Our professional role is to help our clients and their organizations succeed. Success is far more likely within a society that functions well. This book contributes to all three goals.

The mission of the book is to provide a means for people to retrain their brain so that people can better cope with the modern world, whereas evolution has shaped it to be overly well adapted to primitive times.

The human brain has an evolutionary glitch that creates many of the problems humans face today. Perhaps most important, this glitch can be manipulated by conflict entrepreneurs. Many politicians and many in the media, engender toxic divisiveness, by stoking fear and anger. in order to gain votes and headlines. They do so by falsely appealing to the amygdala.

The amygdala was shaped through evolution by 50,000 generations of our forebearers. For them, living in dangerous times, the amygdala was a life saver. Today, this primitive part of the brain often causes trouble as it misreads situations and people as threats when they are not. Because of this glitch, talented conflict entrepreneurs can manipulate large groups of people into believing that they live in a time of scarcity when we actually live in the most abundant time in human history. Scarcity thinking breeds fear and anger.

A Little Book shows readers how to move their responses from the primitive amygdala to the sophisticated prefrontal cortex. That part of our brain integrates logic and emotion, and as such is the seat of Emotional Intelligence (EQ). The book then helps readers apply this knowledge to build success in their personal lives, their work lives, and to contribute to the success of our society.

Written for the lay public, coaches and consultants will find it a useful book to provide to their clients.

Because of it’s potential to build the skills of peace, it has been nominated for the Dayton Peace Prize Literary Award.