Brain Optimization For The Job You Want!

By Ninah Kessler, Brain Fitness Coach

Can an economic downturn be good? Can it help you to recreate your life at a higher level? It can if you have the right mindset. That’s why it’s so important to teach your brain to think positively. But we also have to take care of the machinery of the brain itself. We need brain fitness.

The experts used to think that we all had a limited number of neurons in our brain. Then in the 1990’s, the decade of the brain, neuroscientists discovered that we could develop new neurons and new neuronal connections at any age. If we want to succeed in this new millennium, it behooves us to strengthen our brains.

Without help, our brains reach their peak in our twenties and then start deteriorating. By our 40’s we can usually notice a difference. It’s really very similar to what happens to our bodies. On the cognitive level, names disappear and our brains slow down. Multitasking becomes more challenging. The technical term for this is age related cognitive decline. It’s normal, but it’s not nice.

The good news is that there are things that we can do to slow down and reverse this process.

I’d like to give you an analogy from the physical world. In the 2008 Summer Olympics Dara Torres beat out women half her age to bring home silver medals. How did she do that? It wasn’t luck or chance. She created a professional training team to supercharge her body. On the everyday level, if you want to create a functional aesthetically pleasing body, you have a better chance if you work with a professional trainer or at least take a class. If you are extremely motivated, you can create your own program, but most of us do not have this level of commitment.

The key to training our brains is to expose ourselves to new and novel stimulation, continually challenging ourselves to take it to a higher level. Now we can all do this on our own to a certain degree. Crossword puzzles and suduko are good, and Nintendo DS, bridge, golf and bananagrams are even better. Traveling is great, especially if you learn a language, and playing a new musical instrument is a great neuronal enhancer. And don’t forget to eat a healthy diet, get physical exercise and decrease stress.

But the experience is enhanced with the expertise of a brain fitness coach. It is brain science to know that there are many different abilities that need training – logic, memory, attention, processing speed and mental flexibility, to name a few. Creating a training program that compensates for your weaknesses and enhances your strengths is an art.

When you’re looking for a job, you need your brain to be at its best. You need mental flexibility to figure out where the jobs are and how to format your old job qualifications into skills sets that will take you where you want to be. You need auditory processing ability and processing speed to answer questions in an interview. The best way to get these skills is with a brain fitness coach. You can even increase your brain fitness even if you’re dyslexic, have adult ADHD or a brain injury. Those with cognitive challenges often benefit the most.

A brain fitness coach can help you with stress too. It’s so easy for our thoughts to take a negative direction especially when we are looking for a job. Do you really have the luxury of wasting long periods of time in an unnecessary funk?

At Sparks of Genius, we’ve been training people to get the most out of their brains since 2001 and we have been cited as a brain fitness leader in The Wall Street Journal. You can work with your own personalized fitness coach or be part of a group. One day brain fitness coaches will be as popular as life coaches or personal trainers. But for you, that day can be now.

Ninah Kessler, LCSW, Brain Fitness Coach. SparksofGenius.com 561-859-4060

Partnership...The Work of Champions

In work with people a team means everything. Self esteem and ways of relating are constructed by what is learned from team interaction. Even in graduate school students learn that the key to power for scientists is flexibility and cooperation.

Many experiments show success after numerous well planned failures. Sometimes it takes only a new way of seeing to trigger a break through. We can mourn the past or prepare for the future, we can not do both. Often weakness in one team member will trigger unknown strength in another so it pays to obey the three fs of creativity,. Fun, flexibility and favor.

Your family and friends are a team that cares about you. Remember them, be thankful for their care and treat them well

The future depends on what we do in the present ...Mahatma Ghandhi

The Artist and The Team

Many years ago there were two gifted artists. They were poor and scholarships went to the politically astute so they were on their own with talent and no money. They devised a plan. The one brother went into the mines to work and support the other while he went to graduate school.

This brother, spurred on by the help of his brother graduated with honors and became widely acclaimed. He went back to his brother with joy and said “I can put you through school with class”. The other brother without bitterness lifted up his hands to show them to his brother, they were broken and crooked from years in the mines. He said “I can not go, the mines have cost me my hands”

The artist did a sculpture of his brothers hands, they became his greatest work. Most of us know them as they became the image for the famous serenity prayer. In life sometimes we are the hands and at other times the artist. It is good to consider the cost to our team and provide feedback and favor before hands are destroyed. But even hands that seem to be useless have value. Who you are is more valuable than what you do

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless" Thomas Edison.