Afford Anything - Jim Kwik: Secrets to a Smarter Brain

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

#519: We sit down with Jim Kwik, a brain coach and expert in memory improvement, speed reading, and optimal learning. As a child, Jim suffered a brain injury that made learning difficult. He was labeled "the boy with the broken brain," which deeply affected his confidence and performance in school. Today, he’s an expert in memory, focus, learning, cognition and mental performance. He’s here to remind us that our brains are our number one wealth-building tool. He talks to us about strategies for improving memory. He debunks myths like multitasking being efficient. He talks about the negative impact of digital distractions and the myth that we only use 10% of our brains. He describes a great brain diet, and discusses nootropics and other brain supplements. This episode is packed with practical advice. If you want to improve your memory, learn faster, and maintain better brain health, you’ll enjoy Jim Kwik’s tips. Timestamps: [Note: Time codes will vary on individual listening devices based on advertising run times.] 0:58 - Jim shares his childhood experience with a traumatic brain injury 2:26 - Impact of being labeled "the boy with the broken brain" 3:59 - Struggles with school and a turning point with a friend’s father 5:33 - Encouragement to write down dreams, leading to a new perspective 8:22 - Introduction to personal development books and reading challenges 9:59 - Consequences of overworking and lack of self-care during college 10:45 - Realization of the need for better learning methods 11:50 - Breakthrough in understanding learning and memory techniques 12:25 - Teaching others and a student’s powerful story 13:35 - Importance of knowledge as a superpower 13:50 - Introduction to the concept of building a better brain 15:03 - Description of the four brain types and their traits 17:23 - Significance of understanding one’s brain type 19:18 - The forgetting curve and memory retention 20:11 - The three keys to a better memory using the "MOM" method 21:01 - The importance of motivation in remembering names and other information 22:37 - The role of observation in memory and being present 23:15 - Anecdote about Bill Clinton’s exceptional memory and presence 24:55 - Connection between being present and having a powerful memory 26:11 - The concept of "digital distraction" and its impact on focus 26:56 - The "four horsemen of the mental apocalypse" driven by technology 29:18 - The myth of multitasking and its negative effects 30:59 - The importance of monotasking for better focus 31:15 - Introduction to the "Faster" method for learning 32:06 - The role of forgetting in learning 32:50 - The misconception of multitasking and the benefits of focusing 33:35 - The significance of state and emotion in learning 35:22 - Tips for maintaining a positive learning state 36:11 - The power of teaching to reinforce learning 37:20 - Common misconceptions about learning 39:20 - The myth of using only 10% of our brain and neuroplasticity 41:08 - Importance of challenging limiting beliefs 43:08 - Influence of self-talk and belief systems on performance 45:04 - Scheduling time for learning and implementing new knowledge 47:04 - Making the most of conferences by setting aside time for implementation 48:48 - Application of AI to enhance human intelligence and learning 51:09 - Best practices for brain health and cognitive performance 57:25 - Importance of taking care of your brain as a wealth-building asset 59:04 - Steps to improve brain health, including diet, exercise, and positive peer groups 1:03:33 - Role of brain supplements and nootropics 1:06:00 - Influence of a positive peer group on behavior and performance 1:09:22 - Conclusion and final thoughts on brain health and continuous learning For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode519 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are you a cheetah? Are you an owl? Are you a dolphin or are you an elephant? You're going to discover today the answer to that question as well as, more importantly, the answers to questions around how you can build better brain health, how you can learn faster, how you can remember names better, and how you can overcome some of your limiting beliefs, get over your own BS, your belief systems. We're going to learn all of that and more today with Jim Quick. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that understands you can afford anything, but not everything. Every choice that you make is a trade-off against something else.

And that doesn't just apply to your money. That applies to any limited resource you need to manage, like your time, your focus, your energy, or your attention. So what matters most and how do you make decisions accordingly? Those are the two questions that this podcast sets out to answer. My name is Paula Pan. I am the host of the show. And welcome, Jim. Thank you so much for having me.

I've been looking forward to this. Thank you so much for coming in. Jim, when you were a child, you suffered a pretty traumatic brain injury. Tell us what happened. When I'm on stage, if there's time, I'll do these demonstrations where I'll have maybe 50 people stand up and introduce themselves and I'll memorize all their names or they'll give me 100 random words or numbers and I recall them forwards and backwards. I don't do it to impress people. I do this to express them what's really possible because the truth is all your listeners, they could do that and a lot more. We just weren't taught.

And the reason why I know it's possible is, as you mentioned, I had a head injury when I was a child when I was five years old. I was in kindergarten class, and I was standing on a chair. I lost my balance. I went headfirst into a radiator and just knocked out, rushed to the emergency room. But where really showed up where my parents before said I was very energized and curious and playful, but I shut down. I mean, I was like a zombie, and where it really showed up was in school. I had focus issues, memory issues. I would have these migraines every single day.

I just thought it was normal. When I was nine years old, I was slowing down my class because I didn't understand the lessons. They would have to repeat themselves over. And I was being teased pretty harshly for it. And a teacher came to my defense. She pointed to me in front of the whole class and said, leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain. And that label kind of became my limit.

So every single time, I think adults have to be very careful of their external words because they often become a child's internal words. And so every single time I did badly in school, which was every single week, every single time I wasn't picked for sports because I had these balance issues too. I always say, oh, because I have the broken brain. And so there's a lot of self-doubt, a lot of self-esteem issues, not feeling good enough. My superpower back then was shrinking because I never knew the answer. So I'd always, like, even my posture, I would always collapse my shoulders. I would sit behind the tall kid in the back of the room, which is weird because my two biggest challenges growing up were learning and public speaking.

And the universe has a sense of humor because all I do is public speak on this thing called learning. Right. Now you're a public speaker about the topic of learning. Yeah. And having a slow, broken brain, I'm teaching people how to have a faster, better brain. So what was the inflection point? How did that turnaround begin? When I was 18 years old, I was lucky enough to get into a local university.

And I thought freshman, men, you can make a fresh start. So I took all these classes and I was like, I want to show the world, I want to show myself, I want to make my parents proud, I could really do something because I was struggled. I would work three times harder than all the other kids, but I would still be barely passing. I enrolled in all these classes and I did worse, Paula. It was just very disheartening and I was ready to quit school. My parents immigrated to the U.S. My dad was 13, lost both of his parents.

They couldn't afford to like, you know, feed them and everything. And we live in the back of a laundromat that my mom worked at. And every one day has their origin story, right? Would they immigrate from? China. Yeah. And so didn't speak the language, you know, all these challenges. I would work because of it, I would work hard because they had, you know,

that mentality of discipline, hard work, but I always would do worse. So I didn't have the money to be in school in the first place. And since I was kind of not doing so well, I was like, I'm going to quit. And I'm on the oldest of three siblings. So there's a lot of pressure because I wanted to be a good role model for my, for my brother and my sister, but I just couldn't hack it. And I remember telling a friend saying, I'm going to quit. And he was like, wow, that's a big decision. Why don't you get some perspective. He said, I'm going to go home this weekend, visit my folks. Why don't you come with me? And just to the listeners, maybe they could relate to this. Sometimes when you change your point of view, either through the place or the people you're spending time with, it gives you

a new perspective on things, right? And so I decide to go. And the family is pretty well off, beautiful home on the water. Your friend's family? Yeah. And the father is walking me around his property before dinner, and he asked me a very innocent question, but Paul, it's the worst question you could ask me at the time. He says, how school? And I'm pretty emotionally reserved. I'm introvert and borderline shy, certainly when I was 18, and I just break down in front of this complete stranger because I had so much pressure. And I told my whole story, broken brain, failing out of school, don't have the money to be in school, don't know how to tell my family I'm going to quit. And I don't want to disappoint them. And he was like, very smart. He asked me another

question. He's like, well, why are you in school? And just another point of view, just changing place for perspective, but also asking a new question because that changed my focus. But I didn't have an answer. I just thought, this is what you do. You go to school and you get your job and so on. I didn't have an answer. He was like, well, what do you want to be, do have, share, contribute? And then finally, when I get the nerve to answer him, he puts his hand out and he reaches, he just says pause, he reaches out in his back pocket, he takes out a notebook and he tears out a couple of sheets. And he gives me a pen and makes me write down all the things I want to be, do have, share.

Kind of like a bucket list. Right. And when I'm done, I don't know how much time went by. I start folding the sheets of paper to put it in my pocket. thinking this exercise is done. And he surprises me. He reaches out and grabs my dream list out of my hands. And he starts reading it.

Now, again, like, I'm 18 years old, very insecure. Obviously, this person is pretty successful. And he's reading my deep dreams and goals and desires, something I've never shared with anybody. And he's like, Jim, when he's done, he says, you are this close to everything on that list. and he spreads his index fingers about a foot apart. And I'm thinking, no way.

Give me 10 lifetimes. I'm not going to crack that list. Very smart. He takes his index fingers and he puts them to the side of my head, meaning what was in between was like the key, right? And he takes me into his home, into a room I've never seen before. It's wall-to-wall, ceiling the floor, covered in books. Now, I've never read a book cover-to-cover.

I was very intimidated by books, not a strong reader. and it's like being a roomful of snakes. But what makes it worse is he starts going to the shelves and grabbing snakes and handing them to me, right? And I'm looking at these titles of these books, and there are these biographies of some pretty incredible men and women in history and some very early personal growth books, like Napoleon Hill, Norman Vincent Peel, The Power of Positive Thinking, Dale Carnegie, the classics. And he says, Jim, he says, leaders are really. readers, I want you to read one book a week. And my response was, have you not heard everything I was

saying? I was like, I'm failing out of school. I have a broken brain. I'm a very bad reader. He says, don't let school get in the way of your education because I was like, I have all the schoolwork to do. And I didn't realize this is over 30 years ago. Wow, that sounds weird to say. I'm in my 50. That was over 30 years ago. He says, this Mark Twain quote, right, don't let school interfere with your education. And I was like, that's very insightful, but still, I can't promise to read it because my words, my bond. I can't do that. And very smart man, he reaches into his pocket.

It takes out my bucket list, which he still has. And Paul, he has the audacity to read every single one of my dreams out loud. And something about, you asked about the inflection point, something about hearing your dreams and desires, things you weren't even conscious of or shared with anybody in a stranger's voice kind of encanted out into the ether, right? And honestly, a lot of things on that list were things I wanted to do for, my family. My parents, things that they can never afford to do.

Even if they had money, they wouldn't do it for themselves. And so with that motivation and purpose, I agree to read one book a week. Fast forward, I'm back at school. And I'm saying at my desk, a pile of books I have to read for midterms. And then pile B, all the books I promised to read that I want to read, right? And I already couldn't get through pile A. So what do I do? I don't eat.

I don't sleep. I don't work out. I don't spend time with socialize. I just live in the library. like all the time. And weeks after that, I ended up passing out at 2 o'clock in the morning out of sheer exhaustion in the library. I fell down a flight of stairs. I hit my head again.

And I woke up in the hospital two full days later. And at this point, because I wasn't eating, I was down to 117 pounds. I was hooked up to all these IVs. I thought I died. It was the darkest time in my life because I just felt worthless. And I just thought there had to be a better way. And then the end the story, when I had that thought, there had to be a better way. The nurse came in with a mug of tea and had a picture of Albert Einstein on it.

And pretty smart guy, but had a quote that said the same level of thinking that has created your problem, it won't solve your problem. And it made me think, well, what's my problem? Well, I have a broken brain. I'm a very slow learner. How do I think differently about it? Well, maybe I can fix my brain. Maybe I can learn how to learn better. And I was like, well, where do I learn how to learn better?

I thought school. So I asked the nurse to bring me a course bulletin for next semester's classes. And I'm looking for classes. And they're all classes on what to learn, math, history, science, Spanish. But there's zero classes on how to learn those subjects. So I set my schoolwork aside because I wasn't getting traction there. And I started studying these books. And I started studying the ardent science of learning how to learn.

I started studying brain science, neuroscience, adult learning theory, multiple intelligence theory. I got insanely curious. I wanted to know how my brain works so I could work my brain. And about 60 days into it, studying these strategies and principles, a light switch flipped on,

and I started to understand things for the very first time in my life. I had better focus and retention and reading and my great shot up. But my whole life just got better because of it when you struggle with something for so long. And the reason I'm here with you today is because I couldn't help but help other people, right?

Because shame on me if somebody's struggling the way I did and I didn't support that person. So I started a tutor. And one of my very first students who was a freshman in college, she read 30 books in 30 days. Like not skim or scan, but really read them, right? And I wanted to find out not how. I taught her how to read faster. But I'm very insanely curious about why some people know what to do, but they don't do what they know. Some people like to listen to something or read something and they like, but they don't do anything with it, but she did.

And I found out her motivator was her mom. Her mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer by doctors. Doctors gave her mom two months to live. And the book she was reading were books to save her mom's life. And I wish, when I heard that, I wish you loved prayers. Six months later, I get a call from this young lady and she's crying hysterically. And when she finally stops, I realize there are tears of joy. And her mother not only survived, but it's really getting better.

Doctors don't know how. They don't know why. The doctors are called it a miracle. But her mother attributes 100% her turnaround to the great advice she got from her daughter who learned it from all these books. And in that moment, I realized that if knowledge is power, then learning is our superpower. And it's a superpower we all have. We just weren't shown how to unleash it.

So this is going on 32 years of teaching this. And it's our mission to build better, brighter brains. No brain left behind, regardless of who's listening, their age or stage of life, everybody could get better. What are some of the ways to build a better, brighter brain? And I realize that's a large question. So to break it down, one of the things that you've identified in your research is four brain types. Yes, yes. So in the new book, our limitless expanded book,

we share research to an assessment that we created. I realized that not everything is for everybody. Not every food's for everybody or not every person's for everybody. Everybody has a different kind of strength. And I realize that it's not how smart you are. It's how are you smart. It's not how smart you are, how smart your team is. It's how are they smart.

That everybody has genius that expresses itself in different ways, right? Just like people have certain love languages. Right. And so just like there's personalized medicine based on an assessment like your DNA or genetics, there's personalized nutrition based on a simple assessment like a nutrient profile or microbiome test. We created a free assessment that's in the book. It's also online where people could in four minutes get their dominant brain type. And I call it your brain code, C-O-D-E. and people could see it at my brainanimal.com. So when you go there, you get an assessment and it's a code, C-O-D-E.

We made them animals because the archetype. Everyone loves animals, right? The C out of code is your cheetah. And this is the individual, as you're listening to this, you may identify with this or know somebody. Their dominant trade is action. They love putting things into play and implementing things. They have strong intuition.

They thrive in fast-paced environment. because they can adapt very quickly. The O and code are your owls, and their dominant trade is logic. They love facts, numbers, they love the data, figures, extremely logical, strong pattern recognition. The D are your dolphins, and that dominant trade for dolphins is creativity. So these are individuals that have a vision, maybe they're an entrepreneur, they have a vision for their brand or their business or their life that maybe other people can't yet see. They have strong, very strong imagination and a lot of passion around it. And finally, the E.

And I got to say, I'll just cut you off. I took this quiz. Yeah. I'm an elephant. What am I? Yeah, yeah. So the E are your elephants. And the elephants, their dominant trait is empathy.

Oh. And so amongst other things, they have such a high level of compassion. They are amazing communicators because they want people to feel seen. They want people to feel heard. based on this brain type, when people take the assessment, we give you protocols for personalized learning based on your dominant traits. And so to improve your focus, improve your memory, to be able to read faster. Because it's like if you're right-handed, it doesn't mean you don't use your left. You're more effective and comfortable using your right.

And same thing with your dominant brain type. Once you understand your dominant brain type, it can also inform how you relate to other people. Like even if you think about it, if you want to influence another person, maybe your kids clean the room or an angel investor to fund your next project or a simple sale, if that person received one of influences an owl, then you provide the case studies, the data, right? The facts, the research. They're convinced a little bit differently. Whereas a dolphin, you want that who's a creative visionary, you want to paint a picture of the future. and see how their success falls into that picture. If somebody, your influence, want to influence an elephant,

yes, facts is great and social proof and research, but what's more important is the relationship itself. Do they trust you? Is there a sense of connection due to that person feels seen and heard? Yeah, so it really informs everything from parenting to managing. We hire based on this assessment because, like, our CFO is an owl. Very strong data, right? That would be a great trait for a CFO.

Absolutely. Our CEO, my business partner of 17 years, she's a dolphin, this creative visionary. She has this vision of possibly impacting one billion brains. And everything kind of gets filtered through that. And so our community building team, a lot of them are elephants because they want to bring people together. They want people to feel against seen and heard. There's high levels of empathy. And you see this everywhere.

Even if you watch sitcoms, like probably one of the most famous ones, friends, right? Ross Geller, a scientist, professor, he's the owl, right? Phoebe is the songs, music, art, creative dolphin. Joey just acts, doesn't really think about it, just goes in, and is it more of a cheetah quality. Monica always wants to host everything, bring friends together, elephant, right? So you could see it in pop culture. But the reason I bring this up is I feel like knowing ourselves, it gives us power. Self-awareness is a superpower.

And when you understand how you learn and lead and live, it takes a judgment away. Sometimes we are very critical of ourselves because, you know, we have a certain traits and certain areas that we want to be able to focus on to get better. But it also makes life a lot easier when you have this awareness of other people, you know, and see what their dominant brain type is. Right. Now, on the topic of learning how to learn, we often forget most of what we read in here. In fact, something like we forget 50% of what we read within a couple hours and 70% within a day. Yeah. And upwards of 80% in 48 hours. They call it the forgetting curve. When you listen to a podcast or you read something or you go to a lecture within 48 hours, the forgetting curve says we lose. upwards of 80% of it. And so memory, I think, is one of the most important superpowers for us to have.

I believe two of the most costly words in life and certainly in business are, I forgot. I mean, think about the consequences of saying, I forgot to go to that meeting. I forgot what I was going to say. I forgot what they told me, that conversation. I forgot what I just read. I forgot that person's name, right? Every single time we have those thoughts or situations, we lose trust. We could lose time. We could even kill a sale, right? By memory lapses. On the other side, memory will make you money.

We do whole programs and talks around this, but when you could easily remember facts, figures, client information, product information, give a speech or sales presentation without notes, right? When you can easily remember people's names, I mean, you could write your own ticket, especially for names because people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. It's really hard to show somebody you're going to care for their business, their future, their wealth or whatever you have to offer them if you don't care enough just to remember their name. Right. Yeah.

And so how do we remember more? Yeah. There are three keys to a better memory. I always say remember mom, M-O-M. So let's take memory names because I think it's the number one business etiquette networking skill there is, right? Let's say someone listening usually has trouble remembering names, but let's pretend there was. is a suitcase here full of money, right? Because I know you have a lot of international listeners. Currency's different, but suitcase full of money. And it's for your listener. If they could just

remember the name of the next stranger, they mean. Most people are now going to remember that person's name. Right. So now all of a sudden, your whole audience became memory experts. So as a coach, as a brain coach, memory coach, I want to call people on their BS, their belief systems. And it's not true that you have a bad memory or you can't remember names. You can, if you're incentivized, the M and mom, the first M stands for motivation. And the simple thing people could practice today or tomorrow is when you're meeting somebody for the first time, ask yourself or split second, why do I want to remember this person's name? Maybe it's to show the person some respect. Maybe it's to get a referral. Maybe it's to close a deal. Maybe it's to practice these things that, you know,

I heard on afford anything, right? And if you can't come up with a reason, you won't remember because reasons reap results, right? So you start with the motivation part. The O and mom stands for observation, meaning a lot of times we're not forgetting the person's name. We're just not listening for it, right? We're not hearing it because we're usually, what are we doing? We're thinking about what we're going to say.

We're waiting for our turn to speak. I remember years ago, I went to a change. charity events, 2,000 people, like this kind of gala. I go to my assigned table, like these round tables, and I'm the first one there. A few minutes later, the Academy Award-winning actor, Forrest Whitaker sits right next to me. And then Richard Branson sits right next to him. And then Ashton Coucher and his twin brother, which I didn't realize he had a twin brother sit there.

And then a few minutes later, President Clinton sits right next to me. And it's interesting because he sat and addressed me by name. Now, a few years earlier, I had met him briefly, right? But he remembered my name. And then I was like, oh, no, of course he knew who was sitting at his table. He was told. And then I swear, he picks up the conversation we had a couple years earlier. And nobody was privy to that conversation.

And when I was listening to this, I was like, wait, you know, I'm the memory guy. I need to, how are you doing this? and he tells me this story about his grandfather in Arkansas where in the living room he would tell stories to all the kids. But afterwards, he would quiz each of the children to see if they were paying attention. And which is interesting, right? Now, when he's talking to me, I had this eerie feeling. It was a positive feeling, but it was one that I didn't really feel on a regular basis where I felt like I was the only one in the room. Have you ever met somebody that they just are.

so there with you. They're fully present. Yeah, exactly. And that's a perfect word. So there's 2,000 people in that ballroom, a lot more important than me, certainly at that table. But I felt like when he was addressing me that no one else existed. And I realized, politics aside, most people would say Clinton, strong charisma, great

connector, great communicator, he's gotten a phenomenal memory. And I think in a powerful presence, the word that he was used. And I think his incredible memory and his powerful presence comes from, being powerfully present. That is incredible memory and as powerful presence with people comes from being powerfully present with people. And I don't think it's limited just to individuals. I think we could all be more present.

Often when you go to an event or a conference or wedding, whatever, you're talking to somebody and you feel like they're not there. They're looking over your shoulder. They're seeing who else is in the room or they're in their own mind. And even if you did this experiment, think about the word, listen and do this. brain exercise, scramble the letters around, it spells another word perfectly. N-T-E-S-I-L-I, scrambling this in my head. E-N-L-I enlist?

Yeah, there's a number of words. The one that I'm choosing to focus on is silent. So if you scramble the words listen, the letters in listen, it also spells the word silent. And I think one of the ways of improving your memory is just being present and silent. with somebody because the number one wealth building tool you have, I'm talking to everyone listening, is their brain, right? Your brain is your number one wealth. It's not like it was hundreds of years ago where people were working on farms and factories and, but back then it was muscle power. Today, it's mind power, right? Everybody listening to this, they're not compensated for their brute strength.

Today, it's your brain strength. And the faster you can learn, the faster you can earn. Because knowledge today is not only power, knowledge is profit, right? It's not just a divide. between those who have and those who have not, there's a divide with people who know something and those who don't know, and those people who know can make better decisions to be able to affect their goals and their future. So, yeah, the O stands for observation,

just being present, because the art of memory is the art of attention. And then finally, the last M and Mom are the methods. We have dozens of methods on how to remember names or how to give a speech. We train a lot of actors. We train a lot of the top. TED speakers on how to memorize the things that they need to because memory is an incredible

magnifier in your life. What I'm hearing is distraction is the enemy of memory. It's a big one. I opened the book talking about the four horsemen of what I call the mental apocalypse, and it's driven by technology. The first one is digital deluge, which is a term I coin talking about information overload. Right. And this is where information's doubling at dizzying speeds, but how we learn it hasn't changed.

at all. So that growing gap creates a real health crisis, higher blood pressure, compression of leisure time, more sleeplessness, more stress. And chronic stress has been shown to shrink the human brain, right? So we have to update that reading, memory skills to be able to keep up with the, because it feels like you're taking a sip of water out of a fire hose nowadays, right? You think about all the messages we get and all the things we need to keep up with. The next one is digital dementia. And this is a term in healthcare where we're outsourcing our memory to our devices. I mean, think about your phone. It keeps your calendar. It keeps your to-dos. It keeps how many phone numbers did you know remember growing up? Many. Yeah. And how many do you currently know?

One other than my own one. Right. And here's the thing. I don't want to memorize 200 phone numbers, but it should be very concerning. We've lost the ability to remember one phone number or a pin number or a passcode or something we just read, right? So that's digital dementia because if you're watching the video, I have a shirt of a brain and it says use it, but it's use it or lose it. But if you put your arm in a sling, maybe it's in a cast for a year, it wouldn't grow stronger. It wouldn't even stay the same. It would atrophy. So digital dementia is the high reliance on technology to remember things for you so you don't get the exercise. It's similar to you have a beautiful office here. Like if we take the elevator, which most of us do, technology, it makes your life

convenient. But then we don't have to get those steps in, right? Or if you take, if you take, If you have to go to the bank and it eight blocks away and you take a lift or an Uber when you could have walked and get your steps and it's convenient. But we have to keep our mental muscles active. So you have digital deluge. You have digital distraction. You have another one called digital deduction, which is a term I coined basically say, I saw this study saying that this generation, current generation has for the first time less logical rational abilities than the previous. and they were alluding that the contributing factor was technology because technology is doing the thinking for us with algorithms, right?

Even if you take something simple like how to get from here to there, before we would have to be able to have visual, spatial intelligence and unlock more of that superpower, but we don't have to do it with an app that tells us the GPS app or something. Like, you know, back then at the most, we had like MapQuest And we have to print out like four pages of like directions trying to figure out like it's a treasure hunt or something. But we don't have to build that exercise that muscle. But the last one is what you mentioned is digital distraction.

And that's such a big deal because every ring, ping, ding, app notification, social media alert drives us to distraction. And we wonder why we can't focus in a meeting or in a conversation or when you're with friends or family because we're flexing those distraction muscles throughout the day. So that's why we teach people how to focus. concentrate because these are skills that anybody could learn, but there's no class called focus back in school. There's no class, just like the things that you teach in terms of, let's say, wealth management, financial literacy. That's not taught in school, but learning how to learn wasn't taught either. There's no class on how to study or how to read faster. There's no class called memory. They teach you three hours in school, reading, writing, arithmetic, but what about retention?

What about recall? Socrates said learning is remembering. And, yeah, so, like the nature of our work is showing people how to be able to overcome those four challenges that are holding us back. The holidays are right around the corner and if you're hosting, you're going to need to get prepared. Maybe you need bedding, sheets, linens. Maybe you need serveware and cookware. And of course, holiday decor, all the stuff to make your home a great place to host during the holidays. You can get up to 70% off during Wayfair's Black Friday sale. Wayfair has Can't Miss Black Friday deals all month long. I use Wayfair to get lots of storage type of items for my home, so I got tons of shelving that's in the entryway, in the bathroom, very space saving.

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We've been for the last several minutes talking about memory, but there's also, some wisdom to forgetting. So you have a particular method called the faster method for learning faster, learning more quickly, and it starts the F in Fasters for forgetting. Faster or faster is an acronym, if to learn any subject or skill faster. And I think, again, an individual or a team's ability to learn rapidly and translate that learning into action is the ultimate competitive advantage. Because if you can learn how to learn faster, then what can you apply? that to everything, money, marketing, management, martial arts, music, Mandarin, everything gets easier if you can learn how to learn fast, right? And so the F, it's an acronym, the F stands for

forget, which is weird because I'm a memory coach. But if you want to learn faster, part of what keeps us learning slowly or not efficiently is thinking we know it already, right, because your cup is full. And sometimes you have to empty your cup in order to put new information in your mind is like a parachute it only works when it's open right and so having that sense of curiosity and forgetting i would say you forget at least two things if you want to learn a subject or go faster number one you forget about what you know about the subject so that way you can be open to entertain a new perspective and then you could deliberate and kind of figure out what works for you but besides forgetting what you know about a subject you also want to forget about distractions

and I know it's easier said than done. A lot of people multitask. Multitasking to the listeners, it's really a myth. So it's actually something more accurately describe as task switching. That we're not actually multitasking when we think we're multitasking. We're actually tasks switching. We're doing something and then switching to another. The challenges for your productivity, your performance, even your profitability,

there's three challenges to multitasking. Number one, it waste time. The thing you think you're gaining is the thing you're losing because it could take five or ten minutes to regain your focus on that new task. Number two is mistakes, meaning the brain can't do two cognitive activities at once. It's kind of like texting and driving. We're not going to do either one and we're going to make mistakes or accidents. I train a lot of medical professionals and we know doctors, surgeons when they're doing an operation. if they multitask, they're more likely to make surgical errors,

which is probably not a good thing. And then besides losing time and making more mistakes by trying to multitask, the third thing that it's costing you is energy. So if you're focused, let's say you're on email, part of your brain is lit up, right, a cognitive web, and then you go from there to writing. And then all of a sudden you have to shut down this cognitive web,

turn on another one, and what does require a lot of energy, a lot of blood glucose, right? And so if anyone ever feels a little bit enervated or depleted, maybe you have too many tabs open because when you switch from task to task to task, it uses an immense amount of energy. Your brain is only 2% of your body weight, but it requires 20% of the energy and the nutrients. It's like an energy hog. And so, yeah, I really think monotasking is definitely the way to go to get more done in less time. So that's the F. You forget what you know and you forget distractions. And if something does come up, you're ruminating, just write it down. Or even some people will actually schedule their distractions. If something keeps on coming up in, you know, like a client issue, to say, okay, later today at 415, I'll worry about it then. But it allows them to clear and release it.

The A in fast stands for active, meaning I want to remind everyone that learning is not a spectator sport. We do not learn. We've discovered more about the human brain in the past 20 years than the previous 2000 years combined. And we found it were grossly underestimated our own capabilities. but we know the brain doesn't learn best through consumption. It actually learns better through creation and co-creation. And so when I say active learning, you could be more active as people are listening.

They could take notes, right? If you want to watch a great video, just search my name, how to take notes, millions of views and a whole brain note-taking technique. Something simple everyone could do is to overcome that forgetting curve that you mentioned, where we forget most things, is now, by the way, handwriting notes and digital note-taking. I don't know if you have a preference.

Oh, I hand-write. Yeah, I absolutely hand-write. And you're right on. The research shows when students, research studies with college students, when people hand-write notes are digitally not-take, but people who actually hand-write notes have better comprehension and they have better retention. And I could go through all the reasons why. But digital is definitely great for storing, sharing, you know, but handwriting notes will

give you better learning. We actually have a process inside of our company. where I handwrite everything, including even if I'm brainstorming, what needs to be done, what's next, I handwrite everything, and then I have an assistant who actually then takes my handwritten notes and puts it into a Monday.com task management. Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah, I love that. And that's the perfect blend.

So, you know, a simple way of handwriting notes is better. I would challenge everyone something simple they could do is put a line right down the page, vertical line, cutting the page in half. And on the left side, you capture on the first side, you capture, on the right. right side to create. So a very subtle difference. On the left side, you're taking notes, how to remember names, how to read faster. On the right side, though, you instead of note taking, your note making. So you're writing your impressions of what you're capturing. So maybe you're writing on the right side, how can I use this? How does this relate to what I know? What questions

do I have and so on? But it's a way of left brain and right brain. And this is an oversimplification, but they see your left brain is more logical. So you're capturing on a logical linear ideas. The right side's more creative. And you're creating what you're saying, like, when am I going to use this? How is this connect with what I already know? Is this true?

That kind of a whole brain note-taking technique. That's one way of being more active. Because I just want to remind everyone who's listening, we don't learn best by just trying to push information inside of our head. There's this responsibility that we have to be able to not put it on the teacher or the expert is to put it more, but responsibility on ourself. The S in FAST stands for state. And what I mean by that is all learning is state dependent.

State is the mood of your mind and your body. Because one of the keys to a long-term memory is information by itself is very forgettable. But information was combined with emotion becomes unforgettable. Like I'm sure there's a song you could hear, you take you back to when you're a teenager. Right. Right. Or a food or a phrase.

that could take you back to your childhood, because the information, when it's tied with emotion, becomes unforgettable. It's the middle part of your brain. We have this part of your brain looks like a sea horse, and that's called your hippocampus when the function is memory. Connected to that sea horse is this almond-shaped part of your brain called your amygdala, which is a switching station for emotions. But it's interesting that memory and emotions are connected inside your nervous system. So we tend to remember things that touch us emotionally, right? So the S in fast, this state is never learned something in a dull state. I mean, even if you think about school, what was the primary emotion you felt sitting in class? Or what do you think most people felt

sitting in class? Typically boredom? Bortem, right? And on the emotional scale, zero to ten, what's boredom? Zero, right? And if it's information times emotion becomes a long-term memory, if the emotion is boredom or zero, what's anything times zero? Right, zero. And you wonder why you forgot the periodic table or all the stuff we learned back in school. So what I'm saying to people that are listening, how do you use this, is to control your state. Like right now, everybody sit the way you be sitting if you're very interested and focused in learning what you're learning, right?

And I'm hoping nobody had to move because you're naturally just very enthralled in this conversation. But people know that their physiology could affect their psychology. And when you change your facial expressions or your shoulders or something, it changes it. And if you're on a scale of zero to ten, you feel like, I don't know, five out of excitement. You can't game a five. Like, how do I feel, how can I make it a six or seven? Right. Because that emotion will help you to retain.

You never want to learn something in a bored state. And the thing is, is we control how we feel. Going back to responsibility, I remember I got to introduce two mentors of mine who wanted to meet each other. It was Richard Branson and Stan Lee, the creator of all these superheroes. And I'm very passionate about superheroes because I mentioned I couldn't read as a child. I taught myself how to read by looking at comic books. Something about the pictures brought the stories to life and the words to life. And something also about the stories, it was like one person can make a difference.

These superheroes are flawed, but through their struggle, they gain strength, and they could offer people hope and help. and it's kind of like really resonated with me. But Stan, you know, we're in the car, and I had to ask, I was like, you've created all these amazing superheroes, who's your favorite? And he says, Jim, my favorite is Iron Man. And he says, Jim, who's your favorite? And he had this, I posted this on social media, like a Spider-Man tie going to dinner.

And I was like, Spider-Man. And without a pause in his iconic voice, he goes, with great power comes great responsibility, right? And I had three head injuries. before the age of 12, and maybe because of it, I reverse things sometimes when I read or when I hear it. And I heard something different. And I was like, you're right, stand with great power, comes great responsibility. And the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great power. When we take responsibility for something, we have great power to make things better. When we take responsibility for our finances, we have great power to make things better. We take responsibility

for our relationship, our happiness, our health, our brain, if you will. We have great power to be able to make things better. So the thing that I think most important to be responsible for is how you feel, right? That you are, I want to remind everybody as a coach, this is something everyone knows, that you are a thermostat, you're not a thermometer. Like, think about the metaphor. A thermometer, if it was in this room, its only function is it reacts to the environment. environment, right? It just reacts to whatever the environment's giving it. A thermostat doesn't do that.

A thermostat, it gauges the temperature. It knows what's going on, just like we can know what's going on, but what does it do different than a thermometer? A thermostat sets a temperature, and then what happens the environment? The environment reacts to it, right? And that's what leadership is in a way, right? You said for you. You've taken the invisible and make it visible. You've built this huge platform, right and it started in your mind because you set a temperature and then the environment reacted to it and so I think we could set that temperature whether it's a KPI it's a goal it's a dream whatever it happens to be but we take ownership over that and so while you have a to do list I think it's equally important to have a to feel list like what are three emotions I want to

cultivate today maybe it's love or compassion or its focus whatever it happens to be because feelings are not things we have. They're things that we do. And there's a process for generating that emotion or energy. And then finally, the T and fast, if you want to learn any subject faster, teach it, right? It's called in science, they call it the explanation effect. The explanation effect says, if you want to learn something better, learn it with the intention of explaining it to another person. Right. Right. So if everybody who's listening had to give a TEDx talk next week about, what some of the takeaways from this conversation, they would focus better.

They would take more enhanced notes, right? They would post more questions online. They would make it very personal. And so when you teach something, you get to learn it twice, and it's one of the fastest ways of learning something. So whenever I want to learn something better, I use that fast kind of framework. I'm saying, can I set aside distractions?

Can I set aside what I think I know about this subject, so I can learn something new? Can I be active by taking notes and asking questions? can I enhance my emotions or curiosity, excitement, so my state is in a better place so I don't be bored and I could take responsibility for how I feel so I can learn it better? And then can I learn it to explain it to somebody else? Simple things, but it's often that simple things, just I imagine with your work, the simple things that people could do that gives them most of what they want. What are some of the biggest misconceptions around learning?

Yeah. So these myths are. are pretty pervasive. I talk about seven lies to learning because a big part of achieving something becoming more limitless is unraveling and unlearning some of the things that's in our mindset. I had to learn that my... Your BS, your belief systems. Yeah, exactly, your BS. And because your brain is this incredible supercomputer and your self-talk is the program that will run. So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering names. You will not remember the name in the next person you meet because you programmed to if you're not to. If people truly understood how powerful their mind is,

they wouldn't say or think something they didn't want to be true. And that's not to say, you know, have one negative thought ruined your life any more than eating that donut will ruin your life. But if you eat that donut 20 times a day, every single day, it's going to have an effect, right? There's going to be a consequence. So you have to unravel these lies.

And lie for me is another acronym. I use a lot of acronyms. Oh, wait, I remember this one. No, I don't remember this. Okay. Limiting. Yeah. Limiting.

Oh, the L is limiting. I forget the I. The I is an idea. So it's a limited idea that you're entertaining. So for me, Lye stands for a limited idea, entertain. Like, it's not true that somebody's too old or they're not smart enough or what have you. But if your belief is that, then you're not going to be able to do what you need to be able to do. Because all behavior is belief driven, right?

There's a sequence or syntax of success. You be, then you do, then you have, then you could share, right? But a lot of people want to jump to the have part. I don't know, they play the lotto, right? And even a lot of winners, what happens? You probably know, like, what happens to the majority of those lot of winners over time? They end up losing all of their money. Yeah, and relatively quickly.

Yeah, and then some too. Because they jumped, if it's be, do have share, they jump to the half part. they have millions of dollars, but they were never being a millionaire. So they weren't doing the things that that inculcated the habits, yeah. Yeah, the things that you teach, right? So they jump to there. And so there's a syntax to success. And so while it's important to have a to do list, I think so it's very important to have a to be list. Like even if people are faced with a situation right now or a dilemma or decision, most people say, what do I need to do? I would say, more importantly, is actually who do you need to be at this moment and then go from there? Because all,

behavior is belief driven. So going back to these lies, like an example of one of these lies is that knowledge is power, right? Even I said it. It's so pervasive, but is it really true? There are a lot of people who know something, but their life is no better off. So knowledge, the truth is, knowledge is not power. The truth is knowledge is potential power. It only becomes powerful when we apply it, right? And so a lot of people buy books and they sit on your shelf, unread, and it becomes shelf help, not self-help, right? But the person who actually reads the book and doesn't do anything with it, their life is no better off than somebody who's illiterate and couldn't read the book to begin with.

So I want to encourage everyone, I believe, and I challenge everyone who's listening, for every hour you spend learning something, schedule an hour to put it into practice. You listen to an audio book or you read a book or you get a lecture or coach or you listen to this podcast, put into play. There's three questions I ask all the time to take knowledge and turn it into power. Number one, how can I use this? I'm obsessed with this question. So whenever I'm reading something or I'm listening to something, I'm saying, how can I use this?

And I come up with all these ideas. Second question I ask, why must I use this? Because a lot of people know what to do, but common sense is not common practice. So it has to go from your head to your heart, then to your hands, right? That hard part is the emotion that we talked about so important in your state. So I asked myself, how can I use this? Why must I use this? And the third question I ask, when will I use this?

Because I think one of the most important productivity performance tools we have is our calendar. But a lot of people, they don't schedule their growth or they don't schedule their self-care or they don't schedule their application of what they just learned. And then they're on to the next thing, right? And then they just never get the traction. One of the best pieces of advice that I heard with regard to going to a conference, because many people go to conferences, they attend sessions, they get inspired, and then they go right back into their normal default lives, which is full of email and messaging and deadlines and meetings. And so they never actually implement any of the things they learn.

One of the best pieces of advice that I got was any time that you go to a conference, set aside at least one or two days at the end of that conference immediately afterwards to just focus on implementing what you learned, setting up the systems that. that allow you to implement what you learned. And when you inform people, hey, I'm gonna be out of office to be at this conference, just tack on an extra two days at the end. Tell everybody that that conference is two days longer than it actually is, right? Yeah, it's absolutely critical.

Because again, it's a difference again with people who just, and learning is great, but knowing is half the battle, but action is the other half, right? And so training yourself to take information. Again, it's speed of learning, it's also speed of execution. Right.

And so again, an individual's ability to learn rapidly and translate that learning into action is by far the biggest competitive advantage anybody could have today. Other myths and misconceptions about learning. So there is one that we use 10% of our brain. Yeah. I don't know where that came from, the 10% myth, but we actually use all of our brain. So that's the truth, just like we use all of our body, right? We use all our body throughout the day.

But here's the difference. Some people just use their brain better than others, right? Because it's trained. If somebody is very athletic and they need to go up a hill, they can do it with ease and enjoyment because they have a trained body, right? Same thing with the brain. You're still going to use 100% of your brain, but some people use it much more efficiently and effectively because they're mentally fit.

I think your brain, while it's an organ, it reacts, more like a muscle. And how do you build a muscle? Like you go to the gym and you give it novelty and you give it a nutrition, right? You give it some kind of stimulus. You exercise it. You challenge it and then you feed and you nourish it. Same thing with your mental muscles. So there's something called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is a phenomenon that our brain can make new connections through challenge, right, through stimulus, through novelty. And the two keys for neuroplasticity is novelty and nutrition, right, similar to your body. You get novelty and you feed it also.

There's not a magic pill, but there is a process for accessing more of this. So, yes, we do not use 10% of our brain. We all use 100% of our brain. It's just some people, their brain is more fit so they can get more done in far less time. Yeah. But it's nice to unravel these beliefs because even at conferences, and I know you speak at events, people will talk to you, like in the lobby or before or after your talk, And people, once they see I'm there, they'll say, like, oh, I know your memory expert.

They say, I have a horrible memory. Or I'm just too old. And I'm not smart enough. And I always say, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limits, they're yours. And the simple thing you can do is audit. Once you're self-aware and you know you're having these thoughts, catch yourself.

If you find yourself saying, I don't have a great memory. Just catch yourself and say, add a little word like yet at the end. I don't have a great memory yet because it opens up the possibility. And those words make a big difference. Right. Our thoughts are things. Right. The other day, I did an interview with a guy by the name of Ryan Johnson.

He was one of the founders of this company called Open Door, which is a real estate technology company. And he said something that was really interesting. He said, just as the millennials were the last generation to remember what life was like. before the internet. Really the first generation to grow up with the internet. Gen Alpha, who are children right now, they are the AI generation. They're going to be the first generation to grow up with AI. What does that mean for them when it comes to learning, when it comes to the brain?

And what does it mean for the rest of us as well? Yeah. I asked myself, how does AI enhance your H.I., your human intelligence? So for me, AI is not so much artificial intelligence, it's augmented intelligence. It's there to be a partner or a tool to support you, right, in your own growth and your own success. And so some of the ways that we recommend in the book on how to use AI to enhance your human intelligence are things like neuroplasticity. People aren't sure what that is.

They could go to an AI chat and say, explain to me neuroplasticity. plasticity as if I am 10 years old. And then it would give you a nice summary that starts a foundation for your learning for that new subject. We have a podcast done about, you have about 400 episodes we've done. And sometimes if I'm interviewing an expert and I don't get their book in time and I always prefer to read a print book because it's kind of my bias. Same, same. I insist on a print book. I won't even do an interview without a print book. Yeah. And that's from the same way because it's just, I just, I don't need another reason. and be on a screen and reading a PDF or Kindle, ideally.

But let's say I don't get their book for shipping reasons or whatever. And then I could go into an AI program and say, summarize this book. I could go in there and say, I'm interviewing this person for the Jim Quick podcast, proposed 10 questions that they haven't been asked before. That would be especially relevant to this audience, right? I don't use things exactly verbatim, but it provides a creative partner. So it augments my intelligence to be able to do that. Speed reading, we have students at 195 nations,

the largest accelerated learning online kind of curriculum out there for memory, focus, all those things. We use AI to measure people's reading speed, reading comprehension, the reading rate. All the strategies and limitless, whether it's retrieval practice, which is the art of asking yourself questions about what you just learned, AI could generate those questions for you to quiz you about the areas,

that you aren't really well-versed or understanding. It could do something called space repetition, which is in order to learn something, you consolidate from your short-to-long-term memory. Space repetition is spreading out the learning and reviewing it like an hour later, a day later, a week later, a month later, and help you ingrain that information.

AI could provide also personalized learning. Like, for us, we have a Jimquick bot for our students, and we fed it all of my curriculum and courses and some information that's not out in the public. But you could go there and you could ask it things like we talk about the power of mind mapping, right? It was another whole brain note-taking technique. AI could mind-map and take notes for you. You could put like, this is my subject. How can you mind-map this content.

We talk about a memory palace in there, how ancient Greeks used 2,500 years ago, a wonderful way to be able to memorize large, vast amount of information. So AI could produce a memory palace for you to help learn things better. So AI is a wonderful way. I mean, obviously technology is not good or bad. It's just how it's applied. Like fire is probably the earliest form of technology. Fire could be used to cook your food or fire could be used to burn down your home.

It's just how it's applied because I know a lot of people are a little bit intimidated or even frightened about AI. You know, I tend to be more optimistic. But my question is, how do I use AI to improve my intelligence, our clients, intelligence, and their performance? And so we have all these wonderful suggestions that are science-based to help you get an edge. What are some of the best actionable practices in order to have a better brain? Black Friday is here.

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Yeah. Building a better brain is really the holy grail. Your brain is your number one wealth building asset. So you need to take care of it. You know, really well. If people are watching this video, then unless I have a brain on my shirt, I'm always in photographs pointing to my brain because first and foremost, what you see you take care of. You see your hair, you see your clothing.

You see your car. you take care of the thing that you're seeing, but you don't see your brain. So that's why I'm always pointing to my brain to remind everyone to love their brain. For those of you watching on YouTube, I'm also holding a copy of Entrepreneur magazine. You're on the cover. This is the June 2021 issue of entrepreneur. You are on the cover of the magazine holding a brain, a skull with a visible brain. And the title is upgrade your brain. Because we upgrade, think about it, like how many people upgrade their phones, right? And the apps. And the apps. And And we upgrade all this technology on a regular basis, but when's the last time we upgraded

the most important technology that is creating our brains, which creates everything. The book Limitless is very fortunate. It's heavily endorsed by the founding director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Brain Health, the number one Alzheimer's doctor in the world at Harvard. And when I speak at these institutions, we know about one-third of your brain's performance is predetermined by genetics and biology, but two-thirds is in your control, right? And so, and we donated 100% of the proceeds to limitless to charity to Alzheimer's research. And memory of my grandmother.

We've also used proceeds to build schools in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, all over the world. So this is a real mission for us. Your grandmother had dementia. Yeah. So I lost her at seven when I was seven years old. So kind of informed where I was going within my life. But going back to your brain, when I speak at these institutions, there are 10 things that can move the needle that we have influence over. I would encourage everyone.

These are all actionable. So I'll go through them really quick. What I recommend people do to make it more active, take notes. They can write it down. And then all I ask people do is rate themselves zero to 10. On a scale of zero to 10, how much energy and effort, time did you put into this category in the past seven days? So the first one is a good brain diet. What you eat matters, especially for your gray matter.

And so there's certain foods that are extremely neuroprotective that, this whole area of science in the chapter called neuronutrition, that your brain requires different nutrients than the rest of your body. So some of my favorite brain foods, avocados, blueberries, I like to call them brain berries, broccoli is really good for the brain. Olive oil is good if you use that in your meals. If your diet allows eggs, the coline in eggs is very good for your brain for cognitive health. A green leafy vegetables like kale and spinach. Wild salmon or sardines, that's where you get your DHAs or your omega-3, which is. your brain is mostly fat.

So this fatty fish is. Turric is wonderful for the brain. There's an active ingredient called cumin, which is very anti-inflammatory. Walnuts, high vitamin, very neuroprotective, and my favorite dark chocolate. Do you drink alcohol? Rarely.

Not so great on the brain. Not so good for my sleep either. A lot of people could use alcohol, and they think it's going to help them sleep better, but really what it does is knock you out, and you're not getting the deep sleep and the REM sleep as much as being unconscious. But going back to zero to 10, on the scale zero to 10, because what we get to a lower score is heavily processed foods, right,

with all the additives and the chemicals, the neurotoxins, the fried foods, the high sugar that spikes your glucose, not so good. The second thing, besides a good brain diet, that one with the needle for everyone, is killing ants. It's clinically proven to be good for your brain. And the answer, of course, is an acronym, automatic negative thoughts. And we talked about this. How optimistic is the conversation you're having in your mind?

Are you beating yourself up? Or you're saying I'm not smart enough and all that. But on scale zero to ten, because those thoughts matter. You talked about your brain is like a supercomputer your thoughts or the program that will run. So just be very careful, zero to ten. Third one is exercise. And yes, I mean your general workouts, but I mean just also moving throughout the day.

They say sitting as a new smoking. And we're behind screens all day. And the number one reason you have a brain is to control your movement. And as your body moves, your brain grooves. Right. And so we have a one-year-old, and he went from crawling to standing to now walking. And it's just part of his brain development. It's not just his physical development.

As he does these cross-laterals, as he crawls or learns how to walk, it actually stimulates different parts of your brain. And also exercise, when you exercise, you create dopamine, serotonin endorphins, which are these neurotransmitters that are so important to cognitive health and cognitive performance. When you exercise, you also create something called brain-derived neurotropic factors, B-D-NF, which is fertilizer for your brain for new learnings. And so people can do the exercise and find something that works best for them. Even when you go to mybrainanimal.com, based on your animal, you actually directs what kind of exercises you naturally want to do also as well. So we'll provide that all to you free. And then besides exercise, what I'm saying is moving throughout the day. It's so important to even take a brain break.

There's something called the Pomodaro technique that we teach. And they says that after about 25, 30 minutes, upwards to an hour, there's a sharp decline in our focus and our mental vitality. So taking a five-minute brain break to hydrate because your brain is mostly water, but a nutritionist, a neuroscientist on, and she said that if you're just dehydrated 2%, it could compromise your cognitive health and cognitive performance. So yes, always be hydrating. Taking a sip of those of you watching on YouTube, I'm taking a sip of water right now. Because your brain is upwards of 75% plus water. And so it's very important to hydrate. So when I take a brain break, it's five minutes. What I do, I hydrate, I do some deep breathing to kind of clean the mental cobwebs.

and I move. So just on scale zero to 10, how much did you move in the past seven days? Number four is brain supplements. And this is what fall in this is neutropic. So I would prefer people get it from their diet. But if they're not getting eggs, the chlorine in eggs, they can supplement with coline. If they're not getting the fish, then they can supplement with the omega-3s, right? But then there's this another class of supplementations that not for cognitive health,

but for cognitive performance, human studies that show it improves focus, memory, mood and memory, I mean, memory and mental energy. So neutropics are those class of supplements. And we put a list of my favorite most current ones at brainnutrition.com. So just a free list, and it's all human studies based. We give it a research or it's detailed in the book. But if people haven't had the book, they could get that for free online as a resource. But some of my favorite neutropics, things like creatine. Most people associate that with exercise. But it's not just great for your workout, there's so many human studies showing that it's actually really good for your brain. The mitochondria energy production in your brain helps to actually offset some of the bad sleep.

If you had a bad night's sleep, pre-tines is there. Inko-beloba, we've heard that about a lot. It helps increase blood flow. If you get more blood flow, your brain, you get more oxygen. Stuff like Bacopa, this is an herb that could potentially help you to have better cognitive performance. There's another one that I'm fond of. It's a whole coffee fruit extract. So it's actually the whole coffee fruit that's usually discarded when you're making coffee.

It has no caffeine, but it's very powerful in terms of your cognitive health and cognitive performance. So there are a lot of lines main. Adaptogenic herb. You see people hearing more about it also as well. So we have a comprehensive list of dozens of things people can get again at brainnutrition.com. That's number four. Number five, positive peer group. And you know this.

Who you spend time with is who you become. Because the reason why they say we're the average of the five people we spend time with, or they say if you're around nine broke people, be careful because you're going to be number 10, right? But the reason why, from a science perspective, is we have something called mirror neurons, and we're constantly imitating the people around us. I always tell people watch. This is what we're imitating. The W is our words.

We started using the same language and words as people around us, slang, everything. the A and watch are actions. We start behaving like the people around us. Like whether or not you smoke has less to do with your neurological networks, more with your social networks. If your friends smoke, you're more like the smoke. If they meditate, you're more like you go to the gym. If they go to the gym, you're more likely to go to the gym, right?

I'm guessing the T and Watch's thoughts. Yes. Very good. So it's your thoughts because your thoughts are things. We start having the same thoughts as people around us and belief systems. And then see its character. We start modeling the integrity and the standards of the people around us. And finally, the age are your habits.

We do a whole chapter and limitless about how to create habits, how to break, disempowering habits from the latest research. And first you create your habits, then your habits create you. You create your habits of eating well or reading or doing whatever. And those habits create you back. So positive peer group, zero to ten, because we all need people to encourage us cheer lead for us, challenge us, be kind to us. And if you haven't found that person, be that person for somebody else, right? Especially be that person for yourself. So zero to ten.

Because those energy vampires could damage your brain, the people we spend time with. And sometimes are the people like family members. It's not easy. And a lot of those people have good intentions too. Maybe they're just like, why always listen to those podcasts and going to those conferences and reading those books? But maybe they don't want to lose you because you're growing. Or maybe they don't want you to get hurt and get your hopes up, right?

People could be sincere, but they could be sincerely wrong. My general guideline is don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from. And don't take advice from anyone who doesn't have the results that you want. Completely. Because the life you live are the lessons you teach. So we can learn from everyone either as an example or as a warning. So that's number five. Number six is a clean environment.

Very simply, we know your external world is a reflection of your internal world. You clean your desk, you make your bed or you put everything in the right file folder on the computer. You have clarity of thought, right? Because you're not spending a lot of, wasting a lot of mental energy trying to remember where everything is. You have too many tabs open, but not just that, clean, clean air. We just did a podcast on that, just a lot of neurotoxins off setting from carpets or new furniture, lights and office buildings. They use a lot of fluorescent lights, which has been shown in rats to make them praised. It's a challenge, but it's very cheap to have.

And so just clean environment. Number seven is probably the big one that most people are struggling with, sleep. Not optional. Yeah, exactly. And it's not a reward. It's a requirement. But when you get a bad night's sleep, how's your sleep generally? It's good.

Sleep is a high priority for me. So even if I, sometimes that means I miss out on other things. So if I have to skip a session at the gym in order to sleep, sleep always takes priority. I feel the same way. Sleep for your brain. When you don't get a good night's sleep, how's your brain function the next day? It doesn't. You can't remember things.

You can't solve problems. You have no energy. You're exhausted. you can't focus. It's when you sleep for your brain, a few things happen. Number one, that's where you consolidate short to long-term memory. So if you have memory issues, long-term memory issues, check your sleep. You know, do an overnight sleep study.

They're very inexpensive. You could do it from your home. Number two, it's where you clean out beta amyloid plaque. The sewage system kicks on in your brain when you sleep. So it cleans out those beta amyloid plaque that can lead to brain aging challenges like dementia. And the third reason when you sleep is for your brain is it's where you come up with your best idea. Because people don't realize this, but in your dream state, like Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein in her dreams.

Paul McCartney came up with this on yesterday in his dream. Like, it's amazing. Elias Howe created the sewing machine in his dream. A chemist created the periodic table in his dream because your brain doesn't shut off at night. In some ways, it's more active, integrating everything that's learned and processing. So one of the most powerful, popular episodes we've ever done is, you search my name, how to remember your dreams. Because a lot of people, they have gold in there,

but they forget their dreams, you know, the next morning. So sleep. And my favorite sleep tips for me, because this is a real science, direct sunlight first thing in the morning. That's mandatory. If you get 10 minutes, not through the window, because the window could filter out certain spectrums of light, but your eyes need to connect with that light

because your eyes are only part of your brain that's outside of your skull. And what it does, if you could do it first thing in the morning, is it resets your circadian rhythm to help you sleep better that night. Number two, for me, I'm very sensitive to caffeine, so I can't do caffeine past 2 p.m. Some people could do expressos at night. I'm jealous, but I can't do that. So be concerned of the caffeine intake. But the two biggest ones, so the key is to get the melatonin production, and melatonin is the hormone

that helps you to relax. And the triggers for melatonin are twofold. hundreds or thousands of years ago, we would know it's time to sleep because the environment would tell you, it would get darker and it would get colder. But in modern-day conveniences, it doesn't have to get colder,

nor doesn't have to get darker, right? You have been in-track lighting and everything else. And so the darker, not so it's so cold, though, that it's your shivering, because that would keep you up. But if you could take a warm shower or warm bath, the Epsons salt, actually,

the magnesium that you absorb transdermally, will help you to relax also. And then when you leave that hot shower bath, your core body temperature drops, and that's a signal to produce melatonin and the darker, right? And so the big thing, though, is even if the lights are off and you're on your phone, it's the blue light from the screen that mimics daylight, and it fools your mind and thinking it's still daytime. And so you won't go into that kind of rest and digest kind of place. So dark or colder, sleep. So how should everyone sleep? And finally, eight, nine, ten. Eight is brain protection.

Very simple. I had three brain injuries before age 12. Protect your brain. Your brain's very resilient, but it's very fragile at the same times. Wear a helmet, avoids extreme sports. Number nine, big one, new learnings. It's so important. Like, learning every day will actually help you live longer.

There was a study that was on its cover of Time magazine. They studied these group community of nuns that were living 80, 90, and above. They wanted the research. to find what's the key to a long life, half of it was their faith and emotional gratitude. The other half, there were lifelong learners. They were studying every single day. They were talking deep conversations and so on. And because of it, it had a years to their life and life to their years.

The study was called aging with grace. So have your to learn list, right, and what's on your children's. And the best thing for me personally is reading. Reading is the best exercise. Reading is to your mind what exercise is to your body. If people have seen we're connect on social media and see me with Elon or Oprah or whoever, people ask like, how do you connect? We bonded over books because you read to succeed. Somebody has decades of experience.

They put into a book and you sit down a few days and read that book. You get download decades in the days. You know, I had an opportunity to meet Warren Buffett years ago when I asked him, is this true that you read? He's like, yes, I read 500 pages a day. 500 pages a day. Because again, the more you know, the better decisions you can make. make. There's a quote that says, life is the letter C between B and D. What does that mean? B is birth, D is death, life C, choice. That I truly believe these difficult times can distract you.

These difficult times can diminish you or these difficult times they could actually develop you. We ultimately decide with these choices that we make. And so the choice to be able to read or to feed your mind or prioritize your sleep, everybody has an alarm clock to wake up. I recommend you have an alarm clock to go to bed because your brain loves that schedule, even on the weekends. If you could go to sleep around the same time, wake up at the same time, you'll sleep better. And then finally, number 10 is stress management. And I just want to remind everyone that chronic stress will shrink your brain. You're in fighter flight.

It holds you hostage in your survival brain away from your executive functioning, your ability to solve problems and so on. You know, when you're in this cortisol, all adrenaline kind of place, like zero to 10, how are you mitigating that stress? Are you going to work out? Are you out in nature? Are you getting body work done? Are you meditating, whatever it is? But on scale of 0, 10, 10 being the best,

how are you taking care of your stress? So there's no magic pill here, but there are these 10 things, are the ones that are science-proof to show, like, to make a difference. And my thing is, if you did the assessment, I've never met anyone who has 10 across the board, but if there's a couple of areas,

you can do all of this and not sleep well and you're not going to have your best brain. You can do all of this and be nutritionally deficient in certain key B vitamins or vitamin Ds, your brain's not going to work as well as it could. You can do all of this and be stressed out of your mind and you're going to be in this fight or flight

and you're not going to have access to your true genius. So my message for everybody is really there is a version of yourself and your brain that you haven't met yet. And the goal is we show up every single day until we're introduced. And that's the best possible version of your brain. Yeah.

Your brain is so many people also with their mind. They shrink what's possible out of fear to fit their mind. When I say, why don't we expand our mind to fit all that's really, really possible. Wow. Well, thank you so much for spending this time with us. Where can people find you and more of your work? Yeah. Limitlessbook.com is where people can get the book.

Again, we donate all the proceeds to charities. Social media, I'm just at Jim Quick. You just have to spell it KWIK. Quick really is my last name. I didn't change it to do what I do is my father's name, my grandfather's name. So the fact that you talk about learning faster. Right. Yeah, my destiny was pretty much planned out.

Right. Take the brain quiz, everyone. Mybrainanimal.com. I challenge everyone to do is take a screenshot. We give you everyone AI art based on your animal. Take a screenshot and post it. and tag Paul, I'll tag myself so we get to see it. I'll be sure because I'm curious what the community is dominant of those animals.

And when I see it, I'll actually randomly gift out three copies, a few copies of the book to your community. I said, thank you for having them on the show. And then if you want more about the nutrition, go to brainnutrition.com and see the science-based supplements that could help give you a little bit of an edge, whether you're in school or in your career or in life. But yeah, 95% of what we put out there is free. Our podcast is probably the go-to. You search my name in your podcast app. We have about 1.5 million people on subscribers on YouTube. We've put a lot of YouTube content out there also.

Wow. Yeah. I'm curious as well. Is this community predominantly cheetah, owl, dolphin, or like me, elephant? Yeah, we'll see. Which one are you? I've taken this assessment a number of times. It stays constant.

I'm a strong owl, but my problem. My secondary is an elephant, actually. I think because I suffered so much as a kid, I have this empathy. And I think it makes me a better teacher because I can remember and feel where people are struggling the way I did. But, yeah, elephants have a very strong EQ also. That emotional quotient, which is definitely a superpower. But yeah, everyone is listening.

Let us know what your brain animal is. And make sure you tag us on social media so we get to see it. and share this episode. Absolutely. Because when you teach it, you get to learn it twice. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely.

Well, thank you, Jim. Oh, thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Jim. What are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Number one. The first key takeaway deals with how to enhance your memory, and it's all about using motivation and observation. Jim suggests that when you meet someone new,

you should actively think about why you want to remember their name because this intention increases your focus and aids in memory retention. He also emphasizes the importance of being fully present and attentive because a lot of memory lapses or memory issues stem from a lack of observation and attentiveness rather than actual forgetfulness. When you're meeting somebody for the first time, ask yourself, or split second, why do I want to remember this person's name? Maybe just to show the person. in some respect. Maybe it's to get a referral. Maybe it's to close a deal. Maybe it's to practice these things that, you know, I heard on afford anything, right? And if you can't come up with a

reason, you won't remember because reasons reap results. The O and mom stands for observation, meaning a lot of times we're not forgetting the person's name. We're just not listening for it. And so the first key takeaway is to use motivation and observation in order to help improve your Key takeaway number two. This key takeaway is all about how to learn more efficiently. Jim introduces the explanation effect. This is a strategy to enhance learning and retention. He recommends that whenever you learn something, you learn it with the intention of teaching it to others, because by doing so, you deepen your understanding and solidify your aptitude within that new domain. You know, there's that expression.

The best way to learn is by teaching. So if you learn with the intention that you plan on teaching this in the relatively near future, you will learn differently and you will learn better, right? You will more actively engage with the material. You will anticipate, hey, if I had to teach this, what other questions might somebody else have and how would I be able to answer those questions? Or how can I take what I'm learning and reword this? put this into my own words and explain it to somebody else, right? You personalize the information,

and that makes it easier to recall. If you want to learn something better, learn it with the intention of explaining it to another person. So if everybody who's listening had to give a TEDx talk next week about some of the takeaways from this conversation, they would focus better. They would take more enhanced notes, right? They would post more questions online. They would make it very personal. And so when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. And so that is the second key takeaway. Learn with the intention of teaching. Finally, key takeaway number three, and this key takeaway is all about improving your cognitive

health, consume a good brain diet. Jim emphasizes the importance of a good brain diet, and we're not talking about an informational diet, which is, you know, the news sources that you read or the amount of social media you take in, although that's important too. but here we're talking literally about your diet, about what foods you consume. Jim lists specific foods that are beneficial for the brain. What you eat matters, especially for your gray matter. And so there's certain foods that are extremely neuroprotective that this whole area of science in the chapter called neuronutrition,

that your brain requires different nutrients than the rest of your body. So some of my favorite brain foods, avocados, blueberries, I like to call them brain berries, broccoli, is really good for. for the brain. Olive oil is good if you use that in your meals. If your diet allows eggs, the coline in eggs is very good for your brain for cognitive health. Green leafy vegetables like kale and spinach, wild salmon or sardines. Incorporating more of these foods into your diet may help improve memory, focus, and overall mental performance. Enhancing your memory, learning more efficiently, and boosting overall cognitive health. Those are three key takeaways. from this conversation with Jim Quick.

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