Introduction If you were to walk up to the skinniest, most malnourished man you could find and told him

that he was perfectly capable of picking up three hundred pounds, he would probably laugh at your face and say something like, I can hardly pickup my brief case, nonetheless three hundred pounds just look at me! However, with proper diet, training, and motivation that man could, in fact, pickup three hundred pounds in a matter of months. Why? Because we can change our bodies, our muscles can become stronger, and by changing our hobbies our body transforms in noticeable ways. If you walked up to a fat person and told them that they are perfectly capable of touching their toes and doing a back bend, they would also laugh at you. However, with proper training, motivation, and diet he would just like the skinny man change his body and be flexible enough to touch his toes and do a back bend. In our society, there is a thought process that assumes you're either born with a particular ability or you're not. The man who is skinny will say, I wasn't born strong and I have always been skinny. The man who is not flexible will say, I just wasn't born flexible, I have never been that way. Most people are born the same with the exception of major genetic mental or physical disparities, most people's body can be changed and transformed in any way we want if we so choose. Just as no one comes out of the womb with the ability to fly a plane, it takes work and training in order to obtain any skill or improvement in life. The funny thing is that, even though many people understand this on a level of getting stronger or more flexible with their body, changing habits and eating better to improve health, or learning skills and vocations for better paying jobs, we often entirely disregard the role our brain plays in this whole thing. It is something that we take for granted. Your brain is an organ and it is connected with the rest of your body as your body improves, your brain improves. However, your brain itself can be worked out and made stronger just like isolating a muscle group for a workout (working on abs one day, working on biceps the next, working on legs the next). You can work individually on your brain. Not only that, you can work on specific aspects of your brain, such as emotional maturity, memory, analytical thinking skills, and more. We have many jokes in our world, such as the absent-minded professor the guy fumbling around not remembering where he put his keys, what his pin number is, or why he walked into the kitchen for the third time. These are things we will just laugh at and shrug off as our propensity to just be forgetful. As people age, they simply accept the thought process that their brain will decline along with their body and that they will start losing their memory and cognitive abilities. However, there are 65 year olds who are more active and healthy than 25 year olds, so obviously you don't need to sacrifice too much physically if you take care of yourself as a lifestyle. The same thing is absolutely true for the mind keeping your mind active well into old age will ensure it remains intact and functioning at optimum capacity. We don't need to accept these losses, and as you'll discover throughout this book, the more you work out your brain, the longer you live and the longer you keep your wits about you. Understanding the processes your brain goes through in order to make decisions helps you learn how to control that process. By understanding the ways in which your brain learns and holds onto memories, you can then exploit the process to remember more with less effort.

Think of this book as a gym workout routine for your noggin. If you stick with it, and stay motivated, you will start to see results. If you practice infrequently and get frustrated that you're not instantly seeing results, then nothing will change. Being a genius and having control over your mind does not mean being a rocket scientist or a brilliant mathematician. As you will also find out throughout this book everyone can be a genius in their own way. There are many kinds of ways to be intelligent and everyone learns differently and wants different things. By maximizing your brain and taking control of your mind, you are simply ensuring that whatever it is that you do, you're doing it to your highest capacity. Now, let's find out what kind of genius you are.

CHAPTER 1: MEET YOUR BRAIN

The brain is like a computer. We only use ten percent of our brain. We have a left and a right brain, and you are either right-brained or left-brained. IQ is an accurate measurement of your intelligence, the higher your IQ, the smarter you are. The brain stops growing and learning after a certain age, and after a while you cease the ability to learn new things. The older you get, the less brain cells you have. The brain is separate from the body. If you're like most people, you probably believe at least one or two of the above-stated misconceptions about the brain. The fact of the matter is that all of the above is completely untrue. This demonstrates how little the general population actually knows about the brain and how it works. Of course, it's not completely your fault, some of the statements above have been circulated for years among the scientific community. It has only been in the last ten years or so that scientists have been able to find more out about the brain due to better technology such as the MRI machine. In just the last ten years, almost all of the preconceived notions and popularly accepted studies on the brain have been systematically squashed, and we've learned new, staggering facts about the brain that have shown us what little we actually know about this extraordinary, versatile, ever-expanding organ. Because of all of these misconception, hearsay, rumors, and gossip regarding the brain, don't you think it's time you meet the real brain? The brain behind the legend, the one stuck up there in your skull shrouded in mystery, the one allowing you to even read this text right now and translate it into something you uniquely understand. Because, the only way you're going to be able to get the most out of your brain is to understand how it works and what it likes. Let's get started, shall we? 1) You have at least three brains Your brain wants you to know that there are a lot of sides to it that it's not just one gelatinous walnutlooking blob rattling around in your cranium. How could you be so insensitive to think so? There are actually three facets of your brain rattling around up there, and each sub-brain so to speak has a special function and purpose that make you uniquely human. The Reptilian Brain If you were to be bitten by a zombie tomorrow and reduced to a decaying, shuffling member of the undead with an insatiable need to consume living human flesh, one could say that you were operating solely on your reptilian brain. Believe or not, the reptilian part of your brain is closely related to the brains of crocodiles, snakes, and

lizards. It is also closely related to birds, so one could say this is your bird brain as well. It is located at the base of your skull, right at the top part of your spinal column and controls the baser functions of your humanity such as breathing, heart rate, and your instincts pretty much all you have left when you're a zombie. Even though this part of your brain is closely related to what we consider lower life forms, it plays a very important role in your survival, reactions, and decision making processes. For example, your reptilian brain governs your fight or flight response and other primitive instincts like territory. Have you ever felt angry or threatened when someone invades your space or gets too close to you and you have that, Back off! response? That's your lizard brain. Have you ever been faced with a situation of extreme fear and made a snap decision to either stand and fight (such as a bully back in school, or a perceived Big Foot looming near your camp site) or run away very very quickly? Again, this is your reptilian brain. These base instincts, such as feeling threatened on a subconscious level when someone moves closer to you, tell you things like this is yours and they are trying to take it away and invade your territory. Mammalian brain (The Limbic System) Your mammalian brain is associated with what we would consider more intelligent forms of life such as other mammals at this point, we're getting a little closer to what makes you a genuine human. This part of your brain is very emotional it's like an overly dramatic reality TV show going on 24/7. It also helps maintain the balance of your body by controlling things like hormones, thirst, hunger, sexuality, pleasure, metabolism, immune function, and important aspects of your long-term memory. This part of your brain looks kind of like a neat little collar that wraps around the brain stem.

If you've ever gotten angry at someone, not because of what they said, but simply how they said it, you can blame this part of your brain. The hypothalamus and amygdala that make up your mammalian brain control your emotional and goal-seeking behavior. It is why humans follow people or things that emotionally appeal to them rather than what is purely rational. It is why we gamble instead of save. It is why we will blindly follow a passionate, emotional speech regardless of whether or not it is logically correct or even factual. It is anything but logical it exists prior to our invention of logic or the other part of our brain that governs logic and overrides pure emotional thought processes, which we'll get into here in a minute. It's important to note also, that this part of your brain controls your health this demonstrates that your emotional state is intrinsically linked to your overall health both mentally and physically. Your emotional state can mean the difference between a healthy or unhealthy immune system, a good ability to hold information and devote it to memory. For example, when something involves strong emotions, it is more easily remembered. It's the reason why you can remember your first kiss in detail or where you were on September 11th, 2001, but you have no idea where your keys are or why you walked into the kitchen. This part of your brain is also a hedonistic pleasure-seeker. It enjoys role playing, collaboration, and it absolutely loves games, which demonstrates how important group exercises and game-playing are to the learning process. Because this part of the brain wants to stay positive and happy, it means that a good emotional state when learning will improve your memory and overall learning capabilities it says That was fun! Let's do it again rather than

Do I really have to sit here in a room with zero stimulation and crunch numbers? Lame. The reason your mammalian brain is so obsessed with emotion and stimulation as it relates to your long-term memory is simple it makes sense on an evolutionary scale. If a gigantic bear is rushing at you with every intent to tear you limb-from-limb, you will remember it the rest of your life so, in case that situation happens again, you don't need to think twice about it, you will simply react with what saved you before. The same is true for happiness, which releases endorphins into your system and makes you feel good this positive emotional state is beneficial for your overall health and state of mind, which means that recognizing such positive actions in the future are beneficial. The Thinking Brain (Neocortex) If your Reptilian Brain is all like, Dude, get out of my territory! and your Mammalian Brain is all like, I want some sex, and I want some candy, and I want to feel awesome all the time, and OH MY GOD that guy's speech made me cry, so I believe whatever he says then your Thinking Brain is like, Guys, chill first of all, the guy that is in your space poses no threat due to the fact that he is extending his hand in a gesture that you commonly associate with friendly and therefore your threat level should subside, and even though the speech from that man made you cry, have you considered the fact that he is on death row as a convicted murderer despite his passionate innocence speech? Okay good. Now go read a book or something.

Without your Neocortex you would be waffling around like an enraged and overly emotional cross between a crocodile and a whale. This part of your brain is what makes you uniquely human it is what makes you use logic and critical thinking skills to analyze situations rather than simply react to them. If you were to spread this part of your brain out flat, it would be about the size of a newspaper, but because your skull is so small, it is rolled up into waves and covers your other two brains like a blanket covering a messy teenager's bed. Without the Neocortex you wouldn't be certifiably human, nor would you be intelligent. In addition to making you a smarty pants, the Neocortex also handles seeing, hearing, creating, thinking, talking, and pretty much anything that makes you a higher intelligence. Without this part of your brain, your world would not be organized, experiences would not be stored neatly, speech would not be understood. You wouldn't be able to look at a painting or a sculpture or a poem or music piece and appreciate it for what it is a point of view, a perspective of reality, a critique on culture. The neocortex is divided into certain parts (your frontal lobes) which govern speech, hearing, vision, and touch this is where your sensory memories are stored. Unlike the rest of your brain, your pre-frontal lobes are the latest to develop, usually taking all the way until you reach your early teens. The frontal lobes are located just behind your forehead where you use judgment, plan for the future, and create higher processes of thought. Your frontal lobes work in tandem with your Mammalian Brain, so that you are using your emotions intelligently. For example, developing compassion, altruism, and a sense of justice and honor. This is where you discover things like the value of contributing to your family or extended community. This is where you begin to care, empathize, and sympathize with other people.

At this point, you and your brain are a small step closer to understanding each other, but there's a lot more to it than just its three layers there are also two halves. It's important to understand at this point that, although we as humans (using our brains of course) absolutely love to dissect things in order to categorize them, sometimes it's better to look at the bigger picture. Although there are essentially three types of brains rattling around in your head, none of them are actually separate from each other-- they all work together. For a long time, scientists thought that the right and left hemispheres of the brain were uniquely separate. This, as we know now, is untrue (as you will find out). The two halves have their own unique properties that work in tandem. We'll explore those now. 2) You have two halves of your brain You've probably heard the right-brain left-brain argument before. It's become something of a poppsychology go-to for bar conversations. You've no doubt been told on multiple occasions you must be right-brained whenever expressing a large amount of creative thought processes just to be told, on another occasion, that you're left brained when coldly analyzing a situation. So, which one are you? The fact is that you, me, and nearly everybody else in the world are both. The Right Brain This is where you process rhyme, rhythm, music, visual impressions, color, pictures, analogies, patterns, conceptual thought, intangible ideas such as beauty, love, and loyalty. People refer to you as right-brained if you do just about anything creative such as music, acting, poetry, and so on. To hear people talk about the right brain, it's easy to picture a whimsical young woman in a flowing dress gleefully prancing through an open meadow, singing at the top of her lungs and twirling in the sunshine.

The Left Brain The left brain governs language, mathematical processes, logical thoughts, sequences, and analysis. To hear people talk about this part of the brain, it's like picturing a bookish, nerdy accountant sitting in a dark room surrounded by papers, clad in coke-bottle glasses crunching numbers and sipping on an endless amount of coffee.

Here's the question, though. Does engaging in a mathematical thought process somehow disengage the creative part of your brain? The answer is no. Although there may be an inherent divide between the right and half brain as far as the purposes of both halves are concerned, the fact of the matter is that you cannot have one without the other, and they are not separate in anything. Although both hemispheres of your brain perform different functions, both sides of the brain are connected by a complex network of 300 million neurons that shuttle information back and forth between each other the academic and the creative. The brain is much too complex to simply cut it in half and categorize it neatly. 3) Ride the wave In addition to having, essentially, three brains present in one organ and two spheres, you also have four waves of the brain, which are as follows: Beta This is your conscious mind. The beta wave cycles between 13 and 25 per second. This

is probably where you are now reading this. You are alert, you are thinking and you are doing so analytically. This is what allows you to make the grocery list, decide what you're going to do throughout the day, and crunch numbers (how much in bills do you owe versus how much you're going to spend on groceries and so on). Alpha This is your relaxation state. Have you ever just zoned out, and looked out the window in a completely relaxed daydream state? This is when your brain waves shift to alpha stage. Your brain is cycling at 8 to 12 per second. This is when you're able to let your imagination soar it's a state of relaxed alertness. Often people reach this stage through exercises such as meditation. Theta This is that weird area when you're falling asleep, but you're still awake. This is essentially the early stages of sleep and your brain is cycling at 4 to 7 a minute. It's kind of like the Twighlight Zone. You are processing the day's information, and you may have sparks and flashes of inspiration. Delta This last brain wave cycles between 1 and 3 per second, it's when you're in deep sleep and you're not dreaming.

The times when you absorb the most information and learn at your best is both in the Alpha and Theta stages. This is not to say that you're going to be able to strap on some earphones and listen to Moby Dick while meditating just to retain all of the information, it's to say that, in a relaxed meditative state you are able to better concentrate when you're not thinking of all the things you have to do in a Beta wave state such as laundry, pick up the kids, and so on. So, what can we learn from all of this information, now that you've been better introduced to your brain? The fact of the matter is that you have a greater ability than you think you do. There is no cookie-cutter, cut-and-dry way to learn that makes one situation better than another. As Einstein once said, Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. You are not using 10% of your brain you're using all of it all the time. The only thing that separates you and a genius, is your ability to find your strong points and exploit them in your everyday life. This takes a certain level of control, dedication, and training, but all brains work fundamentally the same. They process information through a variety of senses, and by communicating with its various parts in tandem. Again, to quote Einstein, We only use 10 percent of our brains. The fact is that, even if you think you're not good at anything, you are using 100% of your brain all the time. However, most of us think we are limited in this sense we aren't, we were only conditioned that way. Once you understand all of the different parts of your brain and how they interact with each other as a single organism, you can make more informed decisions, control you subconscious, and make better choices.

CHAPTER 2: WE ARE BUT THE SUM OF OUR EXPERIENCES

Memory is a funny thing. Many people accept the thought process that memory fades with time. These same people think that you either have a great memory or you don't. That's about as absurd as assuming that one person is more flexible than another, as if flexibility is somehow attainable by some and

unattainable by others depending upon whether or not you're naturally that way. No matter who you are or what age you are, if you work on your flexibility, train your joints, and practice deep breathing techniques, you will be able to become more flexible. People that hold too much tension, breath rapidly, and are stressed out will not be able to become more flexible. However, the fact remains, that no matter who you are, where you are, or what age you are flexibility is still attainable just as weight loss, cardiovascular health, and muscle gains is. For some reason, many people do not apply this to their brain. Your brain is a muscle, and you either use it or you lose it. Many will accept the thought process that, when they get older, their brain will simply get worse their memory will slow down, they will have an increase of dementia or Alzheimers, and so on. However, that doesn't have to be a case. It's only been recently that scientists have learned that the brain is not stagnant. Saying, 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks' is a myth. The fact of the matter is that your brain is plastic. Of course, your brain is not made of plastic this means that your brain as neuroplasticity. The more you exercise it, the more neural connections are built up (pathways) throughout your brain, which causes long lasting functional changes in the brain. Basically, any time you learn something new, you are changing neural connections, you are engaging your brain's neuroplasticity. Previously, it was thought that the brain simply fizzled out at about the age 25 after that you simply couldn't learn as many new things. If you didn't have a great education, and cram a bunch of useful information and skills into your brain by the age of 25, it was going to be ten times harder to learn after that. It's true that, after you get older, it does get more difficult to learn because you're not as open as you were when you were a kid. For example, when you are a child, you can easily learn multiple languages by simply hearing them and absorbing them, as you get older this becomes more difficult, but this doesn't mean it's because your brain changed, it just means that your brain became conditioned to learn a certain way. So, it's not so much that old dogs can't learn new tricks, it's just that old habits die hard. And, that's really what brain plasticity is all about constantly learning new things and improving yourself, to ensure that your mind remains strong. The reason many people, as they get into their 50's and onward, start to experience memory problems and find it more and more difficult to learn new things, is simply because they adopted an unchanging routine and a sedentary lifestyle. Training your brain involves practice, diet, and exercise. Let's go through a couple of steps to improving your memory by realizing how the brain makes memories and what really makes your mind stronger in the long run. Step One Your Brain is NOT Separate From Your Body

People like to compartmentalize themselves on a constant basis. They will talk about their mental health, their physical health, their spiritual health, their financial health, as if these things are all separate. This simply isn't true. Statistically speaking, depressed people have terrible diets and do not exercise, for example. Herein lies the question is that person depressed because they have a mental disorder, or are they depressed because they lack a proper diet and exercise? There is literally no way to separate the two, it's a 50/50 situation.

There are those that will say that depression causes a lack of motivation, therefore the mental state trumps the ability to change eating habits and physical habits. This is true depression is a very real mental problem that is often times chemically based, it takes a lot of medication and therapy to help regulate states such as bipolar disorder. However, to treat only the mental symptoms and completely ignore the physical habits (which so many people do) is only addressing half the problem. Your brain is an organ, just like any other in your body. If you had a heart attack, the doctor would tell you it was due to your diet and sedentary lifestyle. If your liver experienced problems, your doctor would tell you it was due to alcohol, food, and lifestyle (the things you're putting into your body). The same goes for every other part of your body, but often the brain is not treated in this same fashion. Many professionals, when faced with mental complaints, deteriorating memory, and cognitive decline, will completely ignore diet, exercise, and mental practices. Let's look at all three of these facets and their impact on the brain. 1. Exercise Regular exercise (especially aerobic exercise such as running, circuit training, and other forms of cardio in which the body performs a variety of movements in a circuit fashion) dramatically improves memory and reduces cognitive decline. Back in the 1990s scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California discovered that exercise literally bulks up the brain. When mice were given access to running wheels, they produced many more cells in the area of the brain that controls memory creation than animals that didn't run. These animals performed better on memory tests than their sedentary counterparts. At the time, this study was rather groundbreaking and, since then, scientists have been working to understand exactly how exercise improves memory at a molecular level. This led to a human study that was published in The Journal of Aging Research, in which scientists at the University of British Columbia recruited dozens of women ages 70 to 80 who had mild cognitive impairment. Basically, their memory and thinking was more muddled than would be expected at a given age. The women were all put on various exercising routines a group was put on weight training, a group was put on aerobic exercise (walking and running) and a group was put on stretching/toning. At the start and the end of this exercise, the women completed a large amount of tests designed to study their verbal and spatial memory. Verbal memory is the ability to remember words. Spatial memory is the ability to remember where things were once placed. Both of these abilities tend to deteriorate with age, and this is of course exaggerated in people with mild cognitive impairment (a situation that has a higher risk of dementia and Alzheimer's). After six months, the women in the toning group scored worse on the memory tests than they had at the start of their study their impairment had grown. This group of women were the ones not doing any cardio or weight training exercise, but simply stretching. However, the women who had exercised by walking or weight training, performed better on almost all of the cognitive tests than they had before. However, it's important to note that there were some differences. Both exercise groups improved equally on all tests of spatial memory, but the women who had walked showed greater gains in verbal memory than women who had lifted weights.

Teresa Liu-Ambrose, an associate professor in the Brain Research Center at the University of British Columbia, says that for the most robust brain health, it's advisable to incorporate both aerobic and resistance training. This is important to understand, because many people trying to improve their memory will work on mental tricks (which we'll discuss later in this chapter) but completely ignore the fact that they are living a sedentary lifestyle. Because your brain is an organ and thrives off of oxygen, healthy cells, and clear blood flow, exercising increases all of these benefits. Not only that, but exercise CONSTANTLY builds new neural connections in your brain, which makes it easier to learn, remember, and think clearly across the board. By doing things such as martial arts, tennis, baseball, soccer, and other sports that incorporate both weight resistance and cardio with a the fundamental need to be more coordinated, you increase your cognitive functioning even further. So, plainly said, if you want to have a better memory, take control of your mind, and ensure that your brain stays healthy well into old age (which is entirely possible) you will exercise regularly and make it a part of your lifestyle. 2. Diet You saw this one coming. If there is one thing people don't like to talk about more than exercise, it's most definitely diet. As an increasingly globalized culture, it is becoming easier and easier to obtain a myriad of foods, but harder and harder to find any that are actually good for us. For as large as supermarkets really are, there may be about two or three shelves with food that actually should be consumed. In the United States, and increasingly across the world, obesity is becoming a huge epidemic paired with heart problems, high blood pressure, and more. Issues such as stress, depression, anxiety, lack of sleep, and general cognitive decline are all accentuated by a poor diet. To really understand the importance of diet in regard to the brain, you have to understand that it is essentially our diet that lead to our larger, more complex brain to begin with. If human beings hadn't had such a varied diet full of leafy greens, lean and fatty meats such as deer, reptiles, and especially seafood,which is rich in omega 3 fatty acids, we would not have grown such a large brain. Currently, our brains are actually shrinking due to too much sugar in the diet (carbohydrates) and our bodies are riddled from badly-sourced meat products filled with chemical feed and unnecessary enhancements. Simply put, your brain and body crave antioxidants, b-12, omega 3 fatty acids, certain vitamins, and complex nutrients. People nowadays find it very difficult to eat right due to a few factors, including the confusion surrounding what actually constitutes as a healthy diet, the perceived inconvenience of preparing healthy food, and the perceived cost of healthy food. The fact of the matter is that feeding your brain and body properly is very simple. It comes down to three things well-sourced meat, eggs, and dairy (if you're a vegetarian you want b-12 and protein supplements), leafy greens, small amounts of whole-grain and fruits. That's literally it those three things account for a well-balanced diet.

When you go to the grocery store, look for wild-caught fish (not farm raised), free range organic chicken, and free-range grass-fed beef or bison. Eat organic leafy greens such as spinach and kale. Mix in vegetables and nuts such as eggplant, tomato, cashews, sunflower seeds, almonds, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and so on (be diverse and add lots of color to your food). Don't go overboard with bread and fruits have a small serving of whole-grains and fruits such as berries, bananas, kiwi, and pineapple per day. This type of eating costs less, because it fills you up and keeps you fuller for longer. The diet is nutrient dense and low in calories, and it supplies your brain with the fatty acids and antioxidants it needs to have a long, full life devoid of Alzheimers, dementia, and alarming cognitive decline. However knowing what to eat isn't the hard part, it's understanding what not to eat, which should be the following soda, anything with high-fructose corn syrup (look closely, nearly everything has it), GMO (genetically modified organisms, this is also as common as high fructose cor syrup), processed and enriched foods (such as white bread), factory farm-raised meat, fast food, excess alcohol (1 to 3 units of alcohol per day are good, and actually beneficial for your body and mind), sugary foods, mixed-grains (7-grain, multigrain...etc) and so on. An even better option for buying the correct food is to find a local food co-op, farmer's market, or farm where you can buy locally-grown organic food direct from the source so it's fresh and better for you, it's also astoundingly cheaper (you don't have the middle man, distribution costs, and profit margins to take into account just the guy who grew the food). 3. Practice The final part of this equation is practice. This entails challenging your mind on a constant basis and not becoming stagnant. This is often the hardest thing for people to do. Even the person who is exercising regularly and eating right, does not want to spend the time doing mental jump-ropes, because challenging the mind in this way is simply inconvenient. Most of us, when we come home from work (or even a workout and healthy lunch) want nothing more than to veg out in front of the television or mindlessly surf the Internet as we check our social media profiles. In fact, as we got older in life, we often settle down into a comfortable routine we perform a job that we have been performing a long time, that rarely changes (even if it is challenging). For most people, this routine consists of waking, eating, working, relaxing, and sleeping. It is at this stage that our minds begin to stagnate because we cease to stimulate it through new learning and practice. It's actually incredibly simple to challenge your brain and it's not something you have to spend a load of time on either, doing something new and mentally challenging for 30 minutes to an hour a day is enough to keep your mind sharp. It also is an incredible way to build new neural connections and improve memory. Here are some suggestions: Use your left hand to eat a meal or throw a ball up against a wall for a while (or, if you are left handed, use your right hand) Learn to play chess, and play online or with friends consistently (this is really great for increasing spatial reasoning skills).

Begin learning a new language (invest in Pimsleur Approach or Rosetta Stone and practice every day, eventually getting to the point where you practice with a native speaker). Engage in mathematical games (there are lots of smart phone apps, iPad apps and games that use math problems in a fun way). Put together a puzzle. Begin drawing or painting either on your own, or with professional classes. Learn how to build something (even models work well) These practices take you out of your mental comfort zone, and stimulate your brain in a way that it is not used to. Every time you start doing something that is mentally out of the norm for your brain (essentially a mental exercise) you build new neural connections and strengthen your mind. You are taking advantage of your brain's neuroplasticity.

To recap, you need to combine exercise, proper diet, and mental training in order to get the most out of your memory. Making this a part of your life will ensure that your brain is strong well into old age, and that you retain your cognitive abilities and memory rather than degenerating into memory problems that so many elderly people today experience. Remember use it or lose it. Step Two There is No One Way to Remember

Remember how, in chapter one, we dispelled some common myths about the brain? One of those myths was that the IQ is an accurate way to measure intelligence. The way in which we are taught, and the way in which our intelligence is measured, is a huge cause of people's overall inability to remember things on a more optimal level. Essentially, IQ is based on linguistic and numerical knowledge. The higher a person scores on the IQ test, the smarter they are considered. However, this is an incredibly poor measurement of a person's overall intelligence or ability to memorize, because it supposes that all human beings learn things and memorize things predominantly using words and numbers, which simply isn't the case. If this type of intelligence measurement were correct, then people with the highest IQ's would be the employers of those with lower IQ's, but we often see this is not the case, why? Because intelligence in regard to words and numbers does not equate to intelligence in social situations, networking, marketing, and leadership four fundamental characteristics of success in business that are not measured by an IQ test. However, because measuring one's numerical and linguistic ability is more tangible than measuring one's artistic intelligence, the IQ test has become the standard for schools. These same schools teach using numerical and linguistic repetition using things like flash cards and verbal repetition to drive home the memory of facts, phrases, and equations. It's sad to say, but according to memory research and how the brain actually retains information, we're going about it all wrong. If you've always had a problem with memory, the good news is that you've most likely been taught incorrectly the most effective ways to remember something. First let's look at the ten types of intelligences and the five types of memory. Ten Types of Intelligences

The theory of multiple intelligences was layed out by Howard Garnder in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. They are as follows: 1. Musica/Rythmic This intelligence deals with people who are naturally sensitive to sounds, rhythms, tones, and music. People with high intelligence in this area typically have good pitch (even absolute pitch). They are able to sing, play musical instruments, and compose music. 2. Visual/Spacial Those with a high intelligence in this area are able to visualize with their mind's eye incredibly well. 3. Verbal Linguistic This is a large part of our current IQ testing system. People who fall into this category have a high verbal-linguistic intelligence and have a good way with words and languages. They are good at reading, writing, and telling stories as well as memorizing words and dates. 4. Logical/Mathematical This is the second aspect of the current IQ testing system. This area has to do with logic, abstractions, reasoning, numbers, and critical thinking. People more attune with this type of intelligence have a greater capacity to understand the principles of a variety of casual systems. 5. Bodily/Kinesthetic A lot of people wouldn't consider physical prowess a part of mental intelligence, but it most definitely is. As we've already discussed earlier in this chapter, physical exercise is an integral part of greater memory and cognitive ability. People who have a higher aptitude with this intelligence tend to have great control over their bodily motions and can handle objects skillfully. They have an acute sense of timing, a clear sense of the goal of a physical action, along with the ability to train responses. These types of people learn very well by involving muscular movement such as getting up and moving around throughout the learning experience. They are good at dancing, sports, acting, and making objects. 7. Interpersonal This area has to do with interaction with others. Essentially, people who have a higher interpersonal intelligence level are characterized by their sensitivity to others' moods, feelings, temperaments, and motivations, as well as their ability to work well in a group. According to Gardner in his book How Are Kids Smart: Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, Interpersonal intelligence is often misunderstood as being extroverted or liking other people. Basically, those with this type of intelligence communicate effectively and find it easy to empathize with others. 8. Intrapersonal These individuals are typically introspective and are commonly thought of as shy or introverted. These self-reflective individuals carry a deep understanding of self and what their personal strengths/weaknesses are. They are able to accurately predict their own reactions/emotions. 9. Naturalistic I bet you didn't think having a green thumb was a type of intelligence, but it most certainly is. This area has to do with nurturing and relating information to one's natural surroundings (just look at George Washington Carver, for example). This intelligence is able to classify natural forms such as animal and plant species and rocks and mountain types. This, of course, is clearly valuable to our ancestors who were hunters, gatherers, and farmers. It continues to play an important role with farmers, botanists, and chefs today.

10. Existential This pertains to spiritual or religious intelligence. Although it is not an official intelligence type, it is a possible addition. Gardner did not want to commit to a spiritual intelligence, but suggested existential may be a more useful construct. What this means for you, dear reader, is that your inability to multiply in your head does not make you less intelligent nor does someone's inability to play sports make them unintelligent. It means that we all have certain intelligence-based strengths and ways that we learn. The most important thing to take away from this is that you should always strive for a healthy balance between all ten of these intelligence types. Although you may not excel completely in all of them (more likely you will only excel largely in one or two types such as interpersonal and sports or verbal and mathematical) making sure that you are well rounded will help you with your memory, because as we are about to find out, creating a better memory and honing your abilities in this area is all about a combination of things. 5 Types of Memory

1. Working Your working memory is incredibly short-term, and usually lasts no more than a few seconds. It's why you usually have to write a list before going to the grocery store. Even though you need maybe three to five things, balancing them in your head is very difficult, and most people will forget within the minute. In a conversation, working memory would allow you to remember the beginning of a sentence, but only until the speaker came to the end of it. This type of memory also works incredibly well for multitasking for example talking on the phone, jotting down a list, and gesturing to someone hello. The average person will begin losing efficiency in working memory after the age of forty. 2. Implicit You've no doubt heard the saying, It's like riding a bike. This statement entails that riding a bike is something that you never forget once you've learned it, you've learned for life. The same thing goes for driving a car, swimming, and anything else entailing muscle memory. Implicit memory doesnt actually require any awareness on your behalf. For example, have you ever been on the phone with somebody while driving, just to arrive at your house and realize that you were never really paying attention to begin with? This is due to implicit memory there was no awareness required for you to drive a car on a route that you've taken a hundred times before. Implicit memory is stored in the cerebellum, and loss of this kind of memory would be due to serious mental deterioration. 3. Remote Have you ever met somebody who is just full of random facts dates, times, places. They're the worst people to play trivia games with, because they always win! They must have fantastic remote memory, which is blanketed around the cerebral cortex. This typically declines the older we get, but more on a retrieval basis. It's like a house that keeps having items added to it over time. Essentially, the homeowner has a general idea of where a particular item is, but recovering it becomes more and more difficult. 4. Episodic This is when your memories are presented like a TV episode or a story in a book. Often times you recall these types of memories by verbally saying things like, Then I got up and brushed my teeth, walked out the door, got into my car, and drove to a restaurant where I ordered nachos. The way we say this out loud, is also the way we remember it in our minds.

5. Semantic Do you know what the symbol of a cross means? Do you know what the word video game means? Your semantic memory deals in symbols and words typically these words and symbols directly spark a memory. Even words or symbols that you have not seen for many years, will be remembered with this type of memory in an instant. This is true for brand names, corporate trademarks, logos, and more. Now that you have a better understanding of what measures true intelligence, and the various types of memory functions your brain uses, the question is what is the most effective way to remember things, and really make them stick in your mind? Step Three Make Memories Stick In the first chapter we talked a little about the relation between your frontal lobes (Thinking Brain) and your Mammalian Brain (where all your emotions are stored) and how big emotional events in your life are always easier to remember because of this relation either traumatic events (such as a catastrophic event like 9/11) or positive events (such as your first kiss). Let's go deeper into some other things that create more lasting memories. Do you ever smell something and immediately remember a time, place, and corresponding emotion? It could be in the middle of the day, and nothing important could be happening whatsoever, and all of a sudden you get a whiff of someone having a BBQ in their backyard, and something about the smell whisks you back 20 years prior when you and your father were at a friend's house grilling out you can remember it vividly, and exactly how you felt at that time. The same is true for taste, touch, and sound. For example, people who haven't heard a song in years, can still remember all the words, where they were when they first heard it, and all the memories and emotions associated with that song even though it was years ago. Basically the best possible way to make memories stick in your mind is to combine them together with emotions senses such as taste, touch, smell, sight, and so on. Devoting a list to song, for example, will help you remember it for years. When you hear, see, say, and do something, you remember it better. There are two principles to make it easier for you to make memories stick and they are Imagination Association There is not always going to be sites, sounds, smells, or the ability to perform an action in order to devote something to memory. This is where your imagination comes into play. Basically, if you want to remember anything at all, you must associate it with a fixed item. The more absurd the imagery, the more likely you are to remember it. Look at the following list: Curtains Candles Dog

Banana Shoes Record player Bleach

Now, read the following story and really pay attention to it. Visualize everything in the story and see it in your head. A man walks out of his house with a lit candle balancing on his head riding a HUGE furry black dog. His shoes are bright pink. As he rides out to the street, the dog slips on a banana peel and they slide backward all the way into the house where they get tangled up in the curtains next to the window. The man and his dog are trying to get untangled from the curtains, and end up knocking over a blue record player that falls into a bucket of bleach. Now, after reading that story, and having visualized it (read it one more time if you need to) without looking back at the list, or the story, get out a piece of paper and write down every item you remember from the list. Chances are you will remember at least 4, 5, or more of the list items. This is because, due to linking a story and an absurd series of events, it was easier for you to remember. You combined various types of memory (such as episodic memory and working memory) to recount the story that was written. Think about it how easy is it for you to recall to a friend every step of last night's episode of your favorite TV show (including entire lines of dialogue, how sets looked, and a start-to-finish series of events), but you can't remember what you ate for breakfast this morning? By engaging in this linking exercise, you can easily memorize lists within a couple of minutes of looking at them, by merely stringing them together and linking them with an absurd story and imagery. You will always remember something crazy and absurd over something mundane and devoid of sensory stimulation. * The Roman House Technique That's just one way to make memories stick. Depending one of the ten intelligences you identify with more, various other techniques may work better. For example, take the Roman House technique. Back in ancient Rome (and the Greeks before them) there was a culture where memory and intelligence was incredibly highly valued. Even back then before all of our studies into the brain, the Romans instinctively knew that in order to make memories stick, a series of senses had to be stimulated at once. This is how the Greeks and the Romans after them were able to memorize entire oratories by heart and record them later. With the Roman House technique, you imagine first that you own a big empty space (your house). Now, you begin to fill your house up with certain objects (you can either imagine this, or write it down, or draw a detailed picture whatever helps you remember). You can fill your Roman House with anything that you want, just make sure that the room is filled with things that won't leave such as a coat rack next to the door once you walk in. A TV set, a book shelf, a couch with a coffee table in front of it. Now, let's say you have to remember the following things:

Get the oil changed Take clothes to the dry cleaner Go to the grocery store (pickup frozen pizza, orange juice, three cans of tuna) Pay electric bill

Now, with the furniture and appliances that you have already filled your Roman House with, you add features to them from your list. For example, right when you walk int the door you see the coat hanger just dripping with dirty laundry dirty, stinky laundry, it's disgusting. When you see the couch, it's stained black with oil. Out on the coffee table is a fresh, delicious looking pizza, a glass of ice cold orange juice, and three cans of tuna stacked up then the lights in the room go out and everything is dark. At this point, you don't have to write these things down, you simply change the environment you've already established in your Roman House. You do this first thing in the morning you walk through your Roman House looking at all of these things, imaging being there in the environment and how everything feels. Throughout the day, you start cleaning your Roman House. You take the dirty laundry off the coat hanger (this is when you go to the dry cleaners). You get your oil changed, and the oil stains disappear from the car. You pay your electric bill and the lights come on. You purchase the itmes from the grocery store and those items disappear from the coffee table. This is another way to quickly remember large amounts of information quickly and indefinitely. This is very similar to the linking exercise. Number Shape System

A great way to remember numbered list is to associate each number with the item on the list. Even though many objects may seemingly be difficult to associate with a number image, there are always way to tweak it in your mind. For example, look at the following list: 1. Baseball bat 2. Fishing hooks 3. Pie cutters 4. Spatula 5. Bicycle tires 6. Planting pots 7. Cherry pie 8. Reading glasses 9. Balloons 10. Clown mask That's kind of a weird list, and nothing seemingly fits together, which makes memorizing it a little more difficult. Your goal now, is to take each number on that list and create an image for it associated with the item. The number one looks like a baseball bat.

The number two looks like a fishing hook The number three looks like a pie cutter shape The number for looks like a spatula The number five looks like a bike wheel with handlebars at the top The number six looks like a pot with a sprout growing out of the top The number seven looks like a pie shape (fill in the other line to look like a triangle pie shape) The number eight looks like a pair of glasses The number nine looks like a balloon with a string attached The number ten looks like eyes with a big nose (the one is the eyes, the zero is the big red nose) Once you imagine each number as an actual picture of the item itself, you should be able to see the numbers one through ten in any order and instantly know what item is associated with it. Even if the list items seem like they couldn't possibly correspond with a number (for example the number one with an aquarium) you can always figure out a way. For example, with an aquarium, simply imagine a tall column aquarium with fish swimming around. Or, if in the example of, let's say, a globe and the number one, imagine the number one as an arrow pointing to an area on the globe. Step Four Your Skills Grow With Time and Experience

These are just a few of the exercises available. You can come up with your own system depending on your learning strengths. As long as you see, hear, experience, and forge some kind of emotional connection with anything, you will remember it better than simply trying to read it over and over again or repeat it out loud. We went over a lot of lists in this chapter, but these methods work with anything such as meeting new people. If you meet someone new and you want to remember their name, simply say their name out loud back to them after they introduce themselves and associate something with them a color or a sound for example. You can also use absurd imagery to remember them. For example, you can say Nice to meet you Susie and in your mind make Susie rhyme with Bluesy and imagine her in a fedora playing a jazz piano at a club. Of course, Susie never needs to know that you made such a comparison, but the rhyme and absurd imagery paired with the fact that you said the name out loud, will ensure greater memory. It doesn't matter where you are in age or how initially difficult these exercises may seem remember, your brain is plastic. The law of neuroplasticity says that through time, you WILL develop new neural connections that make these processes easier. This will dramatically increase your memory in everything, and your ability to use these techniques will become second nature. It's important to practice these things continually. For example, the next time you go grocery shopping, don't write down your list (of course you can have a backup, but only check it once you've filled your

cart and are ready to check out). You can also make this a fun game. You can get with a friend or family member and write down a list of 5 things. Then, time your friend for 30 seconds, flip the page over, and have them write down what they remember. As time goes on, the amount in the list increases (10 items and one minute to memorize, 15 items and 1 minute 15 seconds to memorize). Remember, your Mammalian Brain absolutely loves fun, games, and responds better to heightened emotional environments the fun of making this a game paired with the emotional enjoyment of being with a friend and the stress that comes with trying to beat the clock, all increase your memory and your memory abilities.

CHAPTER 3 IT'S ELEMENTARY MY DEAR

There is a constant battle going on in your brain regarding the decisions you make in everyday life. This battle is between your three brains, but with more intensity between your neocortix (frontal lobes) and your Mammalian Brain (emotional brain). Essentially, all human beings are not innately analytical thinkers, it's something that we do with great effort and will power, because no matter what decision you are faced with your first reaction will always be to react to it in an emotional way. It is when you are able to stop that thinking process, slow things down, and analyze a situation analytically, that you tell your emotional brain to hold off making assumptions until all the facts can be processed and a logical outcome determined. Thinking analytically means not jumping to conclusions right away. For example someone at a party doesn't talk to you, so you automatically think, They don't like me. This is an emotional response, not an analytical one. Instead, remember that you also didn't attempt to develop a conversation with them, as far as that other person is concerned, they may think YOU don't like THEM. This is a small example of analytical thinking. Without an analytical thought process literally none of our decisions would be rational. In fact, even with this analytical ability, very few of our decisions are rational. Take, for example, a statistics for New York City taxi drivers. Most Taxi Drivers in NYC set financial goals for themselves, once they reach that goal every day they can go home. The goal they set for themselves is usually up to them, along with the actual hours that they work. Studies found that the majority of taxi drivers will stop their day early if they make their quota quicker than usual. This typically means that it's a very good day for business they're busy and they're getting a lot of fares, which is the reason they're making their quota. However, these same taxi drivers will work double shifts and fight sleep deprivation when it's a slow day, just to make their quotas. This fact is inherently illogical and irrational, and shows how skewed the human thought process really is. Why would these taxi drivers not work a double shift on a busy, more profitable day and make double the money and take slow days off instead? Herein lies a fundamental aspect of the human thought process gain versus loss. Human beings will work exponentially harder when faced with the emotional thought process of loss, than they will for gain. The emotional connection the taxi drivers have to not lose out on their quota causes them to work twice as hard on an unprofitable day that it does for them to experience an almost guaranteed gain on a fast day. This type of emotional thinking paired with short-term views is the type of process most

people go through. Basically, it means people would rather work less hard even when they know they have something to gain, than they will when they think they have something to lose. You are less likely to work for some kind of bonus or extra. But, you will probably fight tooth and nail when something you have is in threat of being taken away. Take, for example, street experiments done with gain versus loss habits of humans. Street magicians often use this human thought process for their own gain. They will give someone, for example, $20 and tell them they can walk away with that money. Or, they can gamble with a game, and possibly win $50. Once they are told this, they are given $50, and then $30 is taken back, this provokes the thought process of loss in their mind, I had $50 and now I only have $20. Of course, the logical, most rational thing to do would be to walk away with the money, especially considering it took zero work or time to obtain. However, an overwhelming percentage of people choose to play the game, and end up losing it. The reason why, is because their short-sighted sense of loss overruled the rational gain they had just received. This same experiment was done while people's brains were being scanned. What was found is that everyone, no matter what, initially had an emotional response to the decisions they were given. However, the people that made rational decisions when faced with the odds during a gain/loss scenario, had stronger activity in their frontal lobes (neocortix or Thinking Brain). Essentially, everyone reacted to the situation emotionally first. However, only a few subjects stopped themselves, and willingly subjected the situation to an analytical thought process, which caused their frontal lobe activity to counteract their emotional Mammalian Brain and reactive Reptilian Brain. Analytical thinking basically means training your mind, through a variety of systematic approaches, not to jump to emotional decisions and to instead make informed decisions based on a variety of concrete information. This ability is also known as critical thinking skills. The ability and habit of using critical thinking skills to see the world around you (in cooperation with creative thinking skills of course) is of utmost importance for a healthy, learned, and progressive society as a whole. Without it we simply devolve, and that's a fact. Being a Critical Thinker Means Being a Detective

Perhaps one of the most famous analytical thinkers of our time is the fictional Sherlock-Holmes. Whether you know him from the many movies and TV series over the years, including Robert Downy Jr's role, or the books themselves, Sherlock-Holmes makes analytical cool and fun, which it is! Let's look at some of the things a detective does not do in order to be effective. Assumptions: The first job of a detective is to stray away from assumptions, because assumptions are decisions and beliefs that have a nonexistent logic base and can be backed up by absolutely nothing other than feelings (which does not equate to fact in any sense). Another important thing to understand in this context is that entire arguments that sound logical can be built off of nothing other than assumption. If the starting line (the assumption) is wrong, then the result will always be wrong as well as the thought process leading up to that result. In the book Accelerated Learning For The 21st Century: The Six-Step Plan to Unlock Your

Mastermind by Colin Rose and Malcom J. Nicholl, they cite an incredibly example of this. Let's suppose you see a man standing over a corpse with a smoking gun. You, and the entire neighborhood for that matter, know that he owed the dead man a log of money and was in love with the dead man's wife. For many people, who are letting their Mammalian brain allow them to immediately rush to an emotional-based assumption, the thought process behind this immediate thought process may sound logical. From the outset, all of the puzzle pieces seem to fit immediately together. However, as a critical thinker, it is always in every situation your job to stop, quell your emotional assumption, and examine the situation by following the steps we will outline later. Because, in this example, the man with the smoking gun could have actually snatched the gun away just a fraction of a second too late to prevent a suicide. Circular Logic Circular logic is something a lot of people use in order to sound right, they trap the person they're talking to in a circle they can't get out of. For example, Freud declared that every basic motive in life was essentially sexual. However, if you were to argue with Freud about this thought process, his reasoning would be that you are a victim of suppressed sexuality. This allows the person employing circular logic to always be right, despite whether or not they actually are. Getting trapped in circular logic is a big problem that no detective or analytical thinker should get themselves trapped in. There are always two sides, and any analytical thinker must immediately forgo his/her initial reaction to understand the opposing view

When you are told a piece of information or if you hear a moving speech or a testimonial or anything you WILL always have an initial emotional reaction to it and you will always immediately make an assumption-based thought about that situation. However, in order to be an effective critical thinker, your job is to immediately suspend that thought and ask yourself the following questions: 1. Is there any evidence to support my initial opinion? If there is any evidence, is it good evidence? Furthermore, is that evidence based on fact, belief, or other people's opinions? What brought me to believe this opinion, and what are my reasons of believing it (does it agree with my initial upbringing or societal prejudice/bias toward the situation). What percentage of certainty do I have that this is, indeed, true? 2. What arguments would an opponent of my opinion employ against me? Assuming I believe what my opponent believes, can I see any validity in their point of view, and if so, what is it and does it counteract my initial viewpoint? What if my starting assumption is incorrect, how would my opponent take advantage of this? 3. Once you have answered the above questions, your goal is to now more carefully asses the situation with your new information and new perspectives from anew. It will always produce a final decision. This is when you use structured analysis. How to accurately define a problem

Quite simply put, the only way to truly diagnose a problem, so that your ensuing Sherlock-Holmes-

esque detective work of using critical thinking and deduction will actual yield the correct result, is to ask a BUNCH of questions and simply keep asking. It's like climbing a tree from the opposite direction (from the top down). Initially, from the top of the tree, there are many branches. Your job is to keep climbing down until you get to the bottom and discover the root. As told by Doug Jones in his book High Performance Teamwork published by Nightingale Conant, it typically takes five whys before the root of a problem is solved. He illustrates this thought process by citing an example of a foundry that makes iron and steel parts. This foundry started experience a problem with a high scrap rate. They decided to ask the line workers why this was the case. The answer they received was, The tracks are worn, so the molds don't fit correctly. That results in bubbles and rough edges (scrap). The answer made sense, so the higher-ups spent $100,000 on new tracks, but nothing improved. They decided to go back and ask the line workers why, only this time they asked much more than a single question: 1. Why are we getting scrap? Because the metal is not hot enough 2. Why is the metal not hot enough? Because the glow rods are burned out 3. Why are the glow rods burned out? Because there is metal spilled on them. 4. Why is there metal spilled on them? Because the cleaning crew spills metal on them. 5. (To the cleaning crew) Why do you spill metal on the glow rods? We were not aware we were spilling it and we didn't realize it was significant if we did. Besides, we are competing with the first-shift crew to see who can clean the most furnaces. There's a bonus on it. In this case, a line of situations and people who were seemingly unconnected from the problem solved the problem, a problem that would not have been figured out had the staff not continued simply asking why. The owners ended up cross-training the cleaning crews with the line crews so each person understood how their job affected each other (and the whole). They also began rewarding the quality of cleaning rather than the speed in which something was cleaned. This cut the usage of glow rods down from twenty a week to one a week. Each rod costs $100, which saved $100,000 a year and cut scrap rates down from 10% to 2% an over $500,000 a year savings. Critical thinking is a mental chess game, the victorious result of which is emotionally satisfying

People who are highly analytical are often thought of as cold fish heartless number-crunching, emotionless, beady-eyed buzzkills. That couldn't be further from the truth, there are few greater joys than coming out on top due to your ability to handle yourself mentally. By working on your critical thinking abilities you already have a gigantic advantage over your peers,

and the rest of humanity for that matter. This is because most people do not recognize how to think critically and will always (always) respond to information emotionally, base their opinions on their emotions, and handle themselves emotionally when defending these irrational, illogical thought processes, opinions, and beliefs. The thing is, you will always react exactly the same way, the difference is your ability to control your brain, by training your logical Thinking Brain to counteract and work more effectively with your emotional brain, to create an intuitive, analytical thought process that correctly combines the creative emotional brain with the logical thinking brain. This is true mastery of the mind. You ability to handle situations and information in this manner will provide you with a huge degree of control over situations. It allows you to avoid getting swept up in a herd of mass hysteria. It allows you to be the voice of reason. It allows you to make better, more informed decisions than other people. This is essentially what separates successful people from unsuccessful people it's a sociological and evolutionary advantage, the likes of which you can draw great emotional satisfaction from.

CHAPTER 4 IT'S ALL IN THE MIND

Conditioning your mind with exercise, diet, mental practice, better memory analysis, and critical thinking skills really means nothing if you cannot shut it on or off at will. True control over your mind is when you have the ability to silence it, create your own reality, and discard thoughts that would keep you from accomplishing what you really want. History is full of tortured geniuses, whose great minds and great talent eventually ended up completely crippling them. They were a bright, soaring light illuminating society for just a short time until their inability to truly control their mind cut their lives and their careers short. You've no doubt heard the saying, There is a fine line between genius and insanity. This is absolutely true, as science and study has began to prove that genius and mental disorder are inextricably linked. So, what does this make the genius more often than not? Typically, this makes the genius nothing more than a slave to their superior leanings. It doesn't matter if these people are geniuses in creative skills, mathematics, philosophy, leadership, business, literature, or sports, it's easy for outsiders to look at these people and think to themselves, Hey, that smart person must have it together, but research says otherwise. Kate Redfield Jamison, a clinical psychologist and professor at johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said that 20 to 30 scientific studies endorse the thought process that through many varieties of psychosis, creativity seems to be the most strongly linked to mood disorders, namely bipolar disorder. Consequently, Jamison herself suffers from this mental affliction. One study tested the intelligence of 700,000 Swedish 16-year-olds and followed up with them a decade later. The students who had excelled the most when they were 16 were four times as likely to go on to develop bipolar disorder, which is characterized by dramatic mood swings that falter between extremes like a seesaw, lacking balance. This is commonly known as mania and severe depression. James Fallon, a neurobiologist at the University of California-Irvine, explains that, People with bipolar tend to be creative when they're coming out of deep depression. He says that when bipolar patients' moods improves, their brain activity shifts. The activity dies down in the lower part of the

brain region (the frontal lobe, which is part of your Neocortex, Thinking Brain) and flares up in a higher part of that lobe. This shift happens when people have bouts of creativity as well. There is a nexus between these circuits that have to do with bipolar and creativity. Furthermore, these people are often subject to broken homes, unfortunate socio-economic situations, and loneliness. Let's look at some of histories most well-known creative geniuses. Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec

This French artist was initially born into a noble family in 1864. However, he was the result of generations of inbreeding. His parents were first cousins, for example, and always kept with the tradition of marrying relatives. This caused Lautrec to be born with congenital defects that made his life incredibly hard. After he fractured a bone that failed to heal properly, he was diagnosed with a disease that stunted his growth. His torso developed normally, but he had the legs of a child. As an adult, he was only five feet in height, and his genitals were rumored to be malformed. Normal physical activity was impossible for Toulouse, and his appearance made him an outcast. He began using art as a way to seek solace and immersed himself in drawing and painting. He began creating Post-impressionist and Art Nouveau works. After seeking refuge in the seedy underbelly of the famed Moulin Rouge, most of his paintings depicted the wild and sad life of the bohemian culture of Paris. He painted the cabarets of the city and the characters that haunted them. Toulouse-Lautrec eventually descended into self-destruction. He contracted syphilis and became a vehement alcoholic whose favorite drink was a drink called Absinthe (or The Green Fairy) which contained outlandish hallucinatory properties. Thomas De Quincey

De Quincey was born in England in 1785. He was frail as a child and ill. He lost his father at a young age, and moved in with his mother where he spent most of his youth in solitude. His mother was incredibly harsh, going so far as to pull him out of school for three years in order to prevent him from growing egotistical. As a young adult, De Quincey started wandering. He lived in poverty and avoided his family. He eventually returned to his education, but remained a loner who could not blend in with his counterparts. He began taking opium during his studies and spiraled deeper and deeper into addiction and debt. Eventually he wrote Confessions of an Opium-Eater, his most well-known work to date. Sylvia Plath

Famous author and poet Sylvia Plath author of the famous novel The Bell Jar was born in 1932. She began to suffer from mental illness as an early adult, an affliction that would eventually lead to her death. Event throughout her constant accolades and awards, Sylvia attempted suicide several times with pills, but she survived. In 1962 Sylvia killed herself by turning on the gas in her home and putting her head into the kitchen oven while her children slept in their rooms. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

This Russian author created many multiple works of genius including The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment. He is regarded as the founder of existentialism. Dostoyevsky grew up with a violent alcoholic father. From a child, he was subject to fits of epilepsy. He began writing on a large scale until he became involved in politics and was eventually exiled to Siberia in 1849 and a cruel mock execution. He spent four years living in harsh, filthy surroundings before being released. Later in his life he developed a crippling gambling addiction, accumulated debt, and suffered from severe depression. He died after suffering from a seizure that caused a lung hemorrhage. These are just a few examples, but there are many more such as Kurt Cobain, George Orwell, Tennessee Williams, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Ernest Hemingway, and Vincent Van Gogh. Now, you may be thinking to yourself that you don't have anything in common with these people, and this very well may be true. However, these examples were provided in order to illustrate the extremes that can happen when people let unfortunate situations, the weight of their own intellect, and their situation to completely destroy their lives. You are quite literally a result of thousands of subconscious cues that have implanted themselves into your psyche overtime. For example, do you have any pet peeves, but you're not sure why? Perhaps you hate it when someone says a certain word. Perhaps you hate a certain color. Perhaps you hate it when someone touches a certain part of your body, but you're not really sure why you feel this way, you just know you don't like it. At some point in your life something happened to cause you to connotate these words, actions, or spots as negative. The exact situation is something you have no doubt forgotten. I could have been something directly related to you, or it could have been something you saw on TV, heard on the radio, or were socially conditioned to think due to a particular class clique at school. For example, many parents will hug their children when the child is feeling sad or is crying. This is done in good intention, as it is intended to console. However, what if the child is never hugged at the height of good news or happy occasions they are only hugged when feeling sad or crying. This will often create a feeling of sadness later on in life when being hugged by anyone, even during happy occasions. No matter what the way you think and feel have everything to do with the society you live in and thousands of pieces of information lying in your subconscious, manifesting themselves into your thought process on a daily basis, and you usually never know what they are. These thoughts are often dealt with through distraction concentrating on work, going out and socializing, solving problems, indulging in any kind of entertainment (music, television, Internet). Many of us have never known life without a screen in front of our faces. Most of us have never just done one thing walked, lied down, stood, sat, ate, or any natural human activity without thinking of a hundred of other things at the same time. Because of this lack of self analysis, constant sensory overload and distraction, and lack of understanding of exactly why we think of ourselves the way we do (subconscious self image), we are simply crippled under the weight of our own mind thoughts that never cease, an entire everexpanding universe in which you have no real control or understanding of and only seek to drown out

with noise and distraction. Indeed, the true master of mind is one that can recognize their subconscious manifestations, take control of their mind, live in the present, and even re-program negative aspects of their mind to improve everything in their life. Being Present

From the minute you wake up in the morning until you go to bed, you are typically in one of two thinking modes the past, or the future. However, if you think about it, this is completely absurd. There is literally nothing you can do in the past because it's over, and you have zero control over the future because it hasn't happened yet. What is missing from this equation is the very simple practice of being present when eating eat, when walking walk, when sitting sit, when laying down, lie, when working work, when brushing your teeth, brush your teeth. The funny thing is that people think that being in the present is incredibly difficult. In fact, there are entire schools of thought in which mindfulness is practiced as a life-long path to enlightenment just look at Buddhism and Daoism. Yet, logically, it is the act of thinking about the past and future that is difficult. How much time do we waste doing it? The world is full of people pacing their floors right now in anxiousness, perhaps smoking cigarettes on their porch one after the other, perhaps laying awake in their beds, perhaps halfworking on a project they keep getting distracted with all of them spending hours and hours worrying about the future or thinking about the past (either the good days or decisions that could have been made). These people are stressing their minds to no end, ruining their health, and for what? Literally things that they have zero control over. Nothing about the past or the future is controllable. What you can control is what you're doing right now. To think about the past causes depression. To think about the future causes anxiousness. To be in the present is to be content. You always have control over the present moment simply because you are alive and existing in that moment. You know that moment to be true and a matter-of-fact reality. Practicing mindfulness, or the act of being in the present moment, is a lifestyle that will allow you to have better control over your mind and dramatically lessen your stress. Human beings are one of the only species on earth that experience debilitating stress when their life is not in immediate danger. Even a Zebra being stocked by a Lion will run for its life and become stressed at that moment. If it gets away, it will stop being stressed within moments it doesn't not sit around thinking about how it just got chased by a lion and how it could have died nor does it sit in fear of the future it simply realizes that was the past, it is alive now, and therefore at the present moment everything is fine. By living life in the present moment, you are able to deal with anything that comes your way because you react to it in real time. In order to practice mindfulness, try the following exercises: Sit in silence This is often referred to as meditation. The two best times to do this are right

when you wake up and right before you go to sleep. For example, instead of waking up and immediately getting stressed out thinking about all the things you have to do that day. Simply sit up, hang your feet over the bed, close your eyes and listen to your breath. Sit there for at least five minutes, and eventually get to where you can do it for five to fifteen minutes. Do not try to suppress any thoughts that come along, simply observe them watch them like a movie screen and let them pass in front of you. If you start to analyze the day, bring your attention back to your breathing feel your breath going in deeply, and out slowly. This will calm your mind and put you in the present moment. Move in the present Mindfulness is something you can practice through actions. Try doing something like going on a bike ride, taking a walk, going on a run, or simple household chores such as sweeping, mowing the yard, or washing the dishes. Instead of immediately trying to put on music or the television to distract yourself during these situations pay attention to what you're doing. Think to yourself, I am sweeping now, I am mowing now, I am walking now, I am running now. Think only about what you are doing at that present moment, slow down and be empty. Move Your Blood This is just a side note, it is highly advisable that, right after you finish your morning mindfulness exercise, that you stand up and do light stretches. Circle your arms, circle your hips, twist your torso (drunk twist), open and close your hands rapidly and then circle your wrists, bend down and touch your toes (or as far as you can) jump up and down a few times. This simple little stretch routine should take less than three minutes, but is very important to get your blood moving out of your liver, provide a great flow to your brain, and prepare you for to take on anything throughout the day. Reprogramming Your Mind

Even if you're a genuinely happy person, it's always good to program your mind to stay in a constant state of positivity. This is not to say that you should be unrealistic, it's to say that you should have the mental fortitude to handle even the most devastating situations, insults, and setbacks in life by having a positive self image. This can be easily brought out by aspirations and properly preparing for the day. Try the following exercises: Post-Meditation Positive Aspirations Now we're adding to your morning quiet time. Once you've finished your mindfulness practice and stretching tell yourself how you're day is going to go Today I'm going to have a fantastic day, I'm going to handle any challenges that come my way, I'm going to keep a positive mental attitude no matter what happens. Gratitude If you have any major goals in mind, be grateful that they are already accomplished this trains your mind to stop thinking I hope I can get this accomplished and instead puts you in the mindset of, I've already accomplished this, now I'm just waiting on the results. You can do this at any time throughout the day, even while you're walking to your office. Say to yourself, 'I'm grateful that my goals are accomplished. Visualize your goal already being accomplished step into that vision and feel how it will feel once it is accomplished. Follow this up by being grateful for your current circumstances a roof over you head, enough food to eat, family, friends, job...etc.

Body Language Remember, there is no separation between mind and body. Right now, I want you to clench your fists and furrow your eyebrows, snarl your nose and look straight ahead while doing this, I want you to think about something that makes you happy. Difficult, isn't it? The reason is because the body language is something that signals anger, remaining in that state will make you angry. The same goes for happiness. If you're sad and depressed, or find yourself spiraling down, it will be much harder for you to force your mind to change, but much easier for you to check your body language. Are you slumping? Is your chin down? Are you frowning? Correct it sit/stand up straight, widen your stride, put your shoulders back, smile confidently. It's impossible to keep a negative attitude when you adjust your body language, your mind will follow. Affirmations In life, there is much fear, shame, and guilt, most of it is buried in your subconscious. Affirmations help keep you centered, focused, and in the correct perspective. Use regularly as a practice, it can reprogram your brain for the better. Picture affirmations as a kind of massage, releasing t he toxins of doubt from your mind. You can use various affirmations for certain situations. You can look in a mirror when you say them or simply say them under your breath as you're walking or driving from one place to another. The following is a list of affirmations as provided by Prolificliving.com by poster Farnoosh, in a blog entitled, The only 100 Positive Affirmations You Will Ever Need.

When you feel terrified (without your safety being in danger) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. I focus on my breathing and ground myself. Following my intuition and my heart keeps me safe and sound. I am making the right choices every time. I am drawing from my inner strength and inner light I trust myself.

When you feel lonely and sad 6. 7. 8. 9. I feel the love of those who are not physically around me. I take pleasure in my own solitude. I am too big a gift to this world to feel self-pity and sadness. I love and approve of myself.

When you feel insignificant 10. I am a unique child of this world. 11. I have every bit as much brightness to offer the world as the next person. 12. I matter and what I have to offer this world also matters. 13. I may be one in 7 billion, but I am also one in 7 billion! When you are nervous 14. I trust my inner light and intuition to guide me. 15. Nervousness surrounding what I want to do is a good sign. 16. I know the situations will work out for my highest good. 17. Wonderful thing unfold before me.

When you are angry 18. The anger does not reflect who I am. 19. I let go of my anger so I can see clearly. 20. I accept responsibility if my anger has hurt anymore. 21. I replace my anger with understanding and compassion. 22. I offer a sincere apology to those affected by my anger. When you feel hopeless and at the end of your rope 23. I may not understand the good in this situation yet, but it is there. 24. I can muster a little more hope and courage from deep inside me. 25. I choose to find hopeful and optimistic ways to look at this. 26. I kindly ask for help and guidance if I cannot see a better way. 27. I refuse to give up because I haven't tried all possible ways. When you feel conflicted about a decision 28. I know my inner self will guide me to the right decision. 29. I trust myself to make the best and smartest decision for me. 30. I receive all feedback about a decision with love, but make the final call myself. 31. I listen with love to this inner conflict and reflect on it until I get to peace around it. 32. I love my family even if they do not understand me completely. 33. I show my family how much I love them all the verbal and non-verbal ways I can. 34. There is a good reason I was paired with this perfect family. 35. I choose to see my family as a gift. 36. I grow into a better person from the hardship that I feel with my family. When you are among friends 37. I choose friends who approve of me and love me. 38. I surround myself with friends who treat me well. 39. I take the time to show my friends that I care about them. 40. My friends do not judge me, nor do they influence what I do with my life. 41. I take great pleasure in my friends, even if we disagree or live different lives. When you are around strangers 42. I am beautiful and smart and that's how everyone sees me. 43. I take comfort in the fact that I can always leave this situation. 44. I never know what amazing incredible people I will meet next. 45. The company of strangers teaches me more about what I like and what I don't like. When you are at work 46. I am doing work that I enjoy and find fulfilling 47. I know that I have a choice in the work that I do in this world. 48. I do not settle for meaningless, boring, and frustrating work. 49. I engage in work that impacts this world in a positive way.

50. I believe in my ability to change the world on a small scale with the work that I do. When you can't sleep: 51. I know that peaceful sleep awaits me in dreamland. 52. I let go of all the lies I tell myself. 53. I let go of my thoughts until the morning. 54. I embrace the peace and quiet of the night. 55. I sleep soundly and deeply and beautifully into this night. When you don't want to face the day 56. What if this day were to bring me a great joy? 57. I bet today will be a day to remember. Let us go and greet it. 58. My thoughts are my reality and I am thinking of a bright new day. 59. I fill this day with hope and face it with joy. 60. The day will come and go, whether I participate or not. Let us participate. When you worry about your future 61. I let go of my fears and worries that drain my energy for no good return. 62. I make smart, calculated plans for my future. 63. I enlist the help of experts as needed in my financial planning. 64. I refuse to fall victim to a state of panic by preparing for my future. 65. I trust in my own ability to provide well for my own future. When you can't get your loved ones to support your dreams. 66. I follow my dreams no matter what. 67. I show compassion in helping my loved ones understand my dreams. 68. I ask my loved ones to support my dreams. 69. I answer questions about my dreams without getting defensive. 70. I know that my loved ones wove me without fully grappling with my dreams. 71. I accept them as they are and continue on with pursuing my dream. When you come face to face with a problem 72. I am safe and sound. 73. Everything is going to work out for my highest good. 74. There is a great reason that this is unfolding before me now. 75. I have the smarts and the ability to get through this. 76. Every problem has a solution, and I seek my solution with resolve. When you want to do more with your life, but feel stuck 77. I attempt all not some possible ways to get unstuck. 78. I seek a new way of thinking about this situation. 79. I know the answer is right before me, even if I am not seeing it. 80. I believe in my ability to unlock the way and set myself free.

When you can't stop comparing yourself to others 81. I have no right to compare myself to anyone for I do not know their whole story. 82. I compare myself only to my highest self. 83. I choose to see the light that I am to this world. 84. I am happy in my own skin and in my own circumstances. 85. I see myself as the gift I am to my people and community and nation. When you feel you are not good enough no matter how hard you try 86. I am more than good enough and I get better every day. 87. I give up the right to criticize myself. 88. I adopt the mindset to praise myself. 89. I see the perfection in all my flaws and all my genius. 90. I fully approve of who I am, even as I get better. 91. I judge myself to be both good and great at all times of day and night. When you want to give up 92. I cannot give up until I have tried every conceivable way. 93. Giving up is easy and always an option so let us delay it for another day. 94. I give up the permission to give up for good. 95. It is always too early to give up, so let me give it some more. 96. I must know what awaits me at the end of this rope so I do not give up. When you recognize how powerful, gifted, talented and brilliant you really are 97. The past has no power and no hold over me anymore. 98. I embrace the rhythm and the flowing of my own heart. 99. All that I need will come to me at the right time and place in this life. 100. I am deeply fulfilled with who I am. The best mirror is in the eyes of your friends

Successful, happy people don't associate themselves with unhappy, unsuccessful people. Take a look at your friends, look at where they are in their lives and where you want to be. Are they content to be in their situation? Are they striving like you are to be better? Are they constantly talking about all their problems with you and bringing you down? Get rid of them. It sounds harsh, especially if you've been friends for a while, but the fact is that, in order to be the person you want to be, you have to associate yourself with other people who are also heading in that direction. If you want to quit smoking, you don't go hang out with the smokers. If you want to quit drinking, you don't hang out with your drunk friends at the bar. If you want to lose weight, you don't sit around with your other overweight friends at a restaurant you join a gym and hang out with those people. This thought process goes for everything. The people that you surround yourself with, make you who you

are. One of the best indicators of whether or not you're heading in the right direction, is to simply look at the direction of your friends do you like what you see? If not, change it.

CONCLUSION
When comes to maximizing your brain and uncovering your true potential, it's all about self analysis. The more you get to know yourself your strengths and weaknesses in learning, memory, social cues, and more the better you can perform. As Aristotle said, Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. There are plenty of incredibly smart people out there in the world who aren't very wise. It is through practice, consistent positive changes, and introspection that we begin to learn the limits of our minds as well as its overwhelming potential. It is through the act of improving ourselves and applying what we learn, that wisdom begins blossoming. Use this book as a field guide and refer to it anytime you need a reference, and stay consistent in your practices. As your brain begins building new neural connections, you will notice how sharp you begin to become in all things from increased recall to faster memorization to less stress. Once you start seeing noticeable results through this training, it becomes absolutely addictive it becomes a lifestyle. Remember, when it comes to your brain, the only way to keep it sharp is to use it or lose it, so always keep learning, always keep improving, always keep challenging yourself, and unlock the genius within.