Change Your Brain Every Day - How the 4 Digital Supervillains Steal Your Powers, with Jim Kwik

Episode Date: May 25, 2020

Technology has fundamentally changed our society in a way that makes things easier and more attainable, but with the good comes the bad. In this episode, the Amens are joined by ‘Limitless’ author Jim Kwik, who discusses how to be aware and vigilant of the negative effects of technology so you can defeat the 4 “digital supervillains” that try to steal your powers.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Welcome everybody to a very special week of the Brain Warrior's Way podcast. We are here with our friend, Jim Quick. He has a new book called

Limitless. Jim is widely recognized as a world expert in memory improvement, brain optimization, which is why he and I have been friends for years, and accelerated learning. After childhood brain injury left him learning challenged, Jim created strategies to dramatically enhance his mental performance. He's the host of the top education training podcast, Quick Brain, and an instant New York Times bestselling author of Limitless, Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, Unlock Your Exceptional Life. So before we get started, if you learned faster, if you could remember things better, how would your life be different? I want you to think about that now. Jim, welcome, my friend.

The middle of a pandemic. Thank you for taking your time with us. So great to see you. It's so wonderful to see you both. And also, thank you, everybody. It's great to be back on your show. And I love you both so much. You've been on not only my podcast, you've been on my stages. And I love you both so much. Thank you for the great work you do. And thank you, everyone who's joining us. Oh, we miss you. So talk to us about Limitless and why you wrote it.

And then you have a concept that actually goes, I think, close to the end of mental illness, which is the evil ruler. It is that if I was an evil ruler and I wanted to create mental illness around the world, what would I do? And so I think the villains may actually have a similar mission. Yeah, the partnerships in this book are fantastic, especially for right now. They're just so poignant for the time. So I really like it. Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. This is after 28 years of teaching this.

This is my very first book. And it was interesting because our publisher asked us if we wanted to move the publication date. But, you know, and I was like, wow, no, this book is more than just speed reading and remembering names and learning languages. It's how to study and stuff. It's really about managing your mind in times of crisis. It's about getting back your productivity and your flow while you're working from home. It's about supporting your children if they're not in school, teaching them how to learn. It's about learning new skills and strategies, subjects if your work is being disrupted or you lost your job and you have to retool. And so we're really excited about this book.

And also we're donating 100% of the proceeds to charity. Oh, wow. For children in need who don't have access to education, healthcare, or clean water. Oh, that's fantastic. Thank you, thank you. So the title Limitless, it's not about being perfect, but it's about progressing beyond

what you currently believe is possible. And this book in the beginning was all about methodology. It was all about how to do those things, the speed reading and the memory that we've discussed in the past podcast episodes with you. But it's that I asked myself before I submitted the book to my publisher, I literally, before I had sent, I said, well, a hundred percent of the people who read this book cover to cover,

will they get the results they're hoping for? And my honest answer was, was, was no. And that was a little disturbing for me as a creator, as a teacher. And it made me reevaluate what keeps people from doing what they do. A lot of people know what to do, but they don't do what they know. And I know in a conversation we're going to have is about motivation, human motivation, in terms of why do people know that they should prioritize their sleep? Why should they eat these good brain foods, why they know they shouldn't meditate and manage stress, but they don't always do it and follow through. So I know we're going to talk about that in one of these episodes. But the reason why I feel like this is such a necessary book right now, as you mentioned, is because of technology. And I'm pro-technology. It allows us to communicate as we are right now. It's amazing.

And technology is not necessarily good or bad. It's just how it's used. Like fire is technology and fire could heat your home or it could burn down your home. It could cook your food, you know, or it could do some devastation also as well. And I feel like now, and I know the two of you are hyper aware of it,

is just the effect technology could have on the human brain. And the four supervillains, like why now, is because technology, maybe it doesn't cause, but it certainly amplifies some of the challenges that we're dealing with right now that hold us back. And so in the book, I talk about superpowers a lot, because when people see me on stages, I do these feats where I've memorized a hundred people's names or a hundred words or numbers forwards and backwards that an audience gives me. But I always tell people, I don't do this to impress you. I do this to really express to you what's possible because the truth is we could do that and a lot more regardless of our

age or background or career or education level or financial situation or gender or history, IQ. It's just we weren't taught. If anything, I feel like we're taught a lie that somehow our capabilities or our memory or our potential is somehow fixed, like our shoe size or something like that. And so in the book, I demystify these lies and I call these lies, everything's an acronym to make it memorable. But a lie stands for, for me, a limited idea entertained. A limited idea entertained. It's not necessarily true that intelligence is fixed or that you have a horrible memory or such, but it's an idea we give energy to and we accept it

as truth. And so going back to this, like why now is I believe technology has imposed a level of distraction, a level of overwhelm and overload, a level of memory loss, even. So the four supervillains I want people to be aware of, because it helps to be aware of it. Because how do you change something unless you know it's affecting you? And for me, the reason why I'm so talk, I talk about superheroes all the time is because I couldn't because of my brain injury, that you mentioned when I was five years old, you. And for me, the reason why I'm so talk, I talk about superheroes all the time is because I couldn't, because of my brain injury that you mentioned when I was five years old, I had trouble learning processing, very slow process or teachers repeat themselves over and over again. It took me extra three years to learn how to read. And it was, it was challenging. And I taught myself how

to read by reading comic books. And that's why I love, have this love and affinity and connection for superheroes. When I was nine years old, have this love and affinity and connection for superheroes. When I was nine years old, I was slowing the whole class down and I just didn't understand the lessons. And I was being teased by the other students. And I remember a teacher pointing to me and said, that's the boy with the broken brain. And I don't think she said it out of,

I don't think the intent was malicious. I think she was trying to protect me and just explain to the other kids that I was different. But all I remembered was broken brain, and that became my label. And that label became my limit when we're talking about becoming limitless. So having overcome these challenges at around age 18, I couldn't help but help other people, and that put me on this path. Now, though, we're faced – I mean, this was 28 plus years ago. Now with technology, we're faced with different level

of intensity of overwhelming distraction more than ever. And so the four supervillains that you asked me about, they're like the horsemen of the apocalypse. I don't know if it's the mental apocalypse or what, but just as a visual for people. The first one is, and then I'm going to alliterate everything just to make it memorable as I always do, is digital deluge. Digital deluge is this information anxiety, information overload, information fatigue syndrome. Too much information, too little time. With technology, the amount of information is doubling at dizzying speeds.

But how we learn it, read it, remember it, it's pretty much constant. And that growing gap creates a lot of stress. And how does this show up in our life? Higher blood pressure and compression of leisure time, trouble sleeplessness, and it just gets more and more. And that's why in the book we teach you strategies, five mental superpowers to overcome the five mental super villains. So to overcome digital deluge, we have speed reading, not skimming or scanning or skipping words, but really reading for comprehension. But you do it more efficiently to keep up, catch up and getting ahead. And also effective study methods, the kind of methods I've taught at UCLA, at Caltech, at Harvard University.

Because we were not really taught how to study. Like school teaches you what to learn and what to study, but there are not a lot of classes on how to learn and how to study that material. And so that's why we have dedicated chapters on those two areas, superpowers. The second supervillain besides digital deluge is digital distraction. You know, in a world of ring pings, dings, social media alerts, you know, app notifications, how do you maintain your focus and concentration in a world full of those, those shiny objects. And so that's why we do a whole chapter on the power of focus and concentration. The third supervillain besides digital delusion, digital distraction is digital

dementia, you know, where we're outsourcing, we're outsourcing our memory to our external memory devices. Not learning. Right. And we don't have to retain anything nowadays. I mean, it keeps our calendars. It keeps our to-dos. It keeps phone numbers. I mean, think about it.

The fact that we don't know people's phone numbers that are so close to us is a perfect example and proof of what you're saying. Exactly. This digital dementia, it's just the high reliance on technology. And not that, I mean, think about how many phone numbers we used to know. Right. All of them. Exactly.

But I'm sure there's someone you call or text every single day, but if you didn't have your phone and other people would argue that, oh, why do I need to remember that? I don't want to memorize 200 phone numbers. And honestly, neither do I. And I get that question when I speak at Facebook or Google, and they created a search engine for that. Like, why do I need to remember all this? And I just say, I just equate it to a lot of the physical metaphor that if you relied on technology to take you, lift to take you five blocks and not walk it. If you just relied on an elevator instead of taking the stairs, you know, like if I put my arm in a sling for six months, it won't be stronger.

It's like working a muscle. Exactly. It wouldn't stay the same. It would atrophy. And I feel like our high dependence on it's not that I want to memorize 200 numbers, phone numbers, but it should be concerning that we've lost the ability to remember one or a conversation we just had or something we were going to say. or, I mean, I believe two of the most costly words in life sometimes, or especially in business, I forgot, I forgot to do it. And I forgot to bring it. I forgot the meeting.

I forgot what I was going to say. I forgot the conversation. You know, I forgot that person's name. It just goes on and on. So digital dementia is that, that high dependence and reliance on external memory devices. And, cause I want to be able to get people to be memory fit. And then the fourth supervillain besides digital deluge, digital distraction, and digital dementia, I just coined just a term to make it fit, honestly, digital deduction. And digital deduction, it's interesting because working with the amount of children that I

work with, and especially now with everything that's going on online, is that children don't have to learn to think anymore because they have technology. It does the thinking for you. And digital deduction is basically saying, just similar to digital dementia, where you're relying on it as an external memory device, digital deduction is you're relying it on to do the thinking for you,

meaning it tells you what to think and you don't have to use that you don't have to use the so children right now they're not they're not they don't have the amicability of previous generations they can't deduce they can't uh reason they you know we're having trouble even now you're applying logic or critical thinking besides the fact that these aren't classes taught in school, like on how to solve problems, how to make a good decision, how to be more creative. So just as we have a chapter on focus, on memory, on speed reading and study,

we have a whole chapter on critical thinking skills. I love that. So when we come back, let's actually talk about the superpowers that corral these villains. We have so much to talk about. I'm so excited to have you on the Brain Warriors Way podcast. And, you know, for those of you listening, if you can get rid of these villains, how would your life be different? Post it on any of your social media channels and tag the Brain Warriors Way podcast, but also tag Limitless, which is available online where you can get the moment, but in bookstores, hopefully as soon as they open. Stay with us. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always

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