I'd love to tell you about a book I think you'll really enjoy. It's called Stop Talking, Start Influencing. I'm so excited to share with you 12 amazing insights from brain science that will help your message really resonate with people!

When I chatted about the book 'I Have My Own Universe', I mentioned the concept of 'Flexible Me', which represents all those lovely soft skills we need to have in the workplace, such as time management, leadership, and presentation. These lovely soft skills can help us to be more resilient and flexible in the workplace, so we can achieve our core aspirations – the "Core Me" that I chatted about before. Today, I'd like to focus on one of these soft skills – the ability to communicate. This is a really important skill, and it's also pretty simple! The great thing is that understanding the brain science behind it can help us cultivate this ability with less effort.

Every day, as long as we're awake and communicating with the outside world, we have to deal with the flow of information, or the input and output of information. For instance, we now say that if someone has a "small mouth with a flurry of output," it means they're a great talker! We also come across all kinds of input situations, like at work where we get instructions from our leaders, learn from our colleagues, and so on. And let's not forget about learning, which many of us are doing right now! And there's more! We also get information from reading books, using our phones, watching movies, TV shows, documentaries… and even from all those ads that are everywhere!

Of course, when it comes to input and output, it's also important to think about quality. If we end up wasting a bunch of words and not making things clear, not persuading the people we want to persuade, or spending a lot of time uttering words and studying and not memorising the words that start with A, then it's obvious that this kind of information delivery is low quality and inefficient. But on the other hand, if you can quickly make others understand what you mean and can clearly identify and absorb useful information from the outside world, that is undoubtedly high-quality output and input! On the other hand, if someone is trying to secretly brainwash you to make you feel close to them and more smoothly accept what they are trying to sell you or their point of view, and you recognise them, then you are the equivalent of going one step further and taking the initiative in the delivery of information. So, when it comes to sharing information, we all have to learn how to do it well. And we all have different levels of experience and skill.

So, if we want to become a high-level swordsman, it's really important to understand the principle of information transmission first. Today, we're going to chat about a book I've been meaning to tell you all about: Stop Talking, Start Influencing. I'm so excited to tell you all about this amazing book I've found! It's called '12 Insights from Brain Science to Make Your Message Stick', and it introduces the principles of message delivery. The author, Jared Cooney Horvath, is a cognitive neuroscientist who focuses on how our amazing human brains receive information better. He also studies pedagogy, often giving lectures to teach teachers how to teach lessons. He's given lectures at more than 250 schools around the world, including Harvard University and the University of Melbourne. So, this book is great because it not only has all the principles, but it's also written in a really down-to-earth way. The book is split into 12 chapters, each one focusing on a different keyword related to how our brains work. The author starts by explaining the principle behind each one and then shows you how you can use it in your everyday life. For instance, he explains how you can make your PowerPoint presentations more scientific. In this part, he'll also answer lots of common questions! And there's a summary at the end of each chapter, too!

I'm so excited to dive into those fascinating topics from the book with you today!

1. Text, image + speech

We just mentioned the PPT, which is a tool used in both school and work. It's a great example of cognition because it combines text, images and speech. Guess what? The book also starts with this triangle!

We often read and listen at the same time, don't we? Think of taking a book to a noisy place to read it, or using a cell phone to return messages while watching a drama. We're very used to doing this! And we can even read text on a PowerPoint while listening to a narration! I'd love to know what's going on in your brain at this moment! When we listen to someone else, something really interesting happens in our brains! The auditory cortex, which is in charge of hearing, gets activated. It's amazing how our brains work! When we read text, it's true that the visual cortex is activated as the text comes into view. But almost simultaneously, the auditory cortex silently lights up too! This means that while you're reading, there's actually sound in your head! I bet that's true when you think back, isn't it? We've all been there! You're reading someone's online comment and they quote a classic line from a classic TV show. You think, "How come your words have sound?" It's true! The words you read always have sound.

The thing is, your auditory cortex is trying to process two different pieces of information at the same time – the sound you hear directly and the sound in your head as you read the text. But it can only take in one at a time. So, it's not really possible to read and listen at the same time. We all tend to concentrate on reading for a while and then switch to listening for a while.

It doesn't really matter whether you can read and listen at the same time when you're relaxing or not. But when the information is really packed with lots of details, it's harder to understand. For instance, if you're doing a presentation and you're also explaining things orally while showing a PPT of a paragraph of text enlarging, it's not ideal. The audience can't listen to it properly and read it at the same time. I think the best way to do this is to pick the key points and put key words and key phrases on each PPT, but not more than seven on each one.

So, what is it that only needs visual cortical processing? Images are great for this! The great thing is that images and sound don't interfere with each other, so you can use pictures on a PPT without worrying about it affecting the presentation. Images are also a great way to help the audience understand better. It's been shown in studies that when we combine pictures and text, it helps people remember things better. In fact, it can help people remember by 20% more than just pictures or text on their own! It also makes people more engaged, more accepting, and more happy.

I've been wondering if notes, which are also a type of text, might interfere with the sound if we are on the listening side and need to take them. What do you think? The good news is that you can easily find the answer by simply checking the type of notes you're taking! If you try to take notes like a stenographer, who writes whatever is said at the top and at the bottom, you'll find that no matter how much is written down, it doesn't go over your head and is soon forgotten. The other way to take notes is to write down the most important bits and pieces based on what you understand. Then, you can group them together, write down how they fit together, and maybe add some pictures to help you understand better. In this case, you'll probably find your brain is working overtime, which might make it a bit tricky to concentrate on what you're hearing. But don't worry, you'll be amazed at how much you can remember! In other words, you might receive less information at first, but you'll understand it more deeply and remember it better! So, the type of notes you take depends on why you're recording.

2. Location

And now, let's move on to the next keyword. I'm not going to tell you what it is just yet, but I'm excited to share it with you soon! I find this book really interesting because it shows you what it's about, and it's so easy to picture what it's like! I'm really excited to tell you about this keyword, which is a great example of what I've been talking about. I'll give you a little hint: it's something you can guess! In this chapter, the author starts with a normal introduction of two pages. Then, you turn it over and – oh my goodness! – the text suddenly becomes newspaper typography! Just turn another page and it magically transforms into an illustrated book! And then, on the next page, it magically transforms into a fashion magazine! And then, on the next page, the text is all backwards! The content of the chapter is totally normal, but the way it's presented keeps changing. I'd love to know what you think the author was trying to show us from this description. I'd love to know what he was trying to show us by designing this chapter in this way!

If you try reading this way yourself, you'll see that your reading speed slows down when you're reading a book with this changing format. Every time you turn a page, the layout is different, and it's not what you're expecting, so you have to use lots of new thinking skills to understand it, which is quite a lot to take in! Our lovely brains have a structure called the hippocampus, which is responsible for lots of things, including memory for space. Our lovely hippocampus is a marvellous organ that helps us to remember where things are in our lives. It draws a map in our brain to help us to locate things. If the text looks the same on every page, the location cells can relax after drawing the map, which means we can use our brain power to focus on understanding the content. But if each page has a different format, the location cells have to draw new maps over and over again, which can really slow down our thinking.

So, I'm sure you've guessed by now that the key word we're talking about here is location. So, how can we apply this positional principle? There are two ways to go about this: you can either go for a positive approach or a negative one. Or take making a PPT, for example. If you want your audience to focus on what you're presenting, try not to change the layout for every page. Save the freshness for what you want to emphasise and use the innovation of the format to make the deepest impression on your audience.

Have you ever noticed how the interior design of magazines, brochures and mooks changes frequently? Sometimes it's like a new page every time you turn one over! It's a great way of keeping you on your toes. Printed matter isn't like a regular book, so the content isn't continuous. It's made up of lots of different bits and pieces, so it's important to keep your attention span engaged. That's why you'll often find lots of different layouts in magazines and brochures.

But if we have a series of items to check or accept at work, and if we fill out the exact same sheet every time, it's easy to get caught up in the rhythm and forget why we're there. Once you've got to grips with the idea of location, you'll be able to stop this happening – that is, you'll know how to create a different layout for each project.

3. Let's move on to the next set of keywords: external context and internal state. Our lovely hippocampus has a special structure inside it called the parahippocampal gyrus. I'd love to tell you what it does! We've already chatted about those location cells that help us draw maps and remember where we are. Well, this parahippocampal gyrus is like a little memory palace that helps us remember the places we've been and the things we've done there. It's amazing how environmental information can either help or hinder our memory! Let's say you just met someone at work. You might not remember who they are when you meet them at the supermarket a few days later. Or, if you go back to the house where you lived when you were a child, your memory box will suddenly be opened, and a lot of dusty memories will come to you. The same goes for if the team plays better at their home stadium! It's so interesting how our memories are influenced by our surroundings! Sometimes, we find that external factors can help us remember things more easily, while other times, they can make it more challenging. It's like our memories have a mind of their own! There's a lovely term for these fascinating phenomena of relying on the external environment to remember things. It's called context-dependent learning.

There's another type of memory that's related to our internal environment, like our state of mind and feelings. It's called state-dependent learning. Let's say, for instance, that you rely on coffee to get through the day at work. Or perhaps you find that you're not at your best when you're feeling stressed. It's totally understandable! We all have our own unique states and circumstances. And what we master in one state might not work so well in another.

The principles of contextual and state-dependent learning can help us to prepare for real-world combat in our daily training.

If you're lucky enough to only have to face the battle once, you can make sure your training environment is just like the actual battle environment. For instance, if you're giving a speech in a room with red walls, it's a great idea to practise in that room! It's totally normal for our memories to play tricks on us as we get older. But it's not our fault! It's all down to the shrinking hippocampus. Now that we've got that all figured out, let's dive into this next experiment together.

In 2011, a lovely team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh got together 120 subjects between the ages of 55 and 80 and randomly divided them equally into two groups. One group was to take part in regular endurance training, which involved going for 40-minute walks three times a week.

The other group was to do exercise at the same frequency, but at a gentler pace and without any big changes in heart rate during exercise. At the beginning and end of the year, the lovely researchers measured the size of the hippocampus of each of these subjects. The lovely researchers also found that the 60 subjects whose heart rates didn't change much during exercise had an average reduction in hippocampus size of 1.4%. Given their age, this is perfectly normal. The really amazing thing was that instead of shrinking, the hippocampus actually grew by 2% in those who did endurance training consistently for a year!

In other words, after a year of physical activity, the hippocampus of these people was not a year older, but two years younger – pretty amazing, right? And there's more! Among these 60 people, the stronger the body, the more the hippocampus grew. This experiment was so well done that it even made the annual report of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that year! Since then, lots of other scientific research organisations around the world have done similar experiments, and the results are really consistent! It seems that regular aerobic exercise can slow down or even reverse the hippocampus shrinkage. This is really interesting! We've just been chatting about how the hippocampus and amygdala are like the brake and gas pedal.

The great news is that regular aerobic exercise helps the hippocampus to grow. This allows it to apply the brakes to the amygdala more effectively, which is really beneficial. The fitter the hippocampus, the more calm the amygdala will be when faced with a crisis.

It helps you to stay calm in stressful situations because it doesn't overreact and produce excess cortisol. This is how exercise helps you to cope better with stressful situations. We often say that those top athletes have a "big heart". Even in the world-class tournament to play the key points, they will not panic, causing errors. It's not quite right to say they have a "big heart" from a brain science point of view. It's more accurate to say that their large hippocampus gives them the ability to stay calm in dangerous situations. Memory

Now that we've chatted about the hippocampus, let's have a little catch-up on memory.

The hippocampus is the memory centre of the brain. The great news is that exercise helps our hippocampus to grow, which is fantastic for our memory! But that's just one of the many wonderful ways that exercise helps our memory! And there's more! Exercise helps us remember new things in at least two other ways. The great thing about exercise is that it helps to increase the amount of blood flowing through our brains, which is really good for our memory!

This is great news for our brains! It means that brain cells can get all the energy and sustenance they need to thrive, and they can process information more effectively.

I just wanted to draw your attention to something really important. To get your brain into this active state, you need to make sure you don't overdo it. Keep the intensity of the exercise within a reasonable range and you'll be absolutely fine. If you choose strength training with heavy weights, the type used in fitness to increase muscle dimension, then when you lift iron, your blood will flow more to the muscles in the area of force, and the blood flow through the brain will be reduced in turn. I'm sorry to say that this won't help you to remember things better. And there's more! Exercise also has a wonderful effect on our brains. It helps to stimulate the cerebral cortex and hippocampus, which in turn produces an amazing protein. This amazing protein is called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor, or BDNF for short. Don't worry, we'll keep it simple!

All you need to know is that BDNF is a wonderful thing for our brains! It does so many good things for us. It also protects our brain cells, especially the little ones that are just starting out, from harmful substances and helps them to survive hypoxia or hypoglycaemia. It also helps our brains to adapt and to stay young for longer.

The lovely folks over at The Brain Gym say we can think of BDNF as a "natural fertiliser for the brain" that is versatile and plays an important role in many of the brain's activities. And guess what? BDNF also plays a key role in memory! So, let's start by taking a closer look at how our amazing brains work and how they build those wonderful memories we all love! Let's take a break from all the brain science jargon for a moment and try to explain things in a way that's easier to understand. If we imagine the brain as a vast universe, each brain cell is like a star, and memory fragments are like constellations of these stars. When we need to remember something, our amazing brains activate a constellation of brain cells, which is like a three-dimensional network of cells. This network stores information, and our brains can then extract that information when we need it. It's really interesting to learn that the network of cells used to store our memories isn't always as strong as it could be. It's so important to keep on learning and training so that our brains can keep on strengthening the connections between the cells in our memory networks. And guess what? BDNF is like a powerful adhesive in this process! It's like a helpful glue that makes it easier for our brain cells to connect and help us to remember things more easily.

Now that we understand this principle, let's look at a practical application together. In his book, the lovely Anders Hansen asks a fascinating question: could running help you play the piano well? I know this question might sound a little strange at first, but now that you know a bit more about how BDNF works, you'll see that before learning any new skills or knowledge, a little bit of exercise can really help you learn more effectively.

I know it might sound a bit silly, but I think it's helpful to think of exercise as mixing the cement before building a wall. Once you've done the exercise, you'll feel ready to start learning, and you won't feel overwhelmed when you start to build your knowledge brick by brick. Concentration

Now that we've chatted about how exercise can help our memories, let's dive into how it can help us focus. The good news is that the brain science principles for this are a little simpler than those mentioned earlier. In a nutshell, exercise produces dopamine, which is great for boosting concentration!

Dopamine is probably the best-known of the body's hormones, and for good reason! I'd highly recommend listening to the book 'Greedy Dopamine'. It's a fascinating read that delves deeply into the physiological mechanisms of dopamine in the human body. But it doesn't stop there! It also explores the impact of dopamine on the individual and on society as a whole. If you're interested, I'd love for you to give it a listen!

The title of the book, Greedy Dopamine, is so fitting!

Dopamine is basically a "craving molecule." It makes us crave tasty treats and the opposite sex, and the things we crave are mostly good for our survival and reproduction. So, you might be wondering, why does exercise produce dopamine? It might seem a bit strange, but exercise actually uses up our physical energy and makes us more likely to get injured. This doesn't seem like a great idea for survival! So, it's a bit of a puzzle why our bodies reward us for doing it. The lovely folks over at The Brain Gym suggest that it might be because exercise was our ancestors' way of exploring the world. Our ancestors didn't have the same conveniences we have today, like being able to order takeaway when you're hungry and food coming to your door. Our ancestors had to travel long distances in search of food in the vast grasslands. When they found it, they had to do everything in their power to subdue it so that they could have something to eat.

This way of surviving was all about making sure our brains knew that sports like running and fighting were good for us. Even though we don't exercise to hunt like our ancestors did, we still burn off fat to stay alive. Our brains haven't caught up yet! They still work with our kidneys to secrete dopamine when we exercise, encouraging us to run even faster. And you might be wondering what the connection is between dopamine and focus. As you can see from the example of exercise, the dopamine-secreting cells are like a cheerleading squad in our body. When they cheer us on, we just can't get enough of the task at hand!

And that's when our focus is at its strongest! But this cheerleader has its own preferences, and it will only cheer for what interests it. If it decides that what we are doing has little to do with survival and reproduction, it loses interest and becomes a little demoralised.

So, at this point, without hearing those cheerleaders, our brain loses energy for the task at hand. It's like it's looking for something else to do in order to regain the attention of those cheerleaders! That's when our attention naturally wanders and we start to lose focus.

So, it's only natural to wonder whether activities like reading and studying are often too challenging for cheerleaders. How can we keep our eyes on the prize? This is where exercise comes to our rescue with a programme that helps us build up a bit of a head of steam in advance. Dopamine-secreting cells just love to see us moving about, so let's give them a little "show" before we learn.

It's great to get your body moving at this time! You can make sure you're working out at an appropriate intensity to give your brain and kidneys a boost and help them produce more dopamine. By the time we sit down and start learning, our bodies still have plenty of dopamine to give!

Our wonderful brains still hear all that loud applause and cheering, which keeps them energised and ready to take on the task at hand! The great thing is, as long as you exercise enough, your body can keep producing lots of dopamine for hours on end. This means you'll find it really easy to focus on your studies during that time!

The wonderful thing about exercise is that it can help us fight depression. Depression is something that many of us experience from time to time. It doesn't always come with strong negative emotions like sadness or anger. Depression is often just a cold, boring feeling of loss of interest in life, which is totally normal. Have you ever wondered what can help us feel more interested in life?

From what we know about how our brains work, we've already mentioned two kinds: dopamine and BDNF. Dopamine is the "desire molecule", and it's no surprise that it can stimulate our desire for certain things. But have you ever wondered why BDNF plays a similar role? This brings us to something really interesting in the world of brain science. It's called "pattern separation."

I know this term sounds quite impressive, but I promise you it's very simple! The term 'pattern separation' is all about recognising those subtle differences! The author of today's book gives us a great example. Imagine you go to a cocktail party and there's someone you feel really familiar with. You're almost certain you've seen him once or twice before, but for the life of you, you can't remember who he is! Oh my, who on earth is he?

As you think about this, your brain is busy comparing this person's face to all the other similar faces in your memory. The lovely dentate gyrus, which is a tooth-shaped protrusion in the hippocampus, plays a really important role here. The dentate gyrus is really good at pattern separation, which basically means spotting the little differences between things that look similar. I bet you played a game as a child where you had to find a few differences between two almost identical images! When you played this game, the most active part of your brain was probably the dentate gyrus. The reason we're chatting about the dentate gyrus and its superpower of pattern separation is because folks who are feeling blue don't have that ability.

For someone who is feeling depressed, the world can seem a bit dull and grey, as if everything has lost its sparkle. This is exactly why their dentate gyrus isn't working as it should. It makes it hard for them to notice the little differences between things. So, how can we help these lovely people to revitalise their dentate gyrus? As we chatted about earlier, the good old BDNF that exercise produces can really help to regenerate brain cells. The great thing about BDNF is that it acts on the hippocampus, which then responds quickly to the stimulation by generating new brain cells.

The good news is that the pattern separation ability of depressed people will also become sharp again! They'll be able to see the world in all its wonderful richness and variety again, which will really help them to come out of their depression. And let's not forget creativity! And now for something really exciting! Let's talk about how exercise can help to boost creativity in the brain. I'm sure you've probably heard lots of examples of this already. The wonderful Japanese author Haruki Murakami wrote a beautiful book called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. In this lovely book, Haruki Murakami shares his routine while writing a book. He would wake up bright and early at 4 a.m. and work away until 10 a.m. After a tasty lunch, he would go for a 10-kilometre run, followed by a refreshing swim.

Once he'd finished his workout, he'd relax with some reading and music before heading to bed at 9 p.m. sharp. He truly believed that regular exercise helped him to stay fit and healthy, and it also gave him lots of inspiration to create.

Haruki Murakami's experience is definitely not an isolated case! It's so inspiring to see how many successful people in creative fields believe that they come up with more great ideas when they are exercising! Guess what! Even Einstein, Beethoven, Darwin and Kant – all of these leading thinkers in different fields – had the habit of taking long walks. And they all generated highly creative ideas during their walks! And right here in our own backyard, we have the amazing Steve Jobs, who started the wonderful tradition of walking meetings at Apple. This practice was also picked up by the brilliant Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook, and Jack Dorsey, who founded Twitter. They both felt that meetings were more productive when held while walking!

Could exercising in a way that we all enjoy, like going for a walk, really help us to be more creative?

The lovely folks over at Stanford University have done a study that shows this is true! The lovely folks over at Stanford University conducted a group experiment with 176 subjects, and the results were pretty amazing! It turns out that after a little walk, people's ability to come up with creative ideas and brainstorming increased by a whopping 60%! I'd love to know more about this!

Brain scientists have come up with a fascinating conjecture that we'd love to see tested further! They think that exercise might just change the way the thalamus works! The thalamus is a really important part of our brain, right at the centre. Its job is to act as a filter for information, which it does really well!