If you like a little bit of science, a little bit of storytelling, a little bit of fun exercises and a few sprinkled in self-assessments, you’re going to like The Winner’s Brain – 8 Strategies Great Minds Use to Achieve Success by Jeff Brown and Mark Fenske. The fact that that the science is added in here gives it a little more umph than your average self-help book, and, helps you understand how this is really all working together.
The top 8 strategies are pretty straight forward, we have:
- Self-Awareness – Thinking about yourself to become a winner. This one I scored high in. I tend to fall in the very aware category, both of myself and the people I’m interacting with. I have to do this because otherwise, my annoying personality would be ticking off to dos and plowing through the day without any details or fluff. I have learned to tone it down when I need to, and adjust. It’s been hard!
- Motivation – I have this one too, but I go in spurts. I think that’s because I run so hard that I pretty much run out. I seriously laugh at myself when I don’t take my laptop home at night. I laugh because about 10 minutes after leaving the office, I start in to this mini panic attack… oh no, I should have brought my laptop home! It’s kind of like a funny game I play with myself. You’re probably reading this thinking I have some serious issues. Oh well.
- Focus- Talk about up and down. It’s funny because when I must focus, I can. One of the suggestions for improvement in this area is meditation and yoga. I used to do yoga a lot and need to get back in to that habit. I recently started meditating with some guided meditations I found on iTunes. I am still getting use to this.
- Emotional Balance – If I had to pick my worst one, it would be here. I usuallydon’t get worked up about much, however, when I do, I can think and overthink a situation like a pro. My emotion of choice – anger. Who knew! Actually, I knew this about me but didn’t want to admit to having something bad, but hence that self-awareness thing. Now that it’s confirmed and totally something I have to deal with, I’m on it.
- Memory – When I read this one, I thought of my co-worker Clay and laughed. That dude compartmentalizes what he needs to remember and what he doesn’t. If he doesn’t need to remember you, even if it was yesterday, he won’t. I’ve tried many times to say… you know, that guy that… and he’s completely blank up there. It’s priceless. But none of that has anything to do with this section. Ha. Some tips here are trying new and different things each week; keep yourself on the edge. You ultimately want to use your memory to help you predict your future.
- Resilience- after 2009 I think a lot of us can peak in this category. This means we recover from life’s challenges by dealing with what’s thrown at us. We reframe and move on. For me, it depends on how grand the challenge was, but ultimately I am very good at moving on. In fact, one of my most used phrases (so much so that the team at Silver Square was going to make me a t-shirt) is “moving forward…”.
- Adaptability – I tend to tell myself how something is going to go down. Then I let it go. Typically, it still happens how I said it would, just because I took the time to think through the situation. One of the exercises in the book talked about visualizing yourself performing, like on a stage, not like you’re inside yourself. I found that interesting. I happened to visualize that way, but hadn’t really thought about other ways to do so.
- Brain Care – Eating well, sleeping well, exercising… all of these things contribute to your healthy brain. I do this one well until I get majorly stressed or have too much going on, then I start dropping off on exercise, then sleeping well and you know things are really bad if you see me eating poorly.
Ultimately, I work at each of these as I’m not perfect. In the first chapter you had to take a quiz by yourself and with a friend. Both told me I’m really close to a Winner’s Brain, but I have some room for improvement. I’m sure further investigation would land on the emotional balance one, so I’ll be working on that next.
This was really a great read and enjoyable not just about yourself but learning how the brain works. Pick it up… and let me know your next steps to building a winning brain.





