Have you ever struggled with making a decision? Maybe you are stuck with a problem right now. I recently learned how six hats can help you overcome your challenges. I want to share this process with you here to test it for yourself. 

I learned about the Six Thinking Hats from Jim Kwik, a guest on the James Altucher podcast. Kwik is a widely recognized world expert in speed-reading, memory improvement, brain performance and accelerated learning. Kwik credited this methodology to Edward de Bono, the author of the book, "Six Thinking Hats."

In the interview, Kwik explained how to use de Bono's process to help you overcome your mental blocks and struggles with decision-making. I have been trying this myself and I am amazed with how well it works. 

The idea is, we often address challenges by thinking as ourselves and approaching them as we normally would. We don't approach the problems in different ways. Albert Einstein said, "We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them." 

Problem Solving with Six Hats

Picture yourself with six hats. Think about your problem by putting on one of the six hats and taking notes on how you should address the issue. Each hat is a different color and each hat makes you think differently about the problem.

White Hat: Picture the white color of a lab coat. This is your scientific hat. Think of your problem through the lens of logic, data and facts. What information do you have that can't be denied?

Red Hat: Your red hat represents your heart. Look at the problem from emotions and consider how it makes you feel. What assumptions and feelings do you have?

Black Hat: Imagine a judge in his or her black robe. The black hat makes you judge the problem. Why may your problem fail?

Yellow Hat: Yellow is positivity, like sunshine. Consider the optimistic point of view to your problem. It presents benefits and values. It is the opposite of your black hat. What happens if your problem is solved? 

Green Hat: Your green hat is for out-of-the-box thinking. What is a creative solution you haven't considered? Think of new ideas and solutions. 

Blue Hat: Your blue hat is the blue-sky approach. This hat listens to all of the aforementioned hats and delivers your solution. It helps you discover the decision to your problem.

I have started addressing my challenges by following the Six Thinking Hat process. I use my whiteboard in my office and six colored markers to sketch out my answers. Doing so has brought me great clarity and much faster decisions to the problems I face in my business and life. 

Edward de Bonos famously asked, "If you never change your mind, why have one?" His approach to considering solutions to your problems in different ways is brilliant.

I highly recommend trying this process for yourself. I also recommend listening to Altucher's interview with Jim Kwik for clever brain hacks to help you improve your decision-making. 

We are all seeking ways to become smarter. At least, I hope we are. We should be.

Today, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Question of the Day. In each episode hosts, James Altucher and Stephen J. Dubner choose a question from Quora and answer it. This week the question was, "What are ways to train your brain to be smarter?"

I feverishly took notes on my iPhone as I walked Max. Remember, when you write down what you learn, you retain the information. Transcribing my notes in this blog post will help me remember what I learned even better. Win, win. :) 

How to Train Your Brain to be Smarter

Read a lot.

I don't read enough books (I read plenty of articles and blog posts), so I've challenged myself to read two books a month this year. I'm sharing how this goes in the NBN Club, where members are also participating. I will share my notes here about each book as I complete it.

Hang out with people who are not like you. 

By expanding your circles, you will broaden your knowledge. Take a look at a site like MeetUp.com, to find upcoming groups you can join.

Don't spend so much time pursuing things that are not important to you.

Dubner quoted Arthur Conan Doyle. 

“I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet.

Don't go with the flow.

Don't worry so much about the conventional wisdom. Don't worry about what everyone is thinking, doing and drinking. Use your brain to be original. Dubner said, "A little bit of truly original thinking can get you so much further than just learning how to parrot all of the seemingly smart things everyone around you says."

Sleep a lot. 

Altucher explained that if you want to be smarter you should sleep a lot. This gives your brain time to build upon the facts that you learn. 

Exercise your Idea Muscle.

I love the concept of your "idea muscle" from Altucher. He wrote about this in depth in his outstanding book, Choose Yourself. I've written about his book here before.

Write ten ideas every day. Share the best ideas with those who can benefit from them. Don't worry if the ideas are silly, the purpose is to get your brain moving to come up with those ideas. I also loved the idea that execution is a subset of ideas. 

Try Warren Buffet's Method.

Warren Buffet has an exercise he recommends people do to find their interests and passions. Simply write a list of 25 things you are interested in. Keep the top five and discard the others. The others will distract you from focusing on the top five, which are obviously the most important since you listed them first. 

Be sure to listen to the whole episode of Question of the Day, to hear about understanding mental shortcuts and more. 

I encourage you to subscribe to Question of the Day in iTunes. 

What are ways you train your brain to be smarter?

One of my favorite people (who I have never met) is James Altucher. James is a serial entrepreneur and investor who has had big wins and plenty of failures throughout his career. I like his somewhat kooky approach to life. I’m somewhat kooky too, so he appeals to me that way. He’s a big fan of comedy, I am too. He writes from the heart, I do too. He’s had some dark days in his life, moi aussi. 

James’ blog is prolific and his podcasts are always enjoyable. I enjoy listening to his amateur sounding interviews with his stellar guests and amazing questions. You can tell he listens intently and truly gets excited by his guests. I don’t mean amateur in a negative way. I mean that he comes across sincere, with a voice unlike professional broadcasters. That’s what podcasting is all about. 

James has written several amazing books, but the one that has impressed me the most is Choose Yourself. The following are ten takeaways that stuck with me from the book. Consider each point for your own life.

10 Takeaways From Choose Yourself

1. Every second, you have to choose yourself to succeed.

2. Rejection - and the fear of rejection - is the biggest impediment we face to choosing ourselves. 

3. Only think about the people you enjoy. Only read the books you enjoy, that make you happy to be human. Only go to the events that actually make you laugh or fall in love. Only deal with the people who love you back, who are winners and want you to win too.

4. The past and future don’t exist. They are memories and speculation, neither of which you have any control over.

5. What does purpose mean when we are dead? We might as well choose to be happy now.

6. Think of two people in your network who don’t know each other but you think can add value to each other’s lives (I added this idea to my daily goals document). 

7. All you have to do is stay in the present. When you catch yourself upset about the past or worried about the future, say to yourself, “Ah, I’m time traveling,” then STOP.

8. If you don’t promote yourself, nobody else will. 

9. We only ever remember the things we are passionate about.

10. We never learn when we are talking. We only learn when we are listening.

Bonus: Pretend everyone was sent to this planet to teach you.

I recommend you pick up a copy of Choose Yourself today. Get started.

What book have you read this year that left you inspired? Leave a comment, I would love to learn more about the books that mean something to you.