Tag Archives: Intelligence

How to Keep The Party Going

Turn On Your Natural Learner

I do a lot of walking early in the morning.

Especially when it’s still dark.

It’s a great time to think, and let my mind wander.

Especially when it’s clear and all the stars are out.

You see a lot of strange folks in the morning.

Some out walking their dogs. Some on bikes delivering newspapers. Some people staggering home from the bars.

(Where I live some of the bars stay open past 2 AM).

The bar people are usually pretty obvious. From a ways away. They know the night’s over, but they’re trying to keep the party going.

Walking slowly to the area of town where all the taxis are. Keeping up their “energy.” Not wanting to break up the group, usually a mix of guys and girls who, for some reason, haven’t managed to close one another. Or didn’t want to.

The dog people are also interesting. Some clearly look like they’d rather be sleeping.

Others look like they enjoy it. The dog is not a burden, it’s an excuse to get out of the house.

It’s not a chore, it’s a companion. It doesn’t limit them, by tying them down to a dependent animal, it frees them.

Many things can easily be thought of “good” or “bad” depending on what you do with them.

Or how you think about them.

Take our brains, for example.

They are pretty good at coming up with reasons why we SHOULDN’T do things.

In fact, talking ourselves out of good ideas is something that everybody is an expert at.

That voice in your head just keeps yammering, and won’t shut up.

However, that voice can be your best friend, or your biggest enemy.

Since it’s YOUR voice, you get to choose.

Now, if it’s been talking smack your whole life, it’s going to take a while to change it.

But just imagine if that voice was ALWAYS giving you POSITIVE advice. Always encouraging you. Always telling you that you could do anything you wanted.

How would your life look?

The thing about our brains is we think they are not programmable. That they are the way they are.

This is why many people, including scientists, believe things like “intelligence” is fixed. That you can’t change it.

Or something like “learning.” That once you get past childhood, it’s difficult to learn.

But this is missing out on a LOT of variables.

Like if you were an adult, and your ONLY job was to learn, and EVERYTHING ELSE was taken care of (just like it was when you were a kid) do you think you’d be able to learn?

Of course you could!

In fact, for most people, that would be a dream come true!

The truth is that YOU have a lot more skills that you think.

You just need to “learn” how to “use” your brain more effectively.

Get Started:

Intelligence Accelerator

Think Outside The Box

Think Outside Your Head

I saw this funny video the other day.

The kind where you want to use as few brain cells as possible.

It was this dog, who had this box. The way he was holding the box, was all he could see was the inside of the box.

So he kept walking around in circles, bumping into things.

Because he was a dog, and not an astrophysicist, he didn’t think to put the box down, take a look around, and then choose another strategy.

There are lots of videos like that. Cats, dogs, all acting goofy.

But we humans, who often times fancy ourselves as superheroes of logic and scientific thinking, don’t often do much better.

Sure, we convince ourselves that we’re giving it our best shot, but most of the time, we’re like that poor dog.

Crashing into things, but we just back up a bit, and then crash into them again.

Naturally, it can be tough to tell if you’re really doing the same thing or not.

Because humans, we’re doing things a little bit more complicated than walking with a box in our mouths.

We’re interacting with other humans, or other complicated systems.

And as the saying goes, “you can’t step in the same river twice,” every time we interact with the system, even if we ARE blinding doing the same thing over and over, the SYSTEM is changing, so it actually is possible to get a different result.

In the short term, this is pretty good. Just back up, try again and keep going until you get it right.

But every time you succeed with this strategy, it actually reinforces the idea of doing the same thing over and over.

Short term, pretty good. Long term, not so good.

A lot of times it’s better to simply try something different. Sometimes a little different, sometimes a LOT different.

This can be frustrating. Because once you change something, you’ll feel a little uncomfortable.

And when you feel uncomfortable, you’ll be much more sensitive to things that “seem” like failure, but are really feedback.

Or you’ll more likely to “interpret” feedback AS failure, rather than feedback.

One way make this a LOT easier is to simply expand your thinking.

Learn to think in different ways, so you’ll see things differently.

Then taking different action will seem a lot easier.

Kind of like discovering a new route to work that’s quicker and easier.

You aren’t driving around blindly hoping to find a new way, you’re using your enhanced thinking skills to FIND a new way so you don’t have to stumble around.

The more you work on your mental skills, the easier it will be to “try on” different behavioral skills, you’ll be able to get a lot more cool stuff.

(Or meet more people or make more money or whatever you want.)

Learn How:
Intelligence Accelerator

Peanut Butter Chocolate Love

The Danger Of Safety

When I was a kid one of my favorite commercials was for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

If you’ve never eaten them, it’s chocolate with peanut butter inside.

The commercial has two people, a guy and a girl, walking down two sidewalks.

The girl is eating chocolate as she walks.

The guy is eating peanut butter. From the jar. As he’s walking down the street.

Seriously.

Then they both come around the corner, and crash into each other.

You got chocolate in my peanut butter!

You got peanut butter in my chocolate!

BOOM! A new candy was discovered.

Funny commercial, but many inventions and discoveries are created this way.

You’re trying something, you make a mistake, but then you learn something new that you NEVER would have thought of before.

Maybe you make a wrong turn, go into a strange neighborhood, go into a 7-11 to get a slurpee, and meet your dream lover.

All kinds of inventions, simple ones, that we take for granted, were invented by accident.

During the space race to the moon, all kinds of things were invented, because there was a NEED that wasn’t there before.

One of the drawbacks of having a conscious mind is that we think we need to plan and predict everything.

If we don’t know all the steps, we’re afraid to move forward.

Sure, it’s good to look before you leap, but you’ve still got to leap!

The saying isn’t “look before you take safe baby steps!”

Your brain is an incredible tool. Once you’re moving forward, UNSURE of what’s going on, that’s when your brain starts humming.

Like a chainsaw running at HIGH RPMs. That’s when your most efficient.

Not when you’re carefully moving forward and making ultra sure that everything works out according to plan.

Think of all the people that moved from the East Coast to the West Coast during the California gold rush.

Think they would have made the trip if they KNEW exactly what was going to happen?

The entire planet was populated by people who just kept moving forward, UNSURE of what they were going to find over the next hill.

Only that they’d figure it out when they got there.

Imagine if humans NEVER developed that ability!

We’d still be chasing after zebras for dinner!

Luckily, your brain is ALREADY pre-wired for you to be an explorer. An adventurer. A discoverer of new ideas and inventions.

Fire up your most valuable asset, and get out there!

Learn More:

Intelligence Accelerator