One of my greatest fears is contracting Alzheimer's disease or some other form of dementia. As far as I know, I have no particular risk factors to warrant being any more afraid of this disease than high blood pressure or cancer, yet the thought of slowly losing my ability to do my work, to enjoy my family, in the end, the complete loss of self, is absolutely terrifying to me. And I suspect that many of you reading this can relate to those fears. That's why I'm urging all of you to dance - and maybe save our lives in the process.

Every October 31, while many in the U.S. are celebrating Halloween, I'm celebrating my personal Independence Day. On that day, I turned in my badge and keys and left my corporate training job to start Learningtogo, 11 years ago. I didn't know where my first clients would come from but somehow I had the confidence to go out on my own and I've never regretted it, not even for a minute. As my business grew, I kept learning and I'm still learning.

by Steve Haskin

Why I like it
This simple, easy-to-follow book takes the mystery out of video planning and production for eLearning. Brain Matters 2015 speaker Steve Haskin shares his tips and his creative ideas in an accessible format that made it easy for me to follow and implement. I've paid much more and learned much less. Every page has something valuable on it for the learning professional. If you want to start using video in your training and education programs but aren't quite sure how to begin, this is the one book you need to buy.

In order to build a smarter organization you need to start with smarter brains. The pace of change today demands that your team become nimble, ready to respond to new threats and capitalize on new opportunities with utmost speed and mental agility. However, the human brain evolved over centuries to keep us alive, so it is still responding to our current work environment as though we are hunting for food - and trying to avoid being hunted - on a daily basis. Within this framework we can train the brain to learn new skills, process information in new ways and develop a mindset that is open to new possibilities. We have only recently begun to understand the inner workings of the brain, thanks to neuroscience. Sadly, most of what is written on the subject is either too theoretical to be practical or so over-hyped as to be meaningless.