Mental Agility Quotes

Old men tend to forget what thought was like in their youth; they forget the quickness of the mental jump, the daring of the youthful intuition, the agility of the fresh insight. They become accustomed to the more plodding varieties of reason, and because this is more than made up by the accumulation of experience, old men think themselves wiser than the young.

If the work of the average man required half the mental agility and readiness of resource of the work of the average prostitute, the average man would be constantly on the verge of starvation.

Becoming limitless involves mental agility; the ability to quickly grasp and incorporate new ideas and concepts with confidence.

Don’t allow your brain to get old. You can’t do anything about the body–that will do what it wants–but you can keep your mind sharp.

A programmable mind embraces mental agility, to practice “de-learning” and “relearning” all the time.

A good negotiator prepares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises; a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find. Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously. People who view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible. To quiet the voices in your head, make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say. Slow. It. Down. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard. You risk undermining the rapport and trust you’ve built. Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart.

Emotions pass. They are transient. There is nothing in mental experience that demands an action.

I've seen people severely messed up by their own knowledge of biases. They have more ammunition with which to argue against anything they don't like. And that problem—too much ready ammunition—is one of the primary ways that people with high mental agility end up stupid, in Stanovich's "dysrationalia" sense of stupidity.

You don’t need to be rescued or saved. You just need spaces that allow you to expand and rebuild.

GET OFF the paved path. It’s way too BASIC for you. There’s AIR to BREATHE. Oceans to FLOAT in. Dances to be DANCED. Songs to SING. Splendor to BEHOLD. Stop WAITING for PERMISSION.

Perhaps the most important problem-solving skill that I have learned and practiced over the years is mental agility.

Being real is the power skill of the century, but we’re taught to be otherwise in the places that should hold it most sacred: our families, schools, workplaces, communities, houses of worship, and governments.

It is a state of mind, a learning of the oneness of things, an appreciation for fundamental insights known in Eastern philosophy and religion as simply the Way [or Tao]. For Boyd, the Way is not an end but a process, a journey…The connections, the insights that flow from examining the world in different ways, from different perspectives, from routinely examining the opposite proposition, were what were important. The key is mental agility

Stop searching for wizards and wands. Don’t buy into the belief that you don’t have the brains, heart, and courage to make it. Link arms with your fellow travelers and never let go. Hold each other up so that you can see your own magic.

It’s okay to be messy. Like sunflowers, galaxies, and fingerprints, your life is an intricately designed spiral. Your wrinkles, bumps, and bruises show the world you are a force of nature. Forget linear. When you embrace chaos, it brings its own kind of order.

When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). It applies to the smile-er as much as to the smile-ee: a smile on your face, and in your voice, will increase your own mental agility.

When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). It applies to the smile-er as much as to the smile-ee: a smile on your face, and in your voice, will increase your own mental agility. Playful

Trey Gate's maternal grandmother, Adelle Maxwell, was also an important influence on him, encouraging him to read as much as possible, pushing him to excel in all that he did, challenging him to use his mind. They played card games together frequently, especially games like Concentration that required mental agility.

The field attracted many extraordinary figures, not least the aforementioned Murchison, who spent the first thirty or so years of his life galloping after foxes, converting aeronautically challenged birds into puffs of drifting feathers with buckshot and showing no mental agility whatever beyond that needed to read The Times or play a hand of cards.

that physical qualities such as strength and agility are highly trainable, mental qualities such as joy and calmness are also highly trainable.

Stop letting people shove you into the binary. There’s not enough room for your soul to fit into the narrow box being forced upon you.

Stop trying to bend your mind around someone else’s organizing framework.

When we continuously snuggle up to antiquated ideas, we shut our eyes against the light of our potential.

Music floods the mind, evoking moods, memories and sensations. The pulse compels the dancer to dive into a sparkling stream of motion and sensation.

Clarity is the elimination of mental clutter. Agility is the elimination of physical clutter. Tranquility is the elimination of spiritual clutter.

Being smart is handy, but if you aren’t mentally agile, it doesn’t get you anywhere but stuck in your own fact-ruts.

Stay woke. Jump out of bed, even if it makes you dizzy. Listen to your voice, even if it startles you. Breathe in the smelling salt, even if it stings you. Stare into the light of the reality before you, even if it burns. If you get weary, ask for help—whatever it takes to keep your eyes open. Bask in the glow of conscious living. You are awake. This is when change happens.

An awakened mind and heart will serve you well. Rigidity stalls upward progress. Be as expansive as you can. Even when you think you’ve reached your limit, there’s more to unlearn and relearn.

the aforementioned Murchison, who spent the first thirty or so years of his life galloping after foxes, converting aeronautically challenged birds into puffs of drifting feathers with buckshot, and showing no mental agility whatever beyond that needed to read The Times or play a hand of cards. Then he discovered an interest in rocks and became with rather astounding swiftness a titan of geological thinking.

If people are mentally agile enough to interpret events in many ways, what’s to prevent a child from interpreting the meaning of to nail as “to obscure a surface by nailing things to it,” or to coil as “to cause a long object to have a filament coiled around it”?

Tennis lessons westlake village provide a good coaching for youngest.Because that are very experiance men in tennis.His students on the importance of strength and agility training as well as mental and psychological strength and the roles they play within the game of tennis.

We are going to be exploring ways that dancing can strengthen an individual and can benefit society. We’ll witness how dance is used in trauma recovery, mental health support, with young people at risk and in psychological and emotional growth. We’ll consider the brain science and neurology of dance and how dance can be used with groups in conflict.

A stroke. Robert has never been kind to his body . . . It is only the carrier of that wonderful mind, after all. A case for the crown. And Robert has cared for that mind like a tiger with her young: he has given up drinking and drugs, kept a strict schedule of sleep. He is good, he is careful. And to steal that--to steal his mind--burglar Life!Like cutting a Rembrandt from its frame.

How could boredom be beneficial? In Hindu and Buddhist traditions, boredom is described as a precursor to insight and discovery. Parents sometimes want their children to be bored because they have an intuitive sense that grappling with this uncomfortable state is how kids discover what they’re interested in, quiet their mind, and find outlets to channel their energy. We wish more parents would trust that when their kids get bored, they’ll find the way out on their own, resisting the temptation to schedule activities from morning to night to keep boredom at bay. But don’t just take our word for it. The American Academy of Pediatrics released a 2007 consensus statement on how child-directed, exploratory play is far superior when it comes to developing emotional, social, and mental agility than structured, adult-guided activity.

Many of those skilled in technological warfare believe that physical training and discipline are unnecessary. With turbolasers, hyperdrives, armor plating and the mental resources to direct them, muscular strength and agility are thought to be merely conceits. They are wrong. The mind and body are linked together in a meshwork of oxygen, nutrients, hormones and neuron health. Physical exercise drives that meshwork, stimulating the brain and freeing one's intellect.

■​A good negotiator prepares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises; a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find. ■​Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously. ■​People who view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible. ■​To quiet the voices in your head, make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say. ■​Slow. It. Down. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard. You risk undermining the rapport and trust you’ve built. ■​Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart. There are three voice tones available to negotiators: 1.​The late-night FM DJ voice: Use selectively to make a point. Inflect your voice downward, keeping it calm and slow. When done properly, you create an aura of authority and trustworthiness without triggering defensiveness. 2.​The positive/playful voice: Should be your default voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking. 3.​The direct or assertive voice: Used rarely. Will cause problems and create pushback. ■​Mirrors work magic. Repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar. Mirroring is the art of insinuating similarity, which facilitates bonding. Use mirrors to encourage the other side to empathize and bond with you, keep people talking, buy your side time to regroup, and encourage your counterparts to reveal their strategy.

Gong is the foundation of Taijiquan. Physically, the accumulation of gong refers to constant improvements in balance, coordination, agility, and power through the accretion and replenishment of qi, which can be described as “vital energy,” or “life force.”  Mentally and spiritually, the accumulation of gong refers to constant advancement toward realizing inner tranquility. Gong practice means practice of essential exercises necessary to understand the art of Taiji and build a solid foundation of skill. It is indispensable. My teacher compared gong to the flour in noodles; that is, it is the main ingredient.

Sanskrit word tapas means “to heat,” and when used in yoga it speaks to the practice of “standing in the fire for the sake of positive change,” says Stephanie Snyder. Literally, this means holding a difficult pose, feeling the burn as muscles tighten and contract, maintaining the mental focus it takes to stay in the pose—and choosing to endure all this in the name of becoming stronger, more agile, unfuckwithable. Applied metaphorically to our Sober Curiosity, it means sitting in whatever WTF we happen to be experiencing as a result of not drinking, watching it pass, and choosing to focus on the positive parts of the experience. These positives

Alexithymia isn’t a clinical diagnosis, but it is a difficulty that millions of people struggle with every day. And it carries very real costs. Trouble labelling emotions is associated with poor mental health, dissatisfaction in jobs and relationships, and plenty of other ills. People with this condition are also more likely to report physical symptoms like headaches and backaches. It’s as if their feelings are being expressed physically rather than verbally. It’s also true that sometimes, when people can’t clearly express their feelings in words, the only emotion that comes through loud and clear is anger, and the unfortunate way they express it is by putting a fist through the wall – or worse.

That is what I want our young nascent readers to become: expert, flexible code switchers -- between print and digital mediums now and later between and among the multiple future communication mediums....I conceptualize the initial development of learning to think in each medium as largely separated into distinct domains in the first school years, until a point in time when the particular characteristics of the two mediums are each well developed and internalized. That is an essential point. I want the child to have parallel levels of fluency, if you will, in each medium, just as if he or she were similarly fluent in speaking Spanish and English. In this way the uniqueness of the cognitive processes honed by each medium would be there from the start.

The human collective knows far more today than did the ancient bands. But at the individual level, ancient foragers were the most knowledgeable and skilful people in history. There is some evidence that the size of the average Sapiens brain has actually decreased since the age of foraging.5 Survival in that era required superb mental abilities from everyone. When agriculture and industry came along people could increasingly rely on the skills of others for survival, and new ‘niches for imbeciles’ were opened up. You could survive and pass your unremarkable genes to the next generation by working as a water carrier or an assembly-line worker. Foragers mastered not only the surrounding world of animals, plants and objects, but also the internal world of their own bodies and senses. They listened to the slightest movement in the grass to learn whether a snake might be lurking there. They carefully observed the foliage of trees in order to discover fruits, beehives and bird nests. They moved with a minimum of effort and noise, and knew how to sit, walk and run in the most agile and efficient manner. Varied and constant use of their bodies made them as fit as marathon runners. They had physical dexterity that people today are unable to achieve even after years of practising yoga or t’ai chi.

The evolution of our unique brains was locked into the evolution of our wide range of movement. Mental and physical agility run on the same track.

Here are some of the key lessons from this chapter to remember: ■​A good negotiator prepares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises; a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find. ■​Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously. ■​People who view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible. ■​To quiet the voices in your head, make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say. ■​Slow. It. Down. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard. You risk undermining the rapport and trust you’ve built. ■​Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart.

The true marker of learning is turning up with more questions than answers.

Everything is learning, learning is everything.

Being a puppet is overrated. Cut your strings. We are human beings, not doings. Knowing life is about impact, not performance, is the most badass kind of clarity you can have.

Perfect is annoying, boring, and impossible to sustain. Knowing how to translate conscientiousness into something beyond the fleeting satisfaction of “me” toward a “we” mindset is the best move you can make.

Be fearless with your questions. Don’t be afraid to get a little muddy. Keep your feet nimble and eyes open for new paths and perspectives. Ready yourself to be moved.

You can be all and none of the above all at once. Don’t feel obliged to check off little boxes for the sake of doing so, especially when they do not allow for realization of the beauty of the human spectrum.

Your consciousness will lead you home.

What if the theories in psychology that dominate our mainstream culture are flawed, rather than the people they diagnose? That we close our eyes to modern brain science and global context and pigeonhole human beings as “normal” or “abnormal” is one of the biggest shams of the century.

Our old methods of excavating for problems leaves us with more problems. Everything rides on changing the positions we hold, the questions we ask, and the answers we’re willing to accept. When we only mine for weaknesses, that’s exactly what we’ll find.

3) Third, is the ability to discontinue medications. Most of you will be able to reduce or eliminate your medications for high blood pressure, type II diabetes, arthritis, indigestion, reflux, and constipation, among other things. Imagine the freedom that will come with being healthy without having to depend on pills, without having to worry about paying for them, without being limited by their schedule, and without having to endure their side effects. (Please note you should NOT alter your medication regimens without physician supervision.) 4) Next, is improvement in vigor, vitality, and overall well-being within DAYS of starting the program. You will shed those feelings of fatigue, heaviness, and mental cloudiness and they will be replaced by energy, agility, and clarity. In addition, rather than crashing after a meal, feeling sluggish at best, you will be invigorated. 5) Finally, you can save thousands of dollars per year in food and health care costs. Sound too good to be true? Let’s take a closer look, beginning with research that has shown that adopting healthier eating habits can save you as much as $2000 to $4500 a year.30 Add to that the thousands of dollars per year you can save just by stopping five of the most commonly used medications (for cholesterol, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, reflux, and arthritis). Moreover, many of you have bought into the need for taking supplements to enhance your diets. Unfortunately, not all of these supplements are necessary

What annoys me most is that it takes no effort to be born beautiful, no hard work, no mental agility, no strength of character. Just dumb luck. And yet it's a universal currency, often mistaken for moral superiority.

Advanced Class: Relentless Huntsman Relentless Huntsmen are elite combatants skilled at tenaciously pursuing bounty targets for capture or elimination. Class Abilities: +1 Per Level in Strength. +3 Per Level in Agility and Constitution. +2 Per Level in Intelligence and Charisma. +1 Per Level in Perception and Willpower. Additional 2 Free Attributes per Level. +60% Mental Resistance. +20% Elemental Resistance Warning! Minimum Attribute Requirements for the Relentless Huntsman Class not met. Class Skills Locked until minimum requirements met.

Being drawn to intelligence is like having a secret crush on the brainiest person in the room. It's like finding the smartest cookie in the jar and wanting to devour every last crumb of their knowledge. When someone's intellect shines bright, it's like a beacon calling you to explore the depths of their mind. So, if you're attracted to intelligence, own it! Dive into stimulating conversations. After all, who needs cupid's arrow when you've got the allure of a brilliant mind?

Chunking strategies minimize mental chaos and increase recall.

Leadership’s role is to develop individuals who understand and practice integrity, courage, initiative, decisiveness, mental agility and personal accountability. These fundamental qualities must be aggressively cultivated which in turn allows for an atmosphere of adaptability at the lowest level, on the street. “I am here now in the situation that requires a decision…”  I AM EMPOWERED, SUPERENPOWERED TO DECIDE and ACT!

IT agility is a mentality, culture, process, and perspective.

Agility is the ability to move and adjust quickly and easily. It springs from trained and disciplined forces. Agility requires that subordinates act to achieve the commander’s intent and fight through any obstacle to accomplish the mission. (Emphasis in the original) Operational agility stems from the capability to deploy and employ forces across the range of Army operations. Army forces and commanders shift among offensive, defensive, stability, and support operations as circumstances and missions require. This capability is not merely physical; it requires conceptual sophistication and intellectual flexibility. Tactical agility is the ability of a friendly force to react faster than the enemy. It is essential to seizing, retaining, and exploiting the initiative. Agility is mental and physical. Agile commanders quickly comprehend unfamiliar situations, creatively apply doctrine, and make timely decisions.

Discipline is about going through the temporary discomfort required for the long-term benefits. Making a habit of embracing discomfort will benefit you in all areas of life. It will give you the mental agility required to thrive regardless of your circumstances. Discipline isn’t concerned about your feelings—it doesn’t care that you feel as if you can’t take another step because that’s when you need it the most. Practicing discipline is a brain training exercise, equipping it to default to perseverance mode.

Having all the facts at her fingertips was a habit that stretched back to her days as an Oxford undergraduate and the weekly one-on-one tutorial with her tutor, a woman possessed of unparalleled mental agility and wit. She had constantly challenged Bridget with probing questions and controversial hypotheses, forcing her to engage in arguments which she hadn’t previously considered. Gruelling at the time, but a surprisingly good preparation for a police detective.

Aesthetic perception involves changing frames of reference in order to see the hidden logic and orderliness behind what at first may seem random and strange. One of the selective pressures behind the development of the arts may be as a mechanism for developing mental agility; a way of rehearsing the capacity to change a mindset in the face of novelty and surprise. This leads directly to the mental shake-up which occurs whenever we are faced with fairly radical departures from the norm in terms of art and architecture: ‘the shock of the new’. It is this protean factor which enables us to adjust our mental models to accommodate such new evocations of art and architecture. As such it is an essential component of the fabric of aesthetic perception.

Casebooks are now rarely adopted in freshman English courses; age and infirmity have taken their toll on my mental agilities; and, to be candid, I have been no less mystified by "Post-Colonialism" and "De-struction" and "Queer Chicana Studies" than have other academics trained in the once innovative principles of the New Criticism. I might have been a likelier candidate for studying someone else's updated Perplex than for compiling one myself!

and plays on your vulnerabilities — you are not smart or strong or tall enough. Does it claim to be rich in a nutrient or have extra doses of a nutrient? Iron, fibre, protein, vitamin D? Textbook nutritionism (read previous chapter or ask your parents about it once they have read it). Is it giving you a free toy for buying the product or a chance to win an iPhone or an all-expenses paid foreign trip? Illegal in a lot of countries where governments are active in protecting children from the cheap and unethical marketing practices of food companies. Does your favourite movie star or cricketer endorse the product? Truth be told, you are only engaged as a brand ambassador of junk food when you have a fit and agile body. Essentially, it means that you have had the mental and physical discipline to stay away from the very food that you are endorsing. And to tell you a secret, the celebs won’t even consume it on the day of the shoot; they

I had no background, or I had a very exiguous background in finance. The guy who hired me always talked about hiring good intellectual athletes, people who were sort of mentally agile in an all-around way, and that the specifics of finance you could learn, which I think is true. But at the time, I mean, no hedge fund was really flooded with applicants, and that allowed him to let his mind range a little bit and consider different kinds of candidates. Today we have a recruiting group, and what do they do? They throw résumés at you, and it’s, like, one business school guy, one finance major after another, kids who, from the time they were twelve years old, were watching Jim Cramer and dreaming of working in a hedge fund. And I think in reality that probably they’re less likely to make good investors than people with sort of more interesting backgrounds. n+1: Why? HFM: Because I think that in the end the way that you make a ton of money is calling paradigm shifts, and people who are real finance types, maybe they can work really well within the paradigm of a particular kind of market or a particular set of rules of the game—and you can make money doing that—but the people who make huge money, the George Soroses and Julian Robertsons of the world, they’re the people who can step back and see when the paradigm is going to shift, and I think that comes from having a broader experience, a little bit of a different approach to how you think about things.

Recent studies of recreational cyclists aged fifty-five to seventy-nine suggest they have the capacity to do everyday tasks very easily and efficiently because nearly all parts of their body are in remarkably good condition.15 The cyclists also scored high on tests measuring mental agility, mental health, and quality of life.

We hear all the time about how important it is to be physically fit. Our society has become ultra-focused on fitness and health. Our Facebook feeds are filled with seven-minute workouts. There are YouTube videos galore on seven days to rock-hard abs. The radio plays ads to lose ten pounds in ten days, but only if you call in the next ten minutes. Even the president told us to be physically fit. Remember the Presidential Physical Fitness Test in elementary school? A quick shuttle run, the dreaded flexed arm hang. It tested strength, endurance, flexibility, and agility. All different ways to prove we were physically fit. Or not. As a matter of fact, Americans now spend more on fitness than on college tuition.1 Over a lifetime, the average American spends more than $100,000 on things like gym memberships, supplements, exercise equipment, and personal training.2 Seems shocking, right? But where are the training programs for the thoughts in your head? Those thoughts that tell you that you have no choices when bad things happen. Those thoughts that try to convince you everything is out of your control in difficult situations. Where do you go if you want to be Thoughtfully Fit? Right here in this book.

To truly show up at the office means making room for and labeling your thoughts and emotions and seeing them for what they are: information rather than facts or directives. This is what allows us to step out to create distance from and gain perspective on our mental processes, which then defangs their power over us.

Starting at zero is a mindset that says my refrigerator is never full, and it never will be. We can always become stronger and more agile, mentally and physically. We can always become more capable and more reliable. Since that’s the case we should never feel that our work is done. There is always more to do.

Unfortunately, trying not to do something takes a surprising amount of mental bandwidth

The Flynn effect is most visible on IQ tests that measure a more computational type of mental agility

To truly "show up" means making room for labelling your thoughts and emotions and seeing them for what they are: information rather than facts or directives. This is what allows us to step out to create distance from and gain perspective on our mental processes, which then defangs their power over us.

Dancing rouses all the slumbering ghosts in your mansion. Senses tingle, imagination darts, and passions flush your cheeks. Spellbound by rhythms and intricate geometries, your day to day worries vanish. You are totally present.

We then accept these persuasive self-accounts without question, as if they were the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. These are stories that, regardless of their veracity, may have been scribbled on our mental chalkboards in third grade, or even before we could walk or talk.

Is it possible to step out of this realm which is beyond ordinary language and to depict its contours? That is the intention of this book, underpinned by experience, research and a chapter on brain science.

Figure 1-9. Four principles. To serve memory and use, I’ve arranged these principles and practices into a mnemonic –STAR FINDER. In astronomy, a “star finder” or planisphere is a map of the night sky used for learning to identify stars and constellations. In this book, it’s a guide for finding goals, finding paths, and finding your way. First, we can get better at planning by making planning more social, tangible, agile, and reflective. At each step in the design of paths and goals, ask how these four principles might help. Social. Plan with people early and often. Engage family, friends, colleagues, customers, stakeholders, and mentors in the process. When we plan together, it’s easier to get started. Also, diversity grows empathy, sharing creates buy-in, and both expand options. Tangible. Get ideas out of your head. Sketches and prototypes let us see, hear, taste, smell, touch, share, and change what we think. When we render our mental models to distributed cognition and iterative design, we realise an intelligence greater than ourselves. Agile. Plan to improvise. Clarify the extent to which the goal, path, and process are fixed or flexible. Be aware of feedback and options. Know both the plan and change must happen. Embrace adventure. Reflective. Question paths, goals, and beliefs. Start and finish with a beginner’s mind. Try experiments to test hypotheses and metrics to spot errors. Use experience and metacognition to grow wisdom.

Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart.

To mentally condition your Signature Voice, you need to continually update your assumption of what you bring to the table. Being clear on your value proposition...is a key component of mental confidence

Presence requires alignment between your mind, body, and words – to walk the talk, you need a simultaneous focus on all three levers: mental, skill, and physical

Now to think of concrete as both natural and artificial demands a greater degree of mental agility than most of us can manage. So much is invested in the absoluteness of this distinction between natural and artificial , so necessary is it to our whole cosmology, that to admit that something can be both of these would be just too anxious-inducing. To avoid this, we habitually operate on the assumption that concrete is just artificial, or alternatively, just natural, but never both.

Our contemporary forms of reading threaten to reduce that amplification. Aside from the fact that overusing digital technologies eventually makes us less mentally agile and more forgetful (as research increasingly shows), the kind of segmented, bite-sized reading we do on the internet fragments and constricts the ‘space to think’, instead of expanding it; in a sense, it reduces or even rubbishes our mental experience. Our minds

This book is about the value of rethinking. It’s about adopting the kind of mental flexibility that saved Wagner Dodge’s life. It’s also about succeeding where he failed: encouraging that same agility in others.

Here are some of the key lessons from this chapter to remember: A good negotiator prepares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises; a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find. Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously. People who view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible. To quiet the voices in your head, make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say. Slow. It. Down. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard. You risk undermining the rapport and trust you’ve built. Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart. There are three voice tones available to negotiators: The late-night FM DJ voice: Use selectively to make a point. Inflect your voice downward, keeping it calm and slow. When done properly, you create an aura of authority and trustworthiness without triggering defensiveness. The positive/playful voice: Should be your default voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking. The direct or assertive voice: Used rarely. Will cause problems and create pushback. Mirrors work magic. Repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar. Mirroring is the art of insinuating similarity, which facilitates bonding. Use mirrors to encourage the other side to empathize and bond with you, keep people talking, buy your side time to regroup, and encourage your counterparts to reveal their strategy.

1. The clear and quantitative physical differences among people in size, strength, speed, agility, coordination, and other physical attributes that translates into some being more successful than others, and that at least half of these differences are inherited. 2. The clear and quantitative intellectual differences among people in memory, problem solving ability, cognitive speed, mathematical talent, spatial reasoning, verbal skills, emotional intelligence, and other mental attributes that translates into some being more successful than others, and that at least half of these differences are inherited.

Personal info: Name: Chase Step: 1 (Tier 0) Strength: 9 Agility: 14 Toughness: 9 Mental Power: 8 Potential: 15 Points Available: 0

Courageous and connected culture A culture is what people do day in and day out without being told. In an innovation-centered company, managers and employees have no fear of innovation since they have developed the know-how to manage its attendant risk; innovation builds their mental muscles, leading them to new core competencies. They know that the culture of innovation will continue to help the organization be agile and not only adapt to change, but also cause change. A forward-looking culture of innovation continuously transforms a company at the speed of external change.

[W[ho can pretend to have penetrated so deeply into the nature of the human mind or the wonderful structure of the body that in games which depend . . . on the mental acuteness or physical agility of the players he would venture to predict when this or that player would win or lose?

It’s important to believe that you can achieve your goal, but you also need to pay attention to the obstacles most likely to get in the way. This is called mental contrasting.

Mental agility allows a leader to leverage multiple viewpoints and examine problems and situations critically while understanding the second and third-order effects.

We often overlook the power of creativity in our logical pursuits, yet integrating it into our work sparks innovation, enhances problem-solving, and strengthens neural connections. Creativity isn’t just an outlet but it’s a vital force that fuels mental agility, emotional well-being, and deeper cognitive growth.