Brain Teaser: What “some kind of asset” are we talking about?

BrainFitnessTrajectoryAn excel­lent arti­cle at the Times, Who Gets to Grad­u­ate, explores new think­ing and tools to help col­lege stu­dents suc­ceed. Towards the end of the quite long arti­cle the writer quotes researcher David Yea­ger as saying:

What I like about these inter­ven­tions is that the kids them­selves make all the tough choic­es,” Yea­ger told me. “They deserve all the cred­it. We as inter­ven­ers don’t. And that’s the best way to inter­vene. Ulti­mate­ly a per­son has with­in them­selves some kind of cap­i­tal, some kind of asset, like knowl­edge or con­fi­dence. And if we can help bring that out, they then can car­ry that asset with them to the next dif­fi­cul­ty in life.”

Let’s now test our cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty. What exact­ly may that “some kind of cap­i­tal, some kind of asset” be?

  • a) Your fingertips
  • b) Your heart
  • c) Your brain

Not that hard, right? The quote above cap­tures well the oppor­tu­ni­ty we describe in The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: how every per­son can (and should) invest in that amaz­ing asset, our human brain, to max­i­mize its life­long brain fit­ness, or men­tal cap­i­tal, tra­jec­to­ry. In doing so, we are more like­ly to suc­ceed in the present and to be bet­ter pre­pared for the future, as shown in the image above.

You may now enjoy these Ten Habits of High­ly Effec­tive Brains…espe­cial­ly this one:

  • Don’t Out­source your Brain: Not to media per­son­al­i­ties, not to politi­cians, not to your smart neigh­bour… Make your own deci­sions, and mis­takes. And learn from them. That way, you are train­ing your brain, not your neighbour’s.”

About SharpBrains

SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

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