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If you are one of those people who can__ hold a lot in mind at once__ou lose focus and start daydreaming in lectures, and have to get to someplace quiet to focus so you can use your working memory to its maximum__ell, welcome to the clan of the creative. Having a somewhat smaller working memory means you can more easily generalize your learning into new, more creative combinations. Because you__e learning new, more creative combinations. Having a somewhat smaller working memory, which grows from the focusing abilities of the prefrontal cortex, doesn__ lock everything up so tightly, you can more easily get input from other parts of your brain. These other areas, which include the sensory cortex, not only are more in tune with what__ going on in the environment, but also are the source of dreams, not to mention creative ideas. You may have to work harder sometimes (or even much of the time) to understand what__ going on, but once you__e got something chunked, you can take that chunk and turn it outside in and inside round__utting it through creative paces even you didn__ think you were capable of! Here__ another point to put into your mental chunker: Chess, that bastion of intellectuals, has some elite players with roughly average IQs. These seemingly middling intellects are able to do better than some more intelligent players because they practice more. That__ the key idea. Every chess player, whether average or elite, grows talent by practicing. It is the practice__articularly deliberate practice on the toughest aspects of the material__hat can help lift average brains into the realm of those with more __atural_ gifts. Just as you can practice lifting weights and get bigger muscles over time, you can also practice certain mental patterns that deepen and enlarge in your mind.