You’d have to brain dead to “listen up,” when the human brain retains less than 5% of what a person hears in any talk. It’s true. Lectures actually work against your brain. Yet in every lecture hall, and in every hard seat, you find people sitting bolt upright, feigning interest for the sake of some speaker. Wait a minute … how then have lectures and talks stuck around since Plato, if they work against a person’s brain? Good question, and the answer is finally here.

Talking benefits and motivates the speaker, not the listener!

How so? Whenever speakers talk or teach anything, those speakers fire up many intelligences for aha moments through the teaching process. Here’s the clincher though - speakers retain 90% of what they teach. Compare that high-stake return with the less than 5% retention for the poor schmuck bolt upright in a hard seat. Do the math and answer becomes clear. Teach and you retain 90%, listen and you keep 5% at best. In spite of wasted revenue, lost time and unused talents, talking sticks around because it benefits talkers. Speakers’ motivation for lectures is more than high enough to keep words flying - even those that bounce off your bored brain.

Still feeling the need to lecture? If so, why not deliver your next speech to the cat. You’ll still get the 90% retention benefit, Kitty gets the attention, and unsuspecting listeners get spared wasted words.

So how then do we teach anything without talking?

Tomorrow I am invited to give a breakfast talk to a Rotary group. The Title of my talk is … “How could a brain ever benefit from a talk like this?” And I’ll engage many of their multiple intelligences in this way.

1. I’ll offer a brief introduction for under two minutes and throw in a joke to release enzymes for learning. Then I’ll ask my question … “What was the best talk you’ve ever heard and why?” Since there are too many to hear all the answers, I’ll have them swap stories with the person to their right, and then hear a few after 3 minutes.

2. Next I’ll play the song, “I believe I can fly,” and ask Rotarians to come up with one question each about how their brains could reboot to help them fly in a new way? I’ll invite them to reflect on one thing that holds them back, and to jot their question down on a piece of paper, during the song.

3. Then my PowerPoint will generate interactive discussion. With each of five slides, I will motivate participants to apply brain based ideas to their day, in ways that answer a few of their questions… Remaining questions that come in, I will answer in future blogs here at Brain Boomer. That way we can all enjoy their great questions and interactions, I suspect will emerge.

Here are slide titles we’ll banter back and forth to apply new ideas to people’s interests…

a. Nightly your brain rewires based on questions you ask and things you do that day
b. Target a new adventure for the day and you strengthen your working memory
c. Expect serotonin not cortisol to move your day forward
d. Move multiple intelligences into action to grow neuron pathways for your brain
e. Reflect on new solutions to a problem, laugh at yourself, and play with ideas

Nuff said. My time is up … the breakfast meeting is over … I talked less … and hopefully my audience will feel inspired by the many intelligences they engaged, to try out a few brain based ideas, in ways that benefit their day. I hope that happens, because Rotarians are the best and they deserve the best! Any ideas to make my talk better?

Are you losing keys and forgetting names? People who believe the myth that memory loss and age go together, develop more stubborn patterns of forgetting. The brain takes a holiday from its role to remember. Surprisingly, forgetfulness comes from the ways we train our brains daily to think more like a slug…. Frustration follows when we’d rather they suddenly perform like a race horse, more than a slug leaving the gates, at a Derby.

Here are five surefire ways to let your brain live like a slug, while people around you will expect you to forget:

1. Eat a heavy meal before you give a talk and you’ll have to call your brain back to attention, for every bite it’s now working hard to digest. You just assigned your noodle the busy role of digesting … so how can you expect it to pop up names or find fast facts … simply because you’re next on the speaker’s list.

2. Panic whenever key words go missing in your mind, and you teach the neurons to misfire and to defend your panic, more than to create new neuron pathways to an answer you’re looking for. Still looking for keys to open that door? One way to remember …is to hook keys onto the same familiar place … hey … but panic is far faster on a busy day. Why worry about the fact that panic takes all your brainpower away from remembering anything? It’s easier to see your aging self as a tiny lost vessel in that stormy vast sea of forgetfulness.

3. Flip your keys into the nearest corner you spot at the moment … and simply get on with your day. That way you build a basal ganglia for confusion – and your poor brain will never remember that last dark hole’s location. Don’t let that stop you though, but do prepare for another black hole search for keys.

4. Tell yourself that memory leaks out with age. That way your brain abandons its natural proclivity to remember and takes on the easier role of the slug you’ve assigned it. Remember, your brain is shaped by what you expect of it, and memory is limited each time you perpetuate memory misconceptions. Eventually a new reality sets in and you’ll forget what’s needed to keep your brain fueled and well oiled. You’ll forget that memory was more about use it or lose it than about age.

5. Blast somebody near you for losing your keys again. It feels better at the moment, so why worry that your mind fills with the stress hormone, cortisol. Or who cares that cortisol flies around angry words like bats in a belfry? Let’s face it anyway… you didn’t need anyone’s help to find your dam keys again anyway.

Anger over lost keys, you say? Hey, that’s another post…. Coming to the Brain Boomer site soon … if I remember.

New research about memory and the aging brain … brings amazing good news monthly. Learned forgetfulness can be turned around today and already recognized before the week is out. It’s based on new studies about plasticity that rewires your brain nightly as you sleep - based on what you do for it that day. In other words, try any of the tips in this post, and that act with build new dendrite cell changes for remembering.

Did you remember any of the new tricks here that will jog your memory?

Calm down and not to worry, if you forgot. I’ll repeat just the tricks below in a few words each … in another seguay to a healthy brain.

Start here for the fun of remembering… and try one that adds zip to your day.

a. Eat light and avoid fats and sugars before a talk or a think tank
b. Stay calm and link what to hear to what you already know so when you hear a name – link it to a feature on a person’s face. I once met a guy called “Harry Bignose,” who had a hairy nose the size a country pump. Ok – that one was easy.
c. Attach a small hook onto your keys and snap them onto a belt or bag, but make sure it is the same place repeatedly, so your brain grows new neuron connectors for finding keys in the same place.
d. Tell somebody else about this post to improve your memory. Did you know that to teach a thing at the same time you learn it, helps you retain 90% more of what you learn. Not bad returns for a simple lesson to help a forgetful friend.
e. Thank people around you for anything they do in your favor. That way your brain fills with serotonin, a hormone for well being, and will soon forget to blast them…

Did I just say you can teach your brain to forget? Ok, it’s true … and now the secret is out. Your brain operates more by how you use it, than by your age. So, why not remember more treasured memories, and forget more misconceptions better suited to the mind of a slug. What do you think?

Yesterday I spilled wood stain onto my counter top, and when I looked down to find a huge brown puddle splashed onto the beige granite surface, it quite frankly surprised me.

I’d been holding a paint tray next to a cupboard as I refinished its door. Images of a terrific new look my kitchen would soon sport - captured my full attention, and the fact that my counter top was being ruined at the same time - simply went unnoticed.

Our lives are shaped by images that preoccupy our minds – and our brains are rewired by the things we do in a day.

When I saw the spilled paint as a result of letting go of one part of my brain - I refocused on balancing a paint tray while I worked. It happens all the time – we let one part of the brain go – to use another part - and I am glad we’re not all holding paint trays over my counter when it happens.

An enlightened mind tends to open more parts of the brain in unified ways, and we can all learn to do it. I like to think of it as weaving together multiple intelligences that help us cope with life. It’s also a brain’s way of capturing adventure beyond the ordinary, and it can happen with any ordinary activity – even when you stain a cupboard. Think of it as a camera of sorts, that zooms in on a close-up one minute, and catches colorful images in its wider lens, the next.

Whenever we zoom in and out in synchrony with our day, we get more from the brain. Start simply by being aware of your brain’s extravagant parts - for any interest you follow. For instance … while I’m no carpenter, I do like to refresh my surroundings with art and multiple intelligences, that add more zip to what I do.

Here are unique intelligences I used:

1. Spatial intelligence helped me to choose the color and to paint evenly.
2. Kinesthetic intelligence allowed me to move - paint - and think of new blogs like this one at the same time.
3. Naturalistic intelligence kicked in when yellow finches sang to me while I painted next to a window open to their Niger Seed feeder.
4. Mathematical intelligence reminded me to number the 16 cupboard doors I removed - and to line them up in order, so they’d be easier to replace.
5. Interpersonal intelligence helped me to imagine the artistic pleasure friends will get the next time we lunch together in my cozy kitchen.
6. Intrapersonal intelligence helped me to reflect on why it’s important in a busy day – to stop and refinish cupboards for a fresher look.
7. Musical intelligence inspired my project… from classical music that moved my brainwaves while I painted.
8. Linguistic intelligence reminded me to read directions on the can’s label - as a way to get better results from the particular wood stain I used.

If you’re ever in the area… stop by and see my results. By the way, what intelligences are you using today … to turn an ordinary event into an extraordinary adventure?

What do you expect from sports anyway? Are you in top mental form for your next golf game? Or do you give a tennis opponent a run for her money? You may be a fast- skilled - strong -and experienced tennis player or golfer … or you may have just played your first game. In either case, if you expect more from your brain -you’ll be surprised how it kicks in for new smooth and controlled shots that can land your scores in a winner’s circle.

In spite of a recent bout with cancer, Marjorie Brewer at 60, still swings a driver like a pro and putts like a metronome. She’s out four times a week, near the grounds of her new senior living residence. People far younger struggle to keep up - and it’s a good game when you can. In one of the persistent mysteries of an aging brain, Marjorie found there are tremendous health care benefits to doing what she loves most – golf. But I see far more than bodily health in Marjorie’s high-performance mind. What she expects - she lands with precision again and again.

At 58, Murray Jensen expected golf to help his brain to slow the effects of cardiovascular disease, which is central to many of the symptoms of old age. Murray’s doctor tells him that he seems to be slowing or delaying and likely even preventing many mental changes that could result from his frail health.

By expecting your brain to be fast and strong and alert, you actually build new neuron pathways to make that happen. Did you know the brain demands 21 percent of the entire oxygen to your body? Not surprisingly, when you move more, you enrich that supply and add to your brain’s potential.

At Brain Boomer … we’ll look at ways that you can optimize your brainpower, and improve your sports’ scores, far more than most people realize. For example, my team won the recent District Rotary Annual Golf Tournament and New York, and we did it by expecting serotonin - the brain’s well-being hormone, to improve our golf scores to 4 under par.

Serotonin can open new ideas and possibilities for you, when you need it most. This hormone for well-being is essential to a good game and it is increased to the brain when you simply expect it to help you out. We deliberately built more serotonin - by wishing others well when they were walking to the tee - by imaging great shots whenever we went into a swing - and by refusing to focus on the mistakes of a bad shot, in favor of the lesson learned for the next controlled swing.

Can you see how sports may be good for your brain - but a high performance brain is delightfully good for your scores? What’s been your experience?