Kwik Team

THE AMAZING BRAIN BENEFITS OF READING

June 16, 2023 by Kwik Team

Here at Kwik Brain, we believe leaders are readers. When you read a book, you can take decades of knowledge and learn the same lessons in a matter of days. That’s why cultivating a daily reading habit is so important. And when you increase your reading speed, you not only improve your productivity, but will see important benefits to other areas of your daily life as well.

Reading improves your creativity and imagination

When you read, you use your imagination. When you’re immersed in new characters and worlds, you exercise your imagination. And using your imagination daily sparks creativity. This helps you see the world through a new lens, helping you become more open-minded.

Creativity and imagination help you look at problems differently, which then improves your problem-solving and decision-making abilities. And because reading is a whole brain exercise, it helps keep your cognitive processes working at optimal levels.

You expand your vocabulary

The more books you read, the more words you’re exposed to. By reading the context of these new vocabulary words, you learn where, when, and how to use them, so you’re able to apply them to more situations. This enables you to express yourself and your ideas in clear, concise ways. As you improve your ability to communicate with others, you build deeper and more meaningful relationships in all areas of your life.

Your knowledge increases

Reading broadens your understanding of history, economics, current events, cuisine, culture, politics, and more. Even fiction raises awareness and can teach you something new. Whenever you come across a new idea or perspective, you can research the areas you’re unfamiliar with. This expands your worldview, general knowledge, and can lead to surprising discoveries as you learn fascinating unknown facts and concepts. Novels, articles, newspapers, magazines, and even recipes, reading provides a wealth of information.

Your memory can improve

As we mentioned, reading is a whole brain exercise. That means when you read, you engage multiple areas of your brain at the same time. This improves fluency, comprehension, awareness, visual and auditory processes, and more.

In addition, reading activates your working memory. As you read, you keep track of plots, dialogue, characters, and more. When you return to reading after taking a break, you exercise your memory as you recall what happened previously in the book. And when you put the book down, the story stays in your active in your brain until you’re finished with the book. You think about what happened and speculate on what might happen next, sharpening your deductive reasoning and logical thinking.

Consistency and self-discipline improve

The average attention span is getting shorter. Technology and media have decreased the average attention span to 47 seconds. That’s down almost an entire minute and a half in less than twenty years. But reading can increase your attention span, which then increases your ability to concentrate and focus on other tasks.

When you sit down to read a book, you’re committing to hundreds of pages. You know you will not get through the content in minutes, and by sitting down to read every day, you’re exercising your focus and concentration. To fully understand the story, you have to finish the book. Studies show reading strengthens the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. These are the areas of the brain where concentration, focus, planning, attention, and decision-making take place.

Stress Reduction

Reading novels for enjoyment is an excellent way to relax. Studies show that reading for thirty minutes can reduce stress significantly. In fact, it has the same effect on stress as doing yoga. Your heart-rate decreases, your muscles relax, and your breathing evens out while you read. This helps lower anxiety and can help you become more productive for the rest of your day.

Studies also show that reading increases your emotional intelligence and empathy. While this on its own may not reduce stress, it helps form deeper emotional bonds with people around you. One recent study showed how community bonds and social support helps instances of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress.

Increase your skills in any area of interest

In any specific field of interest, reading can help improve your success. Subject matter experts take their years of expertise and condense it into chapters, allowing you to learn from their experiences, acquired knowledge, and mistakes. That allows you to build on their foundation to come up with ideas on how you can best apply that knowledge to increase your capabilities successfully.

Become a better writer

Every time you read, you’re taking in sentence structure, word use, grammar, and vocabulary. Unconsciously, you’re gaining insight into how to create sentences, paragraphs, and chapters in your own writing. The more you read and the more you practice writing, the faster you’ll develop your own voice, style, and creative storytelling.

Improved problem-solving and cognitive processing

Reading helps you detect patterns, assimilate information, and solve problems. One study out of the Washington University in St. Louis showed reading activates seventeen different areas of the brain. But they aren’t active at the same time, and the level of activation changes as you develop.

Researchers at the Emory University in Atlanta found that reading novels changes your brain—even after you’re done reading. The neural networks that activate while reading stay active for up to five days after you finish a novel. This might not seem like a long time, but if you’re consistently reading, you’re constantly lighting up those networks. This enhances overall brain performance that extends into other tasks and, over time, develops into a wide range of cognitive capabilities.

Conclusion

The brain benefits of reading are truly limitless. You learn more about yourself and the world around you, often while visiting fantastical places that spark your imagination. It’s possible to build empathy, improve your concentration and focus, reduce your stress, and it’s one of the best whole brain exercises you can do. So what are you waiting for? Pick up a book today!

If you want to learn how to read faster and remember more, visit http://kwikbrain.com for more information on our revolutionary Kwik Brain accelerated learning programs.

And if you want to learn how to read a book a week, watch this video:

8 AMAZING MOVIES ON MEMORY – PART 2

June 9, 2023 by Kwik Team

As we discovered last month, Hollywood loves to use memory as a driver of blockbuster plots. This month we look at machines that read memories, renegade scientists who implant false memories, and what happens when you wake up with no memory of who you are. But how realistic are these portrayals of memory? In an on-going series, we’re going to explore popular movies with memory as a core component of their plot, and find out how accurate they really are. Here are the first eight movies on memory.

Before we move on, some analysis may give spoilers of certain plots. If you haven’t watched these movies and are curious, we encourage you to watch them first. Then come back and see how realistic they truly are.

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If you could fast-forward through the difficult parts of your life, would you? Or, the better question is, should you?

Michael Newman (Adam Sandler) is an overworked architect. Bullied by his boss, he finds himself working long hours and neglecting his family. When he buys a universal remote control, he discovers it has the power to fast-forward through the unpleasant moments of his life. Newman uses it to his advantage at work, fast-forwards through illnesses, and other small moments. But when he is overlooked for a promotion, he moves past years of grueling work to achieve success. Only, life is not what he expected. Even worse, the remote learned his preferences. Unable to control which parts of his life he misses, Newman frantically tries to rewind—before it’s too late.

While the movie doesn’t specifically focus on a particular aspect of memory, it does highlight how profoundly important our memories are. When Michael Newman fast-forwarded through his life, his body was on auto-pilot. As a result, he had no recollection of what happened while he was “out”. Because of this, he woke up disoriented and had to continually piece together events that led to his current moment. The good news is there isn’t technology that can perform this way. But it’s possible to check-out and live in auto-pilot. Every time you scroll your social media feed while half-listening to a friend or family member, or zone out on hours of binge watching television instead of spending quality time with the people you love, you can lose time and in effect, lose memories. If you do that too much, how much of yourself do you end up losing, too?

Before I Go to Sleep

Every day Christine Lucas wakes up to a stranger claiming he’s her husband. But when memories start to surface, she no longer knows who she can trust.

The man Christine Lucas (Nicole Kidman) wakes up to says he’s her husband. A victim of a car accident, Christine hasn’t been able to form new memories for years. She sees a therapist who encourages her to record her thoughts in a video journal. Every morning, Christine watches the videos to try and stitch together the memory of her past. But when she does start to remember flashes of her past, one thing becomes clear. The people she trusts most are lying to her. And she has no idea why.

Christine Lucas suffers from anterograde amnesia, a type of memory loss that prevents her from forming new memories. If this type of memory loss feels familiar, that’s because movies and books commonly used it as a storytelling device. (We mentioned a few other examples in our last blog post.) Some aspects of living with anterograde amnesia are accurate in this movie. Things like the post-it notes around the house, using a journal to help remember their daily routine, and treatment with a neuropsychologist.

We don’t know how long Christine had been living with her amnesia. But generally, the longer a patient has amnesia, the more likely the condition is permanent. Further, without healing the area of the brain that caused the memory loss to begin with, it’s highly unlikely she would recover her memories. It’s also odd where she lost her memories. Often, the patient would lose memories after the injury, not years beforehand. And the sudden presence of one individual would not likely cause the patient to suddenly regain their lost memories.

Finding Dory

A forgetful fish embarks on a journey to find her long-lost parents, discovering the power of friendship along the way.

When Dory (Ellen Degeneres) was a young regal blue tang fish, she got separated from her parents. But Dory suffers from short-term memory loss. Without being able to remember how to get home, she eventually moved on, and forgot her parents entirely. One day, Dory suddenly remembers her parents and is determined to find them. With her friends by her side, Dory sets out to navigate her fragmented memories and the expansive ocean, hoping her heart will lead her home.

Dory often refers to her memory as short-term memory loss, but technically that’s not what she suffers from. She more likely has anterograde amnesia, where she cannot form new memories. If she had suffered from actual short-term memory loss, she wouldn’t remember Marlin or Nemo without significant reminders. According to memory specialist Pablo Piolini, Dory’s condition resembles developmental amnesia, where damage to the hippocampus occurs at birth or shortly after. These children can learn, reason, and acquire knowledge, but they struggle with their episodic memory. This is why Dory knows how to swim, can take care of herself, and even speak whale, but can’t remember where she lived or various elements of what happens in her day-to-day life. While Dory’s episodic memory is significantly impacted, her procedural memory is intact. This makes it possible for her to rely on repeated past learning—the way she does in the movie—to find her way home.

The Bourne Identity

A man with amnesia discovers he has deadly skills when ruthless enemies pursue him, forcing him to piece together fragmented memories pointing to a dangerous, covert past.

Floating in the Mediterranean Sea, shot in the back, a man (Matt Damon) has no idea who he is. He’s proficient in combat and knows multiple languages, and hidden beneath the skin on his hip is a tiny projector with a Zurich safety deposit box number. With nothing else to go on, the man travels to Switzerland where he finds multiple currencies, passports, and weapons. Choosing the American option, he leaves as Jason Bourne. But the safety deposit box was compromised. And within minutes of leaving, Swiss police attempt to capture him. On the run, relying on skills he isn’t aware he has, Jason Bourne has to piece together who he is and why the CIA wants him dead before it’s too late.

Jason Bourne has psychogenic amnesia, a disorder marked by a gap in important personal history usually brought on my an injury or traumatic event. In this case, it’s reasonable to assume the gunfight that landed him in the Mediterranean Sea induced both injury and trauma, leading to the loss of his memory. But only specific to who he was before he woke up. His entire personal history was gone, outside of fragments of information, but his procedural memory was fully intact. That’s why he could remember languages, fighting techniques, and other skills he had already learned. And unlike anterograde amnesia, he can still retain new information, a detail that is very helpful when on the run from deadly assassins.

Shutter Island

When a U.S. Marshal investigates the disappearance of a patient from an isolated mental institution, he uncovers dark secrets and shocking truths about both himself and the island.

In 1954, U.S. Marshal Edward “Teddy” Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are investigating the disappearance of a woman on remote Shutter Island. Rachel Solando was at the isolated Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane for drowning her three children. But things on the island are immediately not what they seem. Plagued by headaches and vivd dreams, he admits that he accepted the job to search for Andrew Laeddis—the man who killed his wife when he was overseas. The longer he spends on the island, the stranger Teddy’s reality gets. When he discovers rumors of mind control experiments, Teddy no longer knows what to believe, or who to trust. And he can’t shake the feeling that he might be next.

While the premise of Shutter Island may not seem to deal with memory directly, Daniels is suffering from Delusional Disorder. To avoid the trauma of his past, he creates a vivid, new reality instead. He can’t face the painful reality of his memories, choosing to bury them deep into his subconscious and live in an alternate future where his past never took place. Delusional Disorder is rare, affecting only 0.05 – 0.1% of the population. While it’s usually associated with schizophrenia, trauma can trigger the disorder, as we see with Daniels.

Shutter Island does a fantastic job of showing how far the brain will go to protect you from harm. In Daniels’ case, remembering the truth of his past is so painful, his brain represses it. This repression then allows his delusions to manifest. Though the psychiatric techniques shown in the movie might seem extreme and barbaric, they’re likely an accurate representation of how doctors treated the disorder in the 1950’s.

Dark City

A man with no memory of who he is or what he’s done wakes up in a strange city only to find he’s suspected of murder and on the run from both police and a mysterious group called “The Strangers”.

When John Murdock (Rufus Sewell) wakes up in a bathtub, he doesn’t remember anything about who he is or how he got there. But a well-timed phone call and a mutilated body convinces him to leave the hotel. The police believe he’s responsible for murder, but even more alarming is the strange group of pale men in trench coats who are also hunting him. Lost in a city that never sees daylight, he follows the clues of his disjointed memories while growing increasingly suspicious of his surroundings. The more he remembers, the closer he gets to learning the dark truth behind The Strangers. But he’s running out of time.

It might seem like the far reaches of science fiction to inject memories and control a civilization, but this might not be as far-fetched as it seems. In 2018, scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles, were able to inject memories in sea snails. And this research isn’t new. In 2013, researchers were able to insert encoded learning patterns from one rat hippocampus to another. While this isn’t exactly inserting an entirely new life of memories into the brain, the idea that even transferring encoded learning patterns from one brain to another was unthinkable at one point. As researchers continue to unlock how memory physically works in the brain, it may be possible that someday we could upload or download our memories from our brain as easily as our iPhone.

Regarding Henry

When a ruthless lawyer is shot in the head, he loses his memories and mobility, forcing him to undergo a transformative journey of self-discovery and redemption as he recovers.

Henry Turner (Harrison Ford) has it all. He’s a cutthroat lawyer who’s reputation and ruthless tactics have made him a wealthy man. One evening, he’s shot in the head after accidentally interrupting a convenience store robbery. Though he survives, when he wakes, he can no longer move or remember anything about who he is. As he heals, he becomes a kinder, gentler person than his friends and family remember him as. As his relationships improve, Henry has to face the truth of who he was and decide what kind of man he wants to be.

The main injury to Henry’s brain was in his right frontal lobe. And because he was also shot in the subclavian artery, the subsequent bleeding caused him to go into cardiac arrest. This caused anoxia, resulting in further damage to the brain. These are incredibly serious injuries, and in many ways, the movie accurately portrays the difficulty a patient recovering from these wounds would experience. But in other ways, the movie idealizes the reality of what recovery would look like.

With a frontal lobe injury, social skills would notably change. The personality and behavioral changes he displays—impulsivity, attention problems, and the inability to regulate emotional reactions—are accurate. But these are typically more frustrating, leading to confusion, depression, and emotional outbursts. Henry does show these, but he also regains a lot of functionality that allows him to become a better person. In the end, the road to such a dramatic change would likely be a lot more difficult and take a lot longer than the movie portrays.

Reminiscence

In a climate ravaged world, people can relive their memories. But when a memory operator falls in love with a mysterious woman, he’s drawn into a dangerous obsession leading to a dark truth.

In a wild ravaged by climate change, Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) runs a business helping people relive their memories. One night, a woman asks him to help find her keys. Their connection is instantaneous. After months together, she disappears without warning. Mourning her loss, he loses himself in their memories together. It’s only when he’s hired to read the memories of a comatose patients that he realizes the woman he loved kept dark secrets from him. Desperate to understand who she was and where she went, he follows a twisted trail of memories towards a devastating truth.

While we aren’t anywhere near inventing a machine that allows others to watch your memories, it might surprise you to learn that this technology may be closer than you think. In 2009, scientists “mapped” memories using brain scans to predict where a patient was in a virtual building. We are learning where memories are stored, and how our brain works to retrieve those memories. But where the specific memory is located in detail is still an unanswered question.

Recently, researchers discovered that when it comes to learned tasks, the brain doesn’t store the whole memory together. Rather, when a musician plays an instrument, the brain pulls the individual components required one at a time. It them reassembles them in order milliseconds before playing. This makes mapping a specific memory a complicated task. That requires understanding all the areas a memory might reside and pulling them together in the right order, every time. But with every new discovery, technology like this becomes more plausible, even if it isn’t possible right now.

Conclusion

As science catches up, many plots that were once the stuff of science fiction is now shifting towards reality. Stay tuned for more amazing movies on memory, and our analysis of how accurate they are.

If you’re interested in improving your memory, check out our Kwik Recall class. In 31 days you’ll unlock your ability to learn faster, remember more, and unlock your limitless potential.

THE EMPATHETIC ELEPHANT: DECIPHER YOUR BRAIN TYPE

May 22, 2023 by Kwik Team

Congratulations on taking the quiz and unlocking the C.O.D.E. to your unique brain type. You’ve taken the first step towards understanding how to leverage your strengths and develop strategies to overcome your biggest challenges. As an Empathetic Elephant, you have incredible strengths you can use to overcome any challenge in your learning and life.

If you haven’t taken the test yet, be sure to visit mybrainanimal.com to find out which brain animal represents you.

THE EMPATHETIC ELEPHANT

The Empathetic Elephant is the collaborative connector. You have exceptional emotional intelligence. Thanks to your ability to understand others on a deeply emotional level, you’re able to forge strong connections. Teams are better with you on them. You’re supportive and cooperative, and your empathy enables you to mediate conflict, facilitate open communication, and enhance a positive atmosphere wherever you go. You understand how other people can lift each other up, encouraging them to weave their strengths together to create an unstoppable force. This makes you a master negotiator, an uplifting cheerleader, and a just peacekeeper. It doesn’t matter whether you’re helping your children get along or managing a diverse group to launch a new product line, you will find a way to bring them together, see different points of view, and flourish as a united team.

UTILIZE YOUR ELEPHANT STRENGTHS

Your communication skills are your ultimate strength. And you can take these skills to the next level by practicing active listening and fine-tuning your empathetic responses. Elevating your ability to provide clear messages to anyone you’re interacting with is guaranteed to strengthen your interpersonal relationships and enhance your teamwork abilities.

Some easy ways for you to hone these skills are by regularly participating in group activities. Join clubs, organizations, or professional networks to strengthen your collaboration and build a strong support system. If there aren’t any appealing options at work or in your personal life, create one! You have everything you need to not only talk people into joining, but ensuring that every interaction is meaningful and engaging.

You want to make sure you don’t end up taking too much on, so you to be sure to delegate tasks as you learn people’s preferences and strengths rather than taking them on yourself. And because you effectively gain the trust of your team members, you know you can count on them to complete their assigned responsibilities.

Whenever you face conflict, you can rely on your ability to find common ground, maintain open lines of communication, and foster an atmosphere of mutual respect between all parties. Whether this obstacle is between you and another person, or between members of your team, you can facilitate and guide everyone to reach an amicable resolution.

ELEPHANTS WORKING WITH OTHERS

Every animal type has their own strengths to contribute when working with others. The goal of a successful team is to use your strengths to complement others and contribute to a more effective and balanced group dynamic. Here are some specific strategies you can employ when working with other animal brain types.

The logical Owls can often get lost in spreadsheets and data. Their methodical approach to problem-solving can sometimes come across as dismissive or cold. This is where you can help them see things from others perspectives. And you can help others see the practical value in their analytical skills and structured approach. This means you can guide the Owl to collaborate with teammates through increased communication and cooperation.

Agile Cheetahs are always ready to move and you are the perfect person to help them find which way to go. Even if you can’t solve their specific problems, your ability to understand everyone’s strengths and weaknesses means you know exactly who can. Their quick-decision making can be a little uncomfortable for you, but thanks to your clear and direct communication style, you both can have a constructive discussion that allows you to find a middle ground.

The out-of-the-box ideas and innovative solutions of the creative Dolphin appreciate your collaborative skills. Especially when their ideas are too far out of the comfort zone and they’re having difficulty finding buy-in. That’s where you come in. Your focus on teamwork, group cohesion, and your ability to bring people together make any work environment one where the creative Dolphin feels comfortable enough to let their ideas flow and trust that they’ll be heard.

IMPROVE YOUR ELEPHANT WEAKNESSES

Every animal type has challenges you can work on to improve your performance. By focusing on personal growth, you can become self-aware enough to overcome these obstacles and become your best self.

One area you’ll want to work in is your ability to make a confident, well-informed decision when consensus isn’t possible. Your communication skills are top-notch, but that doesn’t mean you’ll always be able to get everyone to see eye-to-eye. Sometimes, you’ll have to step in and make the call, one way or the other, and stand behind it.

You’ll also want to practice working independently. Your ability to bring a solid team together makes it easier for you to surround yourself with high quality people. But that can also mean you take a backseat to others, relying on their judgement instead of your own. You have good instincts so be sure you learn how to trust those instincts by learning how to make progress on your own as well as with others.

Spending time alone won’t simply increase your trust in yourself, it will help you grow your confidence. Even though you have the natural ability to facilitate collaboration, you want to work on being able to assert yourself and express your opinions and ideas. Making sure everyone else’s voice is heard and respected is one of your strengths. But you want to ensure that you demand the same for yourself.

By focusing on these areas of improvement, you’ll learn how to make confident decisions and trust that your own voice is a valuable resource for every team. This will give you a more balanced and effective approach to work, learning, and personal growth.

BETTER ELEPHANT PROBLEM-SOLVING & DECISION-MAKING

Each animal brain type has unique cognitive preferences that you can use to improve your problem-solving and decision-making abilities.

As an Elephant, you can leverage your strong communication and collaboration skills to involve others in the problem-solving process. This allows you to gather diverse perspectives and insights, which leads to better outcomes. While you want to learn how to trust your own instincts, there is nothing wrong with gathering information from trusted and knowledgeable resources to help you out.

Once you’ve reached a decision, you can help build consensus among team members and stakeholders. Because you’ve taken everyone’s input into account, the decisions and solutions you make are sure to more effective and sustainable in the long run.

You can trust that no matter what obstacle or problem is in your way, your empathetic nature will consider the human impact of whatever solutions you’re weighing. You want to balance maintaining your objectivity so that no matter what the outcome, you’ve reached it carefully, choosing the best out of a variety of well-informed options.

CONCLUSION

As an Elephant, you have incredible strengths and cognitive gifts. You can leverage these abilities to overcome challenges, improve your performance, and unlock your inner genius. Learn how to work independently, fine-tune your natural communication skills, and turn the world into an unstoppable team so you can make anything possible.

Remember, these brain types are not strict categories, but a framework to help you explore and embrace your unique qualities. You may even find multiple brain types resonate with you. Everyone is a one-of-a-kind combination of traits and abilities. That’s why your brain type isn’t a limitation, but a foundation from which you can build and expand.

This information can help you tailor your learning approach, seek environments that complement your strengths, and surround yourself with individuals who can support and challenge you. When you embrace your strengths, cultivate your weaknesses, and embark on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth, you can unleash your truly limitless potential.

TAKE THE QUIZ

So, are you ready to uncover your brain type? Find out if you embody the agility of the Cheetah, the wisdom of the Owl, the creativity of the Dolphin, and the empathy of the Elephant. Take the quiz at mybrainanimal.com and unlock the power of your remarkable mind.

THE CREATIVE DOLPHIN: DECIPHER YOUR BRAIN TYPE

May 19, 2023 by Kwik Team

Congratulations on taking the quiz and unlocking the C.O.D.E. to your unique brain type. You’ve taken the first step towards understanding how to leverage your strengths and develop strategies to overcome your biggest challenges. As a Creative Dolphin, you have incredible strengths you can use to overcome any challenge in your learning and life.

If you haven’t taken the test yet, be sure to visit mybrainanimal.com to find out which brain animal represents you.

THE CREATIVE DOLPHIN

The Creative Dolphin is the visionary. You generate original ideas and find unique solutions to complex problems through out-of-the-box thinking and strong intuition. Imagination is your playground. You approach challenges with a fresh perspective, looking from all angles, even ones no one has considered. Impossible isn’t in your vocabulary. That doesn’t mean you’re trying to constantly reinvent the wheel. Instead, you enjoy building on what already exists, and either expanding their potential or taking a different approach. You thrive when you’re encouraged to offer new viewpoints and love brainstorming new ideas. At home, you breathe new life into Taco Tuesday and can craft a brand-new marketing campaign for a lagging product at work. You’re guaranteed to come up with an idea no one else has thought of. You shine in environments that embrace your creative spirit and can feel stifled in places that require you to conform to strict convention.

UTILIZE YOUR DOLPHIN STRENGTHS

As a creative, you have the ability to engage in creative endeavors to enhance innovative thinking. You can use your imagination to unlock new ideas and explore unique approaches to any problems you encounter. It may not seem like it, but activities like painting, writing, or brainstorming can be used to sharpen your problem-solving abilities as you learn to see things from a different perspective.

One way you can enhance your creative side is by creating a stimulating environment. Design your workspace in a way that promotes creativity by incorporating elements that inspire you. Things like mood boards, plants, pieces of art, photographs, or anything else that speaks to your creative side. And don’t forget the power of natural light.

Part of planning your day should incorporate time to recharge your creative well. Mindfulness exercises, such as journaling and meditation, help you tap into your intuition and gain insight into your thought process. Creativity can easily become blocked with too much pressure or stress, so you want to be sure to make time to decompress and relax.

You also excel at collaboration, though it’s easy to get lost inside your dreamscapes. Make sure you find time to regularly seek out others for feedback and brainstorming sessions. You may be reluctant to leave your world and interact with other people, but you’ll find that you end up feeling not just inspired, but energized from the collective ideas generated.

Dolphins Working with Others

It might feel strange to team up with the logical Owl, but you and the Owl complement each other’s strengths and offset your weaknesses remarkably well. You can introduce innovative ideas and solutions and the Owl can provide a structured framework to implement them. Owls love solving puzzles which means you can use their curiosity to bring any creative endeavor to life. Their analytical approach combined with your creativity and open-mindedness can create interesting answers for any problem you encounter.

Working with the agile Cheetah can feel like you’re on creative overdrive. No matter what you dream up, the Cheetah is ready to spring into action and make it happen. Their efficiency and adaptability can help you find strengths and pitfalls in new ideas and programs, giving you clear direction on how to focus your efforts for maximum productivity. You can help the Cheetah find new approaches to their set routines and practices, while they can help you get better at execution and momentum.

Dolphins and Elephants are natural partners. You both value collaboration, even though your motivations for connecting are different. The Elephant wants to ensure everyone’s voice is heard and this can be an advantage for you, since depending on the team structure, you dreamy and out-of-the-box ideas might be otherwise dismissed or can be difficult to get buy-in. At the same time, they can help make sure you get the feedback and creative input you need to help you overcome obstacles or roadblocks when it comes to creating and executing new plans.

Improve Your Dolphin Weaknesses

Every animal type has challenges you can work on to improve your performance. By focusing on personal growth, you can become self-aware enough to overcome these obstacles and become your best self.

Even though you can come up with exciting new approaches to outdated problems, you want to focus on and develop are your organizational skills. Creativity often happens in a whirlwind. It can be easy for you to lose track of time when working on a project—even getting lost in the project itself as you discard various elements in search of the right fit. Find a way to add structure to your day so you can stay focused and productive on all areas that matter, not just the one demanding all your attention in the moment.

Another way to help stay on track is to practice your analytical skills. It can be too easy to chase a shiny new idea, but sitting down and mapping the idea out can save you a lot of time, energy, and resources in the end. Rather than making progress only to start all over when you hit a dead-end, a little planning can hone your creative instincts into sharp tools that you can wield effectively. This will also help you learn how to prioritize your tasks and projects effectively. Understanding how to focus on the most important objectives first will ensure timely completion and lead to you getting more done in less time.

By focusing on these areas of improvement, you’ll learn how to analyze your tasks and organize your day so you can tackle every creative idea quickly and efficiently. This will give you a more balanced and effective approach to work, learning, and personal growth.

Better Dolphin Problem-solving and Decision-making

Each animal brain type has unique cognitive preferences that you can use to improve your problem-solving and decision-making abilities.

Your natural inclination for creativity and imagination means that you can generate innovative solutions to problems. Even if you’ve been told to think more conventionally, you should stay open to exploring unconventional ideas and approaches. Your out-of-the-box thinking can often yield answers no one else thought of and that makes you a valuable asset to any team.

Take your creative thinking one step further by looking for patterns and connections in every task. Learning how to assess and analyze while creating will strengthen your problem-solving abilities and help you master identifying patterns, trends, and connections between seemingly unrelated pieces of information.

This practice will also help you learn to consider the big picture from a holistic standpoint. Every problem has broader context and every decision has long-term implications. By taking a step back and not focusing on just the smaller problem at hand, you can learn to think on a larger scale and successfully avoid obstacles in the future.

CONCLUSION

As a Dolphin, you have incredible strengths and cognitive gifts. You can leverage these abilities to overcome challenges, improve your performance, and unlock your inner genius. Learn how to enhance your creative workspace, practice analyzing your priorities, and turn the world into a vision board so you can make anything possible.

TAKE THE QUIZ

THE WISE OWL: DECIPHER YOUR BRAIN TYPE

May 18, 2023 by Kwik Team

Congratulations on taking the quiz and unlocking the C.O.D.E. to your unique brain type. You’ve taken the first step towards understanding how to leverage your strengths and develop strategies to overcome your biggest challenges. As a Wise Owl, you have incredible strengths you can use to overcome any challenge in your learning and life.

If you haven’t taken the test yet, be sure to visit mybrainanimal.com to find out which brain animal represents you.

The Wise Owl

The Wise Owl represents the logical thinker. You have strong analytical skills and a finite attention to detail, allowing you to assess data with clarity and precision. And you have yet to meet a puzzle you weren’t excited to solve. There’s nothing you love more than unraveling complex concepts and breaking problems down into manageable parts. Your curiosity is insatiable, driving you to ask questions and explore new topics. When it comes to making decisions, you need time to take a deep dive into the problem, consider multiple outcomes, weigh the pros and cons, and think several steps out before reaching any conclusions. Whether it’s taking everyone’s interests into account when planning a family vacation, or providing a comprehensive report on your company’s productivity, you handle intricate details with ease. But creating quality analysis takes time, and that means you’re not comfortable making snap decisions under pressure.

Utilize Your Owl Strengths

You excel at breaking down complex tasks into manageable steps. Use this ability to create a clear plan for whatever project you set out to accomplish. Make sure you set appropriate milestones and prioritize tasks to increase productivity. Your ability to analyze information will help this process happen in an efficient and organized manner. And it ensures that you stay on track no matter what obstacles pop up along the way.

A structured routine is part of this process, and if you don’t have one, establishing a daily routine will help you focus. Make sure this includes finding the right resources and tools to help with this routine. A calendar, journal, and a system of reminders will ease your cognitive load so you can create an environment conducive to logical thinking. You want to be sure to include specific times for work, breaks, and don’t forget the importance of scheduling personal time.

Logic puzzles and brain teasers are fantastic tools to enhance your natural logical thinking skills. You learn best through activities that engage your curiosity and deductive reasoning. Lessons that allow you to ask why and dig deep into the data are going to enrich your learning experience and help cement new skills into your long-term memory. And activities like Sudoku, crosswords, word games, riddles, and other problem-solving puzzles are likely to keep your brain activate and engaged.

You’ll want to sharpen your communication skills by actively listening to others. Since you are well versed in research, it might feel like you can find the information you need on your own. But to avoid the tendency to create natural bias, asking for feedback and opinions on a regular basis can help keep you on track. This can also help you avoid missteps and miscalculations, as the extra input gives you another data point you wouldn’t have gotten on your own.

Owls Working with Others

Cheetahs execute tasks quickly. They are action-oriented and ready to pivot at a moment’s notice. You can work with Cheetahs by offering coherent plans and strategies to help launch their actions in a pointed direction. While their tendency to make rapid decisions and embrace new situations can be intimidating, even stressful, your preference to do a deep dive on every detail can be time-consuming, cumbersome, and sometimes, unnecessary. Your organizational skills and ability to solve complex problems and their adaptability means you can execute projects with precision.

The creative Dolphin might feel like they’re the exact opposite of your structured approach, but there is a lot you can learn from each other. You can help bring organization and order to their creative ideas. A Dolphin thrives in finding new approaches to problems which pairs well with your desire to solve complex puzzles. Their out-of-the-box thinking might be overwhelming, but together, you can create innovative new solutions that fit within a well-designed framework.

When it comes to teams, the Elephant can be an Owls best friend. You tend to stick to yourself, quietly and efficiently working through your tasks. This can sometimes lead to feeling alienated, and others on your team may not understand the value you bring. Because an Elephant seeks to collaborate with others and ensure that all voices are heard, they can help you learn how to speak up for yourself and ask for help. Their gentle guidance can connect you with teammates who will not only work with you, but optimize your performance.

Improve Your Owl Weaknesses

Every animal type has challenges you can work on to improve your performance. By focusing on personal growth, you can become self-aware enough to overcome these obstacles and become your best self.

As someone who values logic and order, your emotional intelligence can be something you neglect. After all, emotions don’t always make sense, and you embody rational thinking. Learning how to recognize and manage your own emotions can help you learn to empathize with others. Logic isn’t always the ideal way to approach decision-making and problem-solving. Often, there is a very human element involved, and taking that into consideration will make you more well-rounded in all areas of your work and life.

On that same note, this extends to communication. You might not want to reach out to others for feedback or to come up with new ideas. Especially because both can seem very illogical initially. There is very little you can’t research, but sometimes the solution is in a place you might never think to look. Innovation is often unexpected, and you can’t rely on what you know to find it. Even if you do come up with a fantastic idea, launching new products or procedures requires buy-in and collaboration. Learning how to communicate regularly with your teams, classmates, family, and friends can ensure you get the support and help you need, no matter what task you’re facing.

As much as you might prefer that life fell into manageable pieces, the truth is, it’s often unpredictable. When you work on becoming more flexible and adaptable in the face of change, you save yourself time and stress when unavoidable changes happen. Your strength is in planning, and you can prepare for a quite a lot. But you can’t plan for every contingency. Use your insights from research to practice responding to unexpected situations. In the end, your preparation can help you respond more efficiently when you’re hit with the unforeseen.

By focusing on these areas of improvement, you’ll learn how to communicate and prepare for any situation. This will give you a more balanced and effective approach to work, learning, and personal growth.

Better Owl Problem-solving and Decision-making

Each animal brain type has unique cognitive preferences that you can use to improve your problem-solving and decision-making abilities.

As an Owl, you want to embrace your analytical skills. Break problems down into smaller components, identifying the root causes and underlying principles of each step. This systematic approach will help you better understand the problem and identify potential solutions.

You can use these analytical skills to carefully weigh the pros and cons of each solution. This means you can not only come up with multiple answers, but can evaluate each alternative until you find the best one. You’re able to make informed decisions based on objective criteria to arrive at the best approach to move forward.

After making a decision, be sure to review the outcomes and reflect on how specific elements in your decision-making process so you can learn from your experience. Your goal should be improving your process so that future problems and goals become more refined and streamlined.

Conclusion

As an Owl, you have incredible strengths and cognitive gifts. You can leverage these abilities to overcome challenges, improve your performance, and unlock your inner genius. Learn to utilize your analytical and logical abilities, practice asking for help, and turn the world into a puzzle only you can solve.

Take the quiz

THE AGILE CHEETAH: DECIPHER YOUR BRAIN TYPE

May 17, 2023 by Kwik Team

Congratulations on taking the quiz and unlocking the C.O.D.E. to your unique brain type. You’ve taken the first step towards understanding how to leverage your strengths and develop strategies to overcome your biggest challenges. As an Agile Cheetah, you have incredible strengths you can use to overcome any challenge in your learning and life.

If you haven’t taken the test yet, be sure to visit mybrainanimal.com to find out which brain animal represents you.

The Agile Cheetah

The Agile Cheetah is the instinctive doer. You have powerful instincts and aren’t afraid to use them, relying on your quick thinking and adaptability to get you through any situation. While you value thoughtful, strategic planning, you are very comfortable with sudden changes in all areas of life and business. You like making fast decisions and excel in high-pressure situations. Your dynamic nature makes it easy to adapt to new challenges and you like a change of pace in terms of new environments, projects, and tasks. Because you thrive in conditions that are constantly changing, things like rigid rules, regulations, and institutions are not your favorite. Instead, you like fast-paced atmospheres that value flexibility and gut-instinct.

Utilize Your Cheetah Strengths

As someone who follows your gut and is always ready for a change, your best productivity strategy is to set short-term goals. When you break tasks down into smaller, achievable tasks, you’re able to maintain momentum and stay motivated. This helps you feel like you’re making progress and can help you stay on track when it comes to goals with long timelines.

You also learn best through hands-on experience. Whatever you can do to make your goals, lessons, and work sessions interactive will do wonders for your focus and concentration. Look for opportunities to visit facilities, assist in a lab, participate in a workshop, or volunteer for an event to solidify new lessons and skills.

Even though you thrive in high-energy situations, you still need time to recharge and re-energize. Your tendency might be to take working lunches and ignore breaks, but these can actually lead to burnout and overload. Break your day down into manageable pieces where you take the time to relax and recover. It might feel like you’re going against your energetic norm, but you’ll find that you have even more energy and higher productivity when you allow yourself to rest.

Some time-management techniques you’ll want to master will involve time blocking. This is when you chunk down your day into time blocks dedicated to specific tasks. For example, you set aside twenty minutes to do email, ten minutes to write your daily to-do list, thirty minutes for your morning reading. Using the Pomodoro Technique can help you stay focused on the tasks without worrying about the time and remind you to take breaks when the timer goes off. These small chunks of time help you shift tasks quickly and easily while allowing you to maintain focus and efficiency throughout your day.

Cheetahs Working with Others

Owls are the logical thinkers. They have a methodical approach which might seem frustrating to a Cheetah. But your adaptability and quick decision-making skills can help an Owl move through difficult and complex tasks with ease. You want to be open to their structured plans and offer solutions when they come up against road blocks. Because you’re quick on your feet, you can help them brainstorm for faster planning and easier execution.

As a creative visionary, Dolphins love dreaming up new ideas. You might have a tried-and-true approach that gets you to your goal quickly, but the Dolphin might have an out-of-the-box approach that gets you twice the results in the same amount of time. You and the Dolphin can work very well together, as your fast-acting tendencies bring their new ideas to life in record time. And your agility means you can pivot quickly when things don’t work and give them more opportunity to dream up something even better than before.

There’s nothing more important to an Elephant than connecting with their team. Rather than getting frustrated at how time-consuming team consensus can take, be open to learning how to apply everyone’s opinions and strengths for the most efficient outcome. This can be helpful when it comes to complex situations. Allowing an Elephant to facilitate communication and collaboration can help you find the fastest solution for the entire team.

Improve Your Cheetah Weaknesses

Every animal type has challenges you can work on to improve your performance. By focusing on personal growth, you can become self-aware enough to overcome these obstacles and become your best self.

One of the biggest challenges you face as a Cheetah is cultivating patience. You want to move forward, favoring action over caution. And while that means you make progress on your tasks and are busy throughout your day, some of that might be work you didn’t need to do. When you don’t take the time to analyze situations thoroughly, you can make mistakes, causing you to redo certain steps before you can complete whatever you’re working on. A little of preparation can feel slow at the beginning, but translate to being faster in the end.

You can work on this by practicing your planning skills. Creating detailed plans that break your goals down into small, actionable goals will help you develop a stronger vision of your tasks and projects. You’ll see each step clearly, which means you can execute them more efficiently. And you’ll spend less time recovering from mistakes or unforeseen obstacles.

Another area to work on is your active listening skills. In your haste to get things done, you might not take the time to fully absorb or understand various perspectives when making a decision or moving forward on a project. Other people have valuable insight that you can use in your planning and execution. Even though you prefer to learn hands-on by doing, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the time to learn from someone else’s experience first.

By focusing on these areas of improvement, you’ll start to plan and collaborate on a whole new level. This will give you a more balanced and effective approach to work, learning, and personal growth.

Better Cheetah Problem-solving and Decision-making

Each animal brain type has unique cognitive preferences that you can use to improve your problem-solving and decision-making abilities.

As a Cheetah, you want to learn to trust your instincts. Your gut reactions and intuition are highly attuned to your thinking, and you can use them to guide your decision-making. This can be particularly helpful in situations where rapid decisions are necessary or when there is limited information available.

Because one of your strengths is hands-on learning, this means that everything you experience is a teaching moment. Be willing to test potential solutions, learn from the outcomes, and adjust your approach accordingly. You won’t always be right, and will often have to adjust, but those setbacks will help fine-tune your process for the future.

Finally, don’t be afraid to seek input from others. Getting feedback and advice from others will balance your desire to rely entirely on instinct. Sometimes you might know the path forward but not know quite how to get there. Being open to a variety of perspective and new insights will help fine-tune your ability to act quickly, trust your gut, and learn from experience.

Conclusion

As a Cheetah, you have incredible strengths and cognitive gifts. You can leverage these abilities to overcome challenges, improve your performance, and unlock your inner genius. Learn to listen to your instincts, practice your long-term planning, and turn the world into your personal classroom.

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