4 Brain Hacks For High Achievers

What’s up Healthpreneurs!  Yuri Elkaim here. .Let’s talk about four brain hacks that most high achievers have in common, whether they know it or not.

I’m in the woods again today. I’m shooting some videos from the woods. There’s a reason for this. I love being in nature. It’s good for the brain, it’s good for everything.

I want to share some things that I think that will help you out if you want to be a high achiever. It doesn’t matter if you’re an athlete or an entrepreneur or just a person in life, a high achiever is somebody who believes that tomorrow will always be bigger than yesterday.

They’re constantly striving to grow and be better and serve more, and that’s what we’re all about right?

The Power Of Visualization

The thing to remember about this, and I believe Tony Robins has said this before, is that the brain does not know the difference between something you vividly imagine and something you actually experience. So, am I actually in the forest right now, or is it your mind that is dreaming this? I guess we’ll never know, but anyways.

In all honesty when I was playing soccer back in the day, I used to go to bed at nights and I would visualize my entire game the next day. I would visualize it in fast forward, so I’d go 90 minutes through my head as a goalie. I would see myself in different positions, different kind of phases of the game, and how I would respond to each circumstance. If they arose in the game I already practiced up here, I’m good, plus the training on the field and so forth, so I think that was a really cool, unfair advantage that helped me become what I thought was the best goalie in the world at the time.

We can use the same thing in our life. The first thing we want to do, the first brain hack I want to share with you, is what we’re trying to do here is we’re not trying to trick your brain, we’re trying to train your brain with the right type of inputs, okay.

1. Success Surroundings

The first thing we’re going to talk about it is what I call success surroundings. I’m very fortunate to live where I do. I’ve taken you on some walks with me in our neighborhood, we live in one of the most affluent areas of Toronto, which is a very expensive city to live in. I’m not saying that to brag but I’m saying this, and I’ll give you some context for this.

A couple of years ago I had a condo that I used as an office, which was one street over from our current house. I would take my dogs for a walk every day, twice a day, morning and night. Every single time I’d go for a walk I’m like, oh my god, this area, this neighborhood is so beautiful. It was so inspiring.

I’m surrounded by multi-million dollar homes, and I was immersed in the environment. I felt as though I was already part of that. That is what I call success surrounding. You need to surround yourself by things that make you feel like you’re already there.

Another example is when I wanted my first car, a BWM M3. I went to the dealership and I sat in the car and I took it for a test drive, because up until then it was only ever an image on my vision board. I never really got my senses involved. I never got the feeling, the smell, the touch, but as soon as I did that in the car, it was like wow this is actually real. I can make this happen. Eventually I ended up buying the car. Well, one notch down because at the time the M3 was too powerful.

But, going back to the neighborhood, three years after I started, had that condo, we ended up buying our dream house in this neighborhood. Where I am now in what seems to be like this forest is literally two minutes from my house, and I’m just so blessed to be able to walk in these surroundings in one of the biggest cities in North America, but still seems like I’m in the forest. It’s absolutely phenomenal.

Success surroundings, surround yourself with the environment in which you want to be.

Part of that is not just like stuff, it’s not just about houses and cars and whatever, but it’s about people. People are very, very important because we don’t want to be different then our tribe. If we surround ourselves with people who are making more money, who are more successful or doing bigger things in this world, we have to from a survival standpoint raise our game to be included in the tribe. You have to find people who are going to raise your game, who are going to raise your standards, and raise your beliefs in what’s possible. That’s what we talk about with respect to success surroundings. That’s the first thing.

2. Your Dream Day

The second thing we’re going to talk about is rewarding yourself once a month, or more, with what I call a dream day. I remember the first time my wife and I did this. We were living in a third-story apartment, third-story of a house, about 12 years ago.  We started doing these dream days once a month, and the first time we ever did this we went to a restaurant in Toronto and we spent I think about $200 on dinner.

At the time it we felt like we were kings and queens as if we’re rolling the dough, so successful. That’s what we felt like because we treated ourselves to that experience. One of the things I did back then was I put a portion of my income aside into a separate jar or a separate account and I called it the dream account or the play account, or whatever it was, and I used that money just and I blew it every month.

It was on stuff like a lavish dinner, or a cool experience that would make you feel as though you were already living at that level. Maybe a spa day or something like that. We actually flew to New York once for lunch and flew back the same day which was a lot of fun.

Stuff like that, I mean it doesn’t make sense from, hey, this is maybe not the best use of my money, but it is. You want to get a lot, a certain amount of your income, not a huge amount, you know five percent or whatever’s right for you. But the key is you take that money and you absolutely blow it on whatever’s going to make you feel like a king or a queen for that day. Again, it goes back to success surroundings, and it gets back to immersing yourself in that experience, those senses and that feeling and that emotion. That’s the key. That’s the second thing.

3. Attitude of Gratitude

Third, third brain hack is, and this is a big one okay, is you want to appreciate what is, but you want to live where you want to go. Let’s talk about what this means.

Appreciation, this has been a big thing that I’ve had to work on, is being appreciative and grateful for what I have. A lot of times for me at least it’s all right what’s next, I’m not quite there, I’m living in the gap, right.

We want to appreciate where we are, what we have, who we are, because here’s the thing to remember is that who you are right now is exactly who you need to be right now. If who you are right now is not good enough for where you want to go in the future, you’ve got to rewind that and listen to that again. It’s a powerful message and if you get that, that’s awesome.

We want to appreciate what is, we want to appreciate where we are in life at this current moment in time. I’m going to have a little seat here. But, we want to live where we want to go. We want to focus, not that we have to be daydreamers. We want to be present obviously, but we want to focus in terms of what we want, that’s the key to this world is focus on what you want.

If we’re focused on what we want to create, what we want to live, what we want to experience, it’s only a matter of time before that happens because again, that’s the reality for our brain, that is the vibration we’re putting out to the universe. That’s what we’re going to attract back to us. That’s the way it works, okay. Appreciate what you have now, appreciate what is, and live and focus on where you want to go.

4. Your Success State

Number four is do whatever you have to do to get yourself into your success state.

What is a success state? A success state is essentially a level of feeling where you feel just really good, because how you feel determines your life. How you feel is going to determine the actions you take and how you feel is going to allow you to be more receptive to receive the amazing things you want from this world and this universe, and this life. But, if you feel sad and depressed and worried and all that kind of stuff, you block all of that stuff from coming to you.

So, how do we do that? The number one thing that I’ve ever found in my life to be able to put myself into a state where I just feel really good is exercise, right. Like you cannot feel shitty when you are moving your body and feeling good and smiling. It’s the easiest way to put yourself into a more energized, vibrant state of being.

If you’re feeling a little bit lethargic, just understand that when you feel crappy you are attracting crappy things into your life. Just understand that, because now it’s your choice to change that. Change it by getting up and moving around, getting a sweat on. Whatever you’ve got to do, that’s the most powerful thing that I have seen to be able to do that.

Second, is for a lot of people meditation does that as well. Meditation I typically do, it changes really every day, honestly I’m not consistent at the time of day I like to do it. But, sometimes for me meditation, like middle of the day is such, it’s almost like half-time at a soccer match. It’s like you had a 45 minutes of frantic soccer and then you just want 15 minutes to chill, and I find that meditation midday just helps quiet my mind and it kind of refocuses my body and my energy to come back to make the second half of the day even more powerful.

I find that meditation is great, I hope you do as well.

The third thing to get yourself into a success state is acknowledge your wins. I have a journal called a positive focus and all I do, and usually at the end of the day, I sometimes do this in the morning to, is at the end of the day is I write down every single win that I had. I got up at 5:00 in the morning, I made my kids breakfast, I made them lunch, tucked them into bed, gave them a hug before dropping them off at camp, went for a walk, went for a workout, had a green juice. Like, every single thing you can think of, write it down. Watch what happens to the way your mind works. Watch what happens to your brain.

Because, your brain, your mind is going to go where it’s most familiar. If it’s most familiar with looking for the dirt, it’s not going to see the gold. But, if we can train it on seeing the little gold nuggets throughout the day, that is what you are going to get used to and that is going to be your new set point. This stuff is simple, it’s not hard, but the key is consistency. The key is consistency. This is one of the things that I’ve struggled with for a long time is not being as consistent as maybe I should be with many things.

But, I’ll tell you, if you apply the four principles I talked about, these four brain hacks, and just have faith in the process, watch what happens to your life.

I hope you enjoyed this. If you have anything that you do that you think can add to this conversation let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear your thoughts, and if you find this video helpful send it to a friend who needs to see this and hopefully it can lift up their life as well. I’ll talk to you soon.