How the Brain Works: The Secret to Staying on Top of Your Game [Video]

I'm a perennial student. Being gifted with a healthy dose of curiosity—especially on how things work—guarantees that I'm constantly learning new things. Lately though, I've been forgetting a lot of things, particularly specific words and phrases that describes whole concepts. So I got to thinking...

How can my mind forget something I've been doing or saying or writing or thinking for many years?

That question led me to this video on how the brain works. The target audience are students still in school, but because we're all students as long as we live, I think you'll find it helpful, too.

Video Takeaways:

How Your Brain Learns New Things

The human brain is about three pounds in weight, and can fit in the palm of your hand. Imagine that. Everything about you—in fact, a whole universe of knowledge—fits into an organ so small you can carry it in your purse. Talk about handy, unlimited hard disk drives wherever you go!

A Day in the Life of a Special Assistant to a Cabinet Secretary (A Short Story)

What’s a normal day like being an Executive Assistant? That’s a question I always get asked by friends who’re fascinated with my previous job, working as Special Assistant to one of the country's more celebrated (and perhaps notorious) Cabinet Secretaries.

Warning: Long(er) Story Made A Tad Shorter

Following is how a routine day unfolds. I’ll have to tell you right off the gate that it’s a longish story.

Like I said, this one’s a typical day, but usually when we're busy. As special assistant and de facto Chief of Staff to a very busy presidential adviser, there are days when I’m cruising, and there are more days when I feel like I’m on a bumpy, small plane ride.

But it’s one life I’d never trade because (1) I learned a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have normally learned (of course), (2) I gained confidence in dealing with real life--and real live Big People, (3) I realized that powerful and powerless people are the same -- they all want happiness, and a better life for their loved ones, and (4) I can do anything I set my mind to...even seemingly impossible ones, it appears.

An Executive Assistant’s Day

Image credit: Witthaya Phonsawat/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

0630H, Thursday, Home

The iPhone on my night table rings, jarring the early-morning stillness of my darkened room. My eyes shut, I grope the table top for it and the stapled sheaf of papers it rests on.

“Hold your horses, darned it,” I speak into the phone as I sit up sluggishly on my bed.

“Good morning, Liz,” the sickeningly fresh, chirpy-crisp voice of my Boss’ close-in security blares into my ear. “Anything new from his sked?”

I open bleary eyes to look at the schedule printed on the paper I’m holding, though I already know it by heart...even five days following this one. “Just the emergency meeting of the Security Cluster at the Palace at 1530H, Music Room. They confirmed it at two this morning.”

I hear G groan. Another unscheduled stop. N’s security detail will be berating heavens and the Palace again. “Will you be there?”

“I don’t know, but he’s got stuff with me he has to deal with.” I briefly scan the surprisingly slow schedule on his column, the packed one on my own. “Any surprises on your end?”