Category Archives: Brain

Build Your Brain Muscle

What do you see when you are walking down the street and you see guy with MASSIVE muscles?

One thing I like about science is it lets us predict things that USED to be left up to chance.

Imagine you were some hunter gatherer and you had no idea how to grow stuff.

You just knew that some plants grew over here, and others grew over there.

You didn’t know anything about seeds, or soil or water.

Then somebody decided to plant something and wait to see what would happen.

Probably took a while, which is why the agricultural revolution took so long to spread across the planet.

But once people started repeating the process, and doing it over and over, it became less mystical, and more scientific.

This seed in this dirt will yield this tree with this fruit.

Every. Single. Time.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying any kind of science or technology that is sufficiently above a certain society will be treated like magic.

And those early cavemen probably thought that growing an apple tree was some kind of voodoo.

Of course, now we know EXACTLY how it works. What kind of dirt you need, how much and how often to water, etc.

Meanwhile, back at that bodybuilder.

His muscles are JUST LIKE that apple tree. It’s not that some guys are born with muscles and some aren’t.

It’s just that some MAKE THE DECISION to go the gym, eat the right foods, get the right amount of sleep.

If you did the SAME workout that muscle guy did, you’d get the same results. Not the EXACT same results, but within the constraints of your own genetic makeup, your muscles WOULD get bigger.

This is not magic, this is science.

Same when you see a guy juggling on YouTube. You don’t think, “Wow, he must have some really good juggling genetics to be able to do that!”

Most people simply assume he or she spent a LOT of practicing.

If you spent an HOUR a day practicing to juggle, in six months you could impress people at EVERY PARTY you went to.

Unfortunately, a lot of people think this about intelligence. About creativity. About problem solving skills.

Luckily, they are SKILLS just like any other skill.

You can build your brain JUST AS EASILY as you can build your muscles.

Of course, it’s not magic. But neither is losing weight, or building muscles, or growing apple trees.

You do the RIGHT THINGS in the RIGHT ORDER and you WILL get the same results.

Learn How:

Intelligence Accelerator

Rearrange Your Brain

You Don’t Have To Keep The Default Settings

Some of the simplest things can have the greatest impact.

It’s easy to get into a rhythm. If you’ve ever gone on a diet or started an exercise program, you know what I mean.

Getting started is the hardest part. But once you’ve got enough momentum, it’s part of who you are.

Pretty soon the hour or so you spend at the gym is part of your daily routine.

But the first week or so, it sucks.

On the other hand, when you get stuck into some kind of negative loop, it can be hard to get out of.

Even if it’s so bad in and of itself, it can be deceptively defeating. If you spend an hour or two in front of the TV, that’s not exactly considered self destructive behavior.

But think of the time you could be spending on other things. What if you took one hour per night, and learned an instrument? After a year or two, you’d have a skill most people don’t.

Even if you mindlessly change channels during the commercials, you’re eating up valuable time. Imagine if you were to spend just the time during commercial breaks learning something, or reading something, or doing some kind of mental exercise, like Image Streaming.

Every hour of TV has about 20 minutes of commercials. If you did image streaming, for example, for 20 minutes a day, you’d increase your IQ by a point or two a week!

Of course, humans aren’t hard wired to always be on the lookout for increases in efficiency.

We aren’t robots!

But the secret is not to be a robot all the time. It’s to simply “take inventory” of how you spend you day. Maybe once every few months.

Once you build in the habit of spending ten minutes per hour of TV time doing something productive, then you can go back to automatic human behavior.

Only now, that automatic human behavior will be building up some skills or abilities, instead of just wasting time. (Or worse, having your brain programmed with more needless junk you don’t need to buy with money you don’t have!)

They say an unexamined life isn’t worth living. This doesn’t mean that you have to always be a super hyper meta thinker who’s questioning every single step through life.

Just take a look at your daily activities from time to time, and see where you can find room for improvement.

This is a great place to start:

Mind Persuasion

See Through The Noise

Don’t Be Blindsided

There’s a concept in investing called a “Black Swan.”

It basically means a completely unforeseen event that sets of a chain reaction.

A chain reaction that sends markets plummeting, and the economy reeling.

It’s also used to describe things that set off revolutions, or great wars. Like the assassination that allegedly started WWI.

One small, seemingly unrelated event that sets of a huge chain reaction that literally changes the world.

Of course, looking back in retrospect (as hindsight is ALWAYS 20-20) it seems pretty obvious. We usually ask, “Why didn’t they know what was happening?”

For example, during the financial crisis of 2008, nobody really knew what was happening at the time. But a few years later, it was pretty clear. So much that everybody asks, “What were they thinking?”

This doesn’t only apply to negative things.

They happen EXACTLY the same way with positive things.

Looking from the outside in, it seems that one “lucky” event made somebody rich, or led them to meet the right person at the right time.

An those who are struggling tend to look at those “lucky” people and say, “How come that never happens to me?”

But if you look closely, you’ll see that “lucky” people are living on the same planet as the rest of us.

Moving through the same world we are moving through. Meeting the same people we are meeting. Living within the same 24 hours every day that we are living through.

It’s just that they see things a little differently. They see opportunity where others see noise. They see people as potential answers to their prayers, rather than people to simply obstacles to not bump into.

They look at the world with curiosity, wonder and positive expectation, instead of worry and fear.

They say that luck is merely preparation meeting opportunity.

But when you “prepare” your mind, opportunity is suddenly EVERYWHERE.

And it’s waiting to meet you.

As the famous saying goes, when you see a fork in the road, take it.

Most people want to be told which path is better.

Most people want to be reassured they are doing the right thing.

Most people want to see somebody else go first, so they know it’s safe.

But most people rarely get lucky.

How about you?

When you see that fork in the road (which happens MANY times per day), do you take it?

Or do you hesitate?

Fortune favors the brave.

Simply shift your mind, and you’ll see opportunities.

Get Started:

Luck Activator

Have You Come Full Circle Yet?

Go Out There To Come In Here

Long time ago I used to work in this Research and Development lab.

We used a lot of very specific vendors for a life of very specific materials.

One day, we had this “problem” with one of these materials that we used almost every day.

Since it was a “biological” there could be any number of reasons. So I called the vendor, and asked him if he knew why this particular biological was behaving in a strange way.

He said he didn’t know, but some of his other customers had also complained about the same thing.

He told me not to worry, as he had his best expert working on the problem.

About an hour later, this “expert” called me to ask my opinion on why this particular biological would be behaving in this particularly strange way.

Apparently, he didn’t know I’d called the vendor, who called him, who then called me to find the answer the question that I’d originally asked.

Now, this is a funny story, but it happens quite a bit.

Not necessarily in a lab or work setting, but going on some long journey only to find out you’ve come back to the starting point.

Many movies and stories have this as their central theme.

One underlying “meaning” of this is that you’ve always had within you what you were looking for all along.

The solution isn’t “out there,” the solution is “in here.”

But many of these solutions can’t be found “in here” unless we make a point to go and look for them first, “out there.”

It’s as if we can’t see what’s inside us unless we force ourselves to go out into the world and face what we THINK are our demons.

But they’re really just a projection of what we have “in here.”

We all come into this world literally LOADED with genius.

But then through the process of growing up, that genius is dulled, covered up, shrunken, and hidden away.

For most of our lives, we don’t know we still have it.

But it’s there.

And our real power comes from understanding why it was hidden, and more specifically WHO hid it.

Maybe our higher selves knew what they were doing when WE hid our power. Maybe they knew that life would be too boring if we weren’t forced to go “out there” looking for it, only to discover that it’s been “in here” all along.

Are you ready to discover yours?

Here’s One Way:

Emotional Freedom

Whacking Moles and Killing Monsters

Chop Off All Heads At Once

There’s a game called “whack-a-mole” that’s used in plenty of metaphors.

The game has a flat surface with a bunch of holes, and this mole keeps popping out.

You “whack” him, and as soon as he gets smashed down into his hole, another mole pops up out of another hole.

It’s one of those mindless carnival games you play when you want to smash something and impress your friends.

It’s a useful metaphor because it accurately describes a lot of life situations, especially ones where problems keep coming up.

As soon as you solve one, another one pops up.

It would seem this “problem” of never-ending problems is pretty old. Ancient mythical creatures had many heads. If you chopped one off, it would simply grow another one.

In those stories, in order to kill the beast, you had to chop of all the heads at once, at the base.

A lot of our problems are really not the “main” problem.

Kind of like an old married couple fighting over the toothpaste cap, or the toilet seat.

Sure, that’s the “content” of the argument, but that’s not what it’s really about.

Sometimes we think we’re solving our problems, when we’re merely just whacking moles or chopping off one head at time.

This can be even more confusing when similar problems keep showing up. They’re different enough that we “think” they are separate issues, but deeper down, we suspect something else is going on.

Like if you keep dating the same type of person, keep running into the same money problems, or keep sitting next to the same type of goof on the bus.

Unless you deal with the deeper issues, you’re really just whacking moles.

How do you deal with the deeper issue?

The first step is to find out what it is. This takes some introspection, and it can take a lot of courage, but it’s well worth it.

All humans go through what may be called an “imprinting” stage as we grow up. We learn about the world based on our parents, and all the other adults.

Later on, we tend to “reproduce” that same environment around us, even if we don’t realize it.

Kids that grow up in abusive households, for example, tend to “reproduce” that abusive environment without knowing why or how.

It can certainly feel like we are doomed to repeat history, but luckily that’s not the case.

The good news is you can do some digging, and cut off those problems at the root.

Killing that monster once and for all, so he’ll leave you alone.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom

Are You Hoarding Tons Of Junk?

In The Dumpster!

When I was a kid, my mom would always yell at my dad for being such a packrat.

He’d had this irrational belief that he needed to save every box that came with every thing he bought, just in case.

In the garage were TONS of empty boxes, carefully stacked.

Once I moved from a place I’d been living at for a while, to a place across town. I’d decided I was going to use the opportunity to “streamline” all my possessions.

Leading up to it, I was kind of stressed. Even a little sad. After all, I’d had all kind of junk stored up (that I hadn’t really looked at in years).

But when I started pitching it all in the garbage, it felt really, really good.

Pretty soon I was asking myself, “Why the heck did I keep all this stuff?”

I’ve always been amazed at all the people who migrate (for good) to other countries. Especially the ones who do so in a hurry. They’ve got to quickly decide what to take, and what to leave.

Unless you are forced to do this, from either moving across town or moving across the world, it’s very EASY to store up junk.

They’ve got those TV shows about “hoarders” who have TONS of stuff in their houses. So much there’s only a few trails moving from the kitchen to the toilet to their bed.

There’s that one story of the two Buddhists who were walking down some country road. They came across this gorgeous girl, stranded on one side of the river. One of them picks her up and carries her across.

About an hour later, the other (younger) guy says, “We aren’t supposed to have any contact with women.”

To which the older guy says, “Wow. I put her down way back there but you’re still carrying her!”

All of us are carrying an ENORMOUS amount of junk.

Junk that keeps us from getting what we want, doing what we want, and being who we want.

And it seems like it might be scary or sad to get rid of it.

But once you start pitching it all in the dumpster, it’s pretty fun.

Try it, you’ll see:

Emotional Freedom

Have You Started To Build Your Life?

Dreams Walking In Broad Daylight

It’s always easier to go with the flow, than go against the flow.

If you are swimming, for example, swimming with the current is a lot easier than swimming against the current.

Often times beaches have “rip tides” which pull swimmers out to sea. The instinct is to swim back towards the beach, but this can get you killed.

Since you’re swimming against the tide, you’ll get pretty tired, and unless you swim on a regular basis, you won’t last long.

Instead, lifeguards say to swim parallel to the beach, until you are out of the “path” of the rip ride. Then you can swim much easier, even though you may be a bit further out.

When I was in college,we had to write three essays as part of this English class. Then we had to rewrite one of them, for our final grade.

Naturally, we would choose the best one, since that we’d already got a good start. This would make it much easier to get a good grade than if we tried to completely rewrite one that wasn’t so good.

Any time we do something that’s congruent with our nature, it’s easier than something that’s not.

What is in our nature? Being social. Interacting with others. Sleeping at night instead of during the day. Having urges to make more people. Having urges to make money or create wealth of some form.

Sure, there are exceptions. Some times we want to be alone, sleep all day, and stay away from the opposite sex.

But for most of our lives, we are striving to improve ourselves along these lines. We want better relationships. We want more income. We want more intimacy.

This is human nature. The human condition.

How you do that in your own life will be based on your own personality, likes and dislikes, history, beliefs, and about a kajillion other variables.

For most of human history, we never really had to think about this stuff. We just kind of did what was natural, and that was good enough.

But now we’ve got an incredible opportunity. To create things with much more specificity. Much more control. Much more creativity.

Every year there are more and more millionaires, some for the craziest reasons, some for pretty boring reasons.

But if you just kind “go with the flow,” it’s not likely to happen.

But when you choose it to happen, and plan it to happen, you can expect it to happen.

Because it will.

No matter what “it” is. Money. Relationships. A better career. Artistic expressions.

What will you create?

Learn How:

Goal Setting

The Ultimate Tool To Beat All Others

Maximize Your Brain

Last weekend I went out and my next door neighbor had this guy doing some work on his house.

He had all his tools out, leaning up against the house, his truck, pretty much everywhere.

I guess the guy was doing some kind of big renovation or something.

I saw this one tool that looked completely foreign. It was a combination of a couple of familiar tools, but as they were put together I couldn’t fathom what they were used for.

I couldn’t get my mind off that the rest of the day.

When you think of all the stuff you can do today, that you couldn’t do just a year or so ago, it’s actually pretty amazing.

Not just the things you can do, but the tools you can use. Humans use tools without even thinking about them. But pretty much any gadget that you can think of, any device that is used for any purpose is some kind of tool.

Most tools are simple in concept, but pretty complicated in design. Your car gets you from point A to point B, but if you had to explain every part in detail, most of us would come up pretty short.

This is kind of easy to understand, as all tools are really revisions of previous tools. Things that were added to give more functionality.

A car still gets us from point A to point B as its primary function, but the cars today are a kajillion times more complicated than the cars from the fifties.

And they tell us that within the next couple of years, we’ll have self driving cars in some U.S. cities.

But there’s one tool that is extremely complicated in function AND extremely complicated in design.

This tool is so complicated that it is continuously updating itself, year after year. Being able to do more things, learn more things, use more things.

This “tool,” of course is your brain. You. Your mind-body system that is capable of more.

No matter HOW MUCH you can do now, you can do more. No matter how much you know now, you can learn more. No matter how much you’ve already created, you can create more. (And if you come back and read that sentence ten years from now it’s still true.)

Remember the story of the two guys who had the tree chopping contest? They both started off chopping trees with their axes. One guy would stop every hour, for five minutes.

At first, this allowed his competition to get ahead. But after a few hours, the once-an-hour guy started to take the lead.

See, he stopped every hour not to rest, but to sharpen his axe. Keeping your tool in tip top shape is a sure way to blow away the competition.

Even if the competition is your present self vs. your future self.

How do you take care of your most valuable tool?

Here’s One Way:

Kundalini Activator