All right, welcome back to The Daily Mastermind. George Wright III here with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. Welcome back. I hope you're having a great day today. I want to talk to you about creating your best life because it's never too late to start living your best life and it's never too late to start doing the things you need, the mental discipline, the consistency of the rituals that you need in order to create the life that you want to live. So this week we are getting started and kicking off a 12 week straight on how to evolve your mind, body, money, business and lifestyle. And I'm really taking and digging deep into the 20, 25 years I've had working with mentors and CEOs and authors and experts in all different areas of your life. And today I want to pull back up something that I've gone to in the past multiple times. And that is because we're talking about your body. We're talking about how to optimize yourself. there's an article that I read a while back from Dr. Daniel Amen from the Amen Clinics and it talks about 10 tips for your brain basically to help you keep from getting frustrated and fed up there's there's 10 tips that he has and here's the reason I bring this up look there's so many people I know right now that are depressed that are anxious that are stressed there are people that don't know how to internalize and deal with problems that they're facing in life. And what they're failing to recognize is that one of your most important tools you can use in your life is your brain. Your brain is probably one of the most important tools you can use, and yet we don't think of it as a tool. We don't think of it. Think about your health, for example. When you run into health problems, you diagnose, you go to the doctor, you have ways that you can optimize your heart, your blood sugar, your weight, and all these things. But the number one tool you can use in your life is your brain. And you've got to learn to separate the fact that your mind and your brain are not you. Sometimes we feel like your brain and your mind are running you. And I realize and recognize those are two separate things, right? But at the end of the day, your consciousness, your direction, your focus, your energy, all of those things will come from your brain. And so you got to ask yourself this, are you taking care of your brain? Are you taking care of your body? What specifically are you doing that maybe you could do better? What are you doing to optimize your brain? And what type of problems or symptoms are you maybe experiencing right now that if you improved the quality and health of your brain, you could make a massive difference with just a little bit of focus and attention on optimizing your physical body, your brain, so many other things will come together for you. And so you've got to look at it from every angle. Sometimes we're into our how do we optimize our mind our money our business our relationships communication but the tools that you going to use it like sawing a log or cutting firewood with a dull axe or a dull saw You got to sharpen the saw as Stephen Covey would say. So let me give you these 10 brain tips that are going to keep you from getting frazzled, frustrated, or fed up. And I'll put a link in the show notes so you can go to the full episode, but I'm just going to highlight, you know, the 10 tips with a couple of thoughts. The first one is look for positivity. The human brain is hardwired for negativity. Have you ever noticed that? That no matter what you do, you're constantly noticing the negative? Here's a tip. Train your brain to look for successes. So if you were, for example, journaling every day, write down a success that you had because even in your worst days, you can have successes. Train yourself to look for positivity. Second tip, fuel your brain. Fuel your brain. See, feeding your brain high quality foods and starting the day with like protein and things like that are going to help you to focus better. You're going to have better energy. Think about it this way. This article talks about the brain is comprised of 80% water. And even mildly being dehydrated can negatively impact your moods. It makes you feel more anxious and depressed or angry. Have you ever thought about that? Just being dehydrated? So here's a tip. Drink a gallon of water every day. I know it sounds like a lot. Drinking a gallon of water is a lot. But at the end of the day, you've got to learn to hydrate your brain because your brain is going to be one of those biggest tools, right? The third tip is exercise to boost the blood flow to the brain. So you can get it hydrated. But if you're not increasing your blood flow, your brain's not going to optimize, right? 20% of the oxygen of your body and blood flow goes to the brain. And so everything that impairs this. Everything that impairs your blood flow and your circulation is going to affect your brain. It's going to affect your mind. So anything that impairs that will impair your overall performance. So exercise will enhance your mood, reduce your stress and activity. But that's the tip for this area is exercise in order to boost your brain flow. Use it as a daily ritual. And when you exercise in the morning, for example, you're going to win the day, but you're also going to get that brain blood flow going for yourself. The fourth tip is create a physical space for work or school or whatever you're doing. Train your brain to be set up around boundaries. See, one of the tips that I have is don't take your work into the bedroom at night or it'll impact the way you rest. Don't, you know, when you just create work all over your life, you're going to be always stressed. Whereas if you can create designated spaces, yes, maybe you're going to work at home a little bit, but have a designated space for that. Don't work in front of, on the couch and in the kitchen and in your bedroom. Create physical space for your work and school. Remember, we're trying to train your brain to be optimized, right? The fifth tip is give your brain a break. The ideal amount of time to work you heard this many times is like 75 to 90 minutes So learn to time block Learn to block time that you focus on certain things What this is also going to do as a default is it's going to help you to stay productive because our time expands into the time that you put into it. So if you just work all day on a project, you're going to take all day on a project. And by the way, a tip for giving your brain a break, one of the tips that I have is don't use that break as TV or social media. That's not a break. So many of us say, ah, I just want to watch a movie and not think about it. No, your brain needs a break, not another distraction. So give your brain a break. The sixth tip is share the load. When you have a lot on your mind, and I've had this happen many times, when you have a lot on your mind, it's very difficult to be able to process all that unless you share the load with a community, with a mentor, with personal trainers, friends, family, whatever it is, because this will definitely lower your stress, anxiety, and overwhelm. So a tip for this is just join a small mastermind or a group or attend networking events, because when you can share your thoughts, it really does allow you to offload some of those heavy concepts that are going around, circulating around in your mind, right? Seventh tip, practice mental hygiene. Now we all went through a pandemic a while ago, but mental hygiene is just as important as washing your hands, washing your brain. So the Amen Clinics talks about something called ANTS, which are automatic negative thoughts steal your happiness. These are the thoughts that come up quickly, right? Because our brain is hardwired for negativity. And sometimes these negative thoughts can become automatic. And so you automatically think certain things because of your past. It's very important to mentally hygiene your process as your brain goes through. So a tip is learn to recognize these automatic negative thoughts, these ants and these patterns. Recognize them right away because awareness is going to be the key and then you can practice turning those because remember the frequency and repetition you have with changing a pattern, it will help you to change it long term. These automatic negative thoughts are not going to be there forever if you are aware and practice mental hygiene. The eighth tip for your brain out of these 10 is encourage active listening. Encourage active listening. Now, I love this one because we always talk about you have two ears and one mouth. So use that in proportion. Listen more. Learn to listen first, but learn to repeat back what you heard. This is a technique we use in sales and in communication that work really well. If you listen to what people have to say and then you repeat back what they've said, not only does it help you create better communication, but people will feel heard. People will feel that you're listening to them and it helps to increase your effectiveness of communication. So encourage active listening. The ninth tip for your brain is tell your brain it's time to relax You got to at the end of the day learn to shut down your mind It super difficult I know I been there and it very difficult But find activities and boundaries or rituals that help you to close and shut down your brain These are things like meditation or music or just silence Silence is the key, as Ryan Holiday would say. And so a tip that I've spoken about before is learn to create at least one daily ritual that gives your mind a break or allows you to offload the stuff from your mind, whether it's meditation, music, sitting in silence, do something like that every day so your brain can reset. It's one of the reasons why some of the greats over time would take an afternoon nap, a restorative afternoon nap. Sometimes I could lay down for 10 minutes and boom, my brain has reset. So that's one thing you can look at. And then the final tip, the 10th tip, and this is one that I can't overemphasize, stick to a sleep schedule. Stick to a sleep schedule. The Amen Clinic suggests in this article that while you're sleeping, your brain is hard at work performing some critical functions necessary to keep your operating systems at optimal levels. For example, during sleep, your brain cleans or washes itself by eliminating all the cellular debris and toxins that build up during the day. It consolidates learning and memory, and it prepares for the following day. And so it's very important for you to get adequate sleep. And so create a sleep routine for yourself. the biggest tip I could have for you is create a specific sleep routine. The same time, the same length. Make sure you're getting adequate sleep. I don't care what anybody says. Yes, there's periods of time where four or five hours is all you can get, but seven to eight, nine hours, whatever it takes, you will be more productive in the rest of your time. So I'm telling you right now, and I hope you'll listen to me when I say this, whether it's anxiety, depression, AD, or whatever mental health issues that you may be dealing with, instead of just avoiding or sweeping them under the rug, find ways to take your number one asset, your brain, and turn it into your number one tool, your superpower, your ultimate tool for growth. And you do this by practicing self-care. So I hope these 10 ideas, these 10 tips have helped you. I'll put a link to the article in the show notes. It's a great resource. Dr. Raymond's got great books. He's got a good podcast. It's things that help you to stay aware of the fact that your brain is an amazing tool to help you in your life. So that's my topic for today on your body, evolving your body. I look forward to talking with you more tomorrow about money and we can talk. Obviously, that's one that a lot of people love, but do me a favor. Please share this show. Share it with anyone, at least someone. If you've learned something from the show, it's very little to ask for you to at least share it with someone and I look forward to talking with you more tomorrow. Today, I'm glad you joined me. You're the average of the people you've hung out with, you've been on The Daily Mastermind, you can check that box. I look forward to talking with you tomorrow. Have an amazing day.
