Three pounds of gelatinous pudding, that’s how Jeffrey Schwartz refers to the brain in his book The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force. My interest in the brain has grown directly out of my work as a coach. I am keenly interested in how we develop and change, and what factors are likely to contribute to a successful transformation ( click here for a link to a very interesting article on neuroplasticity and leadership). Recent research in neuroscience and brain plasticity has turned conventional assumptions about the brain upside-down. Insatiably hungry, intriguingly opportunistic, paradoxically stubborn and adventuresome, beguilingly brilliant and seriously under-estimated, these are just some of the ways we might think to describe the human brain. I wont even attempt to try and summarize the amazing research; what I will do is tell you that the stories and research presented are positively fascinating and for that reason I encourage you to pick up the above mentioned book or perhaps the recently published The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. This book inspired the recent PBS Brain Fitness Program and mentions a number of interesting resources, one of which you can visit by clicking here. Besides providing the reader with an acrobatic reading experience -the brain studying itself- it is sure to fire up your motivation for persuing everything and anything that interests you while at the same time offering some reassurance for people such as myself who fear their memory might be weakening or for those recovering from brain injuries or struggling with learning disabilities or obsessive compulsive disorders.