Change Your Brain Every Day - Motivation: Are You Not Meeting Your Full Potential? with Jim Kwik

Episode Date: May 8, 2019

It’s often been said that knowledge is power, but how many times have we learned new information from a lecture or a self-help book, but then forgotten the information soon after, never implementing it into our lives? In the third episode of a series with learning expert Jim Kwik, Dr. Amen and Tana Amen discuss techniques you can use to take new information and use it, not lose it.

Welcome back. We're here with our friend Jim Quick. This is so interesting. We're talking about learning and memory. We're also going to talk about procrastination in this episode. Right. And you were talking about fast. Right. So review the F and the A for us, and then let's keep talking about this. So to learn any subject or skill, I recommend these four things. F-A-S-T.

The F is forget. What you're writing, know about a subject. So you can empty your cup so you can learn something new. Forget about distractions. Forget about your limiting beliefs. The A was active, meaning learning is not a spectator sport. So how do you take notes in a way? And I did a podcast episode on how to take information and turn it into action.

Because I believe one of the biggest lies in the personal development self-help space is, or high-performance space is, knowledge is power. It's not. It's only the potential to be power. It's not. It's only the potential to be power. It only becomes power when we apply it. And most people feel like if they buy a book and it sits on their shelf, they get credit for that. But it becomes shelf help and not self help. You know what I mean? And so really the goal of self-education is to be able to apply and make something change. So even we did an episode on note-taking. I would recommend even when people take notes

because everyone knows there's a learning curve, but there's also a forgetting curve that within 48 hours, we could lose up to 80% of what we learned. So taking notes helps you to retain it. What I do is I do whole brain note-taking where I'll take a piece of paper, put a line down the page,

and on the left side, I'll take notes, but on the right side, I'll make notes. Meaning on the left side, I'll capture information, how to remember names, how to read faster, but on the right side, I'll make notes. Meaning on the left side, I'll capture information, how to remember names, how to read faster, but on the right side, I will create. So that will be where I put my right kind of creative energy, my impressions of what I'm capturing. So in the three things I'm looking to write on the create, so it's capture, create, are I'm looking to answer these three questions to turn knowledge into power. And this is really the key. First question is, I would ask yourself relentlessly is how can I use this? When you're listening to a podcast like

this or reading one of your books or going to one of your events, ask yourself, how can I use this? After you have that in your head, those ideas in your head, the second H is your heart. It's like, why must I use this? Because a lot of people know what to do, but they don't do what they know because common sense is not common practice. So they know they should be eating a good brain diet. They know they should meditate. They know they should journal. First, you know, stress management and reflection, but they don't do it. Usually a second H is, why must I use this?

Who's counting on me to use this, to be my best today? And then finally, after you have the head, heart is your hands. If you're procrastinating, you're not doing something, check in with the second, the third H. The H is the hands, is implementation, The third question is, once you ask, how can I use this, then why must I use this? Third question is, when will I use this? Because I think the most powerful productivity performance tool we have is our calendars. So most people, they'll schedule their patients or their clients or their investors or their doctors, but they won't schedule things for themselves. When are they going to go do their martial arts class? When are they going to actually

do their journaling or do their food prep? And because if it's not written down, it's not going to happen. And we know that, but that's how you take knowledge and put it into action. But this is being active. So the S in FAST stands for state. And this is so important because I believe that all learning is state dependent, meaning that information alone is forgettable. Just think about all this information we forgot about school, the periodic table, everything. But information combined with emotion becomes more of a long-term memory. And we could explain that through brain anatomy. But just we remember things.

I mean, think about it. Just anecdotally, is there a music you can listen to that can take you back to when you were a child? Oh, yeah, instantly. Or a food or a fragrance? I have this funny story where if I play Cat Stevens, I love Cat Stevens. She just, because she grew up at a time when there was a lot of stress in her house. Her uncle was a drug addict. I'm convinced he does it to punish me.

She correlates something that is totally pleasurable to me to something that was not to her. So you have to know. So what's the state? And if I want the state of my marriage to be good, I need to kill Cat Stevens. So is that why Tony Robbins or people like Tony Robbins do things like play the music they play and have you jump because it changes your state?

Because think about information times emotion becomes a long-term memory. When you think about the emotion back in school, what's the primary emotion most of us felt? Boredom and hatred of being there. Exactly. So boredom on a scale of zero to 10 is zero, and information times emotion becomes a long-term memory. If the emotion level is zero, anything times zero is zero, and you wonder why you forgot most of the stuff you learned in school. So when I say all learning is state-dependent, the S is recapturing that state. And we could change the way we feel. We know that either through our mind or our body, through our thoughts and through just our posture,

our breathing, our physiology. And so I would never learn something in a dull state because none of it's going to stick. And so I would say is we have that responsibility ourselves, because we've said that word a number of times, that we control how we feel. Because the difference that makes a difference in people's lives is identifying with either a thermometer or a thermostat. Like you think about a thermometer, the primary function is to react to the environment. That's its function. We react to things. As human beings, we react to the economy, politics, how people treat us. But in actuality, the people who are happiest and most successful, most fulfilled certainly are the people who are happiest and most successful, most fulfilled, certainly,

are the people who identify more with the thermostat. Because the thermostat doesn't react to the environment. It sets the environment. It sets a vision, a goal, and then the environment raises. And that means that we have agency. We have agency over at cause of how we feel. And the most important thing I think we should be at cause about is how we feel. I believe that every single morning, yes, you have your to-do list,

but what if you had a to-feel list? What if you had three things on your, like this is how I'm going to feel today and you go from there? Because I believe another lie that's out there is we have to get in the habit of taking nouns and turning them into verbs. Most people think they say,

you could hear in their language, I don't have creativity today. I don't have focus. I don't have motivation. I don't have motivation. I don't have energy. Those aren't things as much as you have as much as they are things you do. You're doing. Right?

You don't have energy. You do energy. You don't have focus. There's a process for focusing. You don't have creativity. There's a process for it. And when you turn it into a verb, it gives you agency and power to be able to do something about it as opposed to just being at the effect.

So I would say all learning is state dependent. And then finally, all learning, yeah, to-feel list. And then you work backwards from that. And just like I also feel like we should have a to-be list. You wake up and you have a to-be list. Because a lot of people, when there's chaos or there's challenge, as there's adversity, they're like, oh, what do I need to do? And they're fight or flight.

And fight or flight, physiologically, it's not really good to think and solve problems. But I would say, adversity, they're like, oh, what do I need to do? And they're fight or flight and fight or flight, you know, physiologically, it's not really good to think and solve problems, but I would say, Hey, to pause, you know, it's not what, what you need to do. It's like, maybe that's a good question. What do I need to do? But maybe even better question, who do I need to be at this moment? Because out of that being comes that the actions will come naturally. I legitimately focus on like, it's just a weird thing I started doing when I felt completely powerless was I started literally like I am a warrior and I would legitimately focus on, like, it's just a weird thing I started doing when I felt completely powerless. Was I started literally, like, I am a warrior. And I would identify with, like, I'm going to kick, you know what, right now. So it's just, I just, it's something I started doing when I was young.

After being attacked. It's like, nope, I'm going to go out today and I'm going to kick some you know what. Exactly. So that's how I survived. I didn't know that that was, you know, at the time. Right. And but notice you can, we control our emotional states. You know, like, even when we, when we breathe, breathe we put a smile on our face when we think positive thoughts it

affects our perception and our physiology and then finally the t and fast f is forget about what you know about something a is being active to learn something faster the s is control your state because never learn something in a bored state because you're just not going to retain any of it and then get a sense of curiosity, a sense of wonder. And again, there's a great Rumi quote that says, sell your cleverness for bewilderment. I mean, when's the last time we felt a sense of bewilderment with something? And then finally, and it's one of the reasons why children learn so quickly.

They don't know what they don't know. They're very active in the process of learning. Their state is a sense of wonder and curiosity. And then finally, the T in fast, if you want to learn anything faster, is learn to teach it. Meaning that a lot of people, you hear this negative, those who can't do, teach. Like you can't do business, teach business. I never thought it was a negative. I always thought, wow, if I can't learn something, learn it to teach it. Like if I had to give a TED Talk next week on this subject, how would I pay attention differently? How would I take notes differently? How would I ask questions differently? And then it becomes integrated, meaning that's the goal. This is information in your head, but information

alone, nobody acts on it, but you need the inspiration, the motivation, but one in your heart. But when you have that, then you do the third eye, which is implementation, right? You actually do it. It goes from your head, heart to your hands. But then when you have all three I's, you have the information or the instruction, you have the inspiration to use it. You have the implementation if you're doing it. Then you have the fourth I, which is integration. I think that's the ultimate goal is it just becomes who you are. It's not something you learn on a podcast or on a video or in a seminar. It's just who you are. And because that's, I believe the life we live are the lessons we teach. Didn't you also, didn't you learn that in school i learned that in school in nursing school it was see one do

one teach one exactly everything had to be see one do one teach one did you have that yeah one of the big secrets i had to college was i helped other people me too i tutored i tutored i was like i led my studies exactly me too and then change your brain change your grades there's a chapter called two heads are better than one yeah i love that and if you don't know something then you're forced to figure it out exactly because it's not just your grades. There's a chapter called Two Heads Are Better Than One. I love that. And if you don't know something, then you're forced to figure it out. Because it's not just your neurological networks. It's also your social networks. Yeah. And so the co-learning and learning from other people, that's such a powerful tool.

Yep. How can people learn more about you and your work? You have a number of courses that you offer. We have an online academy, 30-day speed reading program, a memory enhancement program, a study skills program. And so quicklearning.com. Where most people can connect with us is on our podcast also. So we have a podcast like yours that's brain bites,

10, 15 minutes each episode on how do you remember names, how do you learn another language on how do you remember names? How do you learn another language? How do you take notes? How do you change your habits? And how do you remember what you read? Just simple questions like that. And you've both been on our show. And so it's very popular.

And then the best thing I would challenge everybody is to take a screenshot of this episode or this video and post it online. Tag us, the three of us on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. I always reshare some of my favorite, but also going back to teaching, when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Share your big ahas in that post. What's the one nugget you got out of this? Because then it'll become more of who you are. I love the limitation one, if you own them. That was so good. Stay tuned, because in the next episode, Jim's going to give us some practical advice on avoiding procrastination.

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