By Dan Pardi, MS, PhD & Josh Turknett, MD

Table of Contents

Better Daily Performance, Faster Learning

Furthermore, the integrity and sophistication of that hardware plays a crucial role in determining the car’s capacities. Improvements in the quality of the parts and their engineering translate to improved performance of the vehicle.

For those who routinely push their cars to the limits, such as a Formula One driver, considerable time and effort are placed into optimizing that hardware to deliver a competitive edge.

Hardware is useless without something to run it. Cars need drivers to navigate their way through a city. Computers need software - collections of procedures, or algorithms, that provide the instructions for how to use the hardware to achieve a particular result.

The best drivers, and the best software programs, are able to push their machines to their fullest potential. Peak performance requires optimization of both the hardware and software, with ongoing development and attention to both.

The same is true of our brain. It is the most complex and sophisticated “machine” in the known universe. We are all born with neurobiological hardware, including the 80 billion neurons whose coordinated activity underpins all of our thoughts and actions.

The human brain is a general-purpose machine that can be programmed in nearly limitless ways. We can acquire ‘algorithms’ for drawing, typing, talking, presenting, reasoning, whistling, listening, and on, and on. This of course includes all the domain-specific algorithms that apply to our line of work.

Even more remarkable is that new knowledge integrates into the physical structure of the brain, a feature that allows for continuous gains in intelligence and capabilities throughout the lifespan.

Furthermore, any improvement in the underlying hardware expands the range of capabilities of the entire system. To illustrate this concept, consider all the new software that could now be run during the generational leaps occurring between the iPhone 1 and the iPhone 13; as the hardware upgrades, increasingly-complex software can be run.

Given that the brain is the engine behind everything we will ever create, shouldn’t nothing be more important than optimizing its health and function? Particularly if such enrichment leads to a deeper capability and engagement with all facets of life.

In sum, just like cars, getting the most out of our brain requires optimizing both its hardware (the parts) and its software (the algorithms).

If you think about it, any training you do is actually brain training. For instance, if you want to get better at public speaking, you’re training the brain to further develop your existing capacities.

Yet despite the fact that changing brain function is the goal of all training and development, an understanding of the brain’s biological needs, as well as the mechanics of brain change, are often conspicuously absent from these programs. This leads to inefficient, incomplete, and even counterproductive approaches to personal development.

Furthermore, the foundational role of the health of the brain’s hardware is often overlooked entirely, and ways to optimize the software side is often narrowly focused. For instance, in reference to the example of public speaking above, we typically work on specific skills directly. In other words, if you want to get better at public speaking, one practices speaking. And yes, this does train the brain, but what if there was a way to develop skills faster; to get a greater return on your time investment in everything you will be investing time in. Wouldn’t that be worthwhile?

In fact, a comprehensive approach designed to enhance domains of brain performance and faster skill acquisition has never been more important given all the technological advancements on the horizon.

A better brain program could seem Orwellian: Your organization is trying to get more out of you. But the truth is, it feels great when we are able to successfully handle our work without friction. It gives us an empowering command over our tasks. After all, it’s quite frustrating to have days where you grind at work but just can’t manage to get much done. Therefore, making yourself better at your tasks while making your tasks easier to do, aligns with one’s self interest.

But the value of a program that enhances daily performance and learning speed, doesn’t end at work. It is also valuable for life outside of work. If you get your tasks done faster, you gift yourself the option for more personal time. If you have more energy outside of work, your fullest personality will be available for family, friends, and hobbies. A more energized brain that learns faster is more likely to seek out new hobbies to engage in, new joys to discover, and new ways to make life richer.

There are two primary aims of the program.

The first is to learn how to shape favorable internal and external environments for optimal brain performance and health. This is related to the care and maintenance of our brain hardware.

The second aim is to the realization of cognitive potential through the continuous development of new “software.”

To unlock untapped potential, we must establish the right internal and external environments needed for the brain’s hardware to perform at its best. And when we do so for near-term performance benefits, we also just so happen to create the conditions for long-term brain protection.

Enduring misconceptions about human brain function is the belief that it is fixed after early adulthood and largely constrained by genetics.

While research in the neurosciences in recent decades has overturned these ideas, their influence remains, and few of us take full advantage of the potential hidden inside our skulls because we aren’t taught ways to do so.

The human brain has a lifelong ability to change itself in order to acquire new knowledge and skills. We can add new “software” to our brain at any age, and with a thoughtful approach to doing so, can experience far more rapid growth in our intelligence capability, while also cultivating the conditions for the emergence of our own unique creative genius.

This is not a special property of a select few brains, but a property of every brain.

Our program helps people adopt a systematic approach to the continuous expansion of their unique intelligence so that they may more fully realize their personal effectiveness, contribution, and potential in their life.

If we’re going to make efforts to increase our brain performance, we want that training to transfer to all aspects of our everyday tasks, from large to small, from routine to our most special moments. That is the dream of brain training: that the efforts we put in impact everything we do, and not just the thing we train on (i.e., better only at crossword puzzles but not anything else).

After all, for a program to be worth it, the net benefit to daily performance and learning must exceed the time spent on that training.

Time: 14 Weeks

Goals:

Program Specifics:

The 14-week Build the Skills program consist of the following:

Weekly Time Commitment of Participants:

Pre kick-off Survey and Insights Report

The survey and Insights Report helps participants identify growth opportunities. In particular, high ROI areas to focus their initial efforts on, and to identify any existing habits and behaviors that are likely undermining mental performance and well-being.

Kick Off Session

Live (preferred), virtual, or recorded. In this session, participants will meet the Better Brain team, receive their Insights Report, and learn about their strength and betterment opportunity, the core principles of mental performance and well-being, and what to expect from the program.

Training & Education Series

14-customized podcast episodes will be released over the course of the program, each covering a core component of the program and tailored to the needs of the organization (in part based on the survey data). Participants will be given action items to perform after each episode.

Time: Month 4 to 12

Goals:

The program has been developed by the our team’s wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary expertise and decades of experience in areas including clinical neurology, cognitive neuroscience, sleep neuroscience, ancestral health, neuroplasticity, accelerated learning, and creativity, nutrition and metabolism, biochemistry, and peak performance.