The Super Brain at 70

Finally, I’ve past the 70 year mark so now I can stop being so focused on my ‘age’.  But I am thinking and acting on maintaining and improving my “Super Health”!  Why, oh why, would I want to do that?  Oh, I don’t know, maybe because great health and longevity are more than a little important to me as it is for most people, especially as we age.

With that in mind, I found myself reading, for the third time, Super Brain by Deepak Chopra, M.D. and Rudolph E. Tanzi, Ph.D. I do so love their subtitle Unleashing the Explosive Power of Your Mind to Maximize Health, Happiness, and Spiritual Well-Being. What a great book!

Even though I was having such a fantastic time, I even thought about this book at my huge 70th birthday bash. My wife Kimberly put together the most amazing party with over 200 people including family and a ton of great friends. We had professional Brazilian dancers and a drum team (my daughter Cammy is on the dance team) plus three talented fire dancers that put on a fantastic show that reflected off our pool with the night lights of the city as a back drop.  And the party went on until 3 a.m.!

That night Chopra’s book popped into my head as I talked to an old tennis friend, Galen Young, who is just short of turning 90 years old. The thing is, Galen is still playing a mean game of tennis (he is currently ranked 10th in doubles and 5th in singles in his age group in the U.S.) He has even set another goal firmly in his super brain–he has decided that he is going to win another gold medal at the Huntsman World Senior Games–and I sure wouldn’t bet against him.

You see, the book Super Brain really does reveal some super secrets and methods to train or program your brain to give you pretty much anything you want.  The authors give some great brain plans for super health and super longevity and good ol’ Galen Young is out there doing it so you know what … anyone of us can do the same thing!

The day after the party I jumped back into the book to re-read and re-dedicate myself to applying the concepts and the methods that Super Brain reveals. Here they are …

Ok, I am teasing you now because we will wait until next week to share those details. If you can’t wait for my blog, by all means, go ahead and buy the book! You’ll want to eventually anyways.

VEM for Great Sleep and a Great Day

Last week I showed you a great way to get past the worrying that keeps you from falling asleep or wakes you up in the middle of the night. But that trick I taught you is not the only thing you can do to get a great night’s sleep and have a great next day. I’ve also found a Very Effective Method (VEM) that not only helps my sleep but gets me ‘jump started’ the next morning on my to do list and  sets a very positive mood and outlook for the day.  And if I don’t use my so called VEM my mornings can be, and usually are, super negative downers. On those days, it takes me hours to lift my mental attitude.

My VEM process begins shortly after lights out. That’s when I review in my mind (or perhaps on paper before lights out) what I want to accomplish the next day.  Next, and more importantly, I start telling myself I’m going to sleep long and deep or I say similar positive affirmations (PA’s) that give my brain that message. Plus–and this is key–I tell myself I am going to wake up in a very, very positive and upbeat mood  and it’s going to be a beautiful and uplifting morning.  You can choose the positive words that you think fit you and your situation but the important thing is to repeat the words over and over in your head so your inner brain really gets the message loud and clear.

As any of my readers that have followed me very long know, I am a huge believer in PA’s. I learned about PA’s many years ago from my near billionaire friend and mentor Paul J. Meyer and what I learned from him helped me in so many ways that I am indebted to him for the rest of my life.  Like many things we learn, I slowly dropped the use of PA’s over time. But then Susan Jeffer’s book Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway reminded me of the great power of sending positive messages to the subconscious mind.  And, wow …what a difference that made. As I outlined in an older blog post, I used several PA’s to help  with my tennis game and, as quick as that, raised my tennis playing  level big time without any extra practice even!

Bottom line is,  I am definitely a “true believer” in the great power of  PA’s–they really do work and they will work for you on just about any part of your  life from sleep improvement to mental moods to, yes, even your tennis  game.

 

Getting Back Those Sweet Dreams with P.A.s

So how well do you sleep at night these days?  Remember when you were a teenager—no problem sleeping then! You’d usually crash out as soon as your head hit the pillow. There was no waking  up in the middle of the night for unknown reasons, no worries keeping your brain from turning off, no waking up for a trip to the bathroom which also woke your worried mind. There was just deep wonderful uninterrupted sleep!  Boy, those were the days!

99% of my readers are definitely not teenagers so it’s likely that, like me, you have experienced many nights of restless sleep—lots of tossing and  turning and waking up worrying about some problem or unknown outcome. The good news is that you are not alone and there are things you can do to help reduce these disruptive moments.

When I wake up in the middle of the night my mind can so quickly go into a highly negative mode and I just lay there being a big time worry wart.  I have discovered that most of us humans, especially  as we age, have brains that seem to automatically lower our natural  mental defenses and logical mature thinking to a very weak state when we  are tired, hence the worried state of mind. To get  back to sleep one can try some of the old methods such as counting sheep but a much better method is to first work on changing that worried mental state. Once the worry is reduced, sleep will come much more readily. But how do you do that?

It’s actually quite simple. Turn the chatter filled with fear filled questions and negative thoughts into inner talk that is filled with positive, supportive statements. Use your P.A.s! PA’s (positive affirmations) can be repeated in your mind the same way those worries and doubts are being echoed over and over. Keeping your positive thoughts generalized and not at all focused on the situation that is worrying you will keep you from taking a “but what if?” detour. So you put aside thoughts of the things that are worrying you and say something like, “I feel relaxed and very, very sleepy,” over and over in your mind. Don’t let anything else creep back in. Repeat the PA and imagine how it feels to be that relaxed and sleep and pretty soon you will actually feel that way, your mind will agree that this is true and you’ll quickly be back in sleep mode. Try it.  It’s amazingly simple and effective!

There is more you can put into your arsenal to insure a good night’s sleep and a relaxed well-rested state of mind. We will go into another very effective method next week but in the meantime, sweet dreams!

How to Teach to Help Others and Yourself

Last week I talked about the epiphany I had as I was doing my daily walk (a day I put in 10 miles of walking!)  As you may remember my breakthrough epiphany was that when we start teaching and preaching helpful ideas and  life enhancing goals with  other people , our very own progress and development is inevitably pushed faster toward achieving the very goals the ideas support.  It’s a pretty neat deal–as we help others we help ourselves!

At the end of last week’s blog I promised I would give you ideas to “jump start” your preaching and teaching plans. It isn’t necessary that you be a teaching type or that you have experience in helping to lead others toward achieving goals. You simply need the desire to help and see others succeed.

So here you go. Read these, follow the suggested steps and see what happens! When you’ve seen the effect you can have on other’s progress as well as your own, expand your influence to compound your success and the positive changes you’ve helped make in other people’s lives.

1. Pick a part of your life you want to greatly improve upon.

2. Write it down.

3. Make a list of comments and talking points that will help you present the benefits of the particular goal that you are going to share with relatives, friends and maybe even strangers.

4. Make a list of those relatives, friends, business associates and acquaintances you’d like to help. The best place to start is with your spouse or partner, so you may want to put them on the top of your list.

5. Now go out there and start teaching and preaching. It doesn’t matter how you do it. It could be face to face, by phone, or through email or texting. The only real rule is to share what you know with openness and caring. Understand that some people won’t be ready for the ideas you have to share. Don’t push it on them; just let them know you’re there to help when they are ready.

6. When you feel you have had significant experience and success, you can also teach more broadly through a blog, guest posting on other people’s blogs and websites or volunteering through mentoring programs for kids, college students, small businesses or whatever matches the kind of knowledge you have to share.

Improve From Your Own Teachings

As I was doing my daily walk, I was struck big time by a profound thought! The thought has huge life enhancing potential for everyone on the planet. It has already been changing and helping my life because I have been using it for a long time only I have never really identified it enough to put into words until now.

I’m going to share this with you but, please, think deeply and intently about this and then put it into practice. See if it doesn’t profoundly enhance any part of your life that you choose to drastically improve. Whether you want to get in super great shape or become a much better parent or partner, or even make a few million dollars, you can do it if you follow these ideas.

Any goal, habit, human quality or desire that I start preaching, teaching or pontificating about automatically and almost without effort pushes me to do more of it myself. Those spoken and written pontifications are like a truth drug for my mind which pushes me to do what I have encouraged and taught others to do.  I am totally convinced it will and does work that way for everyone.

If you have been reading my past blogs you might remember me setting some pretty tough and overly ambitious work out, weight loss, and healthy eating goals for myself as I count down to my big 70th birthday.  As of the blog posting this week, I am only 4 days away from 70. As I look back on the last 86 days I’ve been doing this, I must say that not one day has passed without my mind fixating on those self-promises and the advice I gave to myself as well as to all my readers. I can now see that it’s been my inner brain keeping me on track rather silently and automatically.

I guess you could say that my brain pushed me to remain “true to myself” and to my readers.  You see, if you teach and preach to others what they could and should do for self-improvement, or just about any subject, your inner self gives you the message that you must live up to what you put out there.  We all know the saying “practice what you preach” and our inner most brain and soul does not want us to be a hypocrite, therefore our subconscious pushes us to be true to our words.  I am pretty darn convinced that is how we automatically become better at whatever subject, goal or life enhancing ideal we talk about and teach to others.

I challenge you to start teaching a preaching something that you want to improve in your life (be sure to write down you goals and objectives so you can stay on track) and then in a few months take a look back and see what it has done for you and how it has improved other people’s lives.

Next week I will give you a few great ideas to “jump start” your preaching and teaching plan.  Get ready to make things happen!

Beware of the Con

So what would you do if you had a pretty good nest egg saved up but your bank was paying you a lousy 1/2% a year and a good friend just told you about how he is getting an 18% annual return, is getting paid out monthly and was on money invested with a guy he knew and trusted? Your first reaction might be, “Wow! That’s a great return.”  But then you might ask “Tell me more about this friend and the investment, cause it sounds too good to be true.”

What if he gives you an answer like this? “I’ve known this guy for several years and he’s a good guy that I have great confidence in and trust.  I invested some of my cash with him a year ago and since then he hasn’t ever missed a monthly interest payment. I just recently put all the rest of my savings into his deal a couple months ago and I even helped my poor mother out and talked her into putting most of her savings with him. She was getting screwed by the bank’s low interest rate and she desperately needed more income to supplement her social security check just to scrape by.

So, the bottom line of what you would be hearing from this friend is that he’s put virtually all his cash and savings into this “safe investment” and the return is guaranteed because he has so much trust in the deal. For all you know he may even have put a second mortgage on his house at a low interest rate so he could make the difference in the spread. I don’t know what you’d do but I know I would hold onto my wallet and run like hell.

Sadly, this kind of scenario happens almost every day. It has been particularly bad during our recent recession and now in our very slow economic recovery. I personally know 4 people that have lost almost every penny to their name because they bought into situations very similar to the one described above and these people are really quite smart and educated. You wouldn’t think they would be susceptible.

There is a very old saying that goes back to the 16th century: “Tis the part of wise men to keep himself today for tomorrow and not venture all his eggs in one basket.”  The other saying that we’ve all heard that we need to drum into our heads is “If it seems too good to be true it probably is.” One of my policies that has driven my investment life is “If I do choose to put all of my eggs or a substantial part of my eggs in one basket I must have total control over that basket and I must watch that basket very, very closely”.

One last thought.  In the example above and with the four people I know, they all had “confidence and trust” in their friend.  Guess where the origin of the term “con man” comes from?  You see these “con men” always take time to build up your confidence and trust in them before they strike.

This is not to say that there are not very good investments out there but always check them out thoroughly and make sure your investment is backed by solid, verifiable assets. Remember, don’t put all your financial eggs in one basket unless you control those eggs and watch that basket very closely!

***

The Missing 777 and Overcoming Fear

Have you heard anyone say recently that they are not going to take any trips by airplane, because of fear since the 777 Jet went missing?  I’ve only heard one person allude to that, but I’ll be watching to see if airline ticket sales drop because of the fear factor since the Malaysian jet disappeared.

Fear is a very interesting human reaction hooked to so many things in our lives.  Much of the time it has little or no basis to reality or logic.  As you may know the fear of flying is one of the more common human fears although it is statistically extremely safe.  If you were to choose, at random, a commercial flight every single day for the rest of your life, guess how long it would be (statistically) before you got on an airplane that crashed? And, drum roll …would you believe it would take 19,000 years? Yes, that’s right, nearly 7 million flights/days until your statistical chance would be up!  I’ve talked to many people and gave them these numbers and they are STILL afraid of flying.  They know the numbers but their fear trumps the facts.

Fear holds so many people back from fulfilling their big dreams and goals for what are often illogical reasons. Many years ago I wrote a book titled The Courage to be Rich. In my book I talk a great deal about using “courage” to overcome fear.  Building up your courage to be rich, to give a speech to 1000 people, to write a book, to travel to a distant and strange new country or to be super successful in anything  requires you to identify what fears are holding you back and replacing those fears with positive thoughts and actions.

One of my favorite tricks or ways I overcome fear is to use the IGDS philosophy.  Quoting from my Courage to be Rich book, “What is IGDS?  It is accepting the truth that “I’m Going to Die Someday”……so why not really live life now?  Why not really go for it? What have you got to lose?”   I am not saying you should take wild crazy, life threatening risks but I am saying to face your fears and go after what you want with all you energy, zest and strength. Take some calculated risks realizing that you’re going to die some day and you don’t want  to have to say to yourself what Henry David Thoreau said many years ago, “Oh God, to have reached the point of death, only to find that you have never lived at all.”

 

Revisiting the Super Brain

The last couple days I followed my own advice and re-read a great book that I hadn’t picked up for about a year. The book is by the brilliant Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi and is titled Super Brain. I saw the book on my bedside shelf and it grabbed my attention–probably because my experience the night before.

Kimberly and I attended a gala fund raiser for the National Ability Center and listened to a short speech by Anna Beninati where she talked about her experience as a skier. She’s very talented and has Olympic gold medal dreams. But what makes her story so special and unusual is the stupid decision she made as a teenager. She was running alongside a moving train trying to jump on it only she didn’t quite make it. She fell beneath the train cutting off both her legs. However, she considers herself very lucky. Wow!

Why does she consider herself lucky? Well, first of all she is grateful to be alive but it doesn’t stop there. She’s lucky because that terrible accident changed her brain. Accepting that she had no legs, she decided she would make her life count for something and I don’t think if she wins gold at the winter Para Olympics in Korea in a few years that she will stop at that point. That will probably just be the beginning of using her “Super Brain”. I think she already deserves a gold medal for using her brain to push it to that level.

Our brains, as Chopra’s book explains can make us or break us. It all depends on how we use them. We have a choice to either control and program our brains to serve us or we can sit back, do nothing and let our brains control us.

On that note, let me share some of my “margin notes” from Super Brain.

P. 40 Whatever you pay attention to grows.

P. 42 Expect past memories, as well as the things we’ve learned, to come to us and they almost always do.

P. 16 You train your brain to do what you want it to and it will do it.

P. 31 You can choose to follow the upward learning curve no matter how old you are! (Creates new dendrites, synapses and neural pathways.)

P. 63 If you actively act as the leader of your brain you can reprogram your own neurochemistry.

P. 70 Inertia is depression’s best friend.

P. 71 Depression creates an illusion that all my power is stripped away.

P. 72 The brain is transformed by meditation.

P. 40 Don’t ever say to yourself or others “my memory is going”. If you say that your inner brain will prove you right.

P. 230 You need to motivate self –especially as you age.

And as an overall summary of this great book –the theme could simply be….Use Your Brain–Don’t Let It Use You!!

A Great Evening with Richard Paul Evans

My good friend and fellow author Richard Paul Evans (who, having sold over 17 million of his 31 great books, is a bit more successful as an author than I am) invited me to join him as he made a great presentation to about 150 people last week.  His subject was based on his book The 5 Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me.  My wife Kimberly and I very much enjoyed both Rick’s motivating and informative remarks and the wonderful people we met afterwards.  I totally agreed with Rick’s view on money, on what it is and what it is not.

Among other things he said, “Life isn’t about money.”  He explained that life is about love and family but without money “life is thrown out of balance. To the financially enslaved, life becomes all about money; too many are missing the opportunities and abundance life has to offer”.

Of Ricks’ 5 Lessons, the first two I find to be so very important: that you must decide that you are going to become wealthy and that wealth is about saving money through either earning more or spending less.   I certainly agreed with those two first lessons, in part because that’s exactly what I’ve been preaching for many years and it certainly has served me well. It transformed a poor, struggling guy into a multi-millionaire. And my path didn’t come from being brilliant, as my C- grade average can attest.

Many years ago I noticed that most people’s spending rises at the same rate as their income when it increases. Too often it rises even faster, creating a debt loaded and stressed out person.  So if that sounds familiar and you want to be wealthy, or at least be way ahead in the money game, set a goal right now to start spending less than you are earning. Without any savings it will obviously be hard to proceed with the next step of investing wisely.

It really is up to you to either allow yourself to be controlled by money or be the one in control of it.  But always remember, life isn’t about money but with enough of it your life can be filled with abundance and opportunity.

Spending the winters in Kauai and being able to do things like take my kids and grand-kids to Europe for a Disney cruise to celebrate my 70th birthday certainly doesn’t make my life perfect. However, giving others those types of grand experiences that stick with them for life certainly does incredible and wondrous things to my brain and my level of satisfaction, and without money I couldn’t do these things.  So I encourage you to set the goals, follow the formulas for wealth and use that wealth wisely to enhance your life and those around you. You won’t be sorry that you did it.

If you need more information on a good financial formula go to my book, The Next Step of Waking the Financial Genius Inside You. I also strongly urge you to go to Rick’s website and sign up for his notices, giveaways and special offers atwww.richardpaulevans.com.

 

Notes from THE WILLPOWER INSTINCT

Ok … this week I will give you what I think are some of the high points from Kelly McGonigal incredible book, The Willpower Instinct. These are more of those notes taken from my summary sheets that I make and keep from the best books I read and want to revisit and remember.

The Willpower Instinct is a truly life changing book if you put the concepts and findings into practice.  I highly recommend you get it and read it carefully.  Below are the points that jumped out at me. In some cases I am giving you quotes and in others I am giving a summary in my own words.  The subtitle of the book is great: “How Self-Control Works, Why it Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More”. The book covers all this and more.

Mark’s notes from The Willpower Instinct:

P. 20 Most of our choices are made on autopilot.

P. 20 Self-awareness is one big key to will power.

P. 21 When you are distracted, your impulses usually over rule your long term goals.

P. 21 To have more self-control, develop more self-awareness.

P. 23 The brain is remarkably responsive to experience.

P. 24 Ask your brain to _____________________________ (you fill in anything you really want) and your brain ends up helping you do it.

P. 26 Meditate on a regular basis — it will help you increase self-control. For example: lose weight, kick bad habits, etc. Meditate 5 minutes a day can make a huge difference.

P. 42, 43 Exercise is like meditation it makes the brain bigger and faster and improves willpower.

P. 43 A big mood booster is a simple 5 minute walk outside.

P. 45 Exercise gives you more energy than you spend.

P. 69 If you are looking for a big change of any habit, look for small ways to practice self-control.

P. 129 When we free ourselves from the false promise of reward we often find the thing we were seeking happiness from was the main source of our misery.

P. 132 We must distinguish between wanting and happiness.

P. 144 Many studies show that self-criticism gives less motivation and worse self-control and is the biggest predictor of depression.

So, without even reading the book, you can see the value of the information just in these notes. And how easy is it to review and remind oneself of this great information this way?

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