A playful, science-backed guide for founders who want to stay unpredictable in a world designed for patterns.
A daily Brain Gym keeps your mind flexible, playful, and strategically creative in the age of AI.
Based on neuroscience, play theory, strategic creativity.
My own experience completing 10,000+ levels of puzzle games, which rewired how I generate, combine, and transform ideas.
Why You Need a Brain Gym in the Age of AI
AI is brilliant at one thing: patterns.
Creativity is brilliant at the opposite: breaking patterns.
Founders who rely too much on AI often end up with:
- predictable ideas
- shallow thinking
- and a shrinking creative comfort zone
This is not because AI kills creativity — it’s because your brain gets rusty when it stops playing.
Neuroscience is very clear on this:
- Play increases neuroplasticity
- Neuroplasticity increases mental flexibility
- Mental flexibility increases original ideas
In other words:
If you want to stay creative in the AI era, you must keep your brain playful.
This article continues the ideas from Brain Lifestyle in the Age of AI — but now we go practical:
How to build a gym for your brain.
Creativity Isn’t a Talent, It’s a Playful Behavior
Adults stop playing.
And when we stop playing, we stop creating.
Children generate ideas effortlessly because their default mode is:
- curiosity
- experimentation
- zero fear of being wrong
- constant play
Founders, on the other hand, live with:
- pressure
- risk
- deadlines
- investor expectations
- cognitive overload
This kills the playful mode.
But here’s the twist:
Play is not the opposite of work, it’s the foundation of strategic creativity.
Playfulness increases:
- divergent thinking
- emotional resilience
- problem-solving speed
- idea generation volume
- cognitive flexibility
And cognitive flexibility is the #1 predictor of breakthrough innovation.
My 10,000-Level Shortcut: How Puzzle Games Rewired My Creative Brain
Let me be unapologetically honest:
I’ve completed more than 10,000 levels of puzzle games.
Yes, ten thousand.
And no, it wasn’t a waste of time.
Here’s what those 10,000 levels did to my brain:
1) I stopped seeing ideas as lightbulbs.
I see them as Molotov cocktails.
A lightbulb is a cute idea.
A Molotov cocktail is an idea that explodes into 100 more ideas.
That’s how my brain works now.
2) Every idea gives me thousands of new ideas.
Puzzle-game training conditioned my mind to:
- branch ideas
- remix them
- break them
- combine them
- rebuild them
- and search for “the move behind the move.”
3) I connect concepts across domains.
When I learn something new, I learn it deep.
And I connect it with everything else I know.
This cross-domain wiring is a topic I’ll cover in a separate article soon.
Puzzle games didn’t make me smarter.
They made me more flexible — and flexibility is the oxygen of creativity.
So… What Exactly Is a Personal Brain Gym?
A Brain Gym is:
A daily, structured, playful routine designed to keep your mind flexible, curious, and innovative — especially when using AI.
It’s not about working harder.
It’s about training smarter.
The 3 Pillars of an Effective Brain Gym
1) Cognitive Flexibility Training
Short tasks that force your brain to switch patterns fast.
Examples:
- puzzles
- pattern-breaking games
- reverse-thinking exercises
- reframing challenges
2) Divergent Thinking Boosters
Prompts that generate many ideas, not one.
Examples:
- “10 ridiculous solutions to this problem”
- “How would a 5-year-old solve this?”
- “What if I do the opposite?”
3) Strategic Play
Games that mimic real innovation:
- constraints
- time pressure
- incomplete information
- creative improvisation
This is where founders grow most.
Your Daily 10-Minute Brain Gym (Founder Edition)
You don’t need an hour.
You don’t need a course.
You don’t need inspiration.
Just 10 minutes.
1) 3-Minute Warm-Up Game
Choose one:
• Treasure Island
A puzzle adventure that trains pattern recognition + quick decision shifts.
• Mindset GO
Focuses on logic, sequencing, and mental agility.
Play one level.
Only one.
The goal is warm-up, not escape reality for an hour.
2) 3-Minute Divergent Thinking Drill
Pick one of these fun prompts:
- “Give me 7 stupid solutions to my current problem.”
- “What would happen if I made this 10x bigger or 10x smaller?”
- “How would I solve this with zero budget and one banana?”
- “How would AI solve this * badly *?”
- “How can this fail in 10 funny ways?”
This trains creative branching.
3) 4-Minute Weekly Group Play
Once a week, play a group game with your team/friends:
- Pictionary (visual creativity)
- Charades (embodied creativity)
These games train communication, improvisation, and idea translation — core innovation skills.
Why Founders Need Play More Than Anyone
If you grew up in a stable country with predictable systems, you rarely had to innovate under chaos.
If you grew up in an unstable environment — like Iran — you learned to:
- adapt fast
- expect change
- improvise constantly
- find creative shortcuts
- turn chaos into opportunity
This is a real innovation advantage.
At ArmedBrains, we grew up in challenge-rich environments.
Innovation wasn’t a fancy topic — it was a survival skill.
This unique combination of chaos + creativity is what shaped our methods.
AI + Founders + Play = Explosive Innovation
AI gives you predictable answers.
A playful brain gives you unpredictable questions.
Real breakthroughs happen when you combine them:
- AI gives the structure
- Play gives the chaos
- Strategy gives the direction
This trio is unbeatable.
Start Today — Build Your Daily Brain Gym
Here’s your simple checklist:
✔️ One puzzle game level a day
✔️ One quick divergent prompt
✔️ One group play session per week
✔️ Keep it fun
✔️ Keep it light
✔️ Keep it consistent
Creativity is not born.
It’s trained.
Final Message (CTA)
Build your daily Brain Gym.
Play every day.
Keep your creativity alive.
But this is just the beginning.
If you want deeper principles of innovation —
especially for founders —
follow me on LinkedIn.
I share weekly insights to help you stay ahead of the game