Changes can sky dive you into a new career, or you might climb to a castle on a hill, step into a mutually empowering marriage, or sign up for financial investments of a lifetime.

Unfortunately, you could also jump from your status quo misery, into a nip in the butt from unseen alligators in moats you hadn’t noticed, if you leap before you plan.

Luckily, your brain holds far more resources for change with mind-bending rewards, than most mid-lifers realize. The best way to release you own brain based tool – believe it or not — is to look first at what your brain holds in its cache, to help you plan ahead.

The key is to convert newly discovered facts about the human brain - into tools for changes that put you in a better position as your brain ages.

That’s where 2-footed questions can help. Two – pronged questions help you to draw more from your brain to take on the change you’ve longed for – but felt unprepared to risk in past. People who ask a few brain based questions first, tend to unlock their castles of change, and enter without falling into the alligators’ traps. How so?

The right question opens a new entry point - curiosity - which also creates a sort of mental map or illumined neuron pathway that lands you into a better place. It’s less about the length of the journey, or the steepness of terrain, and much more about the clarity of the flight.

Here’s one question to ask before you take your next big leap ….

Are you too old to jump from an airplane? If the younger generation sees you as an old sock – you are likely too old to any make exciting changes you have in mind. Don’t even try in your current state– cause the alligators are waiting for you. Luckily new discoveries about the brain, though, can work in even an old sock’s favor.

Seriously, if you feel motivated to give change a shot, for instance, you’ll find some practical ways to jumpstart and rewire your brain in Ronald Kotuluk’s book, Inside the Brain. There you’ll discover, for example, brain chemicals called “neurotrophic factors” which keep cells communicating with one another are now being tested for ways they can help grow new brain cells… It’s based on the premise that when these factors disappear or shrink … that process inhibits a brain’s potential to create new brain cells or to replace missing ones.

Luckily the human brain comes with its own plasticity - that allows you to rewire plans for the change you have in mind. It’s a bit like planning for the jump of a lifetime, only it offers you a guaranteed parachute that will open and guide you to safe ground, regardless of age or past experiences.

It takes new choices at time – much like these mid-lifers made for active citizenship and action.

Daily changes in brain cells are sustained and stimulated by physically changing your brain’s makeup, and this is done through life’s experiences and through daily learning. The changes continue well beyond our golden years though… which is good news for those of us who feel at time, that our brains are slowing down.

Be careful, at the end of day though, so that you don’t lose your teeth in a jump as this woman did.

Maybe Helen Keller said it best when she said … “Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing at all….” Do you agree?

What makes you happy? Adults do pretty much anything to get babies laughing, and who can deny that their laugher’s contagious. For instance, who could keep a straight face around these laughing quadruplets?

Recently, Adrian White a University of Leicester psychologist came out with a ‘world map of happiness.’

Data analyzed for this study came from UNESCO, the CIA, the New Economics Foundation, the WHO, the Veenhoven Database, the Latinbarometer, the Afrobarometer, and the UNHDR, to create a first world map of happiness.

Interestingly, the study came from findings of over 100 different studies around the world, which questioned 80,000 people worldwide. For this study data was analyzed for people’s responses to health, wealth and access to education.

The 20 happiest nations in the World are:
1. Denmark
2. Switzerland
3. Austria
4. Iceland
5. The Bahamas
6. Finland
7. Sweden
8. Bhutan
9. Brunei
10. Canada
11. Ireland
12. Luxembourg
13. Costa Rica
14. Malta
15. The Netherlands
16. Antigua and Barbuda
17. Malaysia
18. New Zealand
19. Norway
20. The Seychelles

Other interesting results listed:
23. USA
41. UK
62. France
82. China
90. Japan
125. India
167. Russia

The least happy nations listed included …
176. Democratic Republic of the Congo
177. Zimbabwe
178. Burundi

What makes you happy? My more important question is … “Why do kindergarten age children laugh 300 times a day and adults laugh on average only 17 times a day?” What makes babies happy that we mid-lifers sometimes miss?

Hey, move me to Denmark - they seem to get it….

Look out your window and what’s the first thing you see? A leaf glistening? A wind bent tree? Or do you see an unkempt garbage can with litter nearby?

Have you considered how your attention to beauty can cut you a pathway across a difficult day? Likely as many pictures of beauty exist out there – as there are colors, shapes and textures. Loveliness, an expression of your brain’s aesthetic response to life, takes an awareness on your part, though, before it can transform your day.

You can cut a neural pathway through a difficult area of life, by focusing your attention on snapshots of beauty throughout your day. The brain uses your aesthetic focus as a sort of magnificent oasis in the face of madness from the world swirling around us.

We each possess an innate neurology of beauty, created from genes at birth and further developed and shaped by your perspectives. Your multiple intelligences , for example, link you to beauty in ways that can add well being and motivation for living - even when storm clouds linger in one area or another of your day. How does it work?

Beauty enters your mind as an asset whenever you throw a winning solution to a particular problem that disadvantages you. Let’s say you feel disrespected in a relationship. Beauty can help you make new decisions that add winning benefits for your next meeting with that person. Start by focusing more on one beautiful visual that you value, and your mind will create more serotonin, a chemical that enables you to overwrite mental scripts by rewriting your innate worth and value. Read the amazing story of an Amish community near where I live, rewired for beauty recently to forgive a man who broke into their school and murdered their children.

Their mental rewiring for the beauty of God, of forgiveness, and of life, activated more of your intelligences, and helped this community spot splendor in their surroundings, in spite of intense suffering from loss. That’s also how the mind operates in your favor, and hands you that Eureka solution when you need it most. Beauty can transform the most difficult part of your day and can add new shades of color with a zest for living.

Think of your home as a castle for a moment, and let’s look at how beauty could lift your day and boost your spirit for new solutions in … say … a difficult relationship, or health problem.

First, play inspirational music, and your mind opens to vibrant colors of leaves, and possibly even closer friendships to enjoy. For instance, I’m playing NPR classical station at the moment, and the orchestra moves my brain waves to capture new quiet for thought. If you saw these waves through an EEG you’d see them shift from fast to slower with this music.

Next, come down to my lower floor, and see an oak tree in the backyard, where a black capped, Peregrine falcon sat recently, and watched me work. Visualize the wonder of its 40 inch wingspan. He’s not there today – but I still see his saucy stance whenever I look for beauty out that window.

From my front window you’d see a Japanese Lilac I planted when my daughter and son-in-law married last summer. It’s leaves fell last week but it looks strong and ready to embrace a winter.

Move next to my side window and take in a young neighbor’s Canadian flag - flying alongside an American flag, as a symbol for our friendship and for my Canadian birth.

When I stand in my back window, and see the winding creek, I laugh. For awhile the small bridge kept tipping into the rising waters each time it rained. On one occasion I almost fell in - trying to retrieve the deceptively heavy bridge. Have you noticed beauty at times comes through laughter?

Windows from my home show how to open exquisite views from your castle cottage. The mind becomes a castle when you draw from the beauty of many perspectives. Look out a window for some form of beauty and see splendor in your view.