Game Changers: What Leaders, Innovators and Mavericks Do to Win at Life

Recommended Reading

JJ Virgin, Miracle Mindset: A Mother, Her Son, and Life’s Hardest Lessons

Jack Canfield with Janet Switzer, The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

2 (#ulink_68e8753c-4b56-5a2c-b97e-cee6a1a0aea4)

GET INTO THE HABIT OF GETTING SMARTER (#ulink_68e8753c-4b56-5a2c-b97e-cee6a1a0aea4)

Doctors and other scientists used to believe that we were born with a brain that was either high functioning or not. Either you were inherently wired to be smart, focused, and able to learn easily—or you weren’t. It wasn’t until around the end of the twentieth century that scientists began to understand the concept of neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to grow new cells and forge new neural connections throughout your life.

You can use these new cells and newly formed connections to develop new habits and beliefs, learn faster, and remember more effectively. These are dramatic upgrades that can have an enormous impact on your performance in every aspect of life. It also means that if you think you’re not smart enough or not good enough, it doesn’t matter. You can change it.

An overwhelming number of my podcast guests believe that creating good habits and discipline is one of the most important things you can do to perform better as a human being. In fact, this answer came in third out of anything in the world to improve performance, even ahead of education. These innovators know that your habits, the things you do every day without even thinking about them, to a great extent determine who you are and what you are capable of.

Yet creating new habits is not as simple as making resolutions. To transform your actions into automatic habits that you can use without conscious effort, your mind must create new neural networks. It follows that anything you can do to maximize your ability to create these pathways will help you actually wire in the habits that will benefit your performance. Habits work because they free up mental space for doing big things. The new habits and strategies highlighted in this chapter’s laws will help you transform your false beliefs and allow you to learn faster, remember more easily, and ultimately make space in your head and your life so you can more quickly and easily achieve your goals.

Law 4: Even Your False Beliefs Are True

The beliefs you hold and the stories you tell yourself shape your internal model of reality. When your model is wrong, you build broken habits and make decisions that don’t create what you want. You suffer. A flexible mind changes itself and builds a better model as it gathers more data about reality. Build a flexible mind with the built-in habit of questioning your assumptions about reality so you can grow.

Vishen Lakhiani has been a meditation teacher for more than twenty years and runs the world’s largest meditation training program online. His two-hundred-person company, Mindvalley, has enabled him to become a substantial philanthropist, and his bestselling book, The Code of the Extraordinary Mind: 10 Unconventional Laws to Redefine Your Life and Succeed on Your Own Terms, teaches you how to optimize your brain for prime happiness and performance.

In his interview, Vishen shared with me how he came to believe a false story about himself. He is of South Asian descent, but he grew up in Asia, where he looked different from the other kids. He had a larger nose than most of his classmates and more hair on his arms and legs. The other boys called him Gorilla Legs and Hook Nose, and Vishen internalized those messages. As his mind, which he calls a “meaning-matching machine,” tried to make sense of the world around it, as all young minds do, it created the meaning that he was ugly, and he held on to that belief for many years.

Vishen refers to these types of stories and beliefs as our hardware, because they are instilled in us, usually before the age of seven, much as hardware is installed in a computer. We do not deliberately choose them. Authority figures, our society and culture, our education systems, and the observations we make as children indoctrinate such beliefs into us at a very young age. If we allow them to go unquestioned, they can have a hugely detrimental impact on our lives. Our beliefs tell us how important we are, what we are capable of, our role in society, and so on. If our beliefs are limited, they can drastically diminish our human potential. The problem is that our beliefs feel like reality because they are reality until you realize they are false.

The good news is that just as you can upgrade the hardware on your computer, you can upgrade your beliefs once you become aware of them. In Vishen’s book, he teaches a codified form of learning and human development that he calls consciousness engineering. The first step of consciousness engineering is to recognize that your beliefs are not who you are. They are simply hardware that was installed in you long ago and can be upgraded or replaced.

Neuroplasticity teaches us that we can swap out a negative or limiting belief for a belief that will serve us better. Vishen says that when people change their beliefs, their lives completely transform because those beliefs inform how they experience the world. For instance, when Vishen got rid of the false belief that his differences made him ugly, it changed his confidence and his entire perspective, and his life and relationships quickly shifted in a positive way.

Swapping out your limiting beliefs is crucial if you want to go from Human 1.0 to Human 2.0, but it isn’t easy. Humans hold on to limiting beliefs without even realizing it. They seem so real to us that we don’t always realize they even exist. To us, they are simply the way things are. Vishen recommends modalities such as hypnotherapy or meditation (more on this later), which can lead to awakening moments that make you conscious of your beliefs. Then you can begin to change them intentionally.

High performers focus on recognizing and changing limiting beliefs because they know that their beliefs will become true whether or not they are based in reality. In fact, helping people discover and correct self-limiting beliefs is one of the primary roles of a life coach or a business coach. For example, if you believe that you are having a lucky day before a presentation, it doesn’t matter whether or not there is any such thing as luck. Your belief in your own luck will lead you to have more confidence and to actually perform better in that presentation. It’s like the placebo effect on steroids.

When I meditate, I tell my nervous system I’m grateful that things happen the way they’re supposed to happen, that there is a conspiracy to help me succeed, and that the universe has my back. (Gabby Bernstein, the author of a great book by that title, inspires that last part. Her interview on Bulletproof Radio was amazing.) It doesn’t matter if any of those beliefs are actually true or even if my rational brain thinks they’re true. I want the simple-minded systems in my body to believe that they are true so they will automatically help me to make things happen with less resistance.

Your positive beliefs can literally bring you success. You can tell yourself the story that you’re successful, and your brain will believe it and act on it. The opposite is also true. Based on thirty years of research on more than a million participants, Dr. Martin Seligman and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania found that optimistic expectations were a significant predictor of achievement.

(#litres_trial_promo) When salespeople believed that they would make a particular sale, they were 55 percent more successful than their pessimistic counterparts. Your beliefs directly impact the outcome of your efforts, so it is essential to swap out your negative beliefs so you can reach your potential or surpass what you presently believe is your potential. I spend a substantial amount of energy and time with people who think bigger than I do because it edits my own stories about my potential, and doing so has expanded my life and my company more than I ever expected. (Of course I didn’t expect it; I had a limiting story!)

The second aspect of consciousness engineering is upgrading your systems for living, also known as your habits. Vishen says that your habits are like the apps on your phone. They consist of things such as your diet, your exercise routine, and your sleep hygiene—the patterns that shape your days. He recommends learning new systems through studying the greats and finding out what habits made a difference for the most impactful people … kind of like what you’re doing by reading this book!

To learn more about how to easily create new habits, I sought out Robert Cooper, a neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author who has positively impacted the 4 million people who have bought his books. Robert effectively combines two fields that seem completely unrelated—neuroscience and business strategy—to help elite performers and top leaders get the most out of their brains, their time, and their performance.

I asked Robert to deliver the keynote address at the third annual Bulletproof Biohacking Conference and sat down with him afterward to talk about how to hack the hardwired habits that can limit performance and build new habits that will burn better programs into the structure of the brain. Robert says that the brain has an embedded performance code for the world of two thousand years ago. You can ignore this outdated programming and hope for the best, or you can upgrade and reprogram (or rewire, in neuroscientific terms) the brain to become compatible with the reality of today’s world.

First, you have to become aware of the brain’s default settings. Our instinct is to do things the same way we’ve always done them. This is helpful on a day-to-day basis, such as when you drive to work using the same route as always without even thinking about it, but constantly reverting to automatic behaviors can shut down innovative thinking. Robert calls this your “hard wiring.” Your “live wiring,” on the other hand, represents your ability to grow and change—the “plastic” part of neuroplasticity.

Robert says that even when you are relying on your hard wiring, your brain is constantly changing. The question then becomes: In which direction are you changing? When you settle in to your default mode and rigidify like a grumpy creature of habit that gets mad if someone takes his or her favorite seat at the table, you are “downwiring.” Many people downwire as they age, but it doesn’t have to be that way. When you lean into possibilities and become different with the intention to get better, you are “upwiring.”

The key to upgrading your performance is to spend the majority of your time upwiring rather than downwiring. Yet, to conserve energy, your brain’s instinct is to downwire. It likes repeating the same things it’s done before and keeping you the same person you’ve always been. This is why for many people it is more comfortable and less scary to stay the same. In many ways, your brain is a scared, dumb organ that fears change. (No offense.) Upwiring requires more effort and more risk. You have to aim your brain away from its comfortable default mode and instead steer it toward intentional choices that support the kind of growth you want to achieve.

To do this, Robert encourages you to identify moments when you can prevent an automatic response and instead guide yourself in a better direction. Many mindfulness experts refer to such a moment as a “meta moment”—a sliver of time between a trigger and a response. For example, when someone says something that bothers you, instead of reacting with anger as you normally would (downwiring), pause to consider why the comment upset you so much and then choose with intention how you want to respond (upwiring). With practice, finding meta moments will eventually become a habit like any other.

It’s exciting to know that your brain, your beliefs, and your reality are incredibly changeable. You decide who you are, and you can also choose your own truth. That is a powerful game changer.

Action Items

Chose one of the methods from this law to figure out which of your beliefs about yourself are actually true. Be extra suspicious about any belief that suggests you “should” be some way or do something, any belief that says you “have to” or “need to,” and any belief that paints people or the world in terms of good and bad. Write down the first three that come to mind:Belief 1: __________________________________________Belief 2: __________________________________________Belief 3: __________________________________________Meditate on things you believe to be true about yourself and the world around you. Do it either in the morning or at night.Journal about the things you believe to be true for a half hour once a week. Start today.Schedule a recurring monthly or weekly appointment with a coach or a therapist who can point out when you believe your own story.

For one week, as you meditate or when you wake up, experiment with repeating and focusing on this phrase and actually summoning the feeling of gratitude: “I’m grateful that there is a conspiracy to make things happen the way they’re supposed to. The universe has my back.” You don’t have to believe it, but do your best to feel it—you’re tricking your nervous system.

Build the habit of listening. The programming most of us have is to think about what we’re going to say next instead of listening to what the other person is saying. The story that drives this habit is one you learn as a child—that when adults are talking, no one will hear you unless you talk right away. The reality we live in now is that if you listen and then speak, everyone will hear you. Choose a friend or colleague who usually has something good to say and commit to consciously not planning what you’re going to say the next time you chat with them. You’ll be surprised by what you learn and what you do end up saying when you don’t plan ahead. Who is the person near you most worth listening to?

Recommended Listening

Vishen Lakhiani, “10 Laws & Four-Letter Words,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 309

Robert Cooper, “Rewiring Your Brain & Creating New Habits,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 261

Gabrielle Bernstein, “Detox Your Thoughts to Supercharge Your Life,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 455

Recommended Reading

Vishen Lakhiani, The Code of the Extraordinary Mind: 10 Unconventional Laws to Redefine Your Life and Succeed on Your Own Terms

Robert K. Cooper, Get Out of Your Own Way: The 5 Keys to Surpassing Everyone’s Expectations

Gabrielle Bernstein, The Universe Has Your Back: Transform Fear to Faith

Law 5: A High IQ Doesn’t Make You Intelligent, but Learning Does

Your IQ score measures your crystallized intelligence, the sum of your learning and experience. You can raise it, but it doesn’t matter as much as fluid memory, your ability to learn and synthesize new information. Most scientists still believe that fluid intelligence is fixed, but it’s not. So hack it. There are specific techniques to drastically increase your fluid memory that are waiting for you to use them. You can waste your time learning slowly or set yourself free by changing your brain and upgrading how you learn.

Jim Kwik is a superhero. He is a widely recognized world expert in speed-reading, memory improvement, brain performance, and accelerated learning. He’s humble about it, but he’s trained countless Fortune 500 CEOs and dozens of A-list actors and actresses, including the cast of the X-Men movies. He actually trained Professor X! Jim often appears onstage doing speed-reading demonstrations and memorizing hundreds of people’s names. But he doesn’t do this to impress or show off. He does it to show what is possible not just for him but for anyone. When we have dinner, Jim memorizes the name of every restaurant employee who comes to the table because it makes people feel good when you refer to them by name.

Jim was not born with these abilities. In fact, when he was in kindergarten, he had a very bad accident that resulted in brain trauma. He was left with learning challenges and poor focus, and he constantly struggled to keep up with his classmates. When Jim got to college, he was sick of always lagging behind. He wanted to start fresh and make his family proud, so he began working so hard that he neglected things such as sleeping, eating, exercising, and spending time with friends. Instead of fueling his performance, this left him passed out in the library from sheer exhaustion. He fell down a flight of stairs and hit his head again. When he woke up in the hospital two days later, he was down to 117 pounds, hooked up to a bunch of IVs, and deeply malnourished. He thought to himself, “There has to be a better way.”

A moment later, a nurse came in with a mug of tea. The mug had a picture of Albert Einstein on it with the famous quote “The same level of thinking that’s created the problem won’t solve the problem.” The universe had Jim’s back that day, because the mug helped him realize he had always thought the problem was that he was a slow learner, so he had tried to solve the problem by spending all of his time learning. Now he asked himself if he could think about the problem differently: Instead of spending more time learning, could he find a way to learn faster?

Jim thought back over his education. In school, his teachers had taught him what to learn, but he’d never taken a class on how to learn—on creativity, problem solving, or how to think, concentrate, read faster, and, most important, improve his memory. Socrates said, “Without remembering, there is no learning.” Jim realized that he could learn faster if he could remember more. So he began to study the mind and how it remembers to see if he could come up with shortcuts.

The memory techniques that Jim developed worked immediately. He went from struggling in his courses to getting straight A’s, and he soon started using his techniques to help other people. He didn’t want anyone to suffer or struggle the way he had.

One of Jim’s very first students more than two decades ago was a freshman who wanted to read thirty books in thirty days and was able to do so successfully using Jim’s techniques. He asked her why she wanted to do so and found out that her mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was told she had sixty days to live. The books the student was reading were all about health, wellness, medicine, psychology, self-help, and spirituality—anything that she thought might be able to help save her mother’s life.

Six months later, Jim got a call. At first he couldn’t even make out the voice on the other end. All he heard was crying. Finally, he realized it was the same young woman. She was crying tears of joy because her mother not only had survived but was starting to get better and really thrive. The doctors didn’t know how or why that had happened, but her mother attributed it to the great advice her daughter had gotten so quickly from all of those books.