Hey guys. I'm going to call this video, Three Books to Stimulate Your Brain, and that's really
what it's all about. These are three actual books that I have read and have made a crazy impact
on how I see the brain and how I think and how I approach peak performance in regards to the brain
really. The first book out of these that I read was Mind Gym. It was by a guy named Gary Mack.
Gary, I believe this is true, was a reporter for the Fort Worth Star Telegram and he wrote a book
called Mind Gym, and I have to tell you, it is one of the greatest books that I have personally ever
read on, if you want to call it sports psychology, just inside the athlete's brain and their mindset
on how they achieve success. In 2009, I was training for the USA Memory Championship, and I
got this book because I wanted my mindset right. I wanted to be in the mindset of a peak performer,
of a top athlete. And I read this book, I read it first, and I'm like, "That was awesome." I read
it again and I read it again. He tells stories of professional athletes, professional baseball
players, professional golfers, professional basketball players, and he gets inside of
their mind on how they set goals, how they don't get rattled. They're in front of 20,
30,000 fans going crazy and how they can focus their mind so intently and get in
the zone and just really get the mind of an athlete performing at a very high level,
performing things that the average person can't do. And it's a great book, but it really was so
helpful to me. It helped me set my goals. It gave me strategies on how to deal with setbacks. One of
the strategies that it gave me in this book that I'll share with you is visualization.
It talked about how the professional athletes would visualize the shots before they take the
shots. If they were a golfer, they'd visualize the ball going in the hole or basketball players would
visualize the free throws, and I really took that to heart. When I was training for the USA Memory
Championship, I would get in a room, I would turn off all the lights, I would sit in a chair,
and I would visualize myself going through the whole day. I would visualize myself walking into
the room. I would visualize myself seeing the people, talking to the people. I'd visualize
myself smiling. I visualized the first event and I visualized the score I wanted. I visualized
the second event and the score I wanted. I visualized the third event all the way through
the tournament. When I was done visualizing the tournament, the final scene holding the
trophy above my head, it was like 90 minutes. I did a 90-minute full visualization of the day.
And I would do that a couple times a week. Just sit in a chair, close my eyes and visualize for
an hour and a half. I won. I became the 2009 USA Memory Champion. The next year I duplicated that
process and I was the 2010 USA Memory Champion. The next day I found myself on Good Morning
America, Martha Stewart, Dr. Oz, and all these TV shows, and it was surreal. And they would ask me,
"Were you shocked by your win?" I'm like, "No. I saw it 50 times before it happened." It was like,
"Okay, this is how it goes." But that was just one of the strategies I learned from
Gary Mack's book Mind Gym. That's the first book I'm going to recommend that you get. The
second book that you get on your mindset. It's a different approach to mindset. It's
called Keep Your Brain Alive by Lawrence Katz. In this, he talks about the concept of neurobics.
Neurobics, I believe is a perm that he coined, and it's about how you exercise your brain. He
really makes the point that you don't exercise your brain by doing the same thing over and over
and over again. For example, and he even don't get mad, don't kill the messenger here on this,
but he says, "Playing these brain games on your phone doesn't really do anything for your brain."
He says, "Doing the same thing over and over again. You just get better at that game. And
by getting better at that game. You're like, oh, look, my brain is getting better." No,
you're getting better at the game. You're not really creating new connections and you're not
really exercising your brain. Lawrence Katz in his book Keep Your Brain Alive. He makes
the case that to really exercise your brain and make new connections, you need to do new things.
So for example, here's something. He says, "Put coins in your pocket, reach in your pocket and
try to feel, is that a quarter? Is that a nickel or a dime? Just by the feel." In other words,
engage your brain in ways that you're normally not engaging your brain. He says that maybe you
close your eyes when you walk into your home and do this in a way that you don't get hurt, but
close your eyes when you walk into your home and try to walk through your house touching the piece
of furniture and knowing where every single thing is at. Now, go slow so you don't hurt yourself,
but engage your brain in walking around your house in a way that you normally don't do.
Something as simple as if you're right-handed, write with your left hand. Engage your brain
in a way that you normally don't do. He has 83 neurobic exercises that you
can do in this book to keep your brain alive. I love it. I love Mind Gym and I love Keep Your
Brain Alive by Lawrence Katz. And the last book on here is actually written by a friend of mine,
Joshua Foer. Joshua Foer brought a book called Moonwalking with Einstein. I was a 2009 and '10
USA Memory Champion. Joshua Foer was also a USA Memory Champion. If you read his book,
in his book, Moonwalking with Einstein, he talks about how he set the record for the fastest to
memorize a deck of cars in the United States at a minute and 40 seconds. And when he did,
he thought, "Oh wow, I just set the record for the fastest to memorize a deck of cards." And that is
in the book Moonwalking with Einstein. Well, I'm the guy that broke Joshua Foer's record.
And we're great friends. I talked to him just over text messages about four or six weeks ago.
He's a great guy and he wrote a great book on memory called Moonwalking with Einstein,
and essentially it takes him through the process of being a novice in memory,
not knowing anything about memory to competing in a memory tournament. And he interviewed peak
performers in memory. He interviewed memory athletes, and then he goes and competes in the
USA Memory Championship and he wins the USA Memory Championship. So it's a great book. It tells the
story of memory tournaments and during the story, you also learn memory systems known as the Mind
Palace and other things, and it's a great book and I highly recommend it. And Joshua Foer is a
friend of mine. He's a really good guy. If you want to stimulate your brain,
if you want to learn new things and see your brain in a different way, I'm going to recommend that
you get Mind Gym by Gary Mack, Keep Your Brain alive by Lawrence Katz, and Joshua Foer's book,
Moonwalking with Einstein. All great books to stimulate your brain. I hope you get them. By
the way, did you know that I have a memory course? It's called Black Belt Memory. You can get a black
belt in memory just like you can get a black belt in karate. If you want to find out about my black
belt memory course and maybe even get a free gift from me, click the link down below. You can get a
free gift. Comment below in the comment section, what is your favorite book that stimulates
your brain? Is it one of these or is it another? Subscribe, and I'll see you on the next lesson.