Larry Ortega

Larry Ortega had done everything right. A disciplined athlete since his youth, he regularly went surfing and running throughout his adulthood and always strove to challenge himself mentally.

“Until I got to my forties, I always told people that I didn’t feel a day older than 22, the year I graduated from college,” he said. “I’ve had a very diverse life and I think that’s really helped me mentally.”

Nevertheless, Larry found his mental processing slowing as he approached 50, particularly in his ability to speed read and multitask on the job. As a hedge fund executive he read through pages upon pages of documents each day, he decided to try Posit Science’s InSight program to see if he could strengthen his mental agility and make his life a little easier.

“My response time had gone way down and now my response time has come way, way back,” he said.

But Larry’s speed reading and multitasking weren’t the only things that changed after he began training with InSight: he felt like he had literally wound back his age clock to that period after he graduated college when he felt sharpest mentally. He even noticed that it affected his behavior and interactions with other people, including his coworkers.

“Many people, when they meet me, just sort of assume that I’m a guy in my 40’s,” said Larry, now 54. “I know that this is one of those things that gives me that edge. When people ask me a complex question my response is quick, complete, accurate and there’s a lot of detail in the response.”

The ability to think and articulate well has helped Larry instill confidence in others and given him confidence in himself. This skill set is especially important to him as he embarks on the new venture of leading his 15-person team starting a hedge fund.

“One of the reasons that people are interested in my hedge fund is not because they think of me as an elderly guy who’s ready to retire. It’s because they think I’m a young guy just into his 40’s, ready to spend a couple of decades or more growing something big,” he said. “They would not be treating me the same way if they thought that I was in my mid 50s.”

Larry has always defied his age and sought new challenges for himself to keep himself active. He sees his brain training with InSight as another part of that lifelong journey.

“You can surf the web or read a book and learn about a lot of things. What you cannot do through reading is improve your peripheral vision or your reaction time. Exercise, running and weightlifting won’t do that either,” he said. “For people over 50, this really helps bring you back: if you work with this software and add a good exercise program with good nutrition and good sleep, you WILL go backwards in age. People will assume that you are much younger than your age. I know, I’ve lived this.”