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colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania found that optimistic expectations were a significant predictor of achievement.¹ When salespeople believed that they would make a particular sale, they were 55 percent more successful than their pessimistic counterparts. Your beliefs directly impact the outcome of your efforts, so it is essential to swap out your negative beliefs so you can reach your potential or surpass what you presently believe is your potential. I spend a substantial amount of energy and time with people who think bigger than I do because it edits my own stories about my potential, and doing so has expanded my life and my company more than I ever expected. (Of course I didn’t expect it; I had a limiting story!)

      The second aspect of consciousness engineering is upgrading your systems for living, also known as your habits. Vishen says that your habits are like the apps on your phone. They consist of things such as your diet, your exercise routine, and your sleep hygiene—the patterns that shape your days. He recommends learning new systems through studying the greats and finding out what habits made a difference for the most impactful people … kind of like what you’re doing by reading this book!

      To learn more about how to easily create new habits, I sought out Robert Cooper, a neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author who has positively impacted the 4 million people who have bought his books. Robert effectively combines two fields that seem completely unrelated—neuroscience and business strategy—to help elite performers and top leaders get the most out of their brains, their time, and their performance.

      I asked Robert to deliver the keynote address at the third annual Bulletproof Biohacking Conference and sat down with him afterward to talk about how to hack the hardwired habits that can limit performance and build new habits that will burn better programs into the structure of the brain. Robert says that the brain has an embedded performance code for the world of two thousand years ago. You can ignore this outdated programming and hope for the best, or you can upgrade and reprogram (or rewire, in neuroscientific terms) the brain to become compatible with the reality of today’s world.

      First, you have to become aware of the brain’s default settings. Our instinct is to do things the same way we’ve always done them. This is helpful on a day-to-day basis, such as when you drive to work using the same route as always without even thinking about it, but constantly reverting to automatic behaviors can shut down innovative thinking. Robert calls this your “hard wiring.” Your “live wiring,” on the other hand, represents your ability to grow and change—the “plastic” part of neuroplasticity.

      Robert says that even when you are relying on your hard wiring, your brain is constantly changing. The question then becomes: In which direction are you changing? When you settle in to your default mode and rigidify like a grumpy creature of habit that gets mad if someone takes his or her favorite seat at the table, you are “downwiring.” Many people downwire as they age, but it doesn’t have to be that way. When you lean into possibilities and become different with the intention to get better, you are “upwiring.”

      The key to upgrading your performance is to spend the majority of your time upwiring rather than downwiring. Yet, to conserve energy, your brain’s instinct is to downwire. It likes repeating the same things it’s done before and keeping you the same person you’ve always been. This is why for many people it is more comfortable and less scary to stay the same. In many ways, your brain is a scared, dumb organ that fears change. (No offense.) Upwiring requires more effort and more risk. You have to aim your brain away from its comfortable default mode and instead steer it toward intentional choices that support the kind of growth you want to achieve.

      To do this, Robert encourages you to identify moments when you can prevent an automatic response and instead guide yourself in a better direction. Many mindfulness experts refer to such a moment as a “meta moment”—a sliver of time between a trigger and a response. For example, when someone says something that bothers you, instead of reacting with anger as you normally would (downwiring), pause to consider why the comment upset you so much and then choose with intention how you want to respond (upwiring). With practice, finding meta moments will eventually become a habit like any other.

      It’s exciting to know that your brain, your beliefs, and your reality are incredibly changeable. You decide who you are, and you can also choose your own truth. That is a powerful game changer.

      Action Items

       Chose one of the methods from this law to figure out which of your beliefs about yourself are actually true. Be extra suspicious about any belief that suggests you “should” be some way or do something, any belief that says you “have to” or “need to,” and any belief that paints people or the world in terms of good and bad. Write down the first three that come to mind:Belief 1: __________________________________________Belief 2: __________________________________________Belief 3: __________________________________________Meditate on things you believe to be true about yourself and the world around you. Do it either in the morning or at night.Journal about the things you believe to be true for a half hour once a week. Start today.Schedule a recurring monthly or weekly appointment with a coach or a therapist who can point out when you believe your own story.

       For one week, as you meditate or when you wake up, experiment with repeating and focusing on this phrase and actually summoning the feeling of gratitude: “I’m grateful that there is a conspiracy to make things happen the way they’re supposed to. The universe has my back.” You don’t have to believe it, but do your best to feel it—you’re tricking your nervous system.

       Build the habit of listening. The programming most of us have is to think about what we’re going to say next instead of listening to what the other person is saying. The story that drives this habit is one you learn as a child—that when adults are talking, no one will hear you unless you talk right away. The reality we live in now is that if you listen and then speak, everyone will hear you. Choose a friend or colleague who usually has something good to say and commit to consciously not planning what you’re going to say the next time you chat with them. You’ll be surprised by what you learn and what you do end up saying when you don’t plan ahead. Who is the person near you most worth listening to?

       Recommended Listening

       Vishen Lakhiani, “10 Laws & Four-Letter Words,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 309

       Robert Cooper, “Rewiring Your Brain & Creating New Habits,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 261

       Gabrielle Bernstein, “Detox Your Thoughts to Supercharge Your Life,” Bulletproof Radio, episode 455

       Recommended Reading

       Vishen Lakhiani, The Code of the Extraordinary Mind: 10 Unconventional Laws to Redefine Your Life and Succeed on Your Own Terms

       Robert K. Cooper, Get Out of Your Own Way: The 5 Keys to Surpassing Everyone’s Expectations

       Gabrielle Bernstein, The Universe Has Your Back: Transform Fear to Faith

      Law 5: A High IQ Doesn’t Make You Intelligent, but Learning Does

      Your IQ score measures your crystallized intelligence, the sum of your learning and experience. You can raise it, but it doesn’t matter as much as fluid memory, your ability to learn and synthesize new information. Most scientists still believe that fluid intelligence is fixed, but it’s not. So hack it. There are specific techniques to drastically increase your fluid memory that are waiting for you to use them. You can waste your time learning slowly or set yourself free by changing your brain and upgrading how you learn.

      Jim Kwik is a superhero. He is a widely recognized world expert in speed-reading, memory improvement, brain performance, and accelerated learning. He’s humble about it, but he’s trained countless Fortune 500 CEOs and dozens of A-list actors and actresses, including the cast of the X-Men movies. He actually trained Professor X! Jim often appears onstage doing speed-reading demonstrations and memorizing hundreds of people’s names. But he doesn’t do this to impress or show off. He does it to show what is possible not just

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