Page 126 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

dancing, swimming, running, racquetball, boxing, or aerobics, but it’s all the

same thing. It’s all a way of moving the body around like a merry plaything and
oxygenating the spirit in the process.

89. Read more mysteries

My great friend and editor Kathy Eimers, to whom I first dedicated this
book, and later married, has always been a devoted reader of mystery novels.
When I first met her, I thought, How curious that someone so intelligent would

be reading mystery novels all the time.

It was especially interesting to me because Kathy is one of the most literate
people I’ve ever met, a quick thinker and a skilled professional writer and editor.
Her editing of my books was the one thing, in my opinion, that gave them the
sparkle that people said they enjoyed.

In my own ignorance, I assumed mystery novels were pretty light fare, and
hardly a challenge to the human mind. But I changed my mind. Not only have I

peeked into some of the mystery books she recommended (Agatha Christie and
Colin Dexter), but I found out more about what good mystery does to the
intellectual energy of the human mind.

Kathy has one of the most creative and energetic problem-solving minds
I’ve ever encountered. I constantly marvel at her mental energy and perception
because it stays clear and sharp—all day, and long into the night. I would often
find my own mental acuity descending the evolutionary ladder as night
approached, while hers stayed alive and creative.

The person with the highest IQ ever measured—Marilyn Vos Savant—
recommends mystery novels as brain builders.“Not only is this exercise fun, but
it’s good for you,” she says. “I’m not talking about violent thrillers, or police
procedural novels, but instead I’m directing you to those elegant, clue-filled,

intelligent mysteries solved by drawing conclusions, not guns.”

Vos Savant sees the reading of mysteries as something that leads to a
stronger intelligence.

“If you try to keep one step ahead of the detective in an Agatha Christie or a
Josephine Tey or a P.D. James mystery novel, it will sharpen your intuition,” she
writes in Brain Building in Just 12 Weeks, “The Sherlock Holmes stories by