The why of everything by E. Tjon Fo and M. Bos

My humble review of this amazing book and why you must read it.

Basic principles
Pros
Cons
Conclusion

When I was reading this book a few things struck a chord with me besides the excellent content. I've been reading English literature and management books for almost 20 years and even though I am not a native speaker I consider my knowledge of the English language quite sufficient to be able to review this book. Since this is my first review I do hope you understand any flaws in my use of language.

The Why of everything (- Eddie Tjon Fo - Marcel Bos) deals with an interesting topic of how our brains deal with complex problems, everyday decisions and general intelligence. It was very enlightening to me learning more about brain functions and how this relates to behavior, decision making, feeling, beliefs and opinion. It seems that we still have a great deal to learn about our brain and this book is a great effort in making complicated brain related research easy to understand while at the same time bridging this updated information with our everyday performance. Especially the clear concept of our subconscious and conscious mind was such an eye opener. It made me want to understand more and apply this new knowledge in my life and that of those dear to me. In this review I will try to point out the basic principles pros and cons and come to a conclusion of my experience in reading this book.

Basic Principles.

To not go too deep into the complexity of the book I will keep my summary about the content as compact as possible. The basic principles of the book can be summed up as follows:
The brain consists of roughly two processing departments. The conscious intelligent (neo)-cortex and the subconscious limbic system and reptilian brain. The oldest and most dominant being the subconscious department. The subconscious part of the brain has not evolved much since the early evolution of homo sapiens. It is a non-intelligent brain not capable of distinguishing fact from fiction nor truth from lie. We can roughly state it regulates and automates three things:

Regulating vital body functions like heart rate, breathing, five senses and temperature.
Automating processes by use of a simple archive system.
Using this archive system to apply it’s primary function: at all cost keeping itself alive.

So far it seems quite straightforward however it becomes tricky when we realise that science has proved that roughly 85% of all our daily decisions are made by this primitive non-intelligent part of the brain. And when we understand that it’s triggers are predominantly fear based to be able to look for, recognize and judge if a situation is dangerous or not. Because most of the processes have to run at extremely high speeds to be able to judge whether a situation spells danger for the subconscious brain’s existence most of the time during the day a lot of information is being filtered, distorted or even deleted before it reaches the conscious brain. The subconscious processes at speeds of 250ms while the conscious needs about 7s to make a decision. This means 85% of the time your primitive non-intelligent brain decides for you what your next action will be. Let’s look into the relations of the systems when working together.

To navigate in the world your senses deliver input to the brain which is processed in the archive system and automation routines. To preserve energy the brain likes to automate as much as it can so the intelligent part can stay dormant until a complex problem or unknown information needs to be processed. If you were to process all data you encounter daily you would go insane because your subconscious brain processes millions bits of information every second. If you would be aware of all those bits of data you would for instance hear every conversation of every person in your immediate surroundings while having to navigate through traffic and eating a sandwich. To structure and automate your subconscious brain builds routines which handle eating a sandwich and then filter the conversations for relevance or distort to fit the archive system or even delete data it thinks is not relevant. The way the subconscious does that is by activating an automated pipeline of triggers that can at each stage activate the creation of hormones which steer the bodily functions into action. The steps in the pipeline can be described as 1. Recognize 2. Acknowledge and accept 3. Conclude and trigger hormone production for action. Possible actions are: fight, flight or freeze.
The archive system is filled with data and programming from birth up to when we are 8 years old. During this period basic programs for things to fear, love and remember get input from parenting, school and other influencers. Unfortunately for the rest of your life this programming influences about 85% of all your actions. If we take into consideration that it is quite hard for an 8 year old to judge what is truth and what is not you can imagine how our archive system could be filled with the wrong information which then cause us to make ill-informed decisions which lead to actions that are severely flawed. Connect this to the data in point 1. To trigger action fight flight or freeze in 250ms the brain triggers the production of hormones. The most important ones being endorphin dopamine cortisol adrenaline serotonin and oxytocin. They all serve as important skills for survival and control different bodily functions. They are also triggered in different ways some more efficient than others and more useful in modern day life.
In the stone ages mankind had to process information daily for it’s basic survival. You either knew what is edible or die and had to remember which animal you could hunt for food and which would consider you a delicacy. In modern life we no longer have to fear for our lives on a daily basis but the brain still processes situations as being dangerous or not. Today our brain treats a difference of opinion, a loud noise or even a heavy workload as being dangerous and will act accordingly. Generally speaking we could say the very situation considered as dangerous triggers a stress reaction in the brain and body. It triggers the production of Cortisol. Cortisol tenses the muscles, raises the heart rate and opens your airways to let more oxygen in for the fight or flight reaction. When there is no imminent danger normally the cortisol production is dormant. In modern day life however we endure prolonged periods of stress and therefore produce way more cortisol than our body can break down. When we experience months and even years of stressful situations daily the cortisol levels start to destroy healthy cells in our body which the primitive brain considers non-vital at first. If levels remain consistent eventually even vital organs start to be affected and low-grade infections start forming. We literally kill ourselves from stress.

The conscious part of the brain is much younger and is mainly used to solve complex problems, process new information and learn new skills. It basically has the ability to continue learning until your last breathe. It loves to solve problems. In order to make rational decisions which are not fear based and therefore biased, we need to use the conscious part of our brain more effectively. This means suppressing the subconscious mind or bypass it. So to bypass the fear based system of our subconscious brain we need to communicate in an intelligent way to it. For example when faced with a question try to formulate your question in a way that is presents a problem which you add two solutions for. The non-intelligent will pass the information on to the neo-cortex to process thus it wants to make an intelligent decision before it acts. We can use this understanding to improve ourselves and those we interact with.The fear based system of the brain with it’s flawed archive system cannot help but act the way it was designed. When we realise this we can try to communicate to this part by questioning every situation we feel something. An example could be:Ask yourself in a situation: Is this decision, conviction, belief or opinion based on a feeling or a fact?

Eat for your brain not for your body.The brain consumes a lot of energy. Roughly 20% of all food and even more of your daily water consumption goes to the brain's hunger for calories. It needs the right calories and the right water to function properly. It does not like processed sugars, no drinks that expel water like coffee and black tea. Good things to eat and drink are vegetables, water (herbal tea may be considered water as well) and the right amount of fat. The brain needs cholesterol to function. It needs water to fire synapses and minerals to do maintenance and carry out repairs. The filtering process serves as part of the automation programs but it is flawed by the fact that it cannot distinguish between fiction or reality. If it exists in the brain it is considered real. This is why children cannot separate playing from reality. If you convince an 8 year old that santa claus exists it really believes he does. When you grow older and learn this to be untrue your are able to let go of the idea and release your emotion about it. However for less obvious beliefs this is not so easy to do so we often hold on to an idea that is not reality at all even though the brain makes you believe it is. This is how the fear based system works. It causes you to make irrational and often misinformed decisions that lead to undesired results in your life.

Take aways:
The brain uses an ancient archive system to make most of your decisions. All data processed daily is submitted to fit this archive system. Because the programming of that system starts early in life it can be fed with faulty input which results in flawed judgement and leads to actions prone to error. The good news is that the brain wants to evolve. It wants to become a better version of itself. But it can only do that when relevant and new information is fed to it. So learning new skills and acquiring knowledge is vital to become better. Communication from intelligent brain to intelligent brain is vital for alignment in behavior which improves performance which improves results.To bypass the fear-based system we need to access the intelligent part more deliberate and more often. This creates new routines which will improve the results of our actions.

Pros

The Why of everything answers questions about why we act the way we do and offers practical tools to improve upon our everyday performance. The clear explanations backed by scientific research show us how our brain functions how it fools us daily and how we can learn to navigate more efficiently through the daily processing of external and internal stimuli. It shows us that most of our decisions are made from an emotional perspective which is often lead by an information system that is outdated or downright untrue.

Cons

I have read the beta version of this book. It was a work in progress but at the time of this publication it will have been improved upon when the final version is published. However i do hope the authors improve the readability. Some of the sentences are constructed in a way that breaks the natural rhythm of the language distracting the reader away from the content. This can result in misunderstanding the valuable message that the content holds. I noticed several paragraphs that i had to reread a couple of times to get into the deeper understanding of some of these definitions and theories. As this book is written by two non-native english speakers it is understandable that errors in grammar and structure occur. For a large audience to embrace this body of work this will need to improve.

Conclusion:

We need to realize how our brains work in order for us to navigate more efficiently in the 21st century. This book provides the kind practical clarification and tools we need to learn new skills which help us become better humans. I feel we could use more books like this which form an intelligent research based self-development book that sits in a genre of it’s own. I salute the authors Eddie Tjon Fo and Marcel Bos for taking up the noble task of showing us this new understanding of the brain. Now we can all benefit from this new and relevant information and help our brain to be better. This book is a must read for everyone interested in self development but more importantly those who want to improve their performance in life, work, relationships and business.

Blesi,

Florider

I do not get a commission or any endorsement from the authors but I do find this book sincerely important for everyone miss out. Therefore click here to buy it immediately. You are worth it. Go. Evolve. NOW!