The 5 am club

Neurons that fire together, wire together
, you know? As you
repeat the routine you wish to add to your lifestyle, it becomes easier—and
more familiar. That’s a really important point to contemplate. And then act
on.”
“I’ve never been aware that we actually have the ability to grow our
brains,” noted the entrepreneur excitedly. “And I guess what you’re saying is
the more we practice a fresh habit, the more our brains will work with us and
evolve to make it part of who we are. Right?”
“Yup,” responded the billionaire. He loved seeing how the two human
beings he was mentoring were improving through his sharing. Real leaders
always feel great joy when they shine a light on the talents of others.
“Powerful idea,” he went on with his finger now on the wall of the
wonder of the world. “You don’t have the brain you want, you have the brain
you’ve earned. Or to put it another way, you don’t have the brain you desire,
you have the brain you deserve—based on how you’ve been operating it.
Spend your days diverted by your devices, tethered to television and majoring
in mindless pursuits and your brain will be weak and flabby through your
mistreatment of it. Just like other muscles, it will atrophy. And this will result

---

in weaker cognition, slower learning and lower processing power. Your
competition will destroy you and your targets will elude you. On the other
hand, when you use your brain intelligently by expanding its limits and
running it like a titan, it will expand and increase its connectivity causing
important gains in your productivity, performance and influence. The brains
of London taxi drivers were studied and the area responsible for spatial
reasoning, the hippocampus, was found to be significantly larger in them
compared to the brains of ordinary people. Guess why?”
“Because of the complexity of the street system in London,” the artist
responded confidently.
“You got it,” applauded the billionaire. “So, just as you develop your
biceps in the gym by lifting dumbbells or doing push-ups, the cabbies in
London flexed their hippocampi as they drove each day. And, like I said,
given that the brain is a lot more like a muscle than neuroanatomists
previously understood, that part of it grew stronger. See how powerful we
human beings are? This is a superb example of the neuroplasticity we all have
at our disposal. The brain can be strengthened, sculpted and optimized—if we
choose to make it so. When you guys get home, study this phenomenon as
well as the awesome process of neurogenesis, which describes the brain’s
natural ability to actually breed new neurons. The emerging neuroscience
explaining the availability of mastery to every single person alive today, no
matter where they live or how old they are or what they do or how hard their
pasts have been, is so incredibly exciting,” the tycoon gushed.
“Anyhoo,” he added, “for now, please just know that the brain has a
malleability and a muscularity to it. And what makes the great ones the great
ones is they truly understand that daily discomfort is the price of enduring
success. And that pushing ourselves hard builds the kind of brain that
generates military-grade discipline. It’s such a myth that the superproducers
had easy lives!”
The billionaire reached into a pocket, pulled out a sealed envelope and
handed it to the entrepreneur.
“Please open this. And read it for us—with as much conviction and
passion as you have,” the baron instructed politely.
Inside, on a neatly folded piece of fine stationery, the businesswoman
found the following words of the illustrious philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche:
Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name great men of all kinds who were very