Sudden onset hyperacusis changed almost everything about how I engage the world, use my brain, and experience relationships. When it started in 2020, this auditory suffering pulverized my ability to focus, to think, and to live a vibrant cognitive life. I was forced out of the zone of effortless thinking into the gym of mental limitations.

Overnight, I  transformed from someone who loved dancing with friends, biking across the Gulf to enjoying our islands, and traveling constantly into someone who could barely tolerate the whisper of a friend’s voice. They still don’t know why it happened.

There are several types of hyperacusis. Mine came packaged with a monster serving of tinnitus. Together these sensory symptoms have formed the backdrop for my most impaired, and highest quality thinking.

When I wrote Think Wild, I was not creating a memoir of sensory disability, chronic illness, or facing cognitive challenges per se. My first book was about learning how to engage wild ideas on purpose even when faced with barriers and limitations.

Most of us have never found our mental boundaries. Mental growth tactics are ways of using our minds on purpose to solve problems, savor life, and actively pursue the flow of fulfilling productivity. Unlike physical effort, it can be less obvious when we are doing heavy lifting with our minds. It can be even murkier to figure out what restores our mental resources.

Think Wild, and posts on this blog marked “Mental Growth Tactics” all offer ways to get to work on your brain, becoming intellectually stronger, more creative, and more engaged with life. In the process we will overcome anxiety, stress, and distraction. We will get unstuck and energize our life, right from the control center between our ears.

If you’re experiencing cognitive limitations right now, you may be encouraged to know I’ve tested each tactic during times of heavy cognitive impairment. I picked the ones that worked even when my brain felt broken, ones that restored my ability to think and enjoy life without waiting for my circumstances to improve.

Wild and brave growth is all about discovering our life’s adventure and bravely pushing past distraction, anxiety, and numbness to experience wonder and meaning in the life we actually have. When my team and I launched Wild + Brave, our hope was to offer wild ideas — the kind of ideas we can wrap our hands around, understand and share easily with our friends and families — and help each other take small, brave actions every day that move us in the direction of our purpose. Whether you’ve joined us for one-on-one coaching, a live Challenge Group like Camp Mo or Negotiation Bootcamp, or use the free tools we share with email subscribers, we hope this book delivers on our promise to keep growing together.

May these words be useful in your life; if even one of these tactics resonates with you and comes to live in your skillset I’ll feel incredibly gratified.

~Morgan

🔖 This post comes from an excerpt from Think Wild: Mental Growth Tactics for Brave Humans.