Game Changers by Dave Asprey

smarter or happier. The smart professional that he was, he distilled this wisdom gained from all these people into 46 concise laws which would be helpful to anyone desirous of development. One must remember that Dave Asprey is someone who is so fascinated about self development, that he turned a bio hacker to enhance his life’s experiences and spent close to $260,000 in this pursuit. 

The book starts out by letting you a glimpse into the way the brain functions. You are confronted with terms like Nootropic drugs (that enhance cognition), strengthening your willpower muscle (exercise it to make it stronger but don’t deplete it very soon) and decision fatigue (you feel tired taking decisions throughout the day and tend to take wrong decision or put off taking decisions by the end of the day). 

One great insight for me personally was to know about Primal Inclinations. Dave suggests you identify the percentage of time spent on things that drain you, things that you don’t mind and things that give you joy. Now make this ration 0:10:90 he suggests. How I wish we could all figure out how to achieve this in the early stages of youth. 

Have you ever thought it was possible to get smarter? Dave reminds you of neuro plasticity. The brain expands its neural networks when we work on it regularly. The beliefs that we accept about ourselves do not define us. From Vishen Lakhiani he learned Consciousness engineering which helps you understand that your beliefs are not who you are. Swap your limiting beliefs into positive ones and see your life transform. From Jim Kwik, he learned about speed reading which enables one to read one book every day. Tim Ferris told him about how to micro-dose on psychedelic drugs to heighten attention and happiness. 

The next few chapters deal with memory telling you about how you can remember better through images rather than text. Get outside your brain so you can see inside better. 

From Rave Mehta, you learn how fear dictates our very existence. In the hierarchy of feelings that the body experiences, fear is dominant and happiness comes last. That is because our body is conditioned for survival mode and letting us be in fear, anger, sadness keeps us away from happiness. Now you’d say what is wrong in being always happy. Well, the body’s logic is that when you’re happy, your guard is down. The stack is always tilted towards the lower emotions because that way you focus on the threats and being vigilant helps you survive. But is that true even now when we have come out of our primal survival modes?

Navin Jain teaches you to keep the horse thirsty rather than taking it to water. Meaning keep your pursuits alive, be thirsty and excited always to learn more. We have CEO Subir Chowdhary who tells us about how a teenage girl spotted a problem and worked towards finding a solution to it without seeking help from others. You meet Hal Elrod, the motivational speaker who vouches for morning persons who can do miracles. 

What catches you off guard is Dave’s detailed analysis of how sex and hormones impact your levels of happiness and health, for both men and women. You learn from Dr. Lakshmin that porn can be pleasurable but it only releases the hormone dopamine which you yearn and whose effect diminishes the more you get, just like you need more drugs to feel the same effect. It’s unlike when you mate with a partner when oxytocin is secreted and enhances testosterone levels in men. 

Sleep is another aspect which Dave Asprey touches upon, thrashing the myths that early risers only are high performers. Sleep when you feel like and eat when you’re hungry are simple means to stay healthy and follow your body’s natural pattern. 

Dave Asprey has done unthinkable experiments on his body so that he can live up to 180 years, including getting stem cell injections and participating in scientific experiments to enhance his metabolism, libido and to heal. Insights like wealth may not make you happy but being happy can lead you to earn more wealth comes as a surprise. 

Key takeaways

• It’s never too late to learn about life from others and incorporate this learning into your own life.
• Game changers don’t do different things, they just do the regular things differently.
• Try and adapt best practices into your own life and see if it makes positive difference.
• Being focused on making life better, becoming smarter and happier leads to enhanced quality of life.

Why I recommend this book

Because Dave Asprey interviewed 450+ people, took trouble to compile the nuggets of wisdom from all of them and presented it to us in a concentrated version. Why wouldn’t you want to learn from all of these people who were game changers? Living is a game in motion, it’s an ongoing experiment. You never live by the same rules all your life. Learning, unlearning and relearning are all a part of life. I would recommend that you read this book and see if you can make life better than what it was. 

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