Before anything else, writers need strong brains. Like any other muscle, it can be trained and beefed up. To transform outmoded behaviors that aren’t serving your current health and wellness goals, brain researcher and New York Times best-selling author John Assaraf says you’ve got to “Innercise” your brain just like you exercise your body.

“Lift your hand up and look at your palm,” John says. “This simple act of lifting your hand is actually incredibly complex. It involves hormones and cells and nerves and electrochemical signals. Blood flow and oxygenation. Tendons and ligaments, muscles and bones. And it’s almost entirely subconscious. Yet you can do it with ease. What’s more, each time you do it, you flex your bicep muscle. Do it enough times, or add weights to give resistance, and your bicep will strengthen. You don’t need to fully understand how this all works. When it comes to exercise, really you just need to show up and do it. Then commit to repeatedly showing up and doing it to make your muscular and cardiovascular systems stronger. Innercising is much the same: You work out different ‘neuro-systems’ — different neural ‘muscles’ and ‘circuits’ — and over time they become stronger.”

John says there are three “neuro-muscles” that are most critical to your success…

Your Three Core Neuro-Muscles

1. Awareness: Awareness in Innercising most often refers to self-awareness — your ability to monitor your own mental, emotional, and physical state. Awareness is critical because it allows you to observe your habitual patterns and make changes.

2. Intention: How do you want to think, feel, and act? When you begin to realize your thoughts, feelings and actions can be choices you make, you can then begin to choose more of what you want, as well as deciding what you don’t want!

3. Action: This is all about executing new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Taking healthy, consistent, constructive action is one of the best ways to build your brain fitness. When you take the right actions in the right order at the right time, you increase your chances for success. But whether you succeed or fail, the action will strengthen your brain by learning. Strengthening is not a matter of chance but rather one of certainty when you take action.

“Together, these three neuro-muscles form a powerful combination,” John asserts. “They’re a winning combination for achieving your goals.”

About: John Assaraf is a serial entrepreneur, brain researcher, and CEO of NeuroGym. In the last 25 years, John has grown 5 multi-million dollar companies in real estate, internet software, brain research, and life and business coaching and consulting. He is the author of two New York Times best-selling books: “Having It All” and “The Answer.” His brand-new book is called “Innercise: The New Science to Unlock Your Brain’s Hidden Power” (Waterside Press, 2018).

John has made frequent appearances on Larry King Live and has been featured in eight films, including the blockbuster smash hit “The Secret” and “Quest for Success” with Richard Branson and the Dalai Lama. He is one of the leading behavioral and mindset experts in the world, with a unique ability to help people release the mental and emotional obstacles that prevent them from achieving their very best in life and business. John is a vegan who creates and eats his own hot sauces, meditates daily, and exercises six days a week. He loves skiing, traveling, taking cooking classes, listening to the Bee Gees and Enigma, and being a dad, husband, and mentor.