Wired for Thought

CHAPTER 10

The New Rules of the Brain, Business, and Beyond

HOW MUCH OF YOUR brain do you actually use? Most people say 10 percent—that’s the popular answer.¹

In a recent study, even college psychology students thought that we use only 10 percent of our brains.² Perhaps they had read William James, the venerable psychologist who said about the brain that “we are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.”³ Or maybe they read that Albert Einstein and Margaret Mead held similar views.⁴ Maybe they read the preface to Dale Carnegie’s 1936 book How to Win Friends and Influence People, in which famed explorer Lowell Thomas stated, “Professor William James of Harvard used to say that the average person develops only ...