Game Changers Book Summary - Game Changers Book explained in key points

Listen to the Intro

00:00

Game Changers summary

Name: Game Changers
Rating: 4.3 (199 reviews)
Author: Dave Asprey

Dave Asprey

What Leaders, Innovators, and Mavericks Do to Win at Life

4.3 (199 ratings)

30 mins

Table of Contents

Game Changers
summarized in 10 key ideas

Audio & text in the Blinkist app

Key idea 1 of 10

What’s in it for me? Learn the secrets of biohacking.

There’s a reason self-improvement books often take their cues from science. If you want to improve yourself, you first have to understand what makes your body and mind tick – your physical and mental operating system, so to speak. With that understanding in place, you can then take control of that system and make it work the way you want it to.

The key term here is “system.” That’s singular, rather than the plural “systems.” Your body and mind are interrelated aspects of a single, overall whole, which is ultimately rooted in your biology. By intentionally manipulating that biology, you can bring your body and mind into better harmony with each other and your goals. Biohacking is the practice of doing just that.

In these blinks, you’ll learn some of the main principles of biohacking, along with some of their most helpful applications. These aren’t pulled out of thin air. The principles are built on an understanding of human biology and psychology, while the applications are derived from interviews the author, Dave Asprey, conducted with 450 highly successful individuals. These individuals come from a wide range of fields, including business, sports, science and the arts.

While benefiting from their collective wisdom, you’ll also learn

some simple but powerful tricks that can help you overcome your fear;
the real, hidden causes of your hunger; and
the benefits of eating like your grandma.

Biohacking enables you to update and adjust your mental and physical operating system.

Before we dig into the practicalities of biohacking, let’s first answer a more preliminary question – why bother with biohacking in the first place?

Well, the short answer is that your body and mind’s operating system is outdated. It was built around the needs of our prehistoric ancestors, who evolved in a world much more hostile than ours – a world in which mere survival was their paramount objective. To bring your operating system up-to-date with the modern world and make it more in sync with your less survival-oriented, more higher-order goals, you need to upgrade it.

To do that, you first need to know what you’re updating. In a nutshell, your brain has certain default settings, and your instinct is to follow them. These settings take control of your nervous system to keep you focused on the three fundamental factors of a species’ survival. We can call them the three Fs – fear, food and, for the sake of politeness, let’s call it “fornication.”

The three Fs constitute the most crucial aspects of biological survival. Want to avoid starving to death? Eat. Want to avoid going extinct? Reproduce. Want to avoid being killed by threats in your environment? Fight or flight – the two basic behavioral responses to fear.

It might not seem obvious, but many of our everyday behaviors and desires revolve around the three Fs. We spend much of our time chasing after power, money and physical attractiveness. Why? Largely because they help us secure safety, food and sexual partners.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with any of these things in and of themselves. The problems come when these things control us, rather than the other way around. If left to their own devices, our automatic thoughts and behaviors can get us stuck in bad habits, discouraging creative thinking and innovative behaviors. Meanwhile, our powerful urges to seek out safety, food and sex can lead us by the nose, taking us away from our goals.

The point isn’t to renounce food, sex or safety. It’s to take control of our automatic thoughts and behaviors around them, putting our more rational selves in the driver’s seat. And that’s where biohacking comes into the picture. But before we get into the nitty-gritty of it, let’s address two important foundations for this project – your goals and your priorities, which we’ll look at in the next two blinks.

To truly benefit from biohacking, you need to know your goals.

The idea behind biohacking is to optimize your ability to reach your goals – but that’s pretty pointless if you don’t know what your goals are in the first place! Here are some tips for clarifying them.

First, identify your true passions in life. These are the things you love doing so much that you feel excited just thinking about them. Take billionaire Naveen Jain, for example. He’s founded seven internet and technology companies and is so passionate about science that he jumps out of bed every morning after only four hours of sleep, simply because he’s so eager to continue learning!

To achieve your goals with the help of biohacking, you need to prioritize and avoid decision fatigue.

Much like the money in your bank account, your time and energy are precious, finite resources, so you need to guard them and deploy them strategically. And one of the key ways to do that is to avoid one of the most common time and energy-depleting sinkholes: decision fatigue.

This phenomenon is the results of a simple, unfortunate fact – making decisions is hard work. First, you’ve got to weigh your options, which takes brain power. Then you have to commit to a choice, which takes willpower. You can think of your willpower as a muscle. Every time you exert it, it gets a little more worn out. Now, by the end of each day, you’ve made dozens, if not hundreds, of decisions, ranging from small ones, like which socks to wear, to large ones, like how to break bad news to a friend or colleague.

Taking charge of your diet requires you to overcome emotional eating.

With your purposes and priorities in place, you’re now ready to pursue them by biohacking your mind and body. How do you edit your default settings, thereby taking charge of the unconscious urges that center around the three Fs we mentioned earlier?

To answer this question, let’s start with the most ordinary of the three Fs: food. The biological importance of this will come as no surprise since food literally provides the energy your mind and body need to operate at all, let alone at their peak performance. What may surprise you is just how important food can be to success. Out of all of the high-performance individuals the author interviewed, more than 75 percent of them said their diet was the most crucial factor behind their performance levels.

For a healthier approach to food, identify your emotional eating triggers and eat like your grandma.

The feeling of hunger is supposed to act like an internal barometer that tells your mind when your body needs food. Unfortunately, emotional eating makes the barometer go haywire, which results in overeating. That’s especially problematic in today’s world. We’re surrounded by all sorts of junk food and unhealthy attitudes toward food, such as large portion sizes and snacking throughout the day.

To take control of your diet, you need to recalibrate your hunger barometer. The first step is to start identifying the false signals it’s sending you.

To get a good night’s sleep, identify your chronotype and adjust your sleep schedule accordingly.

If you want to generate and conserve energy for your mind and body, there are other physical needs you need to attend to beyond eating. One of them is getting a good night’s sleep. This was the fifth most common performance-enhancing habit of the high achievers the author interviewed. The key to biohacking your sleep is to identify your natural sleep pattern and adjust your sleep schedule accordingly.

This pattern is set by your body’s natural circadian rhythm, a cycle of biological processes that provide your body with an internal clock. These rhythms come in four types of patterns, which are called chronotypes.

To benefit from exercise, you need to counteract its shortcomings and drawbacks.

Besides eating and sleeping, there’s another thing your body needs to do to be energized – move. After all, that’s one of the main things it was designed to do. Unfortunately, today’s sedentary lifestyle means that most of us aren’t naturally moving our bodies as much as we should. Whether it’s in the office doing work or on the couch watching TV, we spend a lot of time being stationary. And all that sitting takes its toll on our bodies, leading to stiff muscles and back pain.

So the obvious solution is exercise – right? Well, actually, that can be part of the problem, unless it’s approached in the right way. There are a few reasons for this.

To preserve more energy for higher pursuits, minimize the amount you use for sex.

If you increase your energy through better sleep, diet and exercise, the last thing you’ll want to do is waste it. Unfortunately, there are many ways your energy can be hijacked. Chief among them is an activity that is practically an obsession for many people – sex.

When we’re not doing it, we’re often thinking about it. And even when we don’t think we’re thinking about it, we’re frequently still thinking about it. For example, when we spend time trying to improve our physical appearance, it’s sexual attractiveness that’s often our underlying, albeit unconscious, motivation.

Fear is one of the biggest obstacles to success.

Finally, we come to the third F – fear. Unfortunately, we need to start with some bad news. Thanks to evolution, your subconscious doesn’t want you to feel safe, generally speaking. That’s because when you feel safe, you let down your guard – and if you do that, you might get eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. Of course, that’s not going to happen. Saber-toothed tigers have long been extinct, and we live in a much safer world than our prehistoric ancestors did. But your subconscious doesn’t know that. It evolved to meet the demands of their world, not ours.

Unlucky for us, that means we feel a lot more fear than is warranted by our present conditions. Fear is a useful emotion to feel when our lives are actually in danger – but there aren’t many situations in which that’s actually the case in modern times.

You can overcome fear by giving yourself safety cues.

Imagine you’re one of your prehistoric ancestors. You’re standing in a clearing surrounded by bushes. There’s no saber-toothed tiger in sight. So, you can kick back and relax, right?

Well, no – after all, a pack of tigers might be lurking right behind the bushes. In order to let go of fear and feel safe, your subconscious doesn’t just want you to find an absence of threats. It wants you to find confirmation of safety. And to that end, it’s waiting for you to perceive a safety cue – something that tells you that the coast is clear and you can let down your guard.

Want to see all full key ideas from Game Changers?

Key ideas in Game Changers

More knowledge in less time

Read or listen

Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.

Find your next read

Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.

Shortcasts ^New

We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.

What is Game Changers about?

Game Changers (2018) condenses the wisdom of 450 highly successful business leaders, scientist, athletes, authors, artists, journalist and other individuals at the top of their fields. It then combines that wisdom with an understanding of human biology and psychology. The result? A wide-ranging and practical guidebook to success.

Who should read Game Changers?

Those looking for a more scientific approach to self-help
Individuals who want to change their diets, sleep patterns or exercise regimes
Whoever wants to escape fear and stress

About the Author

Dave Asprey is a tech-industry entrepreneur who founded Bulletproof Coffee, Bulletproof Nutrition and Bulletproof 360, Inc. He is the New York Times best-selling author of Head Strong and The Bulletproof Diet. He also hosts Bulletproof Radio, a Webby Award-winning podcast.

Categories with Game Changers

Personal Development

Books like Game Changers

Head Strong

Dave Asprey

The Bulletproof Plan to Boost Brainpower, Increase Focus, and Maximize Performance – in Just Two Weeks

Burn Fat, Heal Inflammation, and Eat Like the High-Performing Human You Were Meant to Be

The Biohacker's Guide to Getting the Body and Mind You Want

Lose up to a Pound a Day, Reclaim Energy and Focus, Upgrade Your Life

21 min

4.4

The Practice of Groundedness

Brad Stulberg

A Transformative Path to Success That Feeds – Not Crushes – Your Soul

Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life

25 min

4.6

30 Ways to Reboot Your Body

Ben Greenfield

A Complete User Manual for Getting the Most Out of the Human Body

10 min

3.5

How to Talk to Anyone

Leil Lowndes

92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships

Change is the only constant

Winning the Heart of the Woman of Your Dreams

16 min

3.9

Super Brain

Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi

Unleash the Explosive Power of Your Mind

On the Origins of Life, Meaning and the Universe Itself

Improve your life by only focusing on the essentials

20 min

4.5

The School of Greatness

Lewis Howes

A Real-World Guide to Living Bigger, Loving Deeper, and Leaving a Legacy

17 min

4.2

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

Intuition or deliberation? Where you can (and can't) trust your brain

It's Time to Cheer for Yourself

Combine Paleo and Vegan to Stay Fit, Happy and Healthy for Life

The Four Types of Human Behavior and How to Effectively Communicate with Each in Business (and in Life)

The Bulletproof Plan to Age Backward and Maybe Even Live Forever

24 min

4.2

The Enneagram at Work

Jim McPartlin with Anna Akbari

Unlocking the Power of Type to Lead and Succeed

Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams

The Science of Synchronicity and How Your Choices Shape Your World

How to Overcome Depression through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Positive Psychology

The Fight to Master Our Greatest Opponent

22 min

4.4

The Five Core Conversations for Couples

David Bulitt and Julie Bulitt

Expert Advice about How to Develop: Effective Communication, a Long-Term Financial Plan, Cooperative Parenting Strategies, Mutually Satisfying Sex, and Work-Life Balance

The Doctor-Developed, Patient-Proven Plan to Burn Fat and Tame Your Hormonal Symptoms

What to Say to Get Your Way

What to Do When Your Get-Up-and-Go Has Got Up and Gone

The Secret to Freedom and Success

Three Simple Steps to Stop Drifting and Start Living

Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock

17 min

4.1

Safe People

Henry Cloud and John Townsend

How to Find Relationships that are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't

Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life.

How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children

How To Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life

16 min

4.3

How to Begin

Michael Bungay Stanier

A Proven Plan to Start Something That Matters

23 min

4.4

8 Secrets to Powerful Manifesting

Mandy Morris

How to Create the Reality of Your Dreams

Secrets for Powerful Speaking and Listening

The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder

24 min

4.5

The Pursuit of Excellence

Ryan Hawk

The Uncommon Behaviors of the World's Most Productive Achievers

The Two Decisions that Move Your Biggest Goals from Possible, to Probable, to Inevitable

23 min

4.3

The WEIRDest People in the World

Joseph Henrich

How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous

19 min

4.0

The Future is Faster Than You Think

Peter H. Diamandis

How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives

How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries

How to Release Your Trapped Emotions for Abundant Health, Love, and Happiness

The New Science of a Lost Art

A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill

16 min

4.4

Procrastination

Jane B. Burka & Lenora M. Yuen

Why You Do It, What to Do About It Now

What the Brain Reveals About Our Power To Change Others

17 min

4.3

People ❤️ Blinkist

Sven O.

It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.

Thi Viet Quynh N.

Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.

Jonathan A.

Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.

Renee D.

Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.