You can beat the genetic lottery.
No matter who you are, where you were born, or how you grew up, you have one thing in common with everyone else: You started life with a ticket in the genetic lottery. Some people definitely hold winning tickets: born into the arms of two loving, stable parents, in a safe country, with no worries about food or shelter or access to a good education.
Many others, of course, start life in a far less promising way -- carrying the genes of unstable, unhealthy, or unloving parents, born into a world of poverty, prejudice, lack of opportunity. For many, this random beginning becomes the middle and end of their life story as well. And yes, our genes, our environment, and our experiences do shape who we are -- but they don't have to define who we become.
Picture rolling a rock down a hill. It will keep going until something stops it, right? That's your mindset: your habitual, unconscious ways of living and thinking. Like that rock, your mindset keeps you eating too much, or believing you're unworthy of love, or dwelling on past pain, until something causes it to change. Or rather, until something causes you to change your mindset.
You might believe that you can alter the effects of your environment but are stuck with your genes, and in one sense, you're right.
You'll always have those brown eyes or that curly hair. But just as you can use colored contacts or straighten your hair, you can overcome your family's predilection for, say, addictive behavior or gaining weight. You can replace the things that are holding you back with things that will move you forward.
How? You have the power to change your mindset: to let go of past ways of being and thinking and to shape your future. Think of people who were born into deprivation and yet succeeded in creating rich, healthy lives for themselves and their children. Think of people who overcame bad habits and lost weight or cut back on their drinking or got out there and got a better job. People we admire as resilient or strong simply have a drive or a mindset to succeed. You can develop one, too.
We can't change our ticket in the genetic lottery, but we can control what we do about it. It takes daily work and practice, but it gets easier. Consider this book a roadmap--a user's manual for taking charge of your life. Learn how your brain works; how to recognize the patterns that keep it locked up, repeating the past; and how to apply simple strategies to change it.
It's never too late to change your future by smashing your mindset.
Stress has a way of leaving its imprint on our brains and bodies. We know that, in a learned, habitual, unthinking reaction to stress, it is the emotional part of the brain--what I've called MiGGi--that's encouraging us to eat all those cookies or the rest of the bag of chips, or drink or smoke or do whatever we've found makes us feel better, at least in the short term. MiGGi locks us into unhelpful memories and feelings, too, such as the pain of betrayal or divorce. The brain is a wonderful thing, though. By applying the principles of neuroplasticity, we can change the way our brains work.
Remember, if this were easy, everyone would be fit, trim, happy, and loving, and the world would be a peaceful place. We can start by drawing a line in the sand, crossing over it, and not looking back. This is why it is so important to understand how your brain works to get a smashing mindset.
Dr. Selena Bartlett studied mathematics and then followed in her father's footsteps by completing a pharmacy degree in 1989 and becoming a pharmacist in her native Australia. Her life took another direction when her sister was hospitalized with mental-health problems. The impact this had on both her sister and their family led Selena to realize how little we knew about the brain. She completed her Ph.D. in neuropharmacology in 1995. She continued studying the brain for the next twenty-five years, first with a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, in Canberra, Australia. From 2004 to 2012, Selena directed the Preclinical Development Group at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center, a top alcohol- and addiction-research institution, at the University of California at San Francisco. Here she focused on turning basic research discoveries into treatments for neurological problems such as addiction, pain, stress, anxiety, and depression. Selena is now a group leader in addiction neuroscience and obesity at the Translational Research Institute at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, as well as a research capacity building professor in the School of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, at the Queensland University of Technology. In 2014 she presented her findings on brain fitness and the neuroplasticity revolution in a TEDx Talk. An ambassador for the organization Women in Technology, Selena received the organization's Biotech Outstanding Achievement and Biotech Research awards in 2013. She has written more than eighty scientific papers and presented her findings to many government institutions, companies, institutions, high schools, and community organizations. Selena presents lectures and seminars, and has designed programs to help government, business, and other organizations improve innovation, decision making, and performance; aid children in learning; assist women and men in strengthening brain health to trim the body; and help retirees in having more vital lives. Her most-requested speaking topics are on how to manage stress to grow mindset, embrace change, and trim the body; growing leadership mindset; improving team performance; and how adverse childhood experiences shape the brain and what to do about it. Selena understands that knowing one's brain drives compassion for other brains. This is the culmination of her efforts to help people understand the importance of the brain's plasticity and apply practical neuroscience tools to their lives. A portion of the proceeds from this book will be donated to the Francesca Foundation, dedicated to raising awareness about the brain to improve the lives of children.
