareness of competence.

Unawareness of competence

and three steps to achieve them gradually by monitoring ourselves constantly, choose optimal thinking volitionally and overcoming the old pattern of thinking and beliefs.

These concepts are exposited and presented in simple language that anyone can understand with a single read. According to the author anyone can play optimal by adhering to the simple rule or a saying if u will – “be the right person at the best place best time doing the most important activity in a best way”. This sure puts the reader into a direction and makes him concentrate on the concept with no interruption. Onward and upward to the optimize yourself part, number of optimal questions that helps oneself to define his best self are put forth. Even the most infinitesimal details about your lifestyle are asked to you that somewhere down the lane you get tired and miffed. This book thoroughly plans your lifestyle, your career, your goals, your preferences, your emotions, your communication and believe it or not your work mates too and everything is made possible by only one instrument, the appropriate optimal question to elicit the best answer and this whole process sure demands a great deal of patience and persistence from the reader. The process of self-assessment and optimizing the options that we have at hand and using them to make optimal choices in our lives to bring out the best in us is the sole concept of this book but It so happens that every time the author comes up with something new in the book she compares it with the sub-optimal thinking. The sub-optimal guy is a loser and the optimal guy is the winner in her perspective so to say. And the concepts are never explained in their sole format as I said earlier. This book has an impeccable selling record and almost every corporate base uses this book to teach their employees lateral thinking but it just did not do the trick for me.

(Thank u sis, for getting me this book)