Aug. 5, 2026
#8 Principles to Upgrade Your Brain (Part 1)
Welcome to Episode 8 of Between The Ears. In the first half of a two-part series, host Arnold Beekes shares three foundational principles for taking ownership of your brain and improving your brain fitness. Arnold makes the case for genuinely thinking for yourself rather than memorizing and adopting the opinions of teachers, religious leaders, doctors, or bosses; approaching life with a beginner's mind so you notice what familiarity has trained you to overlook; and learning to see beauty in small, everyday moments rather than only in rare, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. The episode closes with the show's signature segment on everyday beauty, featuring how Swiss farmers cut pest damage in half simply by planting wildflowers between their crops.
Topics Covered
- Introducing a three-part (six-principle) series on upgrading your brain
- Principle 1: think for yourself, rather than copying the opinions of authority figures
- How school trains memorization rather than independent thought
- Principle 2: be a beginner, even in areas of life you feel experienced in
- Why a beginner's mindset helps you notice what you've stopped seeing
- Principle 3: see beauty in daily life, not just rare or memorable moments
- The show's closing theme of everyday beauty: Swiss farmers reducing pest damage by planting wildflower strips between crops, now being trialed across 15 UK farms
About Arnold Beekes
Arnold Beekes is the host of Between The Ears, a podcast built around the idea that your inner state creates your outer reality. Having lived in five different countries, Arnold draws on his own experiences to help listeners build a better life between the ears, one episode at a time.
Connect with Arnold Beekes
🧠 Inner Fitness for Modern Life: https://braingym.fitness/
🧠 Inner Leadership Training for Ambitious Leaders: https://www.brainathletes.club/
🧠 Innovation Mindset for Exponential Change: https://www.innovationathletes.club/
🤝 Join our free Brain Health community: https://www.skool.com/brain-fitness-7070
🔗 https://bio.link/beekes
🎙️ Edited and Produced by The PodFather Network LLC
🌐 https://roycoughlan.com/
#BetweenTheEars #BrainFitness #ThinkForYourself #BeginnersMind #EverydayBeauty #InnerState #PersonalDevelopment #PodfatherNetwork #MoralBeauty
Ep 8 Between the Ears principles1
Welcome, I'm Arnold Bekus and I enable you to have a better life between the ears. Why is that so important? Well, because your inner state creates your outer reality. In today's topic I'm sharing some principles which I hope you will apply in your life to upgrade your brain, to improve your brain fitness.
It's a two-part series. In another podcast I will discuss the other three and we will start with the first three. The principles to help you to basically take ownership of your brain.
The first principle is think for yourself. Now you might think, oh that's what I'm always doing, that is why you're saying that, that's useless. Well, I think it's not.
If you look at your upbringing, if you look at education, if you look at work, we're not supposed to think for ourselves. We are supposed to think what other people think. Remember what I said in our session about living someone else's life and that most of us are living someone else's life.
Well, if you live someone else's life, you're not thinking for yourself. You are thinking what the other person is thinking. Think about school.
When you get good grades, when you memorize what the teacher has told you, or a book, or something which you need to study, it is someone else's thinking which you need to memorize. And if you memorize that correctly, you get a good grade. That doesn't mean that you think for yourself.
No, you're memorizing the thoughts of other people. So what we need to learn is to think for ourselves. Not only about who we are and what we want to do and what is going on inside of ourselves, what's going on between the ears.
But basically about everything in our society. Whether it's about housing, it's about politics, it's about energy, it's about the food we eat. We are constantly copying the thoughts of other people and we assume that what these other people are saying, that's the truth.
No, I would say in a lot of cases, it's not the truth. And in a lot of cases, it appears that it is not working as they say. Or it's not healthy as they say.
So a crucial thing in upgrading your brain is to think for yourself. And it takes more time and effort than you might think. That's double thinking, right? But it's really crucial that you start to form your own opinion rather than copy the opinion of, if you're religious, of your priest or your imam.
Or you copy the thinking of people in white coats in a hospital. Or you copy the thinking of your boss. No, start thinking for yourself.
The second principle is to be a beginner. Now you might say, well I'm happy that I'm not a beginner anymore. I'm not a beginner in life, I'm not a beginner at work, I'm not a beginner in relationships.
Yes, I understand that. But because you have that attitude, you don't see things clearly anymore. And you take things for granted.
And you have come to accept things which are not necessarily true. So if you start thinking for yourself, be a beginner. Look at everything, everything inside of you, in your environment.
In your city, in your community, in your work. In your country. And even in the world.
And look at it like you are a beginner. Look at it like it is the first time that you see it. That is so crucial.
Because then you really are having an open mind. And you really start to notice things, you start to see things which you previously didn't notice. So be a beginner.
And the third principle I already shared in the previous episode. And I will continue sharing about that. But it's so important that I made it into a principle as well.
Where I say, see beauty in daily life. And that doesn't mean that you have to book a ticket to fly to Barcelona and see the finished Sagra Familia church. Which I think is really really incredible and beautiful.
No, those are only once in a lifetime things. I want you to think in daily life. So not like I saw something beautiful three years ago on holiday.
Or seven years ago there was this movie which touched me. No. What are small tiny everyday things where you can see beauty in your daily life? And it can be in nature.
It can be a smile from someone. It can be a really nice slice of bread which you bake yourself. So in summary three principles.
And in the next session I will add another three. But today's topic are think for yourself. Be a beginner.
And see beauty in daily life. And as I already mentioned we conclude each session with some examples of everyday beauty. Because beauty and especially moral beauty like kindness, courage, compassion has a very positive influence on your inner state.
And as I say in our intro your inner state creates your outer reality. So today's example is about Swiss farmers who planted flowers between their crops and watched pest damage drop by over half. The UK is now running the same trial across 15 farms.
And the reason that this works is embarrassingly simple. A Swiss study on winter wheat found that fields with wildflower strips had 40 to 53% fewer leaf beetle pests than fields without. So without the flower strips.
And crop damage dropped 61%. The mechanism is quite simple. Wildflowers feed hoverflies, lacewings, parasitic wasps, ladybugs and ground beetles.
And those insects eat the aphids, beetle larvae and caterpillars that farmers would otherwise spray for. With the pesticides. A few meters of wildflowers host an unpaid pest control crew that would jump at the chance to whoop some aphid ass.
In apple orchards where no insecticide sites have been used for five years plots with wildflower alleyways had 9.2% damaged fruit. But control plots without flowers had 32.5% damaged fruits. So the UK is now running a five year trial across 15 farms placing six meter flower strips through the middle of the fields.
Not just at the edges because the beneficial insects can't reach the center of a large field otherwise. And this works the same way for instance in your backyard vegetable garden as it does on a commercial farm. So plant native flowering species near your tomatoes, beans and squash.
The pest will still show up but the predators show up too. Remember we need your uniqueness. Be a better maker.
For yourself. For others. For the world.
Welcome, I'm Arnold Bekus and I enable you to have a better life between the ears. Why is that so important? Well, because your inner state creates your outer reality. In today's topic I'm sharing some principles which I hope you will apply in your life to upgrade your brain, to improve your brain fitness.
It's a two-part series. In another podcast I will discuss the other three and we will start with the first three. The principles to help you to basically take ownership of your brain.
The first principle is think for yourself. Now you might think, oh that's what I'm always doing, that is why you're saying that, that's useless. Well, I think it's not.
If you look at your upbringing, if you look at education, if you look at work, we're not supposed to think for ourselves. We are supposed to think what other people think. Remember what I said in our session about living someone else's life and that most of us are living someone else's life.
Well, if you live someone else's life, you're not thinking for yourself. You are thinking what the other person is thinking. Think about school.
When you get good grades, when you memorize what the teacher has told you, or a book, or something which you need to study, it is someone else's thinking which you need to memorize. And if you memorize that correctly, you get a good grade. That doesn't mean that you think for yourself.
No, you're memorizing the thoughts of other people. So what we need to learn is to think for ourselves. Not only about who we are and what we want to do and what is going on inside of ourselves, what's going on between the ears.
But basically about everything in our society. Whether it's about housing, it's about politics, it's about energy, it's about the food we eat. We are constantly copying the thoughts of other people and we assume that what these other people are saying, that's the truth.
No, I would say in a lot of cases, it's not the truth. And in a lot of cases, it appears that it is not working as they say. Or it's not healthy as they say.
So a crucial thing in upgrading your brain is to think for yourself. And it takes more time and effort than you might think. That's double thinking, right? But it's really crucial that you start to form your own opinion rather than copy the opinion of, if you're religious, of your priest or your imam.
Or you copy the thinking of people in white coats in a hospital. Or you copy the thinking of your boss. No, start thinking for yourself.
The second principle is to be a beginner. Now you might say, well I'm happy that I'm not a beginner anymore. I'm not a beginner in life, I'm not a beginner at work, I'm not a beginner in relationships.
Yes, I understand that. But because you have that attitude, you don't see things clearly anymore. And you take things for granted.
And you have come to accept things which are not necessarily true. So if you start thinking for yourself, be a beginner. Look at everything, everything inside of you, in your environment.
In your city, in your community, in your work. In your country. And even in the world.
And look at it like you are a beginner. Look at it like it is the first time that you see it. That is so crucial.
Because then you really are having an open mind. And you really start to notice things, you start to see things which you previously didn't notice. So be a beginner.
And the third principle I already shared in the previous episode. And I will continue sharing about that. But it's so important that I made it into a principle as well.
Where I say, see beauty in daily life. And that doesn't mean that you have to book a ticket to fly to Barcelona and see the finished Sagra Familia church. Which I think is really really incredible and beautiful.
No, those are only once in a lifetime things. I want you to think in daily life. So not like I saw something beautiful three years ago on holiday.
Or seven years ago there was this movie which touched me. No. What are small tiny everyday things where you can see beauty in your daily life? And it can be in nature.
It can be a smile from someone. It can be a really nice slice of bread which you bake yourself. So in summary three principles.
And in the next session I will add another three. But today's topic are think for yourself. Be a beginner.
And see beauty in daily life. And as I already mentioned we conclude each session with some examples of everyday beauty. Because beauty and especially moral beauty like kindness, courage, compassion has a very positive influence on your inner state.
And as I say in our intro your inner state creates your outer reality. So today's example is about Swiss farmers who planted flowers between their crops and watched pest damage drop by over half. The UK is now running the same trial across 15 farms.
And the reason that this works is embarrassingly simple. A Swiss study on winter wheat found that fields with wildflower strips had 40 to 53% fewer leaf beetle pests than fields without. So without the flower strips.
And crop damage dropped 61%. The mechanism is quite simple. Wildflowers feed hoverflies, lacewings, parasitic wasps, ladybugs and ground beetles.
And those insects eat the aphids, beetle larvae and caterpillars that farmers would otherwise spray for. With the pesticides. A few meters of wildflowers host an unpaid pest control crew that would jump at the chance to whoop some aphid ass.
In apple orchards where no insecticide sites have been used for five years plots with wildflower alleyways had 9.2% damaged fruit. But control plots without flowers had 32.5% damaged fruits. So the UK is now running a five year trial across 15 farms placing six meter flower strips through the middle of the fields.
Not just at the edges because the beneficial insects can't reach the center of a large field otherwise. And this works the same way for instance in your backyard vegetable garden as it does on a commercial farm. So plant native flowering species near your tomatoes, beans and squash.
The pest will still show up but the predators show up too. Remember we need your uniqueness. Be a better maker.
For yourself. For others. For the world.
