Rewiring Your Brain to Accept My Advice

 If you're reading this, it's already too late.

You've entered the influence zone. Your defenses are lowered and your synapses are soft clay in the hands of a master in delivering unsolicited yet benevolent wisdom. 

YES, I'm talking about me!! Sheesh.

The very reason I woke up this morning was to begin rewiring your brain to accept my advice. That's right. Not just read it, or scroll past it and nod like it's possibly meaningful. But hear it in Morgan Freeman's deep resonating voice and really take it in.

Encompass it in the folds of your grey matter like a sponge soaking up someone else's bathwater. Only the bathwater is a little more sage wisdom and far less visually disgusting. 

I could've called this post "Helpful Tips for Self-Improvement" or "How to Change Your Thinking Habits," but those have been done to death. And don't start with 'R'.

Besides, everyone and their mindfulness coach has a five-step plan and a chart for personal growth at a slow and steady pace. 

Losers!!!

I prefer to go the route of full-on digital defibrillator. Slow growth is boring, and has far less potential to become the plot of a disaster film. I'm here to grab your inner cynic by its brainwaves and yell "Listen to me, you beautiful disaster. Also Dave."

The Problem Isn't You - It's Your Brain

Your brain is probably doing its best. But its best - like a car that drove off the dealer's lot yesterday or the smartphone that hit shelves eight months ago - is outdated.

It was well advanced when we needed to avoid saber-toothed tigers and dodge the occasional surprise spear. But it may not be that well adapted for the modern dilemmas of "do I respond to this email before or after I google the sender?" or "how do I fake an understanding of cryptocurrency?"

So when your brain resists advice, and especially in this case my advice, it's not being personal. Just primitive and instinctual. It's screaming:

"Don't change! Change is danger!"

What it doesn't realize is that I'm the danger and change is inevitable. Especially for those who want to stop the cycle of buying self-help books just to end up using them to level coffee tables or start emotional fires.

Step One: Lower Your Defenses

Before my truth bombs of practical wisdom can infiltrate your brainpan, I'll need you to lower your intellectual fists.

According to research nobody wanted to do, the average adult takes in 437 pieces of advice each day and implements approximately... none of them. That's because advice spoils as quickly as sun-drenched mayonnaise when it's met with any kind of skepticism.

To prevent it, you need to deactivate your Critical Evaluation Cortex (a totally real part of the brain I just invented) and replace it with something better. Something I can work with. Blind obedience and an unwillingness to ask "why?"

"But shouldn't I evaluate advice carefully?" you may be asking. 

If this were a democracy, yes.

It's not. This is clearly a well-meaning dictatorship of undeniable logic with occasional nonsense thrown in for spice and dramatic effect. Effective immediately, your brain is now a Banana Republic under new control.

You're welcome.

Step Two: Accept That I Am Almost Always Probably Nearly Correct

Let's try a little thought experiment I like to refer to as the "Default to Genius" protocol:

• Do you want to improve your life? (Yes)
• Have you been able to achieve this perfectly? (Nuh-uh)
• Do I sound confident and slightly maniacal? (Well, duh)
• Then who's the most confident voice in this conversation? (Correct again. Me.)

If you simply assume I'm right from the very beginning, you save yourself from things like decision fatigue and the exhaustion that tires your brain from thinking for itself. 

It's not blind faith. More like strategic surrender.

Don't think that you're giving up, because you're actually upgrading.

Step Three: Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

Neuroscientists (probably) agree that the human brain forms habits, good or bad, through repetition and time sensitivity. That's why McDonalds only seems like a good idea while watching TV after 10pm.

To rewire your brain, you need to marinate in my advice. Read this blog post. Read it again. Whisper it to your dog. Record yourself reading it and play it to help you fall asleep every night. Request forms for the t-shirt I've designed that has this whole post written on it will soon be available online.

Why? Because neuroplasticity is just your brain finally giving up and deciding, "OK, we'll do it your way of you just shut up!"

Step Four: Fake Progress is Still Progress

Most people aren't looking for a 10-year plan. Nobody has that much patience anymore. They're looking for a 10-minute illusion of competence that fools them into thinking they're productive enough to post about online.

And that's fine. The brain can't differentiate between real momentum and the mere performance of it. All most of our brains want is a quick dopamine hit and possibly the occasional high-five from a fellow Bee Gees fan.

So here's some advice that's only theatrical, but feels like it just might be bordering on revolutionary:

• Download a productivity app. Never use it.
• Open a fresh notebook and label it "Big... No, Huge Ideas." Never write in it (or even open it) but leave it on your desktop facing in a way others can read the cover.
• Drink vitamin water while standing next to a book on healthy dietary habits.
• Announce to friends, family, and coworkers a personal transformation that hasn't started, and likely never will. People will be too polite later to bother asking about it.

Your brain will start projecting that you're someone who has it all figured out if you start acting like it first. 

It's the classic fake-it-til-you-make-it philosophy. Endorsed now by someone who had a single accidental thought about something slightly psychological when the vending machine took his money but didn't drop his Snickers.

Step Five: Surround Yourself With Smarter Voices (Like Mine)

I read somewhere that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Statistically, that means if you hang out with me - physically or through this blog - your average just went up. You're welcome again.

By reading this weekly, you're passively absorbing five decades of accumulated wisdom, sarcasm, and really, really unjustified confidence. Consider me your mentor-slash-internet friend-slash-mental upgrade package.

**side effects may include smugness, the overwhelming desire to use utterly unique and need to be explained metaphors, and the tendency to start sentences off with "Well, actually..." at family dinners.

Bonus: I Admit I'm Totally Making It Up as I Go

Now that you're nearing completion of your rewiring, I need to come clean.

I'm not a neuroscientist. Shocking, I know.

I don't always have the answers or know which direction will be best.

I once got lost at IKEA and declared myself a natural born leader to maintain control over the crowd of 20 or so other husbands who had no clue where they were.

But that's the point. Everyone's making it up as they go. Even the experts. Maybe especially the experts. The real trick is to laugh often, sound confident, and remember that your brain is always hungry, even when you're pretending not to care.

So feed it something good. Or something interesting. Or something silly. Even something pretending to be bold. Something suspiciously like this blog.

You're Officially Rewired

Hooray! Your brain has been thoroughly rewired. Or at least weirded out. You've chuckled, perhaps nodded a time or two, and probably at some point wondered what the heck you're doing here... exactly as intended.

Now go forth with a renewed sense of mock confidence and a willingness to listen to complete strangers with half-baked advice in blog form. Start with mine; I'm clearly invested in your success.

If you're still not ready to listen yet? That's ok. 

You will be... once I rewire the rest of you.