Introduction
Before you play two notes learn how to play one note—and
don’t play one note unless you’ve got a reason to play it.
–MARK HOLLISIf you’d have told me a few years ago that I’d one day write
a book about optimizing the brain, I would have been sure
you had mistaken me for someone else.
After I switched my college major from premed to film
and psychology, the idea of a career in health seemed
unlikely. This was compounded by the fact that soon after I
graduated, I became entrenched in what I considered a
dream job: a journalist and presenter on TV and the Web.
My focus was stories that I felt were underreported and
could make a positive impact on the world. I was living in
Los Angeles—a city I’d idolized as an MTV-watching teen
growing up in New York—and had just ended a five-year
stint hosting and producing content for a socially conscious
TV network called Current. Life was great. And it was all
about to change.
As much as I enjoyed the Hollywood life, I’d often find
myself making trips back east to see my mom and two
younger brothers. In 2010, on one of those trips home, my
brothers and I noticed a subtle change in the way my
mother, Kathy, walked. She was fifty-eight at the time and
had always had a spirited way about her. But suddenly, it