LIT by Jeff Karp

LIT: LIFE IGNITION TOOLS by Jeff Karp takes a look at how to “Use Nature's Playbook to Energize Your Brain, Spark Ideas, and Ignite Action.” Karp is a biomedical engineering professor at Harvard Medical School and MIT, an innovator and serial entrepreneur.  He obviously is a person with high energy and interest in pursuing new ideas and different ways of thinking. Some of the skills he stresses include “flip the switch,” “live for the questions,” and “get bothered.”  He quotes any number of experts like Temple Grandin or Sir Ken Robinson, and encourages readers to “be an active opportunist,” “get hooked on movement,” and “fall in love with practice.” Karp’s publishers say that LIT: LIFE IGNITION TOOLS “takes us off autopilot and helps us stay alert, present, and fully engaged in our lives.” For many readers Karp’s strategies and suggestions will not be intuitive and more specific action steps could have been helpful. This seems like a hard text to tackle and digest alone, but a group working together over an extended time could definitely have an impact on each other. Detailed notes and excellent references comprise roughly ten percent of the text – the bibliography is a fantastic reading list.