How to use your brain 100%: tips from Nike, General Electric and Virgin Group mentor Jim Kwik

They are lying to you. Constantly. Moreover, sometimes you lie to yourself. We are all inundated with an endless stream of misinformation about our supposed limitations, so often that most people often have no choice but to believe the lies. The problem is that this flow of information conflicts with your attempts to achieve limitlessness. These lies can slow you down or lead you in a direction you don't want to go. Well, let's shed some light on these seven deceptions, look at what they are, and try to replace them with something better.

Deception #1: Intelligence is immutable

At first glance, it seemed that Ray was a very positive woman. She ran her own business, had a thriving social network, and loved being around people with big ideas, thinking about possibilities that most of us never dreamed of.

When Rae had her daughter, she realized that she might not be as positive as she always thought. A different type of thinking began to manifest itself gradually, as it usually does. At first it showed in the way she reacted to certain actions of her little girl. Ray was inclined to think that her daughter “is who she is, whatever,” not wanting to believe that she could somehow influence her behavior. When her boyfriend tried to teach her daughter Rae something new, she felt a slight discomfort, feeling an impulse to protect the child from possible disappointment if she did not succeed. She was constantly tormented by the thought that her daughter was “still too young to learn.”

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The reason we choose to doubt whether we are brilliant or not, talented or untalented, is that it frees us from responsibility for our own lives.

One day her boyfriend looked at Ray and said: “Do you really think that she won’t learn anything and won’t become smarter?” Of course, this was not the case: her little daughter was smart and curious, learning something new every day. It was obvious... and yet, somewhere deep inside Rey there was a strong conviction that “no, she is who she is.” Rae had to fight prejudice against her daughter's intelligence.

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Such beliefs are incredibly insidious. Few of us are aware of the limiting beliefs we think others have. But they still seep through, influencing our sense of happiness - in work, in family, in relationships with children. If we believe that nothing can be improved, then so be it. It's incredibly difficult to achieve anything if you don't believe in yourself.

Carol Dwick, professor of psychology at Stanford University, describes the difference between fixed and fluid thinking:

“Students with fixed thinking believe that their basic abilities, intelligence, and various talents are unchangeable. They simply have a certain amount of these features, and that’s all - then all their efforts come down to maintaining an intelligent appearance all the time, without giving a reason to reproach themselves for stupidity. While students with an agile mindset believe that their talents and abilities can be developed through hard work, study and perseverance. They do not believe that everyone is equal in their abilities and everyone can become Einstein, but they believe that everyone can become smarter if they work at it.”

Like Ray, most of us don't think about whether our thinking is fixed or flexible. The majority of people continue to think in the same patterns as their parents, without even knowing it. Be that as it may, the adoption of one or another format of thinking has a profound impact on our attitude towards our own lives. With stagnant thinking, everything remains the same—we are powerless to change anything. With an agile mindset, we have the ability to improve anything.

If Ray believes, even if not fully consciously, that her daughter is not capable of receiving knowledge, what does she do instead of teaching her? Probably many things - calms you down, gives you a rest, distracts your attention. All this helps relieve current stress, but does not contribute to the development of the child. Likewise, when we decide in adulthood that we are unable to learn, how do we behave instead of taking responsibility and starting to study what we find interesting and important? We convince ourselves that this is not particularly necessary, we make excuses, blame other people or difficult circumstances, and then distract ourselves with some activity that gives us a feeling of comfort.

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You either cannot remember where these limiting beliefs come from, or they are rooted in your childhood. And this has a huge impact on how you feel about your own intelligence and learning abilities. IQ assessments and various types of tests were invented early in the last century to better assess which students would particularly struggle in school. French psychologist Alfred Binet and his student Théodore Simon were among the first scientists to propose testing to measure intelligence after it was assigned to them by the French government.

They were able to develop a test that took into account age, since this indicator is directly related to competence. They were also praised for the fact that the test could be easily adapted to other languages.

More than a century later, the question of whether such tests can truly measure intelligence, which is the ability to acquire and assimilate knowledge and other information, is still hotly debated. Interestingly, Binet himself was dissatisfied with the way the test he developed was used, since it did not measure creativity or so-called emotional intelligence.

Moreover, our cultural understanding of such tests is such that we give all these scores undue importance. We tend to think that IQ scores are a fixed reflection of our intelligence, which is not true at all. An IQ test actually measures only your current level of academic ability (knowledge), not your innate intelligence. So far, IQ tests cannot measure creativity or practical intelligence (which can be thought of as a kind of “worldly intelligence”), and they certainly cannot measure emotional intelligence - at a time when these three elements are increasingly important in our lives and at work.

It's important to remember that there is a huge difference between test scores and your learning abilities. “Those who argue that IQ is a given that you have to live with for the rest of your life are actually based on the scoring system of IQ tests, the results of which are relatively constant. The same cannot be said about our level of intelligence, which is constantly growing,” says Brian Roche from the National University of Ireland.

David Schenk develops this idea in his book Every One of Us is a Brilliant. He writes that everyone has the potential to become a genius, or at least achieve some kind of greatness. But the reason we choose to doubt whether we are brilliant or not, talented or mediocre, is that it frees us from responsibility for our own lives. “Belief in innate talent and, conversely, limited capabilities has a very gentle effect on the mental level: it turns out that you are not a great opera singer, simply because you are not capable of becoming one. This is just a way to tie you hand and foot. The idea of ​​talent as some kind of innate gift makes our world more manageable, more comfortable. This frees a person from the burden of expectations.”

Not only is your intelligence flexible, but it also depends on your ability to cultivate positive thinking. Take a closer look at your own worldview. Listen to how you speak; An inert style of thinking usually affects your speech. Maybe you mentally say to yourself, “I have a hard time reading.” Such a statement implies that you are confident that it is impossible to correct the situation and believe that nothing can be done with this skill. Try instead saying something like, “I’m still having a hard time reading.” A similar game with words is applicable to any things and situations that you want to somehow improve. Test results do not program your future. They do not determine what you can learn or achieve. Your education is completely in your hands.

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Truth: It's not about whether you're smart, it's about how smart you are. There are several types of intelligence (we'll look at this in more detail later). Like many things, intelligence is a combination of attitudes and actions, and is directly dependent on context.

New belief: intelligence is capable of change.

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Living supercomputer

Brain functions are often compared to the work of a computer, although this comparison is very conditional. Our living “computer” consists of approximately 100 million neurons. According to the director of the Institute of the Human Brain, Academician Svyatoslav Medvedev, in order to describe the interactions between them, you will need a computer with a memory comparable in volume to the number of particles of the universe visible to us.

Information travels in the brain at a speed of 1400 m/sec. The computer does this much faster—in fact, at the speed of light. However, in terms of energy efficiency, it is an absolute outsider. The energy consumption of the brain is comparable to the power of a car battery, while at the same time tens of kilowatts are spent just on cooling powerful computers.

According to various estimates, our brain is a real Terra Incognita, studied at best by 15%. It remains a mystery how neurons are organized when the brain works so slowly, while its efficiency leaves far behind all the achievements of the most modern computers.

Deception #2: We only use 10% of our brain

We have all heard about this myth. Some people first heard about it in school, while others heard about it from a friend. Some may have learned about it from the media - maybe it was a TV show, or maybe a documentary or feature film. This myth is usually used to highlight what amazing possibilities remain untapped: if only we could access the rest of our brain, what heights could we achieve?

The roots of this story go back to several sources at once, but, as often happens when some kind of public opinion is formed, it is a consequence of a whole chain of events. Some attribute this theory to the writer and philosopher William James, who wrote in his book Human Energy: “We use only a small part of our mental and physical resources.” Or it could have started with the work of French physicist Pierre Flourens, known for his discoveries in the late 1800s about how the brain and nervous system work and interact.

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If we stopped using most of our brain, we would soon see large areas of it simply degenerate

Also, this myth may be associated with the experiments of Dr. Karl Lashley conducted in the 1920s. When Lashley removed the part of the rats' cortex responsible for higher-order cognitive processing, he found that the rats were still able to relearn some tasks. This led him to the (false) hypothesis that entire parts of the brain may not necessarily be used in everyday life.

Some blame this myth on tomography and MRI scans that showed bright spots on the screen, giving simplistic explanations along the lines of “This is how your brain behaves when you study something.” These images typically showed only one part of the brain, leading a layman to conclude that we only use a small part of it.

Over the past hundred years, this assumption has been perpetuated in countless advertisements and films. The 2011 film adaptation of Dark Fields, released under the title Limitless, argues that we only use 20 percent of our brain functions; the 2014 film Lucy states that we only use 10 percent. In 2022, an episode of Black Mirror, renowned for its meticulous approach to reporting and clever use of facts and statistics, promoted this myth, proclaiming: “Even on our best day, we only use 40 percent of our mental capacity.” " All these storylines revolved around the idea of ​​unlocking our greatest, albeit hidden, potential.

It goes without saying that this myth, although widespread, is false.

On an NPR radio show, the host once played Morgan Freeman, asking in his signature dramatic bass voice, in line with the script from which the movie Lucy was based: “What if we had access to 100 percent of our brain? What could we do then?

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Neuroscientist David Eagleman gives a blunt answer: “The same as now. That is, we already use our brain one hundred percent.”

This is supported by countless pieces of evidence—too many to list, but Barry Beyerstein, a professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, has outlined some of the major scientific discoveries that refute this myth. Let me summarize them here:

“Studies of the damaged brain show that there is not a single area of ​​the brain that can withstand damage without losing its abilities, which refutes old theories. Brain scans showed that all areas of the brain were active, no matter what type of activity. Even when we sleep, all parts of our brain continue to work.

— Our brain is, figuratively speaking, an energy swallow. It takes up only 2 percent of our total weight, but consumes 20 percent of our energy—more than any other organ in the body uses. We wouldn't need such an incredible amount of energy for an organ that was functioning at only 40 percent of its capacity (or less).

“Scientists have also determined that different areas of the brain interact with each other. After decades of diligent study of the brain, they came to the conclusion that useless parts simply do not exist in it.

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“And finally, we learned that the brain, if necessary, uses a mechanism called synaptic pruning. If we stopped using most of our brain, we would soon see large areas of it simply degenerate (which we do not see, except in the case of some kind of brain disease).

To summarize, it is safe to say that this myth is not true. In an interview with Scientific American, neurologist Barry Gordon of Baltimore's Johns Hopkins School of Medicine said the idea is "so wrong it's almost laughable."

Truth: I want you to understand that the full potential of your brain is available to you now. The utopia described in all those movies and TV shows exists and is waiting for you. It's just that while we all already use our brains to their full potential, some people use them better than others. Just as most people use their bodies one hundred percent, there are people who are stronger, faster, more flexible and more energetic than others. The point is to learn how to use your brain as efficiently as possible, and by the end of this book, you will have all the necessary tools to do this.

New Belief: I am learning to use my brain in the best possible way.

“The worst thing in life is not to make mistakes”: why you need to master the art of failure

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Notes[edit]

1. Well, we know: if astronomers know a lot about the stars, it means they can control them!
2. Well, knowing everything
   , it’s probably possible to control it in one form or another (the Sufficiently Developed Aliens trope is all about this). But by the power of thought it is extremely unlikely.

Deception #3: If you make a mistake, it means you are a failure.

When we hear the name Einstein, we immediately think of his brilliant intellectual feats, which most people believe none of us can accomplish. And this is largely deserved: Einstein did more for the development of scientific thought and, in particular, physics than any other scientist of our time. His discoveries made possible some of the most important modern technologies.

It is easy to assume that, with such an outstanding reputation, Einstein rarely made mistakes, however, this is not the case. To begin with, he was considered developmentally delayed and rated as a below average student. From an early age, it became obvious that his style of thinking and learning was strikingly different from that of most of his peers. For example, he liked solving complex mathematical problems, but it was not easy to cope with easy ones.

Later, Einstein made simple mathematical mistakes in some of his most important works. Among his many errors are seven serious omissions in each version of the theory of relativity; inaccuracies associated with clock synchronization during various experiments; as well as a lot of errors in the mathematical and physical calculations used to determine the viscosity of liquids.

It is very easy to conclude that you are a useless person, but it is important to know that you are the one making mistakes, not they are making you.

Can Einstein be considered a failure because of his mistakes? Hardly. Most importantly, he didn't let those mistakes stop him. He continued to experiment, making significant scientific contributions to his research areas. His phrase is widely known: “A man who has never made mistakes has never tried anything new.” Moreover, no one remembers that he made mistakes - he remains in our memory because of his achievements.

So why are we so afraid of making mistakes? Perhaps the roots of this fear go back to school, where we were judged based on the number of errors found, and their presence in each specific test showed whether we passed it or not. If we gave the wrong answer near the blackboard, we were usually so embarrassed that subsequently most of the students never raised their hands themselves. Unfortunately, mistakes are rarely used as a specific learning tool; Basically, they are used as a way to measure a student's abilities.

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If you make a lot of mistakes, then you don’t pass the test and fail the lesson - that’s it, there’s no other way. We need to change this. Too many of us don't even try to use our full potential for fear of making mistakes. Instead of viewing mistakes as evidence of failure, view them as evidence that you are trying to move forward.

Beth Comstock, former vice chairman of General Electric, and her team realized this when the company had to abandon a new product line in which it had already invested. Comstock, who wrote the book Imagine This: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change, often talks about how businesses and the people who work in them are now under constant pressure to adapt more quickly to an ever-changing environment.

She reflects on how, together with her team, she was able to learn to view the mistakes made not as failures, but as some important lessons that allowed them to develop new product lines and thus bring success to the company.

Instead of dwelling on mistakes, they began to ask themselves what lessons could be learned from them.

Truth: mistakes do not mean failure. This is a sign that you are trying something new. You may feel like you have to be perfect, but life isn't meant to be about being like someone all the time; It's about comparing yourself today with yourself yesterday. When you learn from your mistakes, it allows you to become a better person. Also, it is important to remember that you are not the same as your mistakes. They don't say anything about your personality. It is very easy to conclude that you are a useless person, but it is important to know that you are the one making mistakes, not they are making you. Think of mistakes as stepping stones and use them to climb to the next level. It's not how we make mistakes that matters, but how we deal with them.

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New belief: there is no such thing as failure. Apart from academic failure.

Cyborgs are coming

It's more like the plot of a science fiction movie. American scientists have created a device capable of regulating a person's mood. This is not fiction. A patient with chronic depression had an electrode implanted into the area of ​​the brain responsible for the release of happiness hormones. The device is equipped with a control panel that regulates the level of irritation. The man smiled for the first time in many years.

Today, scientists claim that they can increase memory capacity by 20% by implanting special implants into the human brain. But there is another side to the issue. Will the general population have access to these innovations?

Otherwise, there is a danger - the intellectual gap between the “modified” part of humanity and representatives of the protein mind will be greater than between the Europeans who discovered America and the savages. But this question already lies in the sphere of scientific ethics.

Test your multitasking

Online junk is just part of one big problem: multitasking. Modern culture encourages it and even forces us to multitask (for our own good). But have you ever seen an employer who needed someone with excellent multitasking skills? Hardly. Therefore, the benefits of multifunctionality are vague and only in our heads. The main thing to achieve is complete concentration on one action. This way, even if the task is incredibly boring, you will still feel much happier.

How to get rid of multitasking? First, try to develop the habit of noticing that you are doing several things at once. And, just like with the internet, discipline yourself to take things one at a time.

Stop eating internet trash

You've probably wondered how the Internet affects our brain? Doesn't the Network make us addicted, turning into a kind of drug? Status on Facebook, email, Twitter, interesting article, and so on in a vicious circle. Maria Konnikova says that the main problem of Internet users is distracted attention. We constantly have to switch from one activity to another, and this prevents us from focusing on important things.

How to get rid of this? Set a set of rules for yourself: half an hour of email, half an hour of Twitter, and so on. You can do this yourself, but if you know that willpower may not be enough, use auxiliary means.