Brandon spends his time traveling the world from the back of a BMW motorcycle and adventuring with his family. When he’s not adventuring, you will find him running a marketing agency that serves mid market manufacturing companies, working with high school kids exploring entrepreneurship, teaching marketing strategy courses at Washington University, or running workshops and speaking on building your business in various parts of the globe.
Our brains are wired to give us what we want—we only have to teach our mind to look for the opportunities that bring us closer to achieving our goals. It’s estimated that the human brain takes in 11 million bits of information per second, but the conscious mind is only able to process 50 of them. The reticular activation system (RAS) acts as a filter in our brain, deciding which 50 bits make it into our conscious thought, and which 10-million-plus get discarded.
Think about something you would like to someday own—say a sports car. How often do you see that car on the road? If it’s rare, can you remember the last time you saw it? If you are like most people, you either seem to see that car everywhere or you can remember the last time you saw the rare car in person. This is your reticular activation system at work—it’s your mind deciding what to bring into your conscious thought because it’s something you are seeking.
The power in leveraging your reticular activation system begins with writing down your goals and reviewing them regularly. With this mindful focus on what you want, your brain starts looking for opportunities to make your goals a reality…just like it looks for your dream car everywhere you go. You will begin to see opportunities you never saw before, because your brain is now selecting them for conscious thought, instead of letting them slip away.
This simple process has helped me achieve goals I thought were years away, just because I saw, and then acted upon, the opportunities I was missing. You can do the same thing, and I can assure you, you will be amazed at what you can achieve with the power of reticular activation.
