This week we are going to feature Game Changers by Dave Asprey. The title of the book really captured my attention. Yes, the content does not fail me! There are so much great ideas in this book but I only pick three that I will share with you.
DAVE ASPREY is a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur, professional biohacker, the New York Times bestselling author of Head Strong and The Bulletproof Diet, the creator of Bulletproof Coffee, and the host of Bulletproof Radio, the Webby Award–winning, number one–ranked podcast.
The Book was published in 2018 with 334 pages and I bought the Kindle version. It intends to help the readers becoming smarter, faster and happier as the book nice divided into those sections.
The Three Great Ideas
- Get into the Habit of Getting Smarter
- Miracles Are Possible only in the Morning
- Use Gratitude to Rewire Your Brain
Get into the Habit of Getting Smarter
“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”.
That is very powerful piece of information that we need in order to become smarter. Dave interviewed many of great people for his podcast series and discovered that creating good habits and discipline is one of the most important things you can do to perform better.
The question is how you create good habits ? The author share insights used by Robert Cooper, a neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author who has impacted millions. Robert uses neuroscience and business strategy to help elite performers and top leaders to be their best.
“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 You can ignore this outdated programming and hope for the best, or you can upgrade and reprogram (or rewire, in neuroscientific terms) the brain to become compatible with the reality of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.”
This is how we change our habit; be aware of how our brain functions and affects our habit. We understand that habit means doing something automatic, without thinking or how the way we do thing. We have to break this pattern ; bad habit to a new one. The way is to be aware of want good habit you want to display. You have to be intentional in your act. This is the key …..”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”.
So, be aware and intentional in the thing you want to change. Pause, think and act according to your desired result.
Miracles Are Possible only in the Morning
“How you start the day sets the tone for how you will spend the rest of your day. No matter when you awaken, do not begin your day by reacting to the world around you. That is the path to stress, burnout, and a failed agenda. Put yourself first in the morning, prepare your mind and body for the day, and prioritize the things you will do. Then face the day”.
I read a lot about the greatness of the morning hours. I truly believe how you spend time in the morning will affect you whole day.
Dave is sharing a strategy used by Hal Elrod, a motivational speaker, success coach, and author of the number one bestseller The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM).
He spends an hour each day doing an extraordinary personal development routine that he called “S-A-V-E-R-S”: silence, affirmations, visualizations, exercise, reading, and scribing.
This is the weapon that we can use to help us become great everyday.
S- silence (meditation or prayers).
A- affirmations ( read one to two statements that affirming who you are or who you want to be).
V- visualizations (perhaps the details on how you want to perform in one of the critical task today).
E- Exercise Reading ( be intentional on what you want to learn and use this morning time to read the subject you want to master).
S-Scribing (journaling and perhaps writing down three things you are grateful today).
Very powerful stuff and it can change you life as it did to Hal as he was recoverred from awful accident.
Use Gratitude to Rewire Your Brain
“….And the absolute best way to ensure that your body knows it’s safe is to cultivate gratitude. The people who are at the top of their fields, do noteworthy things, have power, and use it to serve others know that gratitude is not just something that is pleasant to feel; it is vital to having the energy to do what they do and to enjoy life while doing it.”
This is idea is so great that Dave said …”if you were to skip every other chapter in this book and read just this one, you’d still be ahead of the game. Gratitude is that important”.
And why grareful such a powerful tool? it reduce stress and cronic stress causes all those diseases . The author had supplied us with a lot of scientific evidence in this book to prove how powerful Gratitude I will not share it here and I am more than 100% convinced that Gratitude works. One simple tool is that every nite, write down three things that you are grateful for today. I read from another great suggested that a family shoud create a “Grateful Jar” ; a place to put your little gratitude notes. Great stuff.
Lets give this simple tool a go!
Sharing is Caring
If you find this article worth reading, please share it with friends….they may be grateful for you for thinking of them.
Hope to see again next time with another “One Week One Book” series.