When Dorothy told Toto in the Wizard of Oz, “I’ve a feeling were not in Kansas anymore,” she spoke for many mid-lifers who make choices daily that slide them over the banks of well being. Now research affirms that slippage can be fatal. Often, it’s simply a matter of seeing why to change, and finding better options that lead to healthier horizons. Your brain will do the rest.

JAMA just reported, for instance, that men who avoid certain risk factors during midlife life longer, and healthier lives. But mid lifers, much like King Atlas from Africa, who carried the world on his shoulders, also have a harder time changing their mental maps to avoid pitfalls along their paths. Scott Sander, in his book “Writing Along the Way,” suggested that, “Only by leaving that familiar ground did I discover one place among many places.”

We often know what we have to do. In this study, for instance, we discovered that midlife men who avoid smoking, overweightness, excessive drinking and hypertension live longer and healthier lives. We’re told that of the 5820 original male participants, 2451 men or 42% survived to age 85 years. Of those 655 participants or 11% only, met the criteria for exceptional quality of life to 85 years. But the facts are often not enough to fuel change.

The key is to sketch a mental blueprint to change, by leaving all familiar ground, as Scott Sander did, to rejuvenate your options. Dr. Bradley J. Willcox, warns that persons alive at age 85 years and older are the fastest-growing age group in most industrialized countries, and so there’s a higher necessity to identify risk factors for healthier quality of life at older ages.

They found that certain risk factors can be measured, and luckily can be modified, are especially important for mid-life men, few of whom survive to oldest-old ages, because of choices made in mid-life.

Although no universal mind map exists for hanging onto a finer mental and physical quality past mid-life, research about the mid-life mind shows you can rewire your brain for new choices in these identified areas of risk.

Simply forge a few fresh streams for new lifestyle choices, and you’ve already changed the lay of the land for better horizons.

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?

One writer in a class I taught described himself “as riding the wind into a new adventure” in mid-life, after completing a Master degree in computer science. What metaphor in nature describes something you’ve accomplished lately?

Nature holds more fuel for your brain than most people realize. To see how, watch lights and shadows dance on woods or water and then write a sentence to show lights and shadows in your day.

Have you ever tried to write sounds you hear along a wooded path or have you compared nature’s fragrances to aromas that remind you of people or events from your past?

In the last article we wrote stories to activate your linguistic intelligence, now let’s throw another mental resource into the storytelling ring - Nature. If you’ve never thought of the natural world – as power to help you spin a yarn, you’re in for a surprise. Naturalistic intelligence can enrich your writing by activating parts of your brain that keep you young. It’s all part of the multiple intelligences you possess, that could enrich your world.

For the past 18 years, it’s been my privilege to know and exchange ideas about human intelligence, with Dr. Howard Gardner, who, at Harvard University, discovered naturalistic intelligence as one of eight intelligences that define all humans. As with any intelligence, naturalistic smarts grow with use.

Here’s a writing idea to activate your naturalistic intelligence and ratchet up your IQ at the same time. Still wondering what nature has to do with your brain… your life story… or a younger, healthier mind. Compare a person you admire to an animal you value… Or create a conversation between a tree and its nutrients to find a financial solution or answer question you’ve been asking.

Go for a walk, tend a garden, or sit alone beside a brook… and let nature play back its ideas in tender roots for a story that relates to your life. Tell your story to a friend and you’ll grow new dendrite brain cell connectors as a result.

Do you create like Einstein did daily, or criticize like his eighth grade teacher - who called him a bonehead? Or do you create blogs into network magazines, like John Evans’ Syntagma, which moves at the cusp, and not without criticism from a few?

The human brain, at peak performance is hardwired to handle risk and criticism with innovative responses that critics only envy, but rarely reach. According to Danah Zohar’s research, the brain wires for peak performance simply based on what we do with a day.

It starts with curiosity - where you look at a problem - with a possibility in mind, that could solve it. Then, innovators ask the mind-bending question, ‘What if…?”

Google looked at its innovative search technologies, which connect millions of people around the world with information every day, and spotted a problem. Competitors were catching up. Their question, ”What if …? led them to purchase YouTube.

Many said it couldn’t work and others said it shouldn’t. What was Google’s response? The eight year old company and its Stanford Ph.D. leaders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, took their top web property behind closed doors and created their solution. They included a band of people who were mentally wired for innovation, and excluded distractions from nay sayers. And when they stepped out again, Google announced its purchase of YouTube for 1.65 Billion in stock.

Know any boomers taking risks lately, for the purpose of creating something new or improved? How about you? When experiences fuel new choices the brain revs up to leapfrog with the next generation. It makes me sad to see so many intelligent mid-lifers lagging behind lately as critics.

In the meantime, and without many years of experience, Google leaders simply gathered brainpower for change, through a circle of intelligent thinkers. Only eight years old, Google’s targeted advertising program offers businesses of all types a way to measure results, while sustaining a wider web experience for all users. Some of the smartest people in the world work at their headquarters in Silicon Valley and in offices across the Americas, Europe and Asia.

The risk involved adding another winning element before others bought it. Around only since February 2005, YouTube adds a cutting edge consumer media company to Google, where people can view and share original videos worldwide across the internet.

With YouTube’s reputation to easily upload and share video clips through websites, blogs, and e-mail, and Google’s gift for search technologies, they both increased their investment. YouTube currently sends out over 100 million video views daily with 65,000 new videos uploaded each day. Through its own innovation, it quickly become the leading destination on the Internet for video entertainment.

Critics are now asking, … But can Google sustain this creative edge? What do you think? It will likely mean more innovation in how Google organizes its 9000 employees. Critics say they cannot continue to sustain their organized chaos approaches with this new addition. But then that’s a critic’s job – to complain. Google’s job seems more rewarding to me … they continue to expect their engineers to create daily, even while others are gunning for them.

Do you spend at least 20% of your day creating something new, as Google engineers are encouraged and expected to develop their own ideas? Start with the question… “What if… and your brain will do the rest. It’s already hardwired for peak performance - whenever you draw on its creative parts as Google just did when it bought YouTube.

No question - nay sayers will complain that they need more money to create like Google…. Using resources you already possess, do you see any possibilities for something new in your day?