While “know thyself” and “to thine own self be true” are fundamental tenets I had heard long before I began looking into the brain, I had no idea how to go about getting that knowledge or how to act on it until we made these discoveries about how people think differently. The better we know ourselves, the better we can recognize both what can be changed and how to change it, and what can’t be changed and what we can do about that. So no matter what you set out to do—whether on your own, as a member of an organization, or as its director—you need to understand how you and other people are wired.
Understand the power that comes from knowing how you and others are wired.

As I related in the first part of this book, my first breakthrough in understanding how people think differently occurred when I was a young father and had my kids tested by Dr. Sue Quinlan. I found the results remarkable, because she not only confirmed my own observations of the ways that their minds were working at the time but also predicted how they would develop in the future. For example, one of my kids was struggling with arithmetic. Because he tested well in mathematical reasoning, she correctly told him that if he pushed through the boredom of rote memorization required in elementary school, he would love the higher-level concepts he would be exposed to when he got older. These insights opened my eyes to new possibilities. I turned to her and others years later when I was trying to figure out the different thinking styles of my employees and colleagues.
