Tag Archives: Genius

Increase Your Genius

Aha!

The other day I was cleaning out my closet, in preparation for an upcoming move, and I happened across an old book that I hadn’t read for a while. Perhaps it’s because I’m basically a very lazy person, and am always looking for an excuse to take a break during anything that resembles any kind of physical labor, I decided to take a look through the book, as I remember having several “Aha!” moments when I first read it.

I had a friend once tell me she went to a lecture of a prominent mental health professional a few months ago, and he mentioned that there are some leading theories that suggest that the more you have those “Aha!” moments, the less likely you will suffer from any decrease in brain function that is normally associated with aging. Those “Aha!” moments can be tricky to come by, they often times come when you aren’t expecting them.

You’ll be watching some TV show about something, and it will remind you of something that happened a couple days earlier, something that you now see in a different light, or a new understanding. That new understanding, that feeling of making a neural connection that wasn’t there before, is where that “Aha!” feeling comes from, or so I’ve heard.

It’s like when you’ve driven to your favorite restaurant across town, and you have to go through all kinds of huge intersections where you are always stuck waiting, then one day by accident you find some small back road that is almost devoid of lights or stop signs, giving you a straight shot. There’s a new connection between you and your favorite food.

Sometimes those “Aha!” moments can be cultivated, like when you are learning a new language, and you take a break and watch a TV or movie that’s in your target language. What used to sound like gibberish, now is peppered with words that you can sort of understand, and instead of guessing what they are talking based on their body language and facial expressions, you can now sort of verify with the words here and there that you understand.

Or when you’re reading some long novel with many different characters and a fairly convoluted plot, then when you get close to the end the loose ends start to tie themselves up in nice understandable chunks of reckoning.

“Aha! So that’s what he meant!”

“Aha! So that’s why he hid the ice cream!”

“Aha! So that’s why she rejected his proposal! I get it now!”

And so on.

When you get a particularly dense string of “Aha!” moments then your brain is really juiced. Which is maybe why I decided to sit down and have a look through that book.

The book, in case you’re wondering, is The Einstein Factor, By Win Wenger. You can check it out on Amazon, or there’s plenty of info at his website.

But the book is chalk full of exercises to give your brain a thorough workout, and several of them have been clinically proven to actually raise your I.Q. One of the most famous is called “Image Streaming.” I tried this for the first time at a seminar I went to on Photoreading.

Image Streaming is when you close your eyes, and just describe the imagery that is in your head, whatever it is. No matte what you are doing, the brain is constantly feeding you images. The unconscious never stops. It’s best to do this with a friend, or at least to describe the image stream into a tape recorder. Otherwise you’re likely to fall asleep.

For every hour of image streaming, you’ll raise your I.Q. one point. Now if you try this, it can seem near impossible to keep this up for five minutes, let alone an hour. But just like any other practice, the more you do it, the easier it gets. And if you only did it ten minutes a day, six days a week. That would be one I.Q. point increase per week. If you took two weeks off every year, you’d increase your I.Q. fifty points a year by only doing this simple exercise ten minutes a day.

There’s plenty of other simple exercises you can do in that cool book. One of them is called “Borrowed Genius.” In this particular exercise (or hallucination, as that seems to be a more appropriate term) you think about a problem.

You imagine somebody that you are pretty sure could solve your problem. You get your friend or your tape recorder ready, and close your eyes. You start to describe your problem in as much detail as possible, and while you are doing so you slowly walk up behind the person you imagine could easily solve your problem.

Then you come up behind them, and quickly switch heads. Yep, you read that right, you switch heads with them. (See why this is best called a hallucination?) And as soon as you plot their head down on your shoulders, you immediately start jabbering away at your best guess to the solution to your problem. The reason you need a friend, or in this case a tape recorder might be better, is that you’ll get several great ideas, several of those “Aha!” moments, but since your jabbering away with some other persons head, when you switch back to your own head you might forget what you just said.

Another trick is called “Over The Wall.” Same concept, instead of walking up behind somebody and stealing their head (or borrowing it) you imagine that there is this big wall, and just on the other side is the solution to your problem. You walk up to the wall slowly, describing your problem in as much detail as possible, and leap up to the top of the wall, and immediately, and as fast as you can, and in as much detail as you can, describe what you see on the other side.

Again, make sure you have a trusted friend (who can take notes really fast) or a tape recorder, or your voice recorder on your computer.

I highly recommend the book, “The Einstein Factor,” or at the very least have a look at Win Wenger’s website. There’s tons of great info there on how to explode your genius and creativity.

Have fun.

Or, if you are interested in using NLP to explode your potential, click on the link below to get started:

Success with NLP

Success with NLP

How To Quickly Skyrocket Your Creativity To Genius Levels

If you’ve ever felt the need for a sudden burst, of creativity, then this article is for you. I’ll show you how you can dig through the seemingly limitless resources in your mind to come up with such wildly creative ideas people will think you are a naturally gifted genius.

Scientists are always being surprised by the complexities and depth of the human mind. Just as they are beginning to scratch the surface, they continue to be amazed at the sheer processing power of the brain. If all the computers of the world were connected together, and tasked with “thinking” about one singular problem, they wouldn’t come close to the power of one human brain.

The structure of the human brain is thought to be of a lattice structure, with nodes connecting to several nodes, each of which are connected to several other nodes. What this does is create a structure where one “thought” or memory stored at one node has a seemingly infinite connection to every other “thought” or memory through the connection of only a couple other nodes.

Similar in nature to the theory of Six Degrees of Separation, which states that every human on earth is connected to every other human through no less than six people. For example, you know somebody, that knows somebody, that has met the Pope. And the Pope, of course, has met most of the world’s leaders. You therefore have about three or four degrees of separation between all of the world’s leaders.

The brain works in a similar fashion. One thought or memory is connected to several others directly, which in turn is connected to several others. Pretty soon every thought can easily be connected to every other thought through only three or four nodes.

When you can harness this idea towards creative thought, you can virtually become genius. The key is to focus on your outcome, and let your mind roam until you find a solution. With practice, you’ll be able to do this within a few seconds, silently, and come up with a solution to almost any problem on the spot. This works great for brainstorming sessions at work.

The way to get started is to simply practice letting your mind wander. One simple way is to create an ABC list of several different items, with each list constrained to a specific category. For example, one list may be of musical instruments, starting with each letter of the alphabet. (Don’t worry; you can cheat if you need to.) For example A = “A guitar”, B= “Bongo drums”, C = “Clarinet,” and so on.

Another list may be food. So A is apple, B is banana, C is Candy, etc.

Once you have your lists, just pick a letter, and start writing about anything that comes to mind regarding whatever to item’s you’ve selected. It might feel strange and clunky at first, but you’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly. It’s best to use some kind of word processor, and just type away without concern for spelling or grammar.

If you do this for five minutes a day, you’ll be giving your brain a tremendous workout, and will be strengthening your lateral thinking ability. Once you get the hang of it, you can start problem solving. Simply choose one word that describes your problem, and use the first letter of that word to select items from your various ABC lists. Then just start free associating, starting with whatever items you’ve chosen.

You’ll be amazed how quickly you will come up with a solution to your problem seemingly out of nowhere. The trick is to be open and not censor yourself. When you get that “aha” feeling, you know you’ve arrived.

For example, let’s say you work at a manufacturing company, and you are having a problem with shipping. So you choose S, and look at your two ABC lists, and choose Saxophone, and Sandwich. (S instrument, and S food). Just start brainstorming away, using the two S words as your seeds, and see where you brain takes you. Just keep associating, and follow along wherever your brain takes you, and you’ll have a solution in no time.

Because you can really appreciate how easily you can use this information, you can sign up for the email list below.

Supercharge Your Learning Capacity

How good are you at learning? Do you soak up new information like a sponge? Only need to hear it or see it once, and it’s second nature? Can you flip through a complicated technical manual and immediately understand how operate a piece of machinery you’ve never seen before? Would you be able to watch a documentary on the History Channel and then take an graduate level essay exam the following day?

Or do you struggle? I remember when I was a kid learning long division for the first time. It was horrible. I had no idea what those stupid boxes were for, and how in the heck did my teacher know what numbers to write on top? Have you ever tried to learn a foreign language? You hear a word that means something, then immediately forget it after you say it a few times?

Most people experience a mix of the above styles of learning. You can learn easily in some subjects, and sometimes it takes a little effort to learn other things. Most people assume that it’s the subject matter. You might hear people say that they are good in math, but terrible in English. Or fantastic at playing the trombone, but absolutely horrible at juggling. The truth is, there is a lot more that goes into learning than most people realize.

Teachers, environment, diet, how much sleep you got the night before, your own preferred learning style all play a part in how well you can learn things easily. Something that I’ve started really learning about recently is the difference between structure and content. In the above examples, the content would be the actual subject, like long division, and the structure would everything surrounding how the content was delivered.

Believe it or not, the same content can be really easy, or really difficult depending on the structure, or how the content is delivered to you. For example, if you are operating on a good nights sleep, haven’t eaten any high sugary foods recently, are sitting in a comfortable position with your back fairly straight, and learning from a teacher that is speaking slowly and clearly, you will likely to learn fairly easily.

However, take the same subject and try to learn it while you are hungover, next door to a construction site, and the teacher has just been dumped by their significant other, you might have some problems.

Similarly, your mindset can have a profound effect on your learning capacity. Whether or not you think something will be hard or easy. How motivated you are to learn. If you only focus on the positive benefits of knowing the material, or if you are only focus on the difficulties you expect.

Ask yourself a question, and pay attention to the answer. How good of a learner are you? Or you can try it this way. Say the following and pay attention to any internal responses: “I easily and naturally learn things quickly with little conscious effort.” How did that feel? Did you hear a little voice saying “No Way!”

If you did, don’t worry. Most people only focus on the material, and not the fantastic realization that as you change your mindset about your own learning, you can change how easily you can learn something new. The more you realize that changing the structure can have a profound effect on how easily you can learn the content, the easier it will be to learn anything you want.

Of course changing external structures like described above (being hungover next to a construction site) are fairly straightforward to remedy, but what about your internal learning structure?

One fantastic way that I’ve gotten fantastic results is from the Personal Genius Paraliminal from Learning Strategies. Listening to that CD sporadically over the past several weeks has given me a fantastic new way to look at reality itself. You can use the CD two ways, either for a specific learning task, such as a new language, or learning a sport, or learning how to operate a new piece of machinery. Or you can use it in a general sense, as I have been doing.

Personally I’ve become very interested recently in being able to switch back and forth between content and structure for different aspects of life. This CD has been a fantastic godsend. Like the other Paraliminals, it uses a hypnotic technique called dual induction, along with some other technology to lower your brainwaves into a receptive state. Then it proceeds to deliver the message that will help you to wrap your mind around whatever particular learning opportunity you find yourself presented with. I highly recommend it.

If you’d like to read more, you can check it out here.

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