The Project Marketer Chronicles » Mind Hacks
I recently shared a very valuable resource with my 200 Blueprint Marketing Group that I feel should be mentioned for everyone who reads my blog. I am very passionate about the subject of brain health. You see, in my industry of home business and marketing, I need to keep on my toes. I need to remember important dates and appointments. I also need to be able to solve problems quickly and in the most efficient way possible.
BUT most importantly, I need the self discipline and F O C U S to achieve anything of value or to make any money online. I have been exercising my brain lately thanks to some wonderful neuro-technology…er…games. I like to call these little tools and exercises Mind Hacks…henc ethis post is in the Mind Hacks category on my blog. I feel these tools are just as important as anything else I use in business.
Yes I have been increasing my memory, my problem solving skills and just about everything else by playing a few games at the beginning of my day. It is a fabulous way to work.
I have been doing this with an amazing online program called Lumosity.
I am actually very proud of my results lately and I would like to share them with you. Please keep in mind that all I have done to increase my BPI (Brain Performance Index) to these levels is to do one session daily in the Lumosity back office area. It is fun and it is making ALL the difference in the world. But you can see that for yourself below.
First, lets define what a BPI actually is so you can understand the data I am going to show you. Below is the information available about BPI, how it is calculated, and how to gage your performance. This information comes directly from the Lumosity FAQ’s about BPI.
What is the Brain Performance Index (BPI)?
Your BPI reflects your skill in each exercise, and is based on data from over 7,200,000 results. An increase in BPI indicates improvement in that activity. An increase of 200 points represents a substantial improvement of more than 1 standard deviation.
How is BPI calculated?
The BPI scales are based on an analysis and ranking of over 7,200,000 real game results. We used these game results to create a distribution of scores for each activity so we know how an individual score stacks up to all others. We then evaluate your game scores and use a proprietary algorithm to derive your BPI. Each time you play, we update your BPI to accurately reflect your current brain performance.
How is Overall BPI calculated?
Your Overall BPI is your average BPI across each of the four cognitive areas: attention, memory, processing speed and cognitive control. This number provides a concise measure of your overall brain performance. If you are weak in one area, it will bring down your overall score, so it’s a good idea to focus on the games where you scores are lowest.
Can I compare my BPI in one game to another?
Yes. The BPI converts scores in very different activities to the same scale based on average scores across all users. For example, a BPI of 400 in Memory Match is equivalent to a BPI of 400 in Word Bubbles.
How good is my BPI?
Everyone has different base abilities, and BPI is influenced by a variety of factors such as age. The primary goal should be to improve your own existing score, using BPI to track your progress. Scores of a few hundred are the most common when you first start. A score of 1000 is excellent and reflects a well-tuned ability in that activity. An extremely high BPI of 1400 means that your score in that game is better than 99% of all other users.
So now that you have the basic definition of what BPI is and how it works, I will share with you how well Lumosity has worked for me and how well it has helped me in my business activities as a result of the constant elevation and improvement.
When I first started using Lumosity, my overall BPI (the average of all major cognitive areas combined) rang in at a low 636. A bit disappointing at first, but Lumosity was supposed to help me with that so I started working on it everyday, doing one session per day. My BPI has been steadily increasing everyday as a result, and right now I have a total average BPI of 1163!
Now I will show you the areas that I worked on….the individual cognitive sections.
Attention
Starting BPI: 481
Current BPI: 1230
Memory
Starting BPI: 491
Current BPI: 949
Processing Speed
Starting BPI: 579
Current BPI: 1107
Cognitive Control
Starting BPI: 995
Current BPI: 1368
As you can see there have been significant improvements simply from playing the Lumosity games once per day! So why am I telling you all of this and what does this have to do with business?
For starters, ATTENTION is needed in business. I already told you the super importance of focus that you will need to succeed with ANY business you build. It is so easy to get sidetracked online with other things…that email with the cool new website promising you riches or the greatest traffic generator the world has ever seen can waste a ton of time.
It is important to improve your visual attention and peripheral vision by training yourself to attend to more information in your visual field. This is important in a variety of daily tasks we do online. A weakness in this type of visual attention has been shown to be strongly correlated with driving accidents and other things that require split second decision making.
MEMORY is very important as well and I should not have to explain why.
Working memory is a key cognitive function that has been shown to be important for a wide variety of tasks like problem solving and language, and it is correlated with IQ.
By training and increasing your PROCESSING SPEED you help yourself in many ways that may not at first seem obvious.
Processing speed can be a bottleneck for other cognitive processes, and improvements here can help your ability to solve problems and learn faster.
And finally, probably my most favorite thing to work and train is my COGNITIVE CONTROL. It is so important for a variety of reasons, many of which, again, may not be all that obvious to you.
Cognitive control is also known as executive processing. This set of cognitive functions is important for decision-making, planning, and suppressing inappropriate behavior. Cognitive control helps align thought and behavior with intentions.
I am not making this stuff up. I have long been a student of the brain and am very much into brain health. I believe with all of my heart that wealth is a product of a man’s mind and the more healthy your mind is, the wealthier you will be. Pretty simple. I am proving that to be true for myself.
I highly recommend this program as something to do every day of your life. It has been said that without proper training the brain actually begins to slow down as early as age 30! I figured I should start right away and I think you should too, no matter your age.
You can try Lumosity for free for 14 days and see how much you can improve in that time…see how much better you feel after using it. I think you will agree with me that it is a great tool and something you will want to start everyday with from this point on.
Click Here to check out Lumosity.
You will be glad you did!
Yes I did it. I told the truth and I expect you to read it.
Before you can even come to the table to learn from what I am going to teach you here, you need to undestand the vital principles of marketing online, AND you need to know the real reason why you have likely failed up until now.
To do that you need to read…
I feel like waxing philosophical here for a minute… You know what that means!
It is time for another Mind Hack!
Where exactly does success come from? How does one find it and what exactly does it mean? If you have been struggling for a long time with building a business online or even just making a few hundred dollars extra every month, have you ever asked yourself why?
It is way to easy to blame the “programs” or “marketing systems” out there, call anything which does not produce for us quickly a scam etc. Have you ever done this? I certainly have back when I did not yet understand where my true power to succeed would come from.
Yes, there are scams out there that will take your money and run but it is not difficult to shield yourself from these. All a scam company does is prey on the desires that are already within us. They don’t attach themselves to anything new. Those who utilize unscrupulous marketing tactics know that many people will only come looking for help online when they are in dire need of it, or come looking for ways to increase income when they are already strapped with massive debt and don’t see a way out.
In a situation like this it is easy to fall victim to “bad business” and to believe the hype standing before you. The simple fact is that you want it to be true when you read things like, “Make $50,000 per Month Easily” or “Make Money - Do Nothing”, and the list goes on and on with more impossible promises coming everyday.
It is easy to “believe” something far-fetched, especially if we really WANT it to be true. The mind can play tricks on us, but that does not mean we should be wary of our own thinking. In fact, it shows that the mind, what we think is really where the true power lies.
So, even if you do start a business with a reputable company what is it that is keeping you from your dreams? Why does everything seem so hard for you and so easy for others?
Hey, I am not attacking you directly, but I know for a fact that this is a feeling that the majority of people have who call me or email me with their questions about it building a business online.
I am speaking to those people right now. I have the answer to this question and it has nothing to do with learning secret marketing techniques or anything like that. The problem is in your thinking. It is quite possible that you are thinking too small.
Here is what I want you to think about right now. If someone who you know is earning five times more than you are online with their business, chances are it is because they are thinking five times bigger than you. That is it, plain and simple.
You need to start thinking bigger, and this involves not only recognizing that everything CAN be yours, but also that no one is out to get you or cause you to fail. The only wall that stands between you and the success you seek is YOU. Unfortunately some people have built HUGE walls and they need to spend more time bringing them down.
Now, don’t get BIG thinking confused with wishful thinking either. It is wishful thinking and hoping something will be true that gets people into the financial trouble so often experienced online. If you have never even made $1000 in one month, how do you expect to make $50,000?
I don’t care what the website says…there is no website or magical marketing system that will make $50,000 for you in one month if you cannot even conceive it. BIG thinking is not just adding more zeroes to your income possibilities.
BIG thinking is simply learning to focus more on what you want instead of on what you don’t want. Let me say that again….
BIG thinking is merely focusing on what you want. Small thinking is focusing on what you don’t want.
If you are always imagining and picturing in your mind situations you would not want to experience, you are automatically shrinking your mind and your life. What you think about you will bring about.
The power of our minds and what we can do with them is not some fairy tale. It is a power that has been known about for ages by many great men and women of history. Their practice and perfection of mental techniques is what made them great. They were not born great.
So, if you think about what it is you DO want you are adding to your situation and increasing your life. You may not have the things you wish to acquire yet, but thinking about them is what creates the space for these things to come into your life.
Thinking about what you don’t want certainly will not create the space to receive anything accept what you already have. It goes much deeper than this, but in essence, you have a choice every day and every second of your life. You can think BIG or small.
You can focus your mind and intention on the wonder and beauty of life, the things you want to experience, or you can focus on the small things of life, that which you do not wish to experience.
It is YOUR choice and no one can ever take that from you.
Over the next several weeks our Sunday Coffee talks will begin to unravel this mystery of the mind and how you can use it to guide you in all areas. Whatever you want can be yours, and all it ever takes is the smallest of mental shifts. It is not as hard as it may seem.
It is actually fun as you slowly and methodically begin to replace old ways of thinking with new and fresh intentions. Your life will never be the same. With time you will be echoing the mighty words of Emerson…
“Great men are those who see that thoughts rule the world.”
Until next time….
Adam Bauthues
“The Project Marketer”
http://www.ProjectMarketer.com
It is time for a new addition to the Project Marketer Chronicles. Sunday Coffee! Todays topic is a good one I think, and it is the #1 reason I went from struggling online to making a full-time income I could be proud of. I hope it will somehow aid you as well.
With the holiday season upon us all, it finally hit me one day how the smallest shifts in perception make the biggest difference in the success or failure of our businesses. I say this in all honesty, although I would venture to say that many who have not felt any success in their online endeavors may NOT actually have a business, although they may feel they are IN business.
I am not sure how I can explain myself more thoroughly, but there is a major mental shift that anyone aspiring to earn an income online must make or they will never get out in front of anything. I remember so clearly when I made this oh-so important shift in my thinking and how it literally changed me overnight and set me on the path to building a successful business and earning a full-time income from home as both a full-time networker and a part-time affiliate marketer.
(Yes I still love sales. :-))
This imporant shift was brought to my attention again this week as my wife and I continued our Christmas shopping. The key word here is “shopping”, because I feel that is the best word to describe what most people are doing, and continue to do online, much to their own detriment. Could it be that you have not found the success you seek online because you ARE still shopping?
I have had many business mentors throughout my journey, but one statement one of them made to me a couple years ago is still fresh in my mind, just like he was speaking to me now. Here is what he said:
“Adam, there are only two roads in this industry for you to take. There are many different paths moving out from each of the major two roads, with many stops along the way on both. It is simple to recognize what road you are on by the actions you are consistently taking. The two roads cannot be directly named, since they both have many different facets, but the best way to explain them is this way….
You are either in someone’s sales funnel or YOU operate the sales funnel. The rest you will have to figure out for yourself.”
I guess it took me a couple years to figure out what my mentor was trying to tell me, and he dropped many more hints along the way and still does to this day. I think I know what he meant and still means to impart to me. I like to sum it up by asking myself a question…
Am I a consumer or a producer? Am I shopping for what someone has or are they shopping for what I have to give? But even that is not it. If it was not such a subtle shift in thinking it would probably be so blatantly obvious. I catch myself even to this day on the “other” path. I say the other, because it is not a “bad” path to be on, it is just not the one I want to spend most of my time traveling upon. There are times when I must “shop” for my business, but the majority of my time is not to be spent here.
When people come online looking to make money somehow, and better themselves financially, they immediately fall into the consumer or shopper category. There really is no place else for them to go.
They are looking and trying to decide how to reach their goals of earning extra money or in building a business. If you honestly look at all of the products and services out there being advertised, they are catering to “shoppers”…those who have no clue what they wish to do except that they would like to earn tons of money doing something other than what they are doing. But at some point, they have to make a decision…to BUILD a business and not just keep shopping for something year after year.
I am afraid that this shift from consumer to producer, or shopper to business owner is so subtle of a shift that many simply miss it, never consciously make it, and thus continue to jump around from one thing to another, like they are buying groceries or other consumable products.
Make no mistake about it…The “Make Money Online” thing IS an industry. It has a consumable product and a commodity for sale. There is no shortage of “products” out there to buy. It is no different than shopping for anything else at the store.
Marketers create and produce products for people to buy and consume. The “Internet Marketing” industry or “home business” industry is an industry, with products for people to consume…and consume they will, over and over again until they don’t even know that this is all they are doing.
So, how does one make that shift? I think my mentor, in one way said it best. I think one needs to consistently get in the habit of asking themselves whether they are in someone’s sales funnel or not, first. Get out of everyone else’s sales funnels and start to focus on building YOUR business. Sure, it may take some “shopping” at first to find out exactly what you want to do…affiliate markting, network marketing etc.
BUT, once you make the mental shift from consumer to producer - from shopper ot business owner, the Internet does not seem like such a cold and hard place to navigate anymore.
So where are you at currently? How can you make this shift? Are you daily adding to the growth of your own business or just shopping around, waiting for the next possible money extravaganza?
Only you can decide this since it requires brutal honesty with oneself.
I wish you a most wonderous holiday season and an equally spectacular New Year!
With Gratitude,
Adam Bauthues
“The Project Marketer”
http://www.ProjectMarketer.com
