Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh - How To Unleash Your Super Brain & Be More Efficient With Brain Coach Jim Kwik

Episode Date: April 1, 2021

How To Unleash Your Super Brain & Be More Efficient With Brain Coach Jim Kwik by

So there's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's a trained memory and an untrained memory. Your genetics loads the gun, right? But your lifestyle is what fires it. You change your brain, you change your life. You change your brain, you change your world. What's up everybody? It's your boy Schultz and I'm here with someone I'm very excited to talk to. I saw your, I don't even know what you call them. Do you call them a performance? It's more than a talk. You're interacting with the crowd, right? I wouldn't call it a talk. A TED Talk is kind of boring, right? I did a TED Talk once. There's no interaction, but you're back and forth. You're making us stand up, sit down. You're actually making us do these

exercises that are potentially improving our lives. And I was just blown away. I mean, I was blown away. We're here with Jim Quick and he's going to make all of our brains work so much better. And I'm very excited for this convo. I have to give you a huge compliment. One specific thing from the talk, and we'll get to a bunch of them, but one specific thing you did in the talk you we've heard so often people talk about like the secret right and like the power of belief yeah and you executed the power of belief with physical results yeah and that was so satisfying because you read all these books and it's just like yeah think about it and then it will happen. Right, right, right. But it doesn't, right? Like you can think about wanting water so much, but like if you're in the desert, there's no water. It's not going to just appear. But you did this cool exercise where

you basically said, hey, try to reach your arm as far back as you can. And then you made us visualize twisting around in a 360 and then like a 720 doing the same thing without actually doing it. And then the next time we went to go reach back with our arm, it went back another like fucking 90 degrees. I couldn't believe it. Is that wild? Unbelievable. So right there, I was like, okay, this guy is a brain expert. Proven. It was official in that moment and i was like i don't know i was just so blown away and um yeah it was just so cool it was great to go there we're

at the final rose yes shout out to pablo final rose's place in miami that has these amazing events and great speakers and uh we were lucky enough to go watch you uh so j, quick, we start here. Why did you need to figure out how our brains work? Why did you need to hack it? And why did you need to optimize it? That's a great question. I would say my inspiration was my desperation. I struggled. Despite what people see on video and these performances where I do these mental feats is, you know, I grew up in learning challenges. When I was five years old, I was in kindergarten class and I had an accident where I took a very bad fall, rushed to the emergency room, had trauma, traumatic brain injury. And from there, you know, my parents said I was never the same from there. Before I was very

curious, very energized, very playful. And then after that, I just became very shut down. I had horrible focus, concentration. Teachers would repeat themselves over and over again. Nothing registered. I had a horrible memory. I don't know if anyone could relate to these things, but it took me three years longer just to learn how to read. You know, I taught myself how to read by reading comic books, but it was a hard, my mess has really become my message. You know, I taught myself how to read by reading comic books, but it was, it was a hard, my mess has really become my, my message. You know, I remember when I was nine years old, I was slowing down the whole class and a teacher pointed to me because I was being teased by other kids and said, that's the boy with the broken brain. And that was, that was heartbreaking,

you know, and so that was my label and that label became my limit. But I've noticed like through adversity, you know, sometimes it can be an advantage. Right. Through struggles that everyone's gone through. It could lead to strengths. You know, when you're challenged, it could lead to some kind of positive change. Right. Yeah. So when did you realize like, OK, or was there any point in time where you're like, am I just dumb and it wasn't the fall? Yeah, that that was part of it because I didn't know i mean i would always say every single time i did badly on a test or quiz wasn't picked for sports which was like all the time yeah i'd always say oh because i have the broken brain that became my identity yeah you

know and there's a lot of there's a pressure you know my parents immigrated to the united states and didn't speak the language. Where from? China. China. Yeah, and they live in the back of a laundromat that my mom worked at. So it was also that. So I wanted to make them proud.

I'm on the old list of three siblings. I want to be a good role model for young'uns. Yeah, but I still couldn't hack it. I i would work hard but it just didn't show up was there another expectation like being asian and usually you're supposed to have all this success in school and was it like weird for your classmates like what's going on it was i was one of two asians in my in my school the other one was uh roger uh roger roger lee he was one year ahead of me and he was what he was you know he missed one question on the sat he was so upset and he had to take it over to get a perfect score he was president of the debate team the math team class valedictorian and so i think he said a bar

you know where people like that's you know what to expect and i came around and i was the one that allowed you know that hat you know like i I came around and I was the one that allowed, you know, that, you know, like I was on the other side of the bell curve. Yeah. That made that possible. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was added a little pressure onto it as well. I didn't kind of kind of fit that mold.

Were your parents pissed? You know, I'm anything that's good that's come out of me, I attribute to them. Anything that's fallen short, that's all on me. They're not the wealthiest or the most intellectual or the healthiest or spiritual. But they're just really good people. They work hard. They're very kind. They do no harm.

And good role models. But obviously, they wanted to encourage me to do better. You said something interesting in the talk. You said uh and i want to quote you here you get uh we get paid uh for brain strength not brute strength yeah it's like you know back when i don't know agricultural age the beginning of the industrial age it was more like muscle power pick shit up yeah yeah be able to move things yeah and hard labor and i think nowadays it's shifted like muscle power. Pick shit up. Yeah, yeah. Be able to move things and hard labor. And I think nowadays it's shifted from muscle power to mind power.

100%. You know, like everyone who's listening to this as you're hustling and you're getting your education, your personal growth, you know, I think knowledge is not only power today. Knowledge is profit, right? You know, the faster you can learn, the faster you could earn.

And not just money, but just all the treasures you have. so that was something i wanted to ask you yesterday during the uh the conference and you gave us the opportunity to ask questions right or the talk or the performance uh and i i have this problem where i know how valuable information is and there's so much fucking information out there that i have like information paralysis i don't know if i'm just making up that term but like yeah there's so many things that i have to read in order to get the truth out of this story okay i gotta read the right wing side i gotta read the left wing side then there's a libertarian side and then there's this and i just go i don't care enough and then i kind of just don't consume any of it i just i refuse to digest in a weird way. How do I get

past that? Yeah. I mean, I think thinking is good. Overthinking, you know, could stop progress and wanting to be perfect, you know, before it even starts. I don't think you're alone. I think a lot of people who are with us today, they suffer from information overload. Like this is like a real, like medical condition, like information anxiety, you is like a real like medical condition like information anxiety you know too much it sounds feels like we're drowning in information but we're starving for those practical ways to kind of keep up with it all it's like you're you're taking a sip of water out of a fire hose trying to keep up with all the news and everything right i did a program at google years ago and i heard this quote from the uh the chairman it was um the amount

information that's been created from the dawn of humanity, since humans walked the earth to the year 2003, that amount of information, think about that, like the Library of Congress, all that information, that now is created every two days online.

You think about your YouTube and your podcast and social media, and we're producing so much information. How can you possibly keep up with it all? Yeah, they were so proud they made like the constitution. It's like, we do three pods a week, guys. Exactly, exactly. Step it up, founding fathers.

Exactly. So there's so much information, but how we learn it and retain it, it's all the same. So that growing gap creates, you know, stress. Right. You know, and people are suffering. Higher blood pressure, compression of leisure time, more sleeplessness, as we talked about in the presentation. So, you know, and nowadays you

feel like you need to know it all. And the amount of information gets dated after, you know, getting shorter and shorter. People graduate and information is not as relevant. So what's the most efficient way to digest information? Yeah. And so my thing is always upgrading our skills. School taught us what to learn, what to read, what to remember, what to focus on, a lot of what to think, but not how to do those things. I think a missing ingredient in our education system is this thing called meta-learning.

Meta-learning means learning how to learn. So it's one of those things school taught us subjects like math and history and science and Spanish, but it had been really useful to learn classes on focus, on study techniques, on reading faster. I always thought it should have been the fourth R in school, in science and Spanish, but it'd been really useful to learn classes on focus, you know, on study techniques, on reading faster. And I always thought it should have been the fourth hour in school, reading, writing, arithmetic. Obviously spelling wasn't one of them, but what about remembering, retention, recall? Socrates said learning is remembering. So, you know,

I feel like the trick is to learn how to learn. And I think it's the biggest superpower you could have nowadays. Okay. How do we nowadays okay how do we learn how do we learn more efficiently more efficiently yeah yeah i mean we could turn this in master class i mean if you were listening as if they could grab some notes too i'll hopefully drop some practical wisdom for everybody you know whether you're in school you're starting a business wherever you are age or stage or your life i would say um four keys to learning faster remember i'll use acronyms just to make it you know you use acronyms in school of course like homes to remember the great lakes like h is huron o is ontario these like little tricks i never knew a single lake yeah yeah yeah

you guys knew the great lakes huron ontario michigan erie superior that's amazing yeah there you go so like homes was like what mexicans would call each other gotcha yeah so so so so these little things like um so i remember fast f-a-s-t these are four tips learning faster yeah um so think about a subject or a skill you want to what's money marketing martial arts manner whatever right um the f in fast stands for forget which is interesting for a memory expert to talk about but I feel like a lot of people don't learn faster because they feel like they know it already. And our ego could get in the way, you know, sometimes. So I think sometimes we have to empty our cup to put new information in.

So have a beginner's mind. I would also say forget about distractions. You know, so many people, I mean, we live in a culture of rings dings app notifications social media alert you know likes shares comments and we are driven to distraction and sometimes it helps to learn when you could just focus and if something comes in your mind i know it's difficult but focus is a muscle and it's use it or lose it question about that yeah i open my phone i can't imagine everybody in this room does this i open my phone to do a single thing yeah dove will say hey can you do us a favor and text the restaurant and let

them know that we'll be late i open my phone because i want to do that and then i'm on instagram i'm on twitter i'm on every and then i forgot why i opened my fucking phone in the first place. Is this just not a useful tool for executing tasks? You know, I love technology. Technology for me is, you know, it has a light and a dark side, right? Like fire is technology. Fire could cook your food or fire could burn down your home. It's just how it's applied. I love technology because it makes our lives convenient.

Like it allows this to happen, right? It allows us to reach an impact and encourage and challenge people. And I would say that you want technology as a tool for you to use. But if the technology is using you, then who becomes the tool? Yes. You know, in the equation. So we're being used, essentially. At some time, I would say that use it purposefully.

were being used essentially at some time i would say that use it uh purposefully but when you know um i i have on our podcast we had um dr bj fogg and he is the he runs a lab at stanford university yeah on habits and he's like the number one habit expert yeah i believe first you create your habits then your habits create you but one of his students actually co-founded instagram and think about how habitual that app is right how? How addictive it is. And, you know, we open it, what, a hundred times a day. And if somebody is not opening it a hundred times, if they're doing it 10 times, that means somebody is opening it a lot more to get that average. And I'm just saying that if we're doing it mindlessly, then it's kind of driving us to distraction, but we're using purpose. I'm sure somebody has done this analogy before, but like,

you know, in like movies back in the day, when the people who had sex the night before would wake up, the first thing they would do, right, is they'd roll over and they'd grab a cigarette. They light the cigarette and smoke it, right? What is the first thing that we all do the second we wake up in the morning? Before I kiss my fiance, I grab my phone and just, oh, did we get some likes and some validation? Like I have the validation I need next to me asleep for the rest of my life, but I'm looking on the phone. Did some strangers think I was funny yesterday? It is so addictive.

It's terrifying. But it is so, at least for me, they've convinced me it's so useful, and it has provided so much, right? It's provided a career for me, my friends, you know, salvation in a lot of ways in terms of like economic mobility. So it's like, it's hard for me to hate it. And it's really hard for me to tell people not to be on it. Like, who the fuck am I to say, don't be on your phone when like being on your phone helped me build this. Yep. I think it's a balance. I mean, so people,

I mean, and I'm not one to say for anybody just, you know, to judge, people should do whatever works for them. And I'm just saying, sometimes, when we say yes to somebody or something, make sure we're not saying no to the important things for ourselves. You know what I mean? Where that where, if you're touching your phone, the first thing in the morning, you're rewiring your brain for like distraction, you're rewiring your brain for reaction to fight fires and respond to everybody else, as opposed to designing your day, you know, around the things that are most important for you. So I'm not and again, I love I'm online, and we do a lot of things online. And I would just say having some kind of balance. And so everyone can make a choice in my book limitless. I have a quote from a French philosopher,

and he says, life is the C between B and D. And you think about, like, we're speaking in tongues. B stands for birth. D is death. And C, life, choice. You know, I believe that everything comes down to choices. That our life is a reflection of all the choices we made up to this point. Who are we going to spend time with?

What are we going to eat? What are we going to do? And that sum total is where we are today. we could always at any time make a new choice and so i'm saying yeah if you have your phone you know be on your phone and and ask yourself is this getting the result that i want you know so if it's distraction and you're just doing it people are just doing it out of habit that's where i'd be concerned do you break up and i want to get back to what you were talking about with fast and and but uh memory do you break up your technological devices for the different things that you use them for like you have a tablet just to read so you don't

have messages popping in or are you able to just do everything there and you just work that ability and not distract? Yeah, I mean, my focus is pretty strong because I train it and it's a practice. So there's ways we could talk about about training your focus. Most people are training their distraction muscles. So they're flexing it all the time and they wonder why they read a page in a book

and forgot what they just read. They get somebody's name and it disappears out of their mind. They were gonna say something and they're like lost that thought because they're just driven to distraction because their mind is always multitasking and try to do multiple things.

And I would say that if you could control your environment, yeah, it would be great if people could afford it to have a device just for entertainment and another device just for work, you know, just to help them to focus and eliminate distractions.

But it's hard. You know, it's that simple, but it's that difficult at the same time. How are we training ourselves for distraction? So one of the things is, especially when you wake up, right? When you wake up, you're in this relaxed state, and you're very, very suggestible, right? And so if you pick up your phone,

you're rewiring your brain for distraction. Because like we talk about, every like, share, comment, cat video, whatever, it just get this dopamine flood right and dopamine gives you happiness and it it goes along the learning and motivation centers of your nervous system and that's what makes it addictive right you just want more and more and more and and keep in mind like these platforms have invested countless dollars billions of dollars they have the best like psychologists to be able to engineer us spending more time. And again, it's just giving people free will and choice. So I would say that having this device

there, you know, as much as you can be able to control it and exercise your, your, your, your will. And as long as it's not taking you from a way like distraction, the opposite is traction, right? And so if you're making traction in your life, in your career, in your business, like distraction, the opposite is traction, right? And so if you're making traction in your life, in your career, in your business, in school, distraction is things that take you away from that path. And so I would just ask yourself, is this giving me what I want in the moment? And it's not easy at all, right? It's very addictive. We have videos online where we talk about just even having a phone at a dinner table stresses people out. Their anxiety goes up.

Even if it's face down, you just feel the drive to pick it up. Yeah, yeah. It is so true. There's two phones on the table. A buddy of mine, like Giannis Papas, has a funny joke about this that I'm not going to butcher right now because I don't remember it, unfortunately. But you're having the phone on the it unfortunately but um but you're having the phone on the tables like you're in this conversation and if that conversation lags at all your eyes just start like drifting to that thing that can make you feel good in the moment

so they're hiring people like you essentially to do bad things so you're you're a force of good you're like hey be careful guys this is how you should live your life and this is how we can optimize our brain and not be tricked by these scientists that are basically going how do we trick people i would say that i'm i don't know i want to talk about conspiracies but i'm just saying that we we have to be 100 responsible for our life we're not we're not a victim or at the effect okay and as much as as you know control we could have in directing the course as opposed to you know being at the effect then yeah so i'd opt for that here's my question yeah if you can get me addicted to my phone can that same technology get me addicted to working out can it get no yeah yeah yeah of course yeah same principles well

let's fucking go i mean is that what peloton is is that what like soul cycle and all the things that people get like big rushes from yeah yeah yeah i would love you know for me it's always habits is all about making what's good for you easy and what's making what's bad for you more difficult like if picking up the phone is really driving you to you know, putting a wedge between you and your relationship or your health or your work, then, you know, ideally don't have the phone in the bedroom if you can help it. Because then that just makes it easier. It's just like, let's say somebody doesn't feel good when they eat bread, but they love bread. And the waitstaff brings bread

to the table. It's easier to say no up front than having it sit there and just like, no, no, 50 times during dinner. Right. And so set up the environment for you to win. Yeah. And I think that that'd be pretty, pretty wise. You were, you were talking a little bit yesterday about the morning routine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And now I've heard a lot of people talk about morning routine. Every one of these like books about like billionaires, they're like, oh, every billionaire has the same morning routine, blah, blah, blah. And this is something that I really appreciate about what you do is that it becomes practical when you do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They go, every billionaire has the same morning routine.

They wake up. They brush their teeth. It's like, yeah, poor people have that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think that's the thing making them a billionaire. But what you were talking about was brain state. Yeah, yeah. people have that too like i don't think that's the thing making them a billionaire yeah but what you were talking about was brain state yeah yeah so can you get into that a little bit yeah i believe the treasure we seek is hidden in our in our routines and uh you know and where we pick

up these routines probably when we're kids or somewhere along the way that we didn't sit down and design what would be best um i'm probably part to blame for that. There's a video out there. If you search billion-year morning routine, somebody took one of my interviews and kind of click-baited it so it looks very catchy and has 7 million views. I wouldn't say, having spent some time with some very wealthy individuals, they don't do all these things.

Not at all. But yeah, my thing is if you want to win the day, you got to win that first hour of the day, because there you want to get some momentum, right. And so my day, some of the things to think about, first, my day starts the night before, because you really need to get a good night's sleep. And I don't know who I'm talking to. But if you're hustling at the expense of your sleep, the challenges you can't cram, if you're going to run a marathon, you can't just wait the night before and just exercise seven hours that night.

Or if somebody is going to go play basketball for a big game, you can't just cram the night before things. Certain things take a natural process. And I would say going to bed, maximize how's your sleep. Yeah? Yeah.

It's okay. These dogs kind of wake us up a little bit but i'm getting to sleep earlier i would say seven hours a night maybe six seven hours a night you feel rested when you wake up not really yeah i mean i think that and people are watching this at young they could plow through it but it's just important to have these these habits early on when you can. And nobody gets this perfect, right? The goal is not perfection, it's just making some kind of progress. What is the right amount of sleep? And how do I stop peeing in the middle of the night?

Does that count against my REMs? Yeah, it certainly could affect your sleep. I would say it's not the quantity of your sleep. It really is the quality. You know these sleep devices like Oura Ring and stuff like that that measure sleep? So it's the deep sleep and it's the REM sleep. The deep sleep is when you repair your body. The REM sleep is where you restore your mind. And so it's not just the quality.

Some people get eight hours and they still feel exhausted. And so it's the quality of the sleep. So we can't manage anything you can't measure. So I would recommend people kind of do a sleep study, stuff like that. My sleep, I don't talk about this a lot, but for five years, I slept 90 minutes a night. Yeah, it was rough. And this was in really the height of my career and, uh you know maybe two hours total and i would wake and i found out i was misdiagnosed i had a sleep test and i have um severe sleep apnea and i don't

know if anyone knows what that is but it's a breathing disorder yeah and uh usually for fat people right yeah because what happens is you gain weight especially in the neck area it can it restricts your your airflow and so you wake up not be able to breathe and for me it wasn't a weight issue it's just a genetic thing i found out later my parents have sleep apnea both and my brother and my sister also do and i would stop breathing 200 and like 20 times a night and each time was at least a count of 10 seconds. So imagine, so the doctor at UCLA was like, no wonder you're in such bad shape. It's like somebody coming in 200 times a night

and putting a pillow on your head. Pillow on your face. Yeah, and you're waking up suffocating. I couldn't breathe. And I would use a CPAP breathing device, you know, a dental device, which is real sexy. Night babe. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dark data for the rest of the day. Exactly. And so I would do all these things and still wouldn't move it and eventually i was um i was having breakfast with um with larry king and he's like a big role model like where we live in la and and you know one of my mentors and he brought me literally walked me into his uh ent to get analyzed and i And I actually got diagnosed properly. And we went to the head of UCLA surgery and they did this surgery on me where they took out my tonsils, my uvula, my soft palate,

extremely painful to create more place, you know, a place where I could breathe. And that helped a lot. So I went from there to about four or five hours. And that was life changing for me, you know. I don't know how you slept for 90 minutes. you know what it was years it's and that's why i wrote this book part of it and there's a whole area of sleep that i really became like you know like read every book talk to every every expert on the subject yeah but but when you don't sleep and i'm just i don't know who i'm talking to right now who's struggling with this you know it impairs everything like your temperament your feelings your, you know, how you can think and focus, how you can remember things.

So a few sleep tips. What I do the night before my evening routine is I want to make sure your brain loves continuity and consistency. So going to bed at the same time, waking up the same time, even on the weekends is a big score. I know it's not easy. Yeah. All right. So nothing about success and performance is easy. I'm not saying it's easy, but I'm just saying it's worth it. Right. And so going to bed at the same time, having it dark because, you know, with modern day conveniences, you know, with lighting and screens, we fool our brain. There's the blue light in your screens for your devices that fool your brain to thinking it's still daylight.

And so it doesn't produce the melatonin to help you relax and go to sleep. The other trigger besides light is temperature. Back when you're a hunter-gatherer, you knew to go to sleep because the lighting dipped and so did the temperature. But in controlled environments, it doesn't get cold in your home. And so making your room a little colder will help you sleep, get that restorative sleep, you kind of hibernate, you know? Yeah, yeah.

And so, yeah, and before I go to bed, one of the best things you could do is go through just your day. You know, people can't remember things. Following day or what you did? Like what you did that day. Okay. So there's something called episodic memory.

And episodic memory is very useful because you notice even with the pandemic, it's really exasperated this, where days blended together. I can keep going. No, no, no. This is so relatable. Yeah.

There was a time where you couldn't even ask me what day it was. Yep. We'd just been working straight through. I don't know if it was a tuesday it was thursday especially you're not going out there's nothing on tv exactly there's nothing like positioning your week that's so true okay you're not going to the movies not going out to restaurants or clubs or whatever peg the week to these different events and they weren't happening because you don't have those distinctive things that stand out in your memory so they all blend for days right yeah yeah yeah and so that's your episodic memory and so what you could do is just spend

as you go to bed take three minutes and so there's no such thing as a good or bad memory and and some people think oh yeah i actually there's a trained memory and an untrained memory and what are the so so there's no such thing as a good or bad memory when people say i have a bad memory it's just you haven't trained your memory because we weren't taught how to do that. And one of the things you could do, a simple exercise that anyone could do, is at the end of the night when you're lying in bed, just take three minutes, close your eyes, and just review your day, right?

What did you put on? What were you wearing? What did you eat for breakfast? What calls did you make, right? And that helps to train your brain so you start remembering. A lot of people don't remember what, what happened, you know, that day or who they talked to. And these, the thing, the reason why memory is so important is because, you know, I lost when I was going through these learning challenges and my, my grandmother was my, my primary

caregiver, right? Cause my parents always had all these jobs and stuff. And, and so when I was going through my challenges, she at five and six started showing the signs of dementia and Alzheimer's. And if anyone, you know, my heart goes out to you, if anyone has. My pops. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So you know what I'm talking about. Like she would call me by my dad's name. She would say something she just said 45 seconds ago. Yeah. And when people lose their memory, it feels like they lose who they are. So while we teach people to remember facts, figures, formulas, whatever, it's really about remembering your life,

remembering your loved ones, remembering your lessons, right? Those special moments. But that really affected me early on. And that's why I dedicated all the proceeds of the book to Alzheimer's research and children's education because we're so passionate about that. But that just broke my heart.

And it just made me think about what's good for the brain. And if you're not sleeping, that could really add. They say your genetics, because I'm concerned because that's genetic. Your genetics loads the gun, right? But your lifestyle is what fires it. And so that's why it's so important to to to treat yourself well and especially your brain because your brain controls everything right you want to change you change your brain you change your life you change

your brain you change your world so so the night before you reflect on the day i go through the day for a few minutes and it's just hey what are some events that happened today i just want to log these after a week of doing it you you start getting more and more clarity. You start remembering the things that are special. And then what I do is I pull one or two little things out of that day that I'm just grateful for. So you have this sympathetic and parasympathetic state. You have this sympathetic and parasympathetic state. And the parasympathetic state is the state rest and digest. Right?

And that's the state. You know what? The best way, one of the best ways to get in that state is gratitude. Dude, this gratitude thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is it about? Tell me. You know, I really think gratitude rewires your brain because it, first of all, it teaches. It's one of these hacks.

I want you to explain to us but it's one of these hacks that like you have to experience it in order you have to experience it in order to understand why it works it's like burning man like i don't know if you've ever been a burning man or like even game of thrones you know like you ever try to describe the show game of thrones as somebody you just sound like a nerd you're like oh there's dragons and then you're like just watch it it's really good yeah the gratitude thing is the same way just be grateful for what you have it's so easy to practice but the moments where i feel like truly grateful yeah right you're like tingling yeah if is it that easy is that easy to sit down there man i had a great meal today

that everything bagel was unbelievable and then literally you're rewiring your brain in that moment yeah so you can rewire your nervous system because gratitude tells you that there's enough, you know, and especially in a world full of stress, a world full of fear, you know, chronic stress shrinks our brain. You know, when your adrenaline and cortisol puts you in fight or flight or freeze, but you're not going to, you're not going to study your best. You're not going to do your best in your job. You're not going to be there for your loved one as much when you're just fight or flight, you know, or frozen. And so the antidote to fear, I think, is gratitude. You know, chronic fear actually suppresses your immune system, you know, which is very topical right now. It's an area of science called psychoneuroimmunology,

but it makes you more susceptible to colds, the flus, the viruses. So controlling that, I think, you know, when you feel grateful, and most people are like, I'm going to wait till I have something to be grateful for. It's like, you don't have to wait for a greater life to feel grateful. If you feel grateful, you'll have a greater life for sure. For sure. And here's, here's, here's a simple thing. Exercise practical people could do, you know, make a list, take out, take out a piece of paper and write down, like I, I imagine a lot of people want to feel wealth know, make a list. Take out a piece of paper and write down, like I imagine a lot of people want to feel wealthier, right? Write down everything

that you have in your life that money can't buy, that you wouldn't trade for money. Relationships, your sense of sight, your hearing, whatever, any semblance of your health. Just all that.

Or here's one. What if the only things you had in your life tomorrow were the things you express gratitude for today? You know, simple, simple exercise, you know, and the reason why you do that is because, you know, tomorrow is not promised. You know, that's why it's so important for your loved ones and everyone, you know, the show and tell them because we don't know, right, what tomorrow brings. It's an interesting flip, though, because a lot of people, what is stressing them out the most is tomorrow. Yeah. So it's a crazy thing to get their mind to go from, fuck, tomorrow's going to be so horrible to,

hey, you might not even have tomorrow. Because I'm sure some of them on some level are going, well, that'd be nice if I didn't have to deal with tomorrow. Not saying that they should do anything about that, but it is a very different perspective for most people. Yeah, a lot of this practice, I mean, the bad news is it takes work. The good news, I don't think it takes as much as people think. You know, it's a lot, you know, when you do the easy things in life all the time, which

is just putting things off or procrastinating or just like binge, whatever, distraction, then life gets hard though. You know, when you just do easy things in life, life gets very hard, but if you do the hard things in life, life somehow gets a little bit easier. You know, when you have that difficult conversation, you know, or the things that you don't like working out, the things that are difficult, life gets a lot easier also as well. I want, I want you to keep going on, on what happens the next morning. But, uh, at some point I do want to touch on like what stress does to not only memory but like performance you know like times where i'm feeling like my most confident i feel like i can perform the best and i feel like these ideas are coming into my brain like it's amazing these synapses are just firing and the

times where i'm like scared or nervous self-conscious. It's like my brain is a empty void. Like I'm just sitting there going, is something going to happen? Is a joke going to come to my mind? Am I going to have anything interesting to say at all? Why could fear induce a reaction that would like limit my ability to succeed in that moment. Yeah, I think emotions, for me, my point of view with emotions is they're like signposts. You know, when you feel sad or you feel guilty

or you feel afraid, you know, I think each of those emotions are to signal something. You know, emotions, it's like the energy of motion it's like if you feel fear of you know giving a toast at a wedding i think that fear is useful because it gets you to prepare you know right there's some kind of emotion it's a driving force yeah yeah like i don't know how you feel before you go on stage is it just are you you've done it so much that you could just kind of roll out of bed at 4 a.m and just yeah i mean there's some times we're really excited like i know if there's a new joke or new idea i want to talk about i'm really excited i can't wait to get to the point where

i'm going to talk about it and sometimes i'll try to like do it in the middle of my set and then everything before that i'm just unenthusiastic about and it just doesn't go so i just got to start with the new thing that i'm passionate. I can kind of ride that passion. But yeah, I could see situations where I maybe feel nervous and I've got to almost fake it until I make it. Yeah. I'm sure with your performances as well, it's like you set up these structures where you can succeed even if you're so nervous.

Yeah. And I try to do that. I'm sure comics try to do that with a set. Sometimes there's, I don't know, comfort within the structure, I guess. There is. It's the safety. Exactly. And also that structure that you set up for yourself gives you flexibility too.

You know. I can always go back to the structure if I need it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you have like a little safety net there, but allows you to go a little, you know, take some risks. And that's, that's amazing. You know, I think they're that excitement you feel and it's very close to fear right that the feeling of fear and excitement your heart's

beating maybe out of your brain yeah yeah they're like same coin different sides right yeah but attaching a label to it you know i think that that the words we use are the language of our mind and and the feelings that we feel is like the language of our body yeah but we put a label to it then all of a sudden like if somebody gets fearful of public speaking which is a lot of people yeah you know calling it and we're kind of reframing it like this is excitement just changes what it feels like you know and and i'm sure you know a lot of people in the entertainment world that are really phobic of that kind of work you know sometimes but you know some people transform it and they do it's like with um with athletes right you ever see like athletes before they get in the ring or before they go you know play a game of basketball or something like that they're going

let's go jumping up and down fighters oftentimes before they get in the ring they're hitting themselves in the face and maybe that's it they're trying to take those those anxious nerves and turn them into excitement it's like the energy is running through your system regardless. Like what are you going to do with that energy? Okay. So now you're getting ready to bed. You've reflected on the day. You've been grateful. Yeah. And then the last thing I do is I said some kind of, and now again, you don't have to do all these things. You're just some suggestions that don't take a lot of time. But I would ask people to not judge it, but just test it because ultimately you

are your best expert right yeah don't don't look at somebody else but just test it for you and maybe it works for you like some people are really good on kale some people like hate kale so don't don't do it right kale like the salad yeah like like that like you know not everything's for everybody yeah not everybody's for everything leafy greens leafy greens good memory good memory very good memory. We'll get to that later. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We did it today, and there was like three,

no, it was last night. We went out for a couple drinks last night, so maybe we were a little bit intoxicated, and the four of us were just going, what is it, blueberry. Really? Oh, yeah, it was locked. It was so impressive.

We'll get to what that is later. It's a little confusing, but okay, we're getting to that. Yeah, so the last thing I do is, I just want to remind people that the power of their mind. I have a question. Have you ever had to wake up early, particularly early, and you set the alarm and you kind of obsess about a little bit, but have you ever woken up within minutes of your alarm going off for seconds? Like how does that happen? And it's before it's obvious it's always before, right? But sometimes what happens is I'll wake up and then I set the alarm for p.m. instead of a.m.

Oh, wow. But I'm up. Yeah. And it's almost like I baked in a time. Yeah. Till my biological clock to like get me up. Yeah, it's so weird. Isn't that remarkable how powerful like that intention or the power of your mind to be able to wake up within moments of your alarm going off?

And that's a good thing because you set it for PM especially. But like, what if we use that power of our intention or our mind before we go to bed to maybe set another intention besides waking up, maybe thinking about a problem or thinking about a new set or a joke, something that you, you know, you see when you, when you learn or study all day or you work on your business, your brain doesn't shut off at night. It's actually more active. And what is it doing? It's consolidating your short to long-term memory.

It's integrating all the things that you've learned. And it's coming up with ideas like these gems. Like when you dream, we'll probably spend like 20 years of our life sleeping, maybe three to five full years dreaming. Three to five years. That's a lot of time right it's so insane to think about yeah exactly years knocked out that's so it is right and so three to five years dreaming and you're dreaming like i i mentioned this like last night that mary shelly

came up with frankenstein in her dream yeah paul mccartney came up with the song yesterday in his dream yeah you know eliza how created this sewing machine his dream a chemist created the PR table dream what are we dreaming about and so sometimes i dream and i bomb on stage yeah yeah i'm not finding my masterpiece at all i'm just going i gotta not do that joke but imagine like using that intense intention of waking up at a certain time and you do it just the kind of pro maybe like, I don't know, program is a weird word, but just asking yourself a question that you really want to know the solution for and let your brain work on it throughout the night. Love it.

And maybe you happen to dream about those things. So that's what I do. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do actually is remember my dreams. I feel like that I just, if my dreams are there, I have a, I just have right by my nightstand, I'm curious what you have by your nightstand. It's like I have a that I just, if my dreams are there, I have a, I just have right by my nightstand, I'm curious what you have up by your nightstand. It's like I have a glass of water, a book, a fiction reading book that I read sometimes

before I go to bed because I don't want to read anything like real heady in my executive brain. But fiction is a nice way of decompressing. And I have like a little journal, like nothing fancy, a little notebook. But I just write my dreams in there each morning. And it trains myself to pay attention to my dreams. Have heard of this uh idea of lucid dreaming yeah i've actually done it really in like pretty intense ways naturally since you're a kid yeah just naturally like fly when i want to and i've been able and it's quite often what happened to me in a dream

is i'll go oh i'm dreaming oh cool and sometimes i can go i, I'm dreaming. Oh, cool. And sometimes I can go, I know I'm dreaming, so it's time to fly. And I just fly. And there's some times where I go, I know I'm dreaming, fly, and I can't. You can't. Why? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, people listening to this, they might be seeming like really weird because they've never experienced this. They call it lucid dreaming. This is not common? People don't? No, it is common for some people, but not often for a lot of people. Really? They've never experienced. So lucid means you're aware. And so lucid dreaming is you're aware that you're asleep and dreaming. And some people do it naturally, right? And for those who don't do it naturally,

like anything else, you could train yourself to be able to do it. And it's wonderful because if you're spending three to five years of your life dreaming, then you can pick up that time and you know, what can you do? You can live out fantasies, you can meet people, you can learn that you go on adventures, do all these things and still get the restorative benefit of sleep, right? So it's a wonderful and one of the tricks that we talk about to lucid dream. I did a podcast episode on this is just train yourself throughout the day ask yourself this simple question is this a dream so simple right you ask yourself a hundred times a day and then the first time the answer is yes then you're lucid dreaming right because remember you obsess about something you know throughout the day and you

start dreaming about it yeah what if you start asking yourself that question or you start looking at your hand and just like every time you look at your hand, just think about your dreams. And then when you look at your hand, you know, when you're, when you're in a dream and your mind's you have that. But, um, so I write down my dreams and I get these little, these little gems. And then the second thing I do when I, when I would get up is I actually don't get out of bed. I don't touch my phone. All right. Cause I think successful people, we all have a to-do list. Everybody who's listening you have your to-do list but i think the people that are like really make like crushing it they also have like a not to-do list you know whether it's explicit or it's just something that they just won't these non-negotiables that it's

there's this book good to great by jim collins says you have to say no to good so you can say yes to great. What's on your not to do list? Yeah. And so on top of that list should be not touching your phone, right? The first half an hour to the last half an hour of a day. That should be something there. Certain things that you just won't indulge in. And you know what you could do is just when it comes to your brain, I spoke on the brain, I always wear brain shirts because I think it's so important to take care of your brain, is ask yourself, is this good for my brain or is this bad for my brain

you know before every activity or food that you eat or things that thoughts that you have people that you spend time with because you know it's kind of warren buffett has this thing where he says a thought experiment says when you're 16 imagine you're gifted a car but this car is the car you're gonna have for the rest of your life you know how well would you're gifted a car, but this car is the car you're going to have for the rest of your life. You know, how well would you take care of that car? You know, you would, right? But this is, think about it. The vehicle we have is our body, you know, our mind, and we got to take care of it. So the first thing I do is I come up with this thought experiment that I came up with years ago. And I said, okay, instead of just waking up and hoping I have a great day,

what, what has to happen in order for me to feel that way? Uh, my friend Clay Bear, he has this, uh, champagne moment idea. He says that when they crack open champagne at a sporting event, it's very clear who won, right? And what has to happen on the scoreboard for you to just be celebrating. But we don't have that for our life. And we don't even have that for our day. So imagine you're coming back at home and, you know, your fiance asks, how was your day? And you're like, today was amazing. And then just ask yourself what had to happen in order for me to feel that way. That's going to piss her off every day. Oh, I can't wait for this. But the three things like, you know, maybe three things at work, three things for personal, it didn't have three things at work, three things for personal.

It didn't have to be big things, but just maybe come up with those things before you get out of bed and just say, hey, these three things, if I do this, this, and this, then it was a great day. And then you get out of bed. Next thing you could do, make your bed. And that's so simple and it's so no-brainer.

But I believe- Are you the initial make your bed guy? Yeah, I've been talking about it for 20 years. Jordan Peterson is also, you know Jordan Peterson, right? He has also popularized make your bed, but he might be taking your material. I don't know that.

He might need to sit down with you. No, no, no, I wouldn't say he is. I mean, it's obviously many people make their bed, so I'm not, I don't want to- I thought you started it. No, you're not. I thought people weren't making their beds before 20 years ago. Until I started talking about it. No, started talking about it that's the fun part about going to the hotel

that is made yeah there there you go i mean who doesn't love a well-made bed right yeah but um your brain loves a clean environment and my things is all about your brain so you do it because your brain loves a clean environment and i believe excellence is a habit that if you could take two minutes do it well you could potentially take that habit into other areas of your life. I have never made my bed in my whole life. What? I've never made it.

Sometimes if a girl was coming over, I would just like do this with a blanket and then I'd set it. I do not make the bed. It's so weird. Yeah. What if you did? Like one time.

Like what if tomorrow? Yeah. Like, you know, after you guys get up and you just started making the bet, would that freak her out? Guys, if I become a billionaire because I started making my bet. Yeah, I'm not making that claim either. No, she actually makes the bet. Yeah. And that's something that like a habit that she's built.

Don't get me wrong. It looks great. It's awesome. I love it. Yeah, yeah. I'm not saying I know whether or not elon musk and everybody makes their bed and everything else like that norm i will make that claim but i would just say test it out i mean every once in a while like throw throw a curveball and start making the

bed and just like you know is there something about like having a success in the beginning of the day yeah i think there's a science of momentum right yeah and success breeds success. And if you get good at things that really don't matter, then you could take that into the things that do. You know, even little things like right after that, drinking water, simple thing. But right the night before, I'll put a glass of water there, like in my bed, like in the nightstand. And I'll drink it because you could lose up to a pound of weight

just through respiration and perspiration you know just losing water and staying hydrated your brain is 75 water yeah it's so a no-brainer it could boost your reaction speed your thinking speed 15 to 30 just staying hydrated man like and you have a lot of water you know at the table here but just drink some water i when i do it i just down a couple of probiotics because that's good for your your second brain which is your gut yeah you know and then i do three minute exercise and there's an extra there's a study done at appalachian state university i'm gonna get a little geeky here but they said for weight management and better sleep when's the best time to exercise morning afternoon

or evening and they tested groups at 7 a.m 1 p.m and 7 p.m and they found groups at 7 a.m., 1 p.m., and 7 p.m. And they found it was 7 a.m. It doesn't have to be your full workout, but if you just did three minutes of, you know, what's good for your heart is going to be good for your head, get some blood flow and oxygen there. Push-ups, sit-ups, something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Burpees, jumping jacks, whatever, for three minutes. Then those individuals got upwards of 75% deeper sleep just doing that for a few minutes first thing in the morning. And so it jumpstarts your metabolism. You get some oxygen in your brain.

They slept deeper the next night even though they were working out. That night doing seven, yeah. And the most important thing you do for your sleep actually is get sunlight. And it's tough sometimes during the seasons. But if you could expose yourself to a few minutes of it's resets your circadian rhythm so if you have sleep issues getting in what is that i've heard that before circadian rhythm what is yeah it's it's a 24-hour biological clock that we have and so that's why it's so important to have consistency but it's hard you know this uh

you know with all the whole pandemic and everything people are stressed is that why jet lag is difficult does it upset your circadian and that really you know when i talk about my sleep issues going to different continents you know and touring and and doing those things you know sleeping in foreign environments like you know it's really bad when you're a memory expert you wake up you don't remember what city you know what i mean you're in some kind of stale hotel room and you have you know getting that night and everything and it's you know it's it's tough but it could really mess up those rhythms and then you just you're on different times so your brain has its own clock yeah and it knows what time it likes to go to bed and knows what time it likes to wake up yeah and there's all

these like cues in the environment to let us know when it's time even though these outside sources like our phones and like our air conditioning our heat in our home are kind of manipulating that circadian rhythm a bit of what was natural organic before right so if we're like you're saying we're out there like camping right there's gonna be things to wake us up but fucking wolf is gonna howl like that has to be kind of baked into our sleep you're not supposed to sleep eight hours straight through you die yeah i mean you're thinking certain things that could wake you up and so sound makes a difference also as well so you have light you have temperature i guess what i'm saying is like we should be able to like wake up a little bit and go back to sleep but yeah that should be baked into our dna falling back to sleep is different

you know like a lot of people could go uh some people have trouble falling asleep how's that for you i think i'm pretty good there yeah so the latency it happens within you know unless i have to wake up early yeah and then there's that anxiety of like uh now it's only five hours of sleep four hours so the rumination of that that could create and that stress puts you in the sympathetic mode and takes you out of that parasympathetic parasympathetic rest and digest you know that's what happens what do you got for that what do we do then yeah so have you ever wake up we're worried about yeah do you wake so if you wake up um in the middle of the night right to go to the bathroom or whatever do you can you fall back to sleep yeah oh so that's great

because a lot of people they're they're the challenges they can't fall asleep insomnia or they wake up and they can't fall back to sleep in the middle of the night or stay asleep you know and then that's different you know one of the simple things people could do for falling asleep whether it's a midnight or not is just doing a simple relaxation exercise of scanning your body and just going from you know your toes to the top of your head and just say it's like something simple like thank you toes and go to your feet your ankle something like that but most people won't make it all the way through they'll just fall asleep because it's such a boring process you know what i mean but it gets them in their body as opposed to in their mind yeah kind of like counting you

know sheep or whatever that's what i do i try to like just count breaths it like kind of pseudo meditation type thing but for whatever reason i'd stop thinking about whatever i was worried about and i'd kind of focus on the breaths and it would work. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I guess a little bit. Okay, so that is your sleep routine. Yeah, then I get up and I do the exercise. And then simple things that you mentioned, even in passing, simple things to challenge your brain, like brushing your teeth. So that I probably originated over 20 years ago,

brushing your teeth with the opposite hand. And, you know, I'm a big proponent because when you use a different part of your body, it actually stimulates a different part of your brain. And we know that that if somebody has a stroke or a head trauma on one part of their side of the brain, if there's paralysis, it'll happen on the other side. That one side of your brain controls the opposite side of your body. But recent research has shown that when you use the other side of your body, it actually stimulates that part of your brain it's not one way it's actually back and forth there's a study done at oxford university that says jugglers learning to juggle actually builds

makes your brain bigger you create more white matter i don't know if you could juggle but if you could watch i can do three yeah that's that's amazing so just doing that actually creates more white matter and so using your body as as your body moves, your brain grooves. And so challenge eating with the opposite hand or brushing your teeth with the opposite. Not only does it stimulate a different part of your brain, but also it forces you to be present. In the beginning, you're not going to be good at it. And so it forces you to be right here.

And as opposed to like your mind going everywhere and being distracted and flexing your distraction muscles, and later you can't pay attention on a zoom call there's a i for exercise i i box right and uh one of the things i enjoy the most about it is um doing the pad work i can't get lost in my thinking it requires so much of that like cognitive energy for me to keep up with these different combinations that my coach is is saying and uh it's just really great for that reason yeah sparring is but i mean sparring is next level right sparring is like you're in survival mode and that's just that's so much fun but there's also like a heavy cost yeah for how fun it is but yeah every second you're like am i planning on something am i defending something but those types of exercise maybe that's why we're drawn to it.

Yeah, where you can put your mind into your muscle, like great things like that are good for your brain. Those kind of exercises, pad work, ballroom dancing, great for the brain. I grew up in a ballroom dance studio. Yeah, that's why you're so sharp, right? That's right. Like table tennis,

like all these activities actually stimulate not only your muscles but also your mind yeah and so it's good to challenge and this is all about mental fitness you're right yeah you know we don't we think about our brains like any other muscle in our body that's something we can improve it's almost like we have this kind of like passive attitude towards our brain this is the brain i was dealt with this is my iq there's nothing i can do about it. This is how my memory is. And we just kind of like sit back as some passenger.

None of my friends have ever said, you know what? I need to build up that part of my brain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every once. We can build up every other part of our body. I'd like to get a six pack. I'm going to diet. I'm going to do abs and do all these things.

My memory sucks or my vocabulary is really small. It's just what it is. Why do we have that attitude? You know, I think there are a lot of, that this conversation really is about, it's about transcending. It's about ending the trance. You know, I think there's this mass hypnosis. Maybe it's propagated through media or marketing that somehow we're not enough, that somehow like our potential is fixed, like our shoe size. We've discovered more about the human brain in the past 10 years than the previous

thousand years combined. This makes me really happy, because now we can make fun of dumb people because they're just lazy. I think intelligence is not fixed, and that if people use discipline and determination, then anything can get better. Dumb jokes are back.

There you go. Think about it, right? If it's a choice, if you go. Think about it, right? If it's a choice, if you're choosing to be dumb because you're not doing the things that you obviously can to improve. Yeah. I mean, especially the way we have unfettered access to podcasts and YouTube. Ignorance is a choice for sure today.

You said something in the talk yesterday that was really great. It was like, what is the most efficient way to gain information? It's like somebody put their whole life in a book yeah like decades of experience you can get that in three days four days yeah four day whatever however long it takes you to read a book like right now this conversation you've put your whole life into i literally spent a fortune of time and money and everything that so people don't have to do that themselves you lucky fucks yeah exactly you're getting here we get this up early isn't it crazy i that's why i love like if i you know like if i gave you a dollar you gave me a dollar same nothing nothing changes yeah but if i share

a new idea that's worked for me and you share an idea yes then we have two brand new ideas and you know we could create change right that knowledge is not only power it's like and if knowledge is power learning is our superpower yes you know so i think that the common trait behind all successful individuals athletes performers yeah yeah business individuals whatever because they just they they study right you know they they they they are addicted to that growth you i want to get into a podcast i was listening of yours where you were talking about like a championship mindset you were one of your pods and one of the great things i love about your podcast is there can be like 11 12 minutes they're so digestible i almost hope

that when you brand them you say that because when people hear the word podcast like oh this is gonna be an hour this is gonna be two hours this is gonna be three you know joe rogan's podcast you know sometimes we did three hour episodes you know but 11 minutes is so digestible yeah for spotify it was one of the they binge listened you know so it's very popular because each one is the life hack each one is this i don't remember names how to learn languages what are the best brain foods how do you hack your sleep and you know do all these things how you read faster but uh not to interrupt but there was a thing you said yesterday uh before we get into the champion mindset thing you said that uh you have to think about your brain as a

computer yeah and then your thoughts are the programs of that computer and the computer will execute those thoughts so choose your fucking thoughts very wisely you have a great can you expand yeah i mean there were those certain things like really touched touch me in there man So choose your fucking thoughts very wisely. You have a great time. Can you expand on that? I mean, there are those certain things that really touched me in there, man, because there's all these people, if you have negative thoughts and your brain is just a computer, it's going to go, we're going negative today, baby. Yeah, a negative mind will never yield a positive life.

It just can't. It's not possible. People come to me all the time, even last night, and they say, hey, Jim, in secret'm i'm too old i'm not smart enough you know i have had this you know i have a horrible memory and i say stop if you fight for your limitation you get to keep them so many of us unconsciously are always fighting for what we can't do yeah and we just get because our brain really is like a supercomputer and our thoughts are the program that will run. So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering people's names,

you will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your computer, you know, not to. And so I just want to remind everybody that thoughts are things that there's a biology to a belief that literally when you have a new thought, you're rewiring your brain for something. And we're always rehearsing either success or something else. And just whatever biology to belief that literally when you have a new thought you're rewiring your brain for something and we're always rehearsing either success or something else and just whatever you're doing repeatedly you're getting better at and monitor because your mind is always eavesdropping on your self-talk and you know like if you wouldn't say it to like someone you love then why would you say it you know exactly yeah and i'm sure there is a fine balance with like recognizing

the things that you want to change and improve upon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also not limiting your ability to improve upon those things. So it's not like walking around lying to yourself all day. That's not productive. Yeah, and you don't even have to fake it

to make it. I'm just thinking instead of maybe faking it to make it, maybe you face it until you make it, right? That with challenge and you challenge yourself, then you'll change. Was that off the cuff? Because cuff because that was really good yeah that was really good add it add it to the show add it to the show okay but like just like you challenge your body like champions

do you know like if you had to if you want to grow your bicep you know you do your 10 reps the one you at least want to do is number 10 but the one that gives you the most growth is number 11 right you know what i mean we challenge ourselves all the time i think that if we had exercises that yield positive results with our brain we would more be more apt to uh make those changes with our brain right we believe that we could you know like the number exercise you did yesterday was great like you remember like 30 fucking numbers in a row i don't know how the hell you did it and uh and then you did them backwards as well right yeah and i just remember going like thinking that moment i was like man if i was eight years old and i did that in school i would really think i could memorize anything yeah you know and it's such a shame that like at 37 i gotta go oh

there's little techniques that i can learn to remember things a little better i don't just have to like stare at it and repeat it three times or you know write it down on a piece of paper six times whatever like goofy techniques i had built there are these and maybe you can expand on them a lot but like i don't know it's really empowering knowing you can change this thing when like before that i thought i don't really limit myself man i really don't limit myself It's really empowering knowing you can change this thing. When like before that, I thought, I don't really limit myself, man. I really don't limit myself. But I would say that the thing that was most limited for me would be my mind. Yeah.

I never limit in terms of what I can achieve. I just go, well, I'll figure a way around it. That's amazing. But around maybe a limit that I might have here. Okay, well, I can't learn another language. I'm too old. I'll figure a way around it. I'll hire a Frenchman.

You know what I mean? But now I'm just like, I'll learn French. Fuck it. Yeah, that everything is figureoutable, right? Eventually, if you're committed to doing that, that's a powerful core belief, right? Yeah. That if everybody had that,

that they could figure out a way. Yeah. They're dedicated to it. Yeah. And so, yeah, your memory is the same thing. That a memory can be improved. But going to somebody and saying, you know, focus or concentrate or remember is like going to somebody and saying, like, play the ukulele, who's never taken a class on that. They've never had any training. Right. And I'm just saying some basic skills of learning how

to remember names or the things that you want to remember numbers, that that's useful, whatever your outcome is, because not everybody wants to remember numbers, right? But maybe they want to remember poetry, or they're they want to be numbers, right? But maybe they want to remember poetry or they want to be in a Broadway show or they want to remember, you know, a comedy set, you know, whatever is important to them, they could apply those same principles. Yeah, it was great. God, what was the acronym that you had for it? There was two. You did, there was MOM and B-SWAB. Wow, yeah. I'm remembering them. Okay, so which one do you think was more appropriate for just memorizing? What do you think the most difficult thing is for the average person? Most people complain about names and faces because it's something that they—

Okay, let's do names. How do we lock in names? Yeah, I mean, just first of all, knowing how important it is, is really important. You mentioned MOM. And so MOM, another acronym, and we'll get back to FAST also. We're closing on FAST. Exactly. But the M, so let's say anyone watching or listening to this, if they have trouble remembering

names, which is 95% of the population, right? But let's say that there was a suitcase of like a million dollars cash for anybody who remembers the name of the next stranger who's who's joining us who's gonna remember that name everybody right yeah and so the m and mom the first m is motivation right and so i would say we're all great learners when we're motivated to learn right if we're motivated and there's some kind of reward that comes from it but I would just say that maybe connecting with the reason why studying something. But that's why we forgot a lot of things in school. Like what are we using the periodic table and the quadratic equation?

What are we using that for? So we probably don't remember it, right? But if you ask yourself simple technique, a brain hack when you're meeting somebody, ask yourself, why do I want to remember this person's name? Maybe it's to show the person some respect. Maybe it's to make a new friend. Maybe it's to get a referral. Maybe it's to practice these things I learned on this podcast.

Because if you can't come up with a reason, you won't get the result. And so it's so important when you read and study, if you're in school, if you're preparing for something for work, to tap into the purpose. Because without that motivation, you're probably not going to remember. The Owen mom was very simple. We did this kind of fun exercise where you shake out your hand, make a fist. And I told people to put it to their chin and everyone put it their cheek because I did it to my cheek. You know, the O stands for observation.

And a lot of times people blame their retention. And it's not your retention. It's your attention. You know, because a lot of people, they're not really listening. What are they doing? They're waiting for their turn to speak. they're thinking about how they're going to respond yeah yeah you know and if they're talking to themselves and listening they're not going to listen to the other person so they're not forgetting their name they're just not hearing

the name so even if you take a word like listen you write it down and you do this little mental you know gymnastics in your mind and switch the letters around, it spells another word perfectly. The word listen is when you scramble the letters, spells the word silent. And people could be so much better at remembering things if they were just quiet and silent. You know, but a lot of times they won't because they're that monkey mind. Yeah. Sometimes they're just anxious. You know, they maybe want to impress somebody and they're not listening to what they're saying and sometimes the most impressive thing to somebody is just paying attention to them yeah i think that's and then that's so interesting to me because so many people are trying to impress by being interesting yeah yeah look how cool i am

hey you're really cool and that person goes i like being around people who think i'm cool exactly and maybe it's not about being interesting it's about being being interested. Yeah. You know, somebody, right? Because everybody wants to feel like they're heard and seen and ask questions because it's everyone's favorite topic. Yeah. And then finally, you know, motivation, observation, the last M are the methods that we talk about. Yeah. Like the B-swab and some of the other techniques about saying the name, repeating it, visualizing the person's name. Yeah.

What was that like? Putting their name? What did you use as the example?'s a mary and then yeah like here's the thing that i would imagine a lot of people are joining us they're better with faces than they are with names yeah right you look at somebody say i remember your face yeah i forgot your name yeah you never go to someone say the opposite you never go i remember your name i remember your name but i forgot your face right dave you look different. Right, exactly. And so the reason why is there's a proverb that goes, what I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand. What I hear, I forget. Heard the name, forgot it. Yep.

What I see, the face, I remember it. I'm going to recall, yeah. And what I do, going back to practice, you know, practice makes progress, right? Practice doesn't even make perfect, makes progress. Yeah. Then you really understand. so i would say that when you visualize since you tend to remember what you see try seeing what you want to remember so a person's name is mike imagine you meet a mike and they they just jump on the table and start seeing karaoke on a microphone you know a split second and makes you laugh you're probably going to remember it touches you emotionally his name is alex media yeah that's an invented name that's how are you gonna remember yeah so i would say that take the name and transform it into a picture so if i say the word alex what do you think of

like the person that comes to your mind right now weird alex trebek there there there you go that that's amazing and so if you can imagine alex right and you can see the jeopardy board and everything else like that then that that's a way of associating things together. You meet someone named Emma, right? And you think of, you know, like, oh, I have a relative that that's like that, or Emma, you know, like a famous Emma or something that sounds like it. So if a person's, you know, name is, I mentioned Andrew, you know, for something that sounds like if you're playing Pictionary and you draw those ears, like sounds like, you know, when you have to think in pictures and, you know, and somebody thinks about an Android, they're not going to call you Android, but have you ever forgot someone's name and you start going through the alphabet? Like, does it start

with an A? Does it start with a B? And you get really nervous when you get to like W because there's not a lot of letters like after that, but sometimes E and you think of Eric, right? Or you think of D and you think of Dove or something like that. It just reminds you. So if you come up with something that sounds like Mary, you know, the person's getting married all of a sudden. It's carols, singing Christmas carols. For me, David. Whenever I meet someone named David, I think of a slingshot right to their nose because David and Goliath, right?

And it's so silly, but then it takes a split second and I can't forget it because when I leave that party or whatever later on, I was like, what did I do? What happened there? Oh, I shot him in the nose with a slingshot. So you create like a cartoon almost in your head of an activity that's associated with the name. It's a fun—you know what it does? It overcomes what I call the six-second syndrome. When somebody tells you their name or you read— you have six seconds to do something with it, otherwise it's gone in the ether, right? You're never going to get it back. So when it does,

it gets you to focus on the person and it gets you to focus on the name. So even when it doesn't work, it still tends to work because it gets you to concentrate and pay attention. So if a person's name is Mark, imagine you're putting like a little check mark on their forehead. Like you would never forget that. And then that's what I remember. And once you know the person's name is Mark or Alex or anything else like that, then the picture disappears. I don't think of Jeopardy anymore, you know, because it was a means to an end. Yeah.

Right. And how do kids remember names? Yeah. Like, do they make, do you have your name made fun of growing up or? Andrew, not really. Andrew Pandrew. I don't know. Yeah.

That's what they'll do. They'll like, they had their songs about it. And, a name like quick i got you know like nestle quick or you know all this stuff yeah but that's how kids remember things so using your imagination is definitely a plus yeah you also said uh i think it was with the names you were you were saying that you can what was it put it in a scenario yeah yeah like if you um i think when you meet people with unusual names oh yeah yeah asking them you um i think when you meet people with unusual oh yeah yeah asking them yeah etymology is but just like yeah why are you named that like if you said my name's alex media it'd be like yeah why are you named alex media who are you named exactly

everyone i think a lot of people are flattered when you hear a name that you haven't heard before but how did you word it because the way i say it is antagonistic yeah yeah why are you named that yeah so when somebody tells you their name like their name could be i met i met a rudiger the other day right i was like you know what's the origin how do you spell it you know where where's it from just right because curiosity that interest being interested in somebody yeah because remember like we've all heard this but like name is the sweetest sound to a person's ears like think about like one of the first words you learn how to write and, you know, maybe a grownup praising you for just doing it like sloppy and everything else, you know, and so a name is so important. And so taking that name, asking about how you spell it or who you named after or something like that

takes in there's plus it just helps you to ingrain it also, also as well. And it's more than just names that you're doing that with, right? Yeah. Having a curiosity over anything is going to help takes in there's plus it just helps you to ingrain it also also as well and it's more than just names that you're doing that with right yeah having a curiosity over anything is going to help you motivation and curiosity is going to somebody told me a story about um bill clinton uh not an x-rated one and uh they said uh he's it was like they were at a party with bill clinton and they were at that party and there was also some family friends who were at that party. And all of them left the party thinking that Bill Clinton found them to be the most interesting human being that has ever existed.

Like they all left the party with the exact same feeling like, that guy thought I was the best ever. He's got great taste. And then when they reconvened afterward, they shared the story and they're like, oh fuck, this is just this guy's skill. He has this amazing ability. And maybe it's like what you're saying. Maybe he wasn't entertaining.

Maybe he was paying attention. Maybe he was interested. Yeah, I met him briefly years ago. And like two years later, I went to a charity event and it was 2000 people in this gala for, you know, this good cause. And I sit at my table I was assigned to. I was the first one there. And when I sat down shortly afterwards, Forrest Whitaker sits right next to me, right?

And then Richard Branson sits next to him. And I'm like, whoa, I think I got like sitting at the wrong. And then Ashton Kutcher sits down. His twin brother sits down. And Bill Clinton sits right next to me. Get out of here. And I was just like, wow. And I swear to you, he remembered my name.

Really? And we only talked for a few minutes before. Unbelievable. And I was like, okay, he was fed that. He knew who was sitting at his table, clearly. And then, I swear to you, he picks up the conversation we had two years ago. Yeah. And I was like, I need to know how you do this.

You know, I'm the memory guy. And he starts talking to me about his grandfather in Arkansas, how in the living room he would tell stories to all the kids, but something different. He would quiz each of them individually to see if they were paying attention. And while he was explaining this to me, I was like, I got this eerie feeling

because I felt like I was the only one in that room of 2,000 people. Have you ever met somebody that they're just so fixated and you feel like you're the only one that exists? And I realized that his incredible memory, and regardless of politics, people would say that he has got this charisma, great connector, great communicator. He's got this powerful presence. And I think his incredible memory and his powerful presence with people comes from being powerfully present with people. That his incredible memory and his powerful presence comes from being powerfully present, right? And when he's looking at you, he's asking thoughtful questions. Clearly, he's listening with the idea that he wants to learn. And you feel like you're the only one.

And there's many more people in that room than me, certainly at that table than I was. But I felt like I was the only one. And so I thought I was the only one that was special. Hate to break it to you. But yeah, but again. That's great that you asked him, though. And he was forthcoming with the information. Very much so. So his father would tell a story

and then, or his grandfather would tell a story and then like during the story ask them? Like we'd just quiz them to see if they were paying attention to what was going on

and I think that's an incredible, you know, I had to, I got to, I mentioned Larry King and we did each other's show and he has this curiosity. He always thinks he's like the dumbest person in the room. I love it., uh, and he has this curiosity. He always thinks he's like

the dumbest person in the room. I love it. You know, and he has no ego about it and he's just like very real. And when he asks a question, he sincerely, you know, he sincerely wants to know the answer, you know, and you know, they say that, you know, if you're the smartest one in the room, you're in the wrong room or whatever, he has this genuine caring sincerity you know and so it just comes so authentic i wonder if um an excellent memory increases self-confidence yeah because think about it like if every interaction you're having with a human being you can recall that last interaction you'd be pretty confident in that conversation. You know something about that person. You can always reference a past story.

Picking up where you left off, you're going to baffle them. I mean, when Clinton started that story again, you would have taken it back, right? And I've seen some press things, but that just like, yeah. Because you know he meets a lot of people. He does it for a living. He literally just meets people. Yeah, that's it.

I mean, whoa. Yeah. When you meet... I think he's writing down these events. I don't know about him, but I just know that this is a trainable skill. It's available for all of us. Because how are you going to, again, show somebody you're going to care for their business, their future? If you don't care enough, just remember them.

When you can remember their fiance's name, right? Or you can remember important things about them yeah they feel like like you care right and i think that that's such an important skill now like not just business etiquette and networking i think it's important skill in in life and every well we're all forgetful right it happens to the best of us and yet we could be better and and it's worth it because even when it comes to names and faces unfortunately it's a standout skill. Because if you could walk into a room and meet 20 strangers and leave saying goodbye to every single one of them by name, who are they all going to remember? Right?

They're going to remember you. People remember people who remember them. Right? And that's why it's so important. Right? We learn these laws. It's like it's what you know. And that's why we teach accelerated learning. So you can know a lot of information. So you can make good decisions. Other people can't make, but you know stuff,

right? Uh, there's also who, you know, right? And so you have to remember those people, but it's also who knows you, right? And people tend to remember people who remember them. And that's why I think it's very important. It's to confidence, I was the most not confident person growing up because when you are labeled broken and you don't know anything and you're not picked for it and you're not cool, you just like – I spent time with all the geeks and the nerds because I read comic books, played video games, Legends of Dragons, but I didn't have their grades at all. I remember when I was in elementary school. That's the worst. A nerd but that, right? You know, at all. I remember when I was in elementary school. You know, that's the worst. A nerd, but that's dumb. I know, that was me.

So that was the poster boy for that. But I remember I was with all these smart kids and the teacher came in the classroom. They were playing these. Like, what are you doing? Exactly. And the teacher was like, okay, we created this group in, uh, in the, in the school

called MASP and, and it, it stands for more able student program. And I wasn't, I was the only one that wasn't part of it in that group. And so I, I grabbed somebody else that would fit that billing and not that billing. And, and we created a group called LASP, less able student program, right? Because I just didn't fit in. I just felt like I couldn't do it. So I was very not confident. My superpower was shrinking down because I didn't want to be called on in class. I'd sit all the way in the back, sit behind the tall kid, you know, being invisible. And I would do a book report.

But if a teacher asked me to present it, I would lie and say I didn't do it because I was so not confident, right? Because I don't, you don't want, when you're broken, you don't want the don't you don't want when you're broken you don't want the spotlight you don't want to be heard and after everyone would leave i would i would walk out take it out of my book bag the book report and throw it out it's like it was a symbol i was throwing out my potential yeah and so that was me but going back to confidence i think a lot of my confidence came from being competent right when you have a good memory and you could remember things confidently, then it takes, it's like, well, that's a lot of work to visualize. No, it's a lot of work to forget things all the time, to look for those

keys, to be able to find your phone, to be able to forget people's names, right? And embarrass yourself and lose those deals and those relationships. And so, yeah, I think in psychology, it's actually called confidence competence loop that the more confident you are confident yeah yeah the more confident the more competent you are at something right the more confident you are yeah yeah and because you're more confident you're going to do that activity more confident and then you're going to get more competent and create momentum right oh that's so confident confidence loop and and so yeah that that when you're confident it leads to greater confidence when your confidence leads to greater confidence

so most people right now are going okay well where the fuck did you get the confidence to switch it yeah that like once you got the confidence yeah run with it great let's go to the top how do you start the loop yeah especially when you're at your lowest yeah i was at my lowest for a good uh decade and a half every single day, you know, with, with this label, I would struggle, you know, have anxiety and all these kinds of issues. And now I was introverted just personally, but because of my issues, I became very shy and shy is different introvert, right? Introvert is just, you know, you like being by yourself, you replenish by yourself. Um, are you an introvert or extrovert no but uh

it's interesting that you make that distinction because there are people that they just don't need the validation of strain strangers constantly so we look at them we're like oh you're shy and they're like no i'm full yeah i don't have the void you have so i don't need you to tell me i'm great all the time i'll just speak when i want to speak where there's performers probably like me and many other comics and people in other fields as well where we're like i don't feel whole yeah am i funny am i whole yeah am i funny am i whole we're good okay now i'm whole i got a couple breaths of oxygen as my buddy neil brennan puts it and i can be good for now so that's interesting to make that distinction that's right shy is different than introverted yeah shy is almost like a self-imposed introversion

you don't want to be yeah you want to be friendly you want to have these other people in your life that like you spend time with you want to speak out loud you just don't have the fucking confidence to do it oof yeah yeah yeah that that i mean you do you think performers a lot of them come from feeling not enough and they that's what makes them grow up them too it must yeah yeah it must i mean like i don't think it's uh i think on some level that's where like the that's maybe the catalyst yeah you know like that maybe is the spark like not getting enough attention in some way there's also just a love for i don't think every comic has to have this like tragic story you know oh this this person was touched as a kid or his parents hated him or

these type of thing like i think there are people that just truly enjoy entertaining you know and uh but it is odd to stand in front of people and just go aren't i good you know but my my relationship with it has always been kind of um before i had a crowd that we all knew what we were getting in on when we came to the show, before I had that experience, I was almost a little bit resentful of the audience who would be like, all right, make me laugh. And I'd be like, who the fuck are you? You signed up for this too.

You wanted to be made laugh and I wanted to make you laugh. You don't got to cross the arms. Pro prove to me you're good at being an audience too so it's cool to be at this stage i don't want to distract too much so shy and introverted yeah and so i think it's sometimes it's a choice i i i was very depleted i didn't have that you know uh there's a great book called quiet and it's a power of introverts and by susan kane and she has uh this idea that uh introverts wake up and they have five gold coins and every single time they engage with somebody somebody takes their coin and they feel depleted so then they have to be by themselves to replenish extroverts wake up and they have no gold coins. And every single time they engage with somebody, they get energy and energy and energy.

And so I could feel that. And on top of it, being damaged, I felt like I was shy. I wanted to be able to, even though I was shrinking and being invisible, I didn't want to be seen. I did want to be seen, right? We all want to be heard. We all want to be recognized. And so it wasn't, but I've always had that drive because I had purpose

because I wanted to you know i don't know maybe just deep down i felt like there was something there and i just couldn't figure it out i guess what i'm asking is like the person that's listening right now and they go wow i'd like to make that change in my life what was the first step what is the easiest thing to flip in the positive direction so my my inspiration was my desperation right i was so desperate and what i would my advice for somebody in that same situation is to take a small simple step right i believe that you don't have to do little that little things add up to big things right little by don't lose 400 pounds exactly little exactly little by little a little becomes

a lot yes consistency compounds And I would say that for greater confidence, first of all, I think confidence is not something we have because we always say, oh, I want to have confidence. But I think that's also a way of brainwashing ourselves because I don't think we have these things. I think we do. There are certain things you could do that will give you confidence. Like right now, if everyone did this exercise and said on a scale of zero to 10, you know, how confident do you feel about something? Right. And, and, or, or just about life in general and people can say it's a five, then you could do a thought experiment game. You could gamify it. You're like, okay, well, what do I need to do to feel a six or a seven? Right. Maybe I need to play

some, some, you know, good music. Maybe I need to just get up and move around or whatever it happens to be. Um, and I would say, do something small, get yourself out of your comfort zone. There's this quote, I was just, isn't there a Matt Damon movie about buying a zoo, right? Whatever. But there's a quote saying that, you know, 20 seconds of like, you know, insane confidence or courage could just change your life. And I would, I would, I would say would say that, here's one then. While the beauty is in the butterfly, the growth happens in the cocoon, right? It's the struggle to come out that builds your strength

to be able to soar. You said something last night about like it was inside versus outside. Yeah, like I was using the metaphor of an egg. Oh, yeah, yeah. If an egg is broken by an outside force, life ends. But if an egg is broken by an outside force life ends but if an egg is broken by an inside force life life begins so great things begin on the inside so what is that

first thing like yeah even what is the smallest little thing that you would recommend first step so i would make your fucking bed yeah i would say that fear right because usually what makes us not confident is uncertainty right it's the it's the unknown and it's not comfortable and while the comfort zone is a nice place to visit nothing nothing grows there right and you know this right to get on stage to be able to you are where you are because you put in the work and the sacrifice yeah and those late nights and those gigs that you know and those that you maybe didn't want to you know do and you know and so that's what success is you, most people see the tip of the iceberg and they see this lifestyle and yet below the iceberg is that discipline and

all the things that led to it, the mess and everything. So I would say, ask yourself this question. What is the tiniest action I could take that will give me progress towards this goal where I can't fail? So make it so minuscule. So maybe if people aren't confident about their body and they don't work out, maybe working out an hour a day is way too big. So a small, simple step, put it on your running shoes. You know, maybe reading, we said leaders are readers and try to read a book a week, but you know, breaking it down, it's about 45 minutes for the average reader a day, which is a lot. But if you get, that's why we triple people's reading speed so they can do it in 15 minutes a day. But maybe 45 minutes is too big. Maybe a small simple step, opening up the book.

Reading one line in the book. Some people don't floss their teeth, right? Get yourself to floss one tooth because you're not going to stop at one tooth. And you develop some kind of momentum, right? So that's really the key. Start with one tooth is the best. But do something, and metaphorically

for whatever you feel fearful of, take that small, simple step. Break it down where it's digestible. Well, before, I don't want to take up too much of your time.

I know you're a very busy man, but we got to get through fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So F is forget. Forget about what you know about it so you can learn something new. Because if you go to an event

about sales and starting a business, you might think you know it, then you're not going to learn anything new. Also forget about distractions because multitasking is a business, you might think you know it, then you're not gonna learn anything new. Also forget about distractions because multitasking is a myth, right? It's actually task switching.

So when you say you're multitasking, nobody's actually doing that. You're going from one task to another to another. And what it costs you is time because it could take five, 10 minutes to regain your focus. You hop onto social media, like you just, that's like a wormhole.

And you come back and you're like, oh my God, just 30 minutes just disappeared. Because you could scroll till you die, right? That's never gonna end, ever, ever, right? So do one thing. That was the worst when Instagram used to tell you when there was nothing left. Right.

You're just like, man, I suck today. I reached the end? There's no more. So here's the thing. So I would say forget about distractions because you lose time. You make mistakes when you're trying to multitask. So if you want to study something and learn it, you're listening to a podcast, you're taking notes,

but if you're on Slack and social media, you're not going to do anything well. You're going to make more mistakes. And the third thing, you use up more energy. You burn more brain glucose. So if you suffer from mental fatigue which a lot of people do brain fog sometimes it's because you're trying to multitask and you have too many tabs in your computer open and even if they're minimized they're still taking up energy right they're still taking up memory right so kind of close that tab something comes in your mind something you have to do write

it down so you can release it right because what you resist persist if you try not to do something you're just gonna do it more right so forget about those things the a and fast you got to be active like because learning like life is not a spectator sport and so many people take they sit back passively and say okay you know teach me but that's not how the brain learned the The brain doesn't learn through consumption. It learns through creation and creativity. And you can't learn by just being lectured to. And a teacher is not, it's not the responsibility to push information in your head. And so as much as you get active, so for example, how can people be active? I, I mentioned the first thing, just taking some notes, right? And actually handwriting notes and digitally taking notes is different, right? And so I don't know, and people could mention this.

I recall handwritten way better. Yeah. Way better. And then you're not alone. And I'll tell you one of the reasons. Digital is great for storing information, sharing it. But handwriting notes has been proven to help your comprehension and retention. One of the reasons why is most people could type pretty fast and you could type almost

everything that we're talking about right now, but you can't possibly handwrite. And so it forces you to reflect on it, to filter it, what's most important and relevant here, right? So those are little things. Plus, it's very kinesthetic and personal when you're handwriting things. You're also going shorthand, so you're just writing the important words. Yeah. It's super dense when you take notes handwriting.

Much better. Even a whole brain note-taking way is because the reason why you take notes is because there's a learning curve. There's also a forgetting curve. Do you know how much is lost? When you listen to a podcast, read a book, get a lecture at university, after hearing it once, after two days, how much do you when you listen to a podcast read a book get a lecture at university after hearing it once after two days how much do you think you forget on average i've made a i don't know 25 30 80 isn't that wild you listen to something you gotta keep putting out the same every week we're working too hard so by taking notes it helps that to reduce that and a fun way of taking notes that

will help your comprehension retention take a piece of paper put a line right down the page on the left side capture on the right side create now now this is nuance on the left side you're going to take notes on the right side you're going to make notes these are the things that are being said these are my thoughts about it. Exactly. Perfect. That's great. So that's a left and right brain away. So left brain is usually logic and linear. So you're going to capture how to remember names, right? What's the morning routine, right? And you're capturing it on the right side. If your mind, your imagination is going to go somewhere, let it go. Instead of distracting a mind wanderer, let it go on the right side of the page. How am I going to use this? How does this relate to what i know what questions do you know just go on and on

and create the future belongs to the creators right i love being around creatives because like you know where jobs are going they're being automated they're going to machines ai but what's not is our ability to create and imagine that's what is limitless you said something i had a note about that specifically when you were talking about you can't what was the exact word oh fuck i had to hear something about like you can't create a man no something yeah there's no like when we talk about you know my so my book title i i chose to call it limitless because what's truly limit the sky is not the limit our minds are the limit yeah what's truly limitless is our creativity there's no limit on our creativity there's no limit on our imagination there's no limit on human determination and so i want to unlock those those treasures in people's

people's minds and so yeah the future belongs to creatives so the a is being active so one of the things you do is take notes one of the things people do right now is being active take a screenshot of what you're watching or listening to right now, you know, and, and tag Andrew tag myself. So we see it and share one thing that you learned, right? That's a way of being active online, you know, and, and I'll be active right back. I'll repost some of, you know, like the favorite, like takeaways, but those are the ahas. So it makes you like own it a little bit more. So that's the a is being active in your learning because learning is not a spectator sport you know but school taught you to just consume when you should consume and create right it was cool that you uh told us to take notes

during the during this the performance because i would have felt guilty writing my phone yeah because i would have thought that you're thinking if you saw me oh he's texting he's not paying attention yeah yeah but i was like furiously writing notes. I even had to like tell Pablo. I was like, hey, buddy, I'm writing notes. I'm not being like, but it was really good that you kind of empowered the audience to do that if they chose. Yeah, even the things that we did, like getting up and turning

and some of the exercise that we did, it was more active than just listening to a lecture, right? And I think that's really one of the great things we offer is just entertainment is just so much grander than education. But when you could take education and present it in an entertaining way, then you could really empower people, right? And that goes to the S in FAST, where you have F is forget, A is active, S is state.

And S state means emotional states, like the mood of your mind and your body because as we talked about last night that information by itself is forgettable but information when combined with emotion becomes unforgettable locked like think about it like is i imagine everyone who's listening there's a song you could hear and take you back to when you're in high school right there's a fragrance or food that could take you back to when you're a child or traumatic event right probably locked in emotions we all knew we all remember where we were at certain dates of emotional intensity and so but the challenge is the emotion most people learn in is boredom

you think about school you know and if it's emotion times you know times information if the emotion is zero then you wonder why you forgot the periodic table and all the things we learned in school so the state is how can you increase your your state when you're learning something to make it more entertaining in your mind like even when i go on stage and i'm waiting sometimes the speaker before me might be boring and i'll be a watch and and everyone's falling asleep and i'll i'll be actually really excited because i'll think wow how's this person putting everyone to sleep that's so fascinating to me right i'll get really engaged because i want to be control of my emotions i don't want to be at the effect of the weather or anything else that's going on so state is if you want to

learn something better get in that playful curious state you know bring know, bring some excitement, you know, like sit the way you'd be sitting if you're really engaged and focused. And then your physiology affects your psychology, right? And so control your state, all learning like life is state dependent. And finally, the T in FAST, where F is forget, A is active, S is state, this is the review. T, teach. Learn when you're learning something, teach it to somebody else because your intent matters they call it the explanation effect that if you learn something and you had to explain it to somebody else the next day or give a ted talk about it yeah would your focus be better would you concentrate better would you take better notes would you ask more questions you would own it

because you have to reflect on it and be able to share it with the world. And I would say when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. So if you want to accelerate your learning, be a faster learner, learn. Think about somebody that you care about, that you wish was listening to this. Not only share this episode and everything, this video and everything else, but teach them something. Teach them one thing you got out of it and you'll know it better. Yeah, and it kind of exposes the gaps in your knowledge base about the subject as well, right?

Completely. You try to explain it, you're like, uh-oh, I don't exactly know what happened between 1920 and 1923. I should kind of do a little more research on that. Yeah, it's interesting. The teaching aspect is huge. Yeah, I love that.

Even when you did, like if you wanted to repeat somebody's joke and stuff like that, you know where your gaps are in know in your understanding even with your own like just material like talking it out to a crowd or like telling your friends you have an idea for a joke i don't ever like do bits to people but like i'll be here's this idea let's talk it out yeah that there's something about that so you explain it you just know it better you know i always heard this you hear this phrase that you know if you those who don't know or can't do they they teach, right? And it was like, oh, if you can't make it in business,

then teach business in business school. But I never saw it as a negative. I always thought, well, if I can't do something, teach it and I could do it better. You know what I mean? It's interesting. Like the two biggest challenges I had growing up, learning and public speaking. And the universe has a sense of humor because all I do is public speak on this thing called learning. But by doing it, I learn so much better. So can you. That's great.

Please tell everybody where they can see your stuff. I mean, I really enjoy, you call them podcasts. I enjoy these quick bites. These bites, yeah, digestible. Digestible brain hacks. I'm telling you, it's just so easy. You have this great playlist that's up on YouTube. Thank you, thank you.

Please tell them everywhere. If people go to Quick to quick brain you have to spell it right k-w-i-k yes um that's really my last name quick brain and we'll link to you down here yeah quickbrain.com you'll get uh these three training videos and links to all the podcasts the podcast as you mentioned is 10 15 no more than 20 minutes they're great binge list it start from episode one go all the way through you'll learn all these strategies in detail yeah um we have we have a book that came out uh limitless limitless upgrade your brain learn anything faster unlock your exceptional life you can get at limitlessbook.com when you go there and get it we give you a 10-day program on accelerated learning and speed reading because i want you to when the book arrives to be able to

read it and finish it um we donate all the proceeds to charity and on social media. I would challenge everybody, as I mentioned, to take a screenshot of this and share it so you could teach it to other people and tag us both in there and share your big takeaway. I'll actually repost some of my favorites and I'll actually gift a few copies of the book to people. That'd be great.

Just as a thank you for just playing along and and all the links are in my instagram profile and we'll make sure that we include that as well okay i have a couple questions and then you're out of here yeah yeah right this is our little lightning round okay okay you're on the hot seat right oh yeah i like it okay um so you said that there was a kid that grabbed your chair and that's why you fell. Yeah. Did you ever find out who that was? Yeah, it was, uh, it was Julie. Uh, yeah, I know exactly who it is.

What's, what's Julie doing now? Yeah, I don't know, but she, we, we, there was this fire engine outside and we all got on our chairs to see it or, you know, like being kindergarten. She pulled the chair out, not maliciously. I think he just wanted to be able to get on the chair and be able to see what was going on outside. But I took a head first into the radiator and created a whole ripple. But I'm thankful because honestly- Yeah, work out. Yeah, there you go. Okay. What were your goals today and how many have you met so far? Those three.

What are my goals today? Remember you said- Yeah, yeah, yeah. So personally, it was to jump in the ocean today, which I got. It's not huge. I love this. is me yeah yeah like it wasn't huge but i just said you know i was filming all day today from early morning till i got here right and i just like i'm gonna do myself a good you know favor by jumping into the ocean um i had a great green smoothie which was also personal and i got to spend time with with my bride and that was you know special also as well and those are personal things and then work thing was uh we filmed uh you know all day today which was big i got to do a little writing during a break and um and this is the final thing right here it's be here with you that's the highlight man okay um uh you talked about brushing your

teeth with the opposite hand yes okay um is there anything else you do with the opposite hand as well? I eat with the opposite hand. Ah, good, good. That is also good. All of you guys should have been thinking that same thing. Does my fiance have a broken brain? Can I mention her name and stuff like that? No, she does not.

She's brilliant and she's bright, and you are marrying up. I'll score some points there. Let's go. I'm marrying up, baby. Okay, now you've worked with a lot of celebrities, Elon Musk, Will Smith, Jim Carrey. Out of all of them, who has the most broken brain? No, they're all really bright.

I don't coach a lot. I mean, I did programs at SpaceX and everything. And I learned from all of them. You know, one of the takeaways from Jim Carrey is we were making some brain foods, as we talked about last night in his kitchen during a break at his home. And I was like, why do you do what you do? know as a comedian he's like i act like a complete fool on camera because i want to give people at home permission to be themselves and he's like my religion is freeing people from the concerns of others because people are so wrapped up with the

opinions and expectations of other that people impose on them and i just i thought that was a big big takeaway so i don't i wouldn't i can't talk about who's broken but i could tell you they're all amazing minds that's a good rationalization if i believe it but i'll let you rock with it okay last one do you have any bitcoin um i have uh i'm dad i dabble in it yes let's go um and uh to the moon now Al. Yeah, we're looking into an NFT and some other stuff there, because I'm really fascinated. By the crypto world. Yeah, I am, because we live in an exponential world. We have autonomous cars, spaceships that are going to Mars.

I like to see things advance, and I'm curious. I love it. I love it. We're doing some dabbling ourselves. Okay. So we're dabbling to the moon, Jim. Yes.

Thank you so much, guys. This is Jim Quick. Please go check out all his stuff. And again, thank you so much for spending the time, taking the time.

I really appreciate it, man. I appreciate you. Cheers.