The biggest challenge I have with my students is to somehow affect your limbic brain so that I can somehow get access to your prefrontal cortex. I realize I sound like Data or Spock from Star Trek. The limbic system includes parts of the brain that is responsible for emotions such as fear and long-term memory. When individuals talk about emotional subjects which unfortunately includes politics, money, a spouse, their children or anything else that an individual holds dear, evidence has shown that the emotional parts of our brain become quite active and not the prefrontal cortex. Drew Weston of Emory University wrote a groundbreaking book called The Political Brain. His studies showed that when Republican and Democratic voters were shown contradictory statements by their chosen candidates, these voters would simply explain away these hypocritical statements. Also, more importantly, the amygdala area of their brains became quite active whereas the prefrontal cortex was basically dormant. As we all know emotions can be fun. It is why we go to the movies. It is why we go ride on the roller coaster, and it could be is why some of these political shows are so popular. It causes individuals to get into an emotional frenzy and ration and logic become almost impossible. As emotional as we are when it comes to politics, we are certainly much more emotional when it comes to our own behavior and motivations. But fear not, nothing in this book is going to suggest that you must change. It may be that you do not need to change at all. I have met several individuals in my life who are perfectly happy and lead productive lives. If you are one of these people, this book will still be valuable for this reason: Michael Jordan continued to practice basketball at the height of his athletic powers. He also insisted that Phil Jackson must be his coach. Franks Sinatra in the last years of his career stated that he still rehearsed. Believe it or not, in order for us to not change or not get worse, we must continue to work on ourselves. And as we get older, find new ways to maintain the status quo. Some of you will discover that you do want to improve in certain areas, some of you will discover you want to maintain where you are now, and others of you will not finish this book because the questions and exercises will be to challenging.

So, as a man of psychology, how can I make you feel like continuing? Well let me begin by telling you to be skeptical. There are many individuals including Tom Cruise who have been quite critical of the field of psychology, and believe it or not, they have a point. There are museums dedicated to showing some of the horrors of psychology and the abusive tactics of the history of the science. I will say for the record that I have worked with and met hundreds of psychologists and psychiatrists and many of them I would not let wash my car let alone give me advice. It is not because some of these individuals are not intelligent. Many of them are. However, psychology has suffered from a great deal of philosophy and a huge lack of science. When Freud was theorizing on the human condition and arguing about the overwhelming power of sexual motivation, he was not living during the time that brain scans or the latest scientific