After getting my PhD in physics at Columbia and starting a company, then going back to get an MBA (also Columbia), I was fascinated at how effectively the exercises in leadership class worked. They pointed out how leadership was based in behavior and said "If you behave this way, people will respond that way. Doing so will make you a leader."
The exercises worked surprisingly well. I learned behavior that helped me lead my company better. People began deferring to me as a leader where they didn't before -- in regular life as well as business. My science background saw reproducibility and concluded there must be a useful theory beneath. My physics background wanted not just a theory, but a simple one too. But when I asked my teachers why it worked they just said "Don't ask. Just do it. It works." Business school is a vocational school, so that response made sense.
My scientific curiosity kept me going. I studied evolutionary psychology, positive psychology, cognitive behavioral therapy, and more. I also kept practicing what I learned in business and life as I continued running my business and starting others.
As an entrepreneur my goal was not to publish papers, despite my science background, but to make a useful theory -- useful to entrepreneurs and businesspeople like myself. Like I gather this book says, I found tons of low-level detail out there on neuroscience that, while fascinating, was so detailed and frontier it wasn't clear how to use it, nor how long before newer results changed our understanding of it, nor could anyone know enough of it to use it effectively. Not many neuroscientists make great leaders, nor do many psychologists or psychiatrists, despite knowing so much detail about the brain. Knowing about something is not the same as knowing how to use it.
Like the author of this book (quoting the review) "has a bone to pick with neuroscientists. They are discovering fascinating information, but their interpretations often go beyond what the data can really tell us. They often draw questionable conclusions from imaging studies that could have other explanations." I share his skepticism not of the scientific results, but of its utility to day-to-day life, especially in an entrepreneurial or leadership environment. My goal was to make the information useful to lead, to run a company, and in general to win friends and influence people.
Eventually I realized an effective model of the mind had to balance low-level detail with high-level breadth and ability to be communicated and understood. I think geeks like us tend to get caught up in fascinating detail, whereas when we interact with others, especially to start or run our companies or work in teams, we have to make the information useful in the moment.
My end result was two-fold: a model of the human emotional system and the core of a book putting it all together that also evolved into a seminar I give at business schools as well as the New York Academy of Sciences. On a personal level, I would say I've increased my emotional intelligence and self-awareness tremendously, two concepts I didn't understand and couldn't figure out how to increase before creating my model despite knowing their value to my life.
For anyone interested in how the mind works not to publish papers but to use it to lead, to start or run their company, to win friends and influence people, to live a better life, and to increase their self-awareness and emotional intelligence, I have a long series of blog posts that are an effective first draft of the core of that book on the model of our motivational and emotional system -- http://joshuaspodek.com/the-model-summary -- and how to use it -- http://joshuaspodek.com/method-step-by-step.
Sorry for the long post leading to a longer series of posts, but if you clicked this story, I suspect you have the same curiosity about making neuroscience useful in business and life and may find the material helpful.
EDIT: based on Luc's fair comment, I should note the material is not polished -- maybe alpha stage or earlier -- and some stuff on models in general very basic for this community. I've gotten positive feedback and no negative feedback (no doubt due in part to selection effects) from people who have made it all through. I'm in the process of making it into a single volume.