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Master Your Mind

Farewell to Kim Peek, the Mega-savant

Dec 22nd, 2009
by Gary N. Larson.
15 comments

Kim Peek I only met Kim Peek once in my life but it was a remarkable experience. Now he is gone and that is sad. He was an amazing man. He passed away last Saturday at the age of 58 of an apparent heart attack.

A savant is someone who exhibits extraordinary mental abilities. Kim Peek was known as a mega-savant because of his phenomenal knowledge in 15 extensive categories including history, literature, math, sports, classical music, and geography. He has read over 12,000 books and has 100% recall of everything he has ever read, seen or experienced. He was the inspiration for the movie “Rain Man” starring Dustin Hoffman and has been the subject of 22 documentaries and over 4,000 articles.

I met Kim and his wonderful father, Fran, several years ago when they came to speak to a youth group at my church. It was amazing to have the youth of our church ask Kim sports questions, history questions, music questions, math questions, geography questions and others and see Kim instantly come up with the answers. If you tell Kim the date you were born he will tell you what day of the week it was and what other historical events happened on that date and how many days you have until you can retire. What I enjoyed most about Kim was his dry wit. He had a unique sense of humor that got us all laughing.

What Kim taught me was the remarkable capacity of the human mind and brain. As has been proven by many scientists, the human brain collects and records everything we experience. It is in the retrieval where we struggle. For whatever reason, Kim’s brain was formed without the connecting tissue between the left and right hemispheres making him unable to filter the information stored in his brain. He had instant access to everything at anytime.

This is what gave Kim his amazing abilities but it also is what created limitations in other areas of his life. Without a way to filter the mass amount of information, Kim struggled with simple tasks like dressing himself or setting the dinner table. On many levels he still functioned as a child, needing adult help and supervision. His father, Fran, has been his constant companion throughout his life patiently helping him with his day-to-day tasks.

Kim will be greatly missed in this world. He was truly a wonderful, amazing and humble person. Fran has been a great example of a loving and caring father. Thank you for the memories and lessons learned from the both of you.

Be Good to Yourself

Sep 30th, 2009
by Gary N. Larson.
8 comments

Take care of yourself

There are some people who go to extraordinary lengths to take care of their car. They wash it, they wax it, they keep it tuned, they get it serviced on a regular basis and they keep everything in perfect working order. They have meticulous records of every oil change and rotation of the tires. Yet these same people neglect a much more important piece of machinery – themselves.

We see people all around us plodding along, making mediocre attempts in their jobs and their relationships. They are crippled in their attempts at success because the energy has gone out of their lives. When obstacles arise they don’t have the strength to rise above them. They are easily defeated. They go through life only half-awake!

When you burn a candle at both ends you will eventually get burned. Don’t squander and abuse the most incredible instrument you have – your body. Give it the care and attention it needs.

Shouldn’t our great aim in life be to preserve and keep our physical bodies in the best possible condition so we can experience and live life to its fullest? Why not make every occasion a great occasion? If this life is worth living then isn’t it worth living well? (more…)

Do What You Know

Sep 16th, 2009
by Gary N. Larson.
6 comments

plowing image I once heard a story about a farmer who had been farming for many years. He had a son who went off to college and after a few years came home with a degree in hand, and a head full of knowledge. He told his father, “You know, Dad, this farm would be much more productive if you would use the new methods of farming. These days everyone is using hybrid strains of seeds. There are better methods of crop rotation and contour plowing. Plus you really should be using up-to-date insecticides and fertilizers. And did you know most farmers are milking their cows three times a day instead of two.” He went on and on expounding the virtues of all the modern methods of farming. Finally his father said, “Now just hold on there son! I’m not farming half as well as I know how already!”

Isn’t that the way we are? We seldom perform as well as we know how. I’ve heard people say that “knowledge is power.” To a certain degree it can be. But in my own personal experience I find that I know a lot of things that I should be doing but I don’t. Just having knowledge about something doesn’t necessarily translate to the ability or power to do it.

Many times over the years I would tell my children to do their homework. Invariably they would answer back, “I know dad!” and I would say back to them, “Then do what you know!” It’s kind of a joke around my house because I have said that phrase so many times to my children: Do what you know.

How many self-improvement books have you read over your life time? I have hundreds of them! We probably learn ten-times more than what we ever put into action in our lives. Yet we keep buying books and wanting to learn more.

At some point it’s time to stop learning and start doing. We need to put our knowledge to use. I’m not suggesting we completely stop learning but what good is learning if we never use it?

Here is my suggestion: How about making a list of all the things you know you should do but aren’t. Then from your list choose two or three things and start doing them! You can read books, read blogs and listen to tapes and CDs till the cows come home but until you actually do something you are going nowhere. It’s time to take real action! At the end of the day, knowing the answer means nothing if you don’t do anything about it.

The Art of Learning from Our Mistakes

Sep 11th, 2009
by Gary N. Larson.
4 comments

weallmakemistakes Making mistakes – yeah, I’ve got it down to an art form. Now if I can make learning from my mistakes an art form that would be something. No promises here but some simple observations about mistakes and how we can learn from them.

Last week I had made the plan to attend an important event early on Friday morning. When I mean early I mean 6 a.m. early! In order for me to be there I would need to get up by 4:30 in the morning, get ready and leave my home by 5:30 to be to the event by 6:00. I’ve done it before and knew what I needed to do to be there.

Well, guess what, I blew it! I didn’t make it and was deeply disappointed in myself. I did what any normal person would do and beat myself up mentally. That’s fine but if I’m going to learn anything from this I’ve got to do more than just mentally beat myself up. I’ve got to analyze the situation, see what I did wrong and then change my ways. (more…)

The Power of Decisions

Sep 8th, 2009
by Gary N. Larson.
No comments yet

I want to talk today about the power of decisions. When you think about any change that you’ve ever made in your life, didn’t it really happen the moment you made a decision? Sometimes we say, “Oh it’s hard to change, it took me forever to change.” Usually what takes forever is getting yourself to the point of deciding. It’s the “getting ready to get ready to change” that’s takes so long. You really didn’t make any changes until you decided to change.

So you can say today, “That’s it! I’m done. I’m never going to do that again” or “this is the way I’m going to be from now on.” It’s the power of a decision. No change was ever made in anybody’s life without first deciding. Once you make a decision then you can move forward. A lot of times you say, “Oh it’s so hard to change, it’s so hard to do this, it’s so hard to do that” but really it’s not hard because you’re really not doing it yet, you’re really not making any effort until you decide.

The decision – when things begin to happen

Once you have made that decision, things start to happen in your life. Making that one single decision, saying from this point on, from this time, this minute, this second, I am going in a new direction. I am no longer going in the direction I was going. I have turned my life. I am headed in a new direction and everything I do and everything I say and everything I feel is different. This gets you on the road. You won’t totally change your life in a day but you will be amazed at how quickly you move in that direction. (more…)

Habits – The Software of Your Mind

Sep 7th, 2009
by Gary N. Larson.
2 comments

Let’s talk about habits. What are habits? I’ve been in the computer industry for nearly twenty years and I’ve written over a million lines of software code in that period of time. I understand how a computer works. I understand software. I know how a program works. A program is simply a set of instructions that tell the computer what to do. The computer can make decisions and perform operations based on those instructions. You can load different programs in a computer and it will follow different instructions depending of what program you have loaded.

Like a Player Piano

I kind of relate it to a player piano when I try to explain software to people. When I was a kid our family had a player piano. We had a lot of fun with it. It wasn’t electric so we had to sit at the piano and pump the pedals with your feet to get the air going which made the piano go. In the piano you would put a roll, a piano roll. It sort of looked like a paper towel roll almost. Actually more like a scroll. In this paper were punched little holes. Depending on where these holes were punched in the paper, that would determine what notes would play and how long the holes were would determine how long the note would play.

So you could take a piano roll and put it in the piano and it would play a song. You could take out that roll and put another one in and it would play a different song because it was a different set of instructions. That is similar to how a computer program works.

Like a Computer Program

You can install a computer program in a computer and it’s a set of instructions and it tells the computer what to do in given situations depending on the inputs that are given. Now a computer is a little more sophisticated than a player piano. A computer can detect mouse movements, it can detect keyboard input and it can detect a number of other things and make decisions based upon those inputs. A computer program can read data from files that are stored on the hard drive and make decisions dependant on the data. (more…)

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