Today I’m going to teach you how to become a smarter person. I’m going to make you more intelligent. We’ll do that by building a workout program for your brain. The same way that if you wanted to become stronger in your body, you would work out, and you would eat well, and you would rest, we’re going to do the same thing with your brain. The tool we’ll use is writing.
We’re going to build a workout program based on writing and reading, and that will be your brain-training mechanism. We’ll cover everything from nutrition to recovery, everything you need to get intellectually and creatively jacked.
If we haven’t met before, my name is Gerald Diala. I’m a writer. I’m not a genius. I’m not very different from you, probably. But I train my brain regularly because I want to. I enjoy writing, I enjoy reading, and I believe that’s how we defend ourselves against brain rot and algorithmic, exploitative, addictive entertainment. Fill in the blank.
So grab yourself a piece of paper, something to write with. We’re going to make this very simple. First, understand that you can train your mind. You can train yourself to. More intelligent. I don’t want you to over-identify with being brain-rotted or Oh, I don’t have an attention span.
I’ve spent too much time on social media. I can’t think straight. You might feel really foggy right now. You might feel overwhelmed, and it’s hard to focus. You can improve all of these with intentional practice, and when you look at your life that way, you’re immediately more inspired. You’re more inspired to show up for yourself.
So here’s what the workout program looks like. To achieve mental hypertrophy, to grow your thinking muscles, set aside 30 minutes each day to show up and write by hand. Get yourself a journal and a pen, something you can write with and on.
And either in the morning or at night, you’re going to write out. You’re going to answer one question, and you’re going to try to bring that stream of thought from a clear beginning to an end. That’s all you’re going to do, and you’re going to get better at this over time.
Some of these questions or prompts might sound like: What am I afraid of today? What do I want to accomplish today? What’s something that didn’t go well yesterday that I want to try differently today? What is my goal for the next month?
OK, what’s 1 interesting thing that happened? What’s one thing I’m avoiding, and why am I avoiding it? Little questions like this. I’d recommend writing the question at the very top of the page, then answering it. This is your mental workout. This is putting your creative writing muscles under tension, OK, and over time you’re going to apply progressive Overload, which in the gym or in working out is when you add more weight or add more reps or make your exercise more difficult so that your muscle, so that your body is forced to adapt.
That’s what you’re going to do with your brain as well. You’re going to write for longer. You’re going to add more. Sets and reps. Oh, maybe I want to go to another page. Or maybe you ask a more complicated question, like: What do I think is the cause of systemic inequality in our civilisation, and where do I think it’s headed over the next decade? Can I connect the physical, real-world impacts I’m seeing around me, too?
There are causes, you know, can I say, oh, this is happening because of this? It’s a much more complicated question than what did I have for breakfast today? But if you start with what did I have for breakfast today, you train your internal muscle of observation such that you’re more equipped to answer the harder questions.
But I wouldn’t try to start off being a thought leader. I wouldn’t try to ask. And answer the most complicated questions our species is faced with. I would start with what you can most easily observe and then try to be artful with it. Right. Can you describe your breakfast in vivid detail?
The hollandaise sauce dripped as if it were made of melted sunlight. Melted sunlight. It’s pretty good. Have some fun with it. Understand that everything that you write, everything that you produce with your brain, can very well be a piece of art if you treat it like an artist. And that’s how you make the process of training your brain enjoyable.
30 minutes to an hour every day, morning or night. It’s not necessarily going to be easy, but if you are gentle with yourself and don’t force it. When you make it fun, you start to crave it because your body learns, “Oh, this is where I can unload some of my stress.” This is where I can start to feel more like myself after a long day. You can do this anywhere, in little moments throughout your day, but what you really want to do is slowly train your brain and soul to reach for the pen instead of other distractions. For the pen instead of other forms of distraction. And that’s how you train your ability to think.
This is obviously a writing-based mental workout program, but you can choose any creative practice that requires your full attention and focus. Ultimately, you’re training yourself to get into a flow state, as defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Sent me high, Nailed the name, look it up. It’s hard to say. He did all of the foundational research on flow states, where your attention is fully immersed in the process of what’s in front of you.
Time tends to dilate or melt. You lose track of the hours because you are so engaged in what you’re doing. What makes a flow state really special is that you’re engaged in a task that’s just right. Difficult enough that it requires your full attention, but not so difficult that you can’t do it. If it’s so difficult you can’t do it, you get discouraged, and you stop. And if it’s so easy that it doesn’t require your full attention, you get bored. Right in the middle of those two states is the sweet spot, and that’s ultimately what you want to get to.
Creative writing, making music. Coding, doing your job, engaged in really deep conversation with another human being, cooking. These are all great practices, and if you can build a consistent practice of seeking them out, of getting into a flow state, you will slowly but surely fortify your mind against distractions, and you will experience intellectual and creative hypertrophy.
You will become mentally jacked. For this to happen, though, you need nutrition. If you go to the gym, work out really hard, stretch your muscles and tear the muscle fibres, you need to nourish them so they can grow back stronger. And I think the same is true for your mind. You need to put stuff in the fridge, so to speak.
So you’re going to read and listen to audiobooks, and you’re going to choose books and audiobooks and podcasts and albums that are excellent, that are good complements to what you’re creating.
So let’s say, for example, you are making music. Or, I guess, I’ll just use myself as an example. I write and perform. Stories. So when I’m picking out a book, I look for writers who inspire me. I’m looking for other really great short story writers who have mastered that form. And I’m reading it as a fellow Craftsman.
So I’m not only reading it for enjoyment and immersion in the story itself, but I’m also reading it, like, technically. I’m studying it. I am motivated to understand. The mechanics of how it works, and then I get all of the more enjoyment out of it. I recommend finding pieces of art that do this for you.
Now, obviously, in order to do that, you have to know what you like, and that’s going to take some experimentation. So just be patient with yourself. Understand that this is a lifelong process. You don’t want to speed through it. You don’t want to perfect it right away. You want a training program and a life approach that will excite you for decades to come. This is an infinite game.
There is no end to it, and that’s a beautiful thing. So, slowly but surely, enrich your media diet and nutrition strategy with media that inspires you, and give it your full attention.
And lastly, this is really important: fitness often neglects rest. Your muscles can only grow when you’re resting, and I think that’s also true for your brain. So you can write 100 pages a day, and you can read a full book in a day, but if you don’t rest, you’re not really going to improve. Your brain won’t be able to store all of that information.
Your short-term memory won’t be able to handle it, and you’ll end up really tired, so really prioritise your rest. When you’re done with your writing and you’re reading for the day, turn off the screens and sit in silence. Maybe read a little bit more before bed.
This is not new information to you. I know that you know the importance of sleep. I’m not. This isn’t new information I’m trying to give. View it like an athlete: when you see your sleep, recovery, mental nutrition and training as an intellectual or creative athlete, it becomes more interesting.
There’s a certain novelty there. There’s an excitement to it. It’s like, oh, I have to go to sleep on time so I can get back to doing really important work and expand my mental. In an age where many people’s inner lights are dimming, no, I want to stand out. I want to be a spotlight in the age of consumption and overwhelm. So I’m going to train myself to do just that. To do that, I need 8 hours, which means the phone is going down. And you just treat yourself like a serious human being.
You don’t need to take yourself seriously, but you take your training, nutrition and recovery. Seriously, you prioritise it. You’re pursuing a craft that is your life’s work. And all of the healthy habits fall perfectly into place in service of that greater North Star. Because you have a goal bigger than you, you do all the right things. You work out, you read, you write, you eat real food. You stop scrolling at 8:00 PM or whatever because you have to do this thing that only you can do. That’s a better way of living life, I think, than just constantly trying to keep your bad habits in check and hope that you don’t slip up today.
The paradox is that you need initial exposure to those healthy habits to find the North Star. So you have to mechanically build in this workout program, the recovery strategies, the nutrition, the reading, the writing, all of this.
You have to do all of that in order to find the North Star. And then once you do. All the strategies serve that. I hope this makes sense. The most important thing, though, I’ll reiterate this, is that you view your life as something you can train. You have attributes you can develop within yourself, and if you’re still reading this, that means that you have a sense of hope within yourself; you want what’s best for yourself, no matter how down bad you are, no matter how overwhelmed you might feel, there’s a spark within you that thinks you can do better and wants to do better.
As long as you can find that you’re good. Because all of this is progressive overload. All of this can improve incrementally over time. Every practice we ever talk about between you and me can be scaled to your level.
And so the most important thing is the orientation, the choice within yourself to find that thing and give yourself to it courageously, no matter how small it is. Understand the heroic courage it takes to do the smallest thing when you’re not capable of doing something epic. Yeah, no, maybe you can’t get up and write a whole essay right now, but. You have the courage to write a single sentence knowing it’s bad. That sometimes takes significantly more courage than writing a perfect, beautiful thing on the first try.
Like, I just want you to give yourself some credit. I want you to push yourself as far as you can. If you can do both of those things, you’re going to be alright. But I think there’s a spark within you that’s going to propel you to move forward and do the next right thing, which just doing the next small thing turns into building the full mental workout program so that you can become intelligent.
OK, I think that’s all for today. We’re a little bit all over the place, but It’s a good starting place. Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you. Out on the field. Bye.
