BRAIN AS PINBALL MACHINE
“your brain is a pinball machine. what you build up gets hit more.”
The Lesson
Imagine your brain as a pinball machine where bumpers grow bigger when hit. Trauma bumpers: the more you think about trauma, the bigger it gets and the more the ball hits it. Starve it to shrink it. Skill bumpers: build multiple talents (talent stack) and the ball has more chances of hitting good opportunities. Association: Nike links to Jordan-if something's near something else, the ball connects them. Attention is where the ball is. Repetition makes bumpers bigger. Reticular activation means you notice what you've built up. Design your pinball machine deliberately.
Real-World Example
A founder keeps ruminating on a failed partnership-the bumper grows. They deliberately starve that thought and build up three new skill bumpers: sales, content creation, finance basics. Six months later, opportunities keep 'randomly' appearing in those areas. The pinball finds what you build. They also stopped talking about the trauma. That bumper shrunk.
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