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Welcome to today's quick brain challenge. If you're new to this, you're thinking, "Jim, what is a challenge? What are you doing there with your toothbrush in the bathroom? Such a weird place to be able to film a podcast episode." I'm here to say you're absolutely right, and really it's about being different. It's not about being necessarily better, but it's about being different today, because in order to activate your quick brain it requires novelty. Novelty and nutrition help you to spur on neurogenesis and neuroplasticity, and actually help you to create what they call brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Novelty does that.
So why am I right now in the bathroom? I'm going to talk about the challenge today, which is to brush your teeth with the opposite hand. You're like, "Jim, I brush my teeth at least once or twice a day." Now you're thinking, "Jim, why would I want to do this?" I'm going to set you up for success. First of all, challenge comes with change, and that's what these challenges are all about. Information by itself is not power. Knowledge is not power. It's only potential power. It only becomes power when you apply it, when you utilize it. That's the effect you want, because having books or just learning new things but not applying them, your life is no better. So we want to take knowledge and turn it into action so you can produce a result. Most of all, the purpose of these quick brain challenges is to get you to do different things every single day. They say the average person has about 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts a day. The challenge is that 90 to 95 percent of them are the same thoughts they had yesterday and the day before that. You can't affect real, big change or transformation if you're doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. So I want to train you to activate your quick brain so you automatically want to act and apply, and the way we do that is by taking simple steps.
You've listened to episodes we've done in the past on the power of habits. We've done episodes with Dr. BJ Fogg from Stanford University, two episodes with him on how to create new habits and how to break limiting habits. I advise you to listen to that episode. We also did episodes with James Clear on Atomic Habits. Listen to that episode too. But all of them start with making little tiny steps. So what I'm going to ask you to do every single morning, as part of your morning routine, as you're brushing your teeth, using that as a reminder and a trigger, is to try brushing your teeth with the opposite hand.
Here are a couple of reasons. Number one, it trains you to be mindfully present. Most people are so distracted. How do you maintain your focus and concentration in a world full of app notifications, social media alerts, and all these different things vying for your attention? You train the muscle of focus and presence. When you're brushing your teeth with the opposite hand, it forces you to be in the moment. That power of presence, that attention muscle you're building, will show up when you need to be present: when you're remembering someone's name, when you're reading something and you get easily distracted. It trains those muscles to be present with what you're reading and studying. That's number one: it trains your presence and mindfulness.
The second reason you want to use the opposite hand is research done at Duke University, in the Department of Neuroscience and Biology, by Dr. Lawrence Katz. He wanted to find out how to keep senior minds alive as they aged. What Dr. Katz found was that simple exercises, like eating with the opposite hand or brushing your teeth with the opposite hand, challenge yourself. We know there's a mind-body connection, but there's also a body-mind connection: as the body moves, the brain grooves. It stimulates different parts of the brain. So as you try to brush your teeth with the opposite hand, it's going to feel difficult and a little bit weird. The reason is you're creating new neural pathways and clearing up the metaphorical traffic jam in people's minds when it comes to memory. People are slow to remember things because that freeway is not clear. You're moving things around, challenging yourself in new ways, making new connections. We've seen research that if someone has a stroke on the left side of their brain and is paralyzed, the paralysis will manifest on the opposite side, because one part of the brain controls the opposite side of the body, and vice versa. But science is finding it's not just a brain-body connection; there's a body-brain connection. Using a different part of your body will stimulate a different part of your mind, and that helps you build brain-derived neurotrophic factor, neurogenesis, plasticity, and new brain cells and connections. That builds your brain fitness, your brain muscles, if you will.
So what I challenge you to do, for those reasons: number one, it trains your muscle of fitness, and number two, it trains a different part of your mind. The third reason is you want to train yourself to do difficult things. I do believe the point of these challenges is that with challenge comes change, and the treasure you seek is found in the work you're avoiding. It trains you to take on little difficult things. If you want an easy life, you don't do easy things. Easy things lead to procrastination and putting things off. The hard thing is doing the work you need to do. If you only do the easy things, life is hard; if you do the hard things, life becomes easier. So you're training yourself, first thing in the morning, to do something difficult, building your muscle, so maybe it shows up in the areas where you need to make a sales call, give a presentation, or have a difficult conversation, like firing somebody. You've built that muscle of grit. That's the third reason.
So are you up for the challenge? Take a picture. You're like, "I don't look good, I don't have makeup on first thing in the morning." Take a picture of yourself holding your toothbrush in the opposite hand, maybe in the mirror, and post it if you're willing, with the hashtag #QuickBrainChallenge, and let me know how it works for you. The best thing about this is it's something you do today, but then try it again tomorrow and the next day. I just read a post on Instagram. Many of us are connected, we're friends on Instagram and Facebook. One woman has been doing this challenge of brushing her teeth with the opposite hand, and she said, "Jim, it's so remarkable. Today I didn't even realize halfway through brushing my teeth I was doing it with the opposite hand." What you've trained yourself to do is develop the ability to create new habits. If you want a different life, you need to change your habits, because first you create your habits, and then your habits create you. You get really good at doing new things and creating new habits. What other things could you do? Maybe you could create a habit of mindfulness, a habit of saying "I love you," a habit of eating the right food, a habit of working out every single day. At a meta level, you're developing the habit of creating empowering habits, and that will serve you.
Here's the challenge right now: do this first thing in the morning, or at night, every time you brush your teeth. That's your reminder. It doesn't take any extra time. It will feel awkward at first because it's different, but that means it's good, because you're doing something brand new. If it were just easy, you'd be the same person every single day. So you're challenging yourself, and with that challenge you get change. Take a screenshot of this episode, or take a picture of yourself using your opposite hand while you brush your teeth, post it, let me know how it goes, and continue it. Here's what you want to remember: consistency compounds. A little by little becomes a lot. It doesn't seem like a big shift, but after a few days you start making a gradual shift, and all of a sudden you're at a different destination. Some people call it destiny. So again, practice this oral hygiene, which also leads to mental hygiene. Make sure you subscribe on YouTube and your favorite podcast channel so you get our next challenge. I'll see you soon.