Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - How To Improve Your Memory, Supercharge Your Focus & Learn Faster with Brain Coach Jim Kwik #380

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

When was the last time you ‘learned to read’? For most of us, it was in the early years of primary school, and you probably haven’t given much thought to that skill set since. But what if you could read smarter, faster and accelerate your capacity for learning – at any age? This week’s guest is here to show you how. Jim Kwik grew up thinking of himself as the ‘boy with the broken brain’. A traumatic brain injury at the age of five meant Jim struggled at school, taking three years to learn to read. He was teased and bullied; his potential overlooked by teachers. Today, he’s a globally renowned brain coach who’s helped everyone from university students to CEOs and celebrities to improve their productivity, cognition and focus. He does so through his talks, coaching courses, podcasts, and online content – as well as his bestselling book, Limitless. In this conversation, he’s keen to impart his many tips, tactics, and techniques to us. We discuss why so many of us feel like we’re lacking in focus, are too old to learn, or worry that our memories are already failing. We talk about technology as a tool not a distraction, and how to structure your day with intention. And Jim explains how the 3Ms of Mindset, Motivation and Method can keep you stuck in limiting beliefs – as well as liberate you from them. We then move on to Jim’s accelerated learning and reading techniques, and he has some fascinating and super-useful advice on how to ‘flex your focus muscle’ and become a purposeful, prolific reader who remembers and uses what they’ve read. He also shares some amazing hacks for reading 25 to 50% faster and taking in more, not less, as you do it – it’s not about skim reading or skipping words. I can’t emphasise enough what an ideas-packed episode this is, and I know you’ll want to take action from the moment you finish listening. I hope you enjoy this motivating and inspiring conversation.   Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore. For other podcast platforms go to https://fblm.supercast.com. Thanks to our sponsors: https://www.exhalecoffee.com/livemore https://drinkag1.com/livemore https://www.vivobarefoot.com/livemore https://www.calm.com/livemore Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/380 DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.

If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limits, they're yours. Limitless is about advancing and progressing beyond what you currently believe is possible for yourself. When your mindset, your motivation, and the methods, when your head, your heart, and your hands are all aligned, then you're living a limitless life. There's a version of yourself that's patiently waiting. And the goal is you show up every single day until you're introduced. Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're having a good

week so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, and this is my podcast, Feel Better, Live More. So this episode is going to be the last one in the current series of my podcast. If you are a long-time listener of this show, you will know that every summer we stop the podcast for about six weeks. Now there are many reasons for this, but the main one is because the summer is the time of year where as a family we try to prioritize undistracted time together. My summer is the time of year where, as a family, we try to prioritise undistracted time together. My wife is the producer of this podcast and so very involved, like me, with the weekly production of each show. So for us, it's very important to have some time each year when we stop. And because we have two young children who have long school holidays,

the summer is the perfect time. Now, I'm well aware that many of you really look forward to each week's episode and that this podcast has earned a place in your weekly schedule. I honestly am truly grateful for that. Don't forget there are over 300 episodes in the back catalogue. Most of them are just as relevant today as they were when they were first released. So perhaps this summer, you could take our little break as an excuse to delve into the back catalogue and listen to some of the episodes you may have missed first time round, or perhaps revisit some of your favourites. Our plan, as always, is to relaunch the next season at the start of September. Now, before we get into this week's episode, just a quick announcement. We are now

actively looking to find a new team member to help with this podcast. We're looking for someone to work closely alongside my wife to edit, produce and curate each week's episodes. We're looking for someone who ideally is familiar with my work, has a keen eye for detail and someone who is self-sufficient and able to manage and organise their own time and workloads. Video and audio editing skills would be helpful, although they really are not essential. And living in the northwest of England would be preferable, but again, absolutely not essential. This is a really important role for my podcast. So if you love the show and want to join the team and feel as if you have the necessary skills,

please do send an email to info at drchatterjee.com with the words podcast producer in the subject line. And of course, if you have a friend who may be interested, do let them know. Now onto the topic of this week's episode, how can we all proactively upgrade our brains? Well, let me start off with a question. When was the last time you learned to read? For most of us, it was probably in the early years of primary school, and you probably haven't given much thought to that skill set since. But what if you could read smarter, faster, and accelerate your capacity for learning at any age? Well, today's guest is here to show you how. Jim Quick grew up thinking of himself as the boy with the broken brain. A traumatic brain

injury at the age of five meant that Jim struggled at school, taking three years to learn to read. He was teased and bullied, his potential overlooked by teachers, and today he's a globally renowned brain coach who helps everyone, university students, global CEOs, elite athletes, and celebrities to improve their productivity, cognition, and focus. He shares his important message through his online talks, coaching courses and podcasts, as well as his best-selling book, Limitless. In our conversation, Jim shares his most effective tips, tactics and techniques. We start off discussing why so many of us feel like we're lacking in focus

or are too old to learn or worry that our memories are already failing. We talk about technology as a tool, not a distraction, and how to structure your day with intention using the three M's of mindset, motivation, and methods. We also talk about Jim's accelerated learning and reading techniques, how we can improve our own ability to focus and how specifically we can start reading up to 50% faster and taking in more, not less as we do it. I can't emphasize enough what an ideas-packed episode this is. And I know there will be plenty that you will want to take action on the moment you finish listening. I absolutely loved having this conversation with Jim. I hope you enjoy listening.

Many people these days are complaining that they can't focus. They're struggling with their memory. They just can't pay attention in a way that they used to. So in your view, what's going on? Yeah. I mean, the world has changed, certainly. Technology, and I'm pretty pro-technology. It also, it maybe hasn't caused it, but it certainly has amplified some of that distraction, that digital distraction. I mean, we live in an age of rings and pings and dings and app notifications, social media alerts. And I feel like in a way that we're driven to be distracted. And how do you maintain your concentration?

Which is so important nowadays. We live in the attention economy. But we're rewiring our brains to react and to be able to focus every little thing that's in our purview. And so, and how are you going to get things done? How are you going to learn? How are you going to study? How are you going to be productive? You know, in my book, Limitless, I talk about four digital, it's like the four horsemen, if you will, of the mental apocalypse.

And I tend to alliterate, so I made them all Ds. The first one actually is digital distraction. You know, with the rise of technology and every like and share and comment and cat video, and then we get those dopamine hits for kind of rewired to be distracted. Another one that we're facing that people I think are struggling with right now is this thing called digital deluge.

It feels like there's too much information, but not enough time to go through it all. It feels some people describe it as taking a sip of water out of a fire hose maybe, or they're drowning in information and how do you catch up and keep up and get ahead? And some of the things we could talk about here is I talk about accelerated learning,

which I think is one of the most important skills to be able to master in the 21st century, to be able to catch up and really thrive. Accelerated learning could also be speed reading. You have so much to read. You know this in your field. And the half-life of information is getting shorter and shorter. But the amount of information is coming at dizzying speed. but how we read it or learn it, that growing gap creates information anxiety, higher blood pressure, compression of leisure time or sleeplessness.

So it could be a big challenge for people. And then there's one that I term digital deduction. Digital deduction. That's the third one, right? I term digital deduction. Digital deduction. Yeah. That's the third one, right? Yeah. Digital deduction.

So you have digital distraction and digital deluge. Digital deduction is this phenomenon where it seems like this generation is not having the same ability to think or to rationalize. You have applied logic, critical thinking. And it could be because of technology. With algorithms, a lot of technology is doing the thinking for us. It's giving us our recommendation. It's telling us how to get from here to there. If you think about way back before GPS, we would have to build visual spatial intelligence

in order for people to get from here to there. But now we rely on our devices, so we don't have to think throughout sourcing that. And then a big one is digital dementia. I mean, think about that. We're so reliant on technology to also be like our external memory drive. I mean, think about how many phone numbers your audience, you and I used to know growing up. I mean, a lot, many phone numbers, you know, your audience, you and I used to know growing up. I mean, a lot, right?

A lot, yeah. Yeah, and how many do we know today, current numbers? You know, probably you could count on one hand, maybe one, two, or three. Not that I want to memorize 500 phone numbers, but it should be concerning that a lot of people complain about not being able to memorize one, you know, a phone number or a P pin number or a passcode or a seed phrase or what they ate that day or a conversation they just had.

I believe two of the most costly words sometimes in our life, certainly in our work, are I forgot. I forgot to do it. I forgot to bring it. I forgot that meeting. I forgot that conversation.

I forgot what I was going to say. I forgot that person's name. You know, every single time we have those lapses, we could lose time and credibility. We could hurt a relationship. Those are two powerful words, aren't they? I forgot. It's interesting because it's clearly something

that is increasing in society. People in their 30s now are saying, you know, I just can't remember that. I can't remember where I put my keys, right? Or something larger like their car. Or something larger like their car. Or something larger like their car. You see people walking around the lot with their car alarms like GPS trying to figure out where to park their car. So I want to sort of explore what's going on here. You mentioned these four Ds, right?

And of course, they all start with digital. And you also mentioned that you're pro-technology, right? So it's not necessarily technology that's doing it. Maybe it's the way we're using that technology sometimes that's problematic. So, you know, let's go through this one by one. I know you've outlined that, but digital distraction. I think we all kind of get that, that we can't focus because we're just drawn to our smartphone. And we're just, before we know it, we should be doing a work project, but somehow we've ended up down a Twitter rabbit hole, or we've been on Instagram for 10 minutes without even realizing it. So what can we do about that? Yeah. I mean, for me, technology is

not necessarily good or bad. It's exactly what you said. It's how it's applied. Like fire is a form of technology and fire could cook our food or it could burn down our home. Right. But you're right. It's how it's, it's how we're using it. And as opposed to it using us, right. Technology is a tool for us to use. But if that, if technology is using us, then who becomes the tool that when, then we become the tool, right? And so, you know, having agency, I think, is very important, a way of starting this conversation in terms of that we're not a victim, that we always are the pilot. We're the pilot of our lives instead of the passenger. We're the pilot of our minds. We're not the passenger.

We don't have to just be reacting to it. You know, my challenge is when people pick up the phone out of boredom, right? I mean, you know, in terms of how many times people open up social media or touching their phone or if it's at the table during a meal, you know, it creates that kind of unconscious anxiety that's there. It's just the impulse to be able to pick it up. And so part of it is obviously controlling the environmental aspect of it and knowing that we always have a choice, right? There's a quote in Limitless from a French philosopher. And he says, life is the letter C between the letters B and D. Life is C between B and D. B is birth, D is death, life C, choice. You know, we always have that choice every single day. Our lives in effect is the sum total of all the choices we made up to this point. Where are we gonna live?

Who are we gonna spend time with? What are we gonna eat? What are we gonna do for a living? What are we gonna feed our mind? And I'm also thinking that when it comes to choices or in the decisions that we make, I believe that even at a meta level that these difficult times, they could distract us.

We're talking about distraction. It could diminish us or these difficult times can actually develop us. We always decide because we always have choice. Every day we wake up with a chance because we have choice, right? And to take responsibility of it as opposed to putting it out there like something, you know, I always use this metaphor that it's important for all of us to identify more with a thermostat than we do a thermometer. Meaning a thermometer, let's say a thermometer is in your room. What's its function? It just reacts to the environment. Whatever the environment gives it, it reacts. And as human beings, we are sometimes like that. We react to how people treat us. We can react to the weather. We can react to the economy, all these different things.

But ultimately, you know this. If you write about happiness, the people that are most fulfilled, happy, successful, they tend to not react as much. They tend to maintain more of their agency. A thermostat has that agency. A thermostat doesn't react to its environment. A thermostat, it knows the temperature, it gauges. It has awareness and though it sets a temperature and what happens to the environment,

the environment reacts to it. Yeah. Right. No, I love that. And when I've watched your videos online or listened to your podcast, I see a lot of shared philosophy I see a lot of things between us that we both like to talk about and I know first thing in the morning is a very important time for you as it is for me I really do passionately believe that the way we start the day determines so much of what happens later on in that day. You know, if you start off consuming news, don't be surprised that you feel anxious,

a bit frazzled, a bit negative about the world later on, because the way we feel is often downstream from what we're consuming. And I know you're big on morning routines. You're big on not looking at your phone for a period of time in the morning. And if we use the analogy of the thermostat, I guess we get a chance every morning to set the thermostat on our life, depending on what we do, right? So you're a brain coach. You're a world-renowned brain coach So to you what does an ideal morning look like if we're thinking about the health of our brains and Specifically towards things like focus. Yeah better focus throughout the day Yeah, I I'm very intentional and when when I go through some of the things I talk about in my morning routine

I'm not suggesting it's for everybody. I don't think necessarily everything is for everybody or everybody's for everything. You know, I do ask people to maybe experiment. I think ultimately we are our best coach. And it's nice to have mentors and others and get their feedback. But to test it on themselves and then, you know, everyone's situation is a little bit different. Some people work at night. They're night workers, they have lots of kids and such. For me, when I wake up, my goal is, you know, while I do some of the biohacking people see

on social media, you know, the cryotherapy and the saunas and all that. Most of that I like to get nowadays from nature because it's free. I feel like it's very natural. It's very duplicatable for all of us. Is that when you spoke about recently, you'd like to get the four elements first thing in the morning? Yeah, I do. That was beautiful. Could you elaborate on that?

When I was researching another book, I was reading about the elements and how, you know, ancient cultures like from Babylon and Babylonian times, they used to believe in ancient Greeks, they used to believe everything was made up of these four elements, air, fire, water, and earth. And I thought, wow, that's very beautiful. It sounds very natural and organic for me. And so for me, I like to infuse my day with those elements. Maybe first thing in the morning, you could do it by going out and getting grounded. I love taking off my shoes and being barefoot.

You're barefoot now in the studio as I am? Yeah, and walking around your beautiful yard and it's very peaceful, you get grounded. And some people use biohacking like PMF mats at certain frequencies. But I feel like all of those are meant to kind of imitate nature, like the infrared, you know, the red lights imitate the sun and so on. So I'm going out there, I'm getting the direct sunlight, which is very important. You know, we know many people talk

about getting direct sunlight first thing in the morning to reset your circadian rhythm, to help you sleep better at night. So that's the for me and i have the earth i hydrate because we could lose a good amount of water through when we sleep through respiration and perspiration and you know just staying hydrated could boost your reaction time your thinking speed upwards of 30 percent i mean it's a huge not a small boost a huge lift. So how much do you drink each morning? Yeah, for me, it's a little different. I always go by like how I feel. And also that's dictated by the night before, just like getting a good night's sleep is dictated by how you start the day also as well. I do some electrolytes. That really works well for me, the salts and the

minerals. A nice tall glass works for me. Usually room temperature, just kind of like, that's my personal thing. And then, and then the last one is air. And that's just doing some breathing exercises. You know, sometimes people feel sedated or they, when they're reading, they fall asleep or they feel like they have that, that mental fatigue. And I feel like a lot of times it's just because we're not getting enough air. I mean, sometimes we have to just even check our posture when we're at our desk, because sometimes when you collapse your diaphragm, the lower one third of your lungs

could absorb two thirds of the oxygen. So, you know, it's really important to get that blood flow and that oxygen to where it really matters. So those are the kinds of things I do. But intentionally what I'm thinking about in the morning is I do this, and I've done this for the longest time. I do these thought experiments, you know, where I'm, I just, I'm going to imagine myself at the end of the day,

I could do this in bed or I could do this outside. I can imagine a family member asking at the end of the day, how was your day? And I was like, today was really great. You know, I'm very blessed. You know, I crushed it today, something like that. And then I asked myself, if that's what I say, then what had to happen in order for me to feel that way? And I work backwards. I kind of reverse engineer it, meaning like I think about three things personally and three things maybe professionally that happened. And they don't have to be huge, big things, but that's where I kind of put my focus and my intention. I kind of work backwards. I was like, okay, if I do this, you know, if I have this conversation with you, you know, that's a big check mark for me and I'll make me happy.

You know, if I walk the dogs, you know, or play with my son or I do these, you know, do specific activities, that's a win. So I work backwards from that. Yeah. You mentioned before about being the pilot, right? Rather than a passenger. before about being the pilot yeah right rather than a passenger and i really like that practice where yeah you've mentioned the four elements you completely get that you can see how that will be a very well literally a way to ground at the start of the day root yourself give yourself the kind of core ingredients that a healthy human needs each morning, right? But I really like that exercise where you fast forward to the end of the day and almost visualize saying to yourself, that was a great day. And so what do I need to do to make that a great day? I think that's a

really nice practice. And can you give an example maybe, or how does this change things? Because, you know, does it automatically change the way you approach the day? Are you thinking about things you have to have done? Or are you also thinking about things like, you know, when I see my work colleagues, I want to be calm. I want to be present. I don't want to be snapping at anyone. I want to, you know, what sorts of things are you thinking about? Actions, behaviors, bit of both. Yeah, yeah. And I've done both and, or created a composite.

I think to-do lists, most people listening have some form of to-do list way of tracking the tasks that they have to check off. I think it's important to also have a to-be list. It kind of, maybe it sounds a little corny, but a to-be list. Maybe it sounds a little corny, but a to-be list, it's the whole idea we're not human doings, we're human beings. But when we're faced with a decision or dilemma, often people are like, what do I need to do?

And I think if people took a step back and say, who do I need to be at this moment? It changes the reference point, meaning that maybe you're in a spirited debate with someone at work and you say, who do I want to be? Maybe I want to be compassionate, right? Or I want to be loving. And then the behaviors take care of themselves. I don't have to think about what I need to do if I'm focusing on who I need to be at that moment, right? So this is really about a proactive approach to life rather than a reactive one. Yeah, I very much think like one of the syntaxes or strategies of success is, you know, the B,

do, have, share, that kind of model, you know, because it's a lot of people want to jump to the have. They want to have a perfect body. They want to have, you know, lots of money or whatever, right? Or even when people win their lottery, right? And, you know, all the stats when people win their lottery and all the stats when people have what happens over the next X amount of years, they lose all that and more. Those jackpot winners because they jumped to the half point, but they were never being a millionaire. So they weren't doing the things that wealthy people would do to have the things that they would have, right? So I think all behavior is belief-driven, meaning that if at events, when people see me do these demonstrations where I'll memorize a room full of people's names

or whatever, I would tell people, I don't do this to impress you. I do this more to express to you what's possible because the truth is every single person listening to this, regardless of your age, your background, your career, education level, your financial situation, your gender, your history, your IQ, we could all do this. We just weren't taught, right? How to learn. There was no class called memory. You know, Socrates said learning is remembering. So part of it is knowing that

you could have the skills, the knowledge, the abilities through training, right? Because school taught us what to learn, but not necessarily how to learn those specific subjects. And I think that's important. But also when we're going from be, do, have, share, people at these events, they'll come to me and like, Jim, I'm so glad you're here. I know you're a memory coach. I have a horrible memory or our senior moments are coming too early, or I'm just not smart enough and then I'll say stop if you fight for your limitations you get to keep them if you fight for your limits they're yours right and um and so I really feel like you know everything starts at that being level that it's part of success is aligning three h's your head

your heart and your hands meaning there's an integration and alignment of what you think and believe, what you feel, and what you're doing. Meaning some people could have goals in their head and they have a standard in their head, but they're not acting with their hands consistently. Maybe they have a goal for health or impact or income, but if they're not doing the actions with their hands, I think it's really important to check in with the second H, but if they're not doing the actions with their hands, I think it's really important to check in with the second H, which is our heart, right?

Which symbolizes functions of emotions. Because we are not logical. We are more biological. When you think about dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, we're this neurochemical feeling soup, right? And when we're coming, even building on that, yes, maybe you want to have a, instead of just a to-do list, maybe you want to add three things you want to be and also three things you want to feel that day. Because here's the first principle that I teach with accelerated learning is that it's about taking nouns and turning them into verbs, getting in the habit of taking the nouns in your life and turning them into verbs.

So here's an example. I think the nature of what we do, you and I and others, it's about transcending. It's about ending the trance. This mass hypnosis, whether it's through marketing or media or from our parents or from wherever those thoughts kind of came from, you know, and those impressions, those expectations that somehow told us we were broken, that we're not enough, right? And so how do you transfer part of the, and if it's not external, some of that hypnosis is not just coming from marketing or media or fear-based thing,

it's coming from ourselves. It's like internal belief and internal doubt and even our internal self-talk. So if you say something like, I don't have motivation or I don't have energy or I don't have focus, I don't think these are things you have necessarily. I think they are more things you do. So you're taking, when you have something, it's a noun,

but when you do it, it's a verb. So you don't have energy, you do it. There's a process for generating energy. You don't have focus. There's a process for harnessing your focus and concentration. You don't even have a memory, right? There's a process of encoding and storing and retrieving, you know, those memories. You know, you don't have motivation. There's a process for motivating yourself also as well. So the reason I bring this up is, you know, before we go into all the tactics

and the tips for focusing and reading and memory and so on, is this idea of having this mindset where it's your, where we get coming back to personal responsibility, personal ownership, where you're relentless about your own agency. And that gives you, when you turn something into a process,

into a verb, that gives you your control back, right? You're not putting it out there saying, I wake up and I hope I have creativity so I could write today, or I hope I have energy so I could be with my kids. You don't have to hope. You could actually do real help because hope is not a strategy and say, okay, how can I generate energy? How can I create these memories? What's the process for motivating myself? I love the idea that behavior is belief driven. It really sort of resonates deeply with me.

And I just want to share with you some of the things I've learned over my years of clinical practice. I used to think, and I believe this is one of your seven lies of learning, that knowledge is power. And I want to talk about that in a minute. And, you know, maybe 10, 15 years ago, I've always been very passionate about the power of lifestyle to prevent, reverse, and also treat most of the things that I see. Always been passionate about that. And what I would often see, Jim, is that some people, you'd spend time with them, you'd try and educate them on the changes that you think if they make them, it's going to help them feel better, help their brain function, help their heart health, help their energy, their focus, whatever it might be. And yes, some people would make changes for a few weeks,

a few months, you know, they'd change their diet, they'd go to bed a bit earlier, they'd have, you know, a 30 minute walk every lunchtime, and they would feel different. I thought, okay, great, this is awesome. And then not all of them, but, you know, a significant percentage a few months later, or when they come back to see me six months later, they've kind of slipped back to their old selves. And I used to sit for a long time pondering this, going, what's going on? It's not knowledge is information, knowledge is power,

because they've got the knowledge. Not only do they have the knowledge cognitively in their brain, they've also got the experience. They've applied it and felt better. So why is it that they're flipping back? And I believe it's a huge part of it is to do what you've just mentioned, which is behavior is belief driven. I think it's to do with compassion. You know, if you fundamentally don't like who you are, or you have a problematic relationship with yourself,

at some point, you often will slip back into those negative behaviors because they align with what you actually think about yourself. You're worthless. You're not worth achieving, or whatever it might be, you're not worthy. So before you know it, your behavior starts to align with those internal beliefs. And I observed who are the people who truly transform their lives for good. And it's usually when they've changed their internal programming, the voice in their heads. You know, a person who truly loves themselves, who truly cares about themselves, actually looks after themselves pretty well, because that's what someone who loves themselves would do. They would look after their body. And even in my own life, I would say, I used to be very regimented. I used to be very regimented about routine. You know, my classic case was New Year's Day. You know, I'd be like, right this year, I'm going to nail

meditation, right? That's it. And I would be great for two weeks or three weeks. You know, I do my 15, 20 minutes a day and I feel I was rocking the year. And then, you know, you miss a day because you're a bit busy. And then that one day becomes two days. And then before you know it, it's something you used to do. And I, over the past years, have really worked on the internal dialogue and you know my childhood and all those kind of things and as you change your beliefs and your values I actually find behaviors very easy to stick to now like I'm not as regimented as I used to be there's a mixture that there's a kind of balance between discipline and compassion now whereas before it was kind of like this hard coach to myself. Does that resonate at

all? It does. I think there's a, there's a, you know, there's this pendulum that swings that it could be, it's paradoxical, but it could be true that, you know, things could be, you could, you could, you could, you could force something and then also things could be in flow, right? That you could, you know, you could strive and then you could surrender. It's this kind of balance between hard and soft, yin and yang. I would say when it comes to mindset, it's been my experience, I'm starting my 32nd year as a brain coach, that our brains are like this incredible supercomputer

and our self-talk and our beliefs are the programs it will run. So if you tell yourself things like, I'm not good at remembering people's names, you probably won't remember the name of the next person you meet because you programmed your supercomputer not to. If people truly understood how powerful their minds are, they probably wouldn't say or think something they didn't want to be true. And that's not to say you have one negative thought and it ruins your life

any more than eating just one, some of that candy or that donut will ruin your life. But if you did it consistently every single day, multiple times a day, it will show up in your life. And so for me, when we're thinking about planning our day, it's not so much about time management. I'm thinking about more mind management. I'm trying to think about priority management. I'm thinking about more mind management. I'm trying to think about priority management. For me, it's about, you know, controlling the controllables, right? And it's

about the most important thing is to keep the most important things, the most important things. And for me, the most important thing is the three things are the three things that we control. And we could turn this into a masterclass. If somebody feels, so Limitless, which is the title of my book, it's not about being perfect. Limitless is about advancing and progressing beyond what you currently believe is possible for yourself

or what you're demonstrating for yourself. So the opposite of that will be not advancing. It would be being stuck. So if your listeners or your viewers, if they think about it, let's get very, very engaged here. Think about an area of your life where you feel stuck. Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, if you're looking for something at this time of year to kickstart your health, I'd highly recommend that you consider AG1. AG1 has been in my own life for over five years now.

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Take a moment. Is it your health? Are you not advancing in your health, your impact, your income, your wealth, your level of happiness? Where do you feel like you're not growing and you kind of feel stagnant and stuck and contained? Maybe it's your reading speed. You feel like you're a very slow learner or a bad memory. Where do you feel like you're trapped in a box? Now, by definition, that box, that cube is three-dimensional, right? And so there's three forces that contain that box. And these are the same three forces that will liberate you out of that box. So when I'm coaching a client, what I'm listening for as I'm going through this intake and this discovery is which

dimension is keeping them stuck? Where's the bottleneck? So if you think about a Venn diagram, like three intersecting circles, like maybe Mickey Mouse, two ears that are intersecting and a face, these are the three forces, the dimensions, if you will, that keep you stuck and will make you limitless. And I'll tell you, I'll give you the ending of the story. The face, the end one, they're three Ms. Those are the methods. So you've mentioned that you, as a medical professional, doing the work that you do, people know what to do, but they don't do what they know, right? Because common sense is not common practice. How many times do we need to hear about the benefits of cold therapy, saunas, breathing, meditation, reading and exercising and zone two? We hear the same things.

So those are the methods. And the methods could be upgraded over time as we learn more and more and research is done and we get that feedback. But a lot of people want to know what to do, but they don't do what they know because you're right. Knowledge is not power. It's potential power. It becomes power when we apply it.

So what keeps people, so if the last M is the methods, what's keeping people from doing what they should do consistently? Because that's the only evidence that people are committed is that they consistently act. So the first circle, the first M is your mindset. Now you've had many experts on your show talking about the power of mindset. We had this conversation about all behavior is belief-driven, right?

That your brain is like a supercomputer, your self-talk is the program it will run. And so that's in mindset. Mindset for me, functionally, how I'm looking to run, you know? And so that's in mindset. Mindset for me, functionally, how I'm looking at it, I've defined mindset as a set of assumptions and attitudes you have about something. What's your assumptions and attitudes about money? What are your assumptions and attitudes about health?

What's your attitudes, assumptions about love or relationships, right? Because let's say, you know, your attitudes, assumptions about like memory is just like, say, you know, your attitudes, assumptions about like memory is just like, hey, you know, it's hard. Like my, I grew up with a traumatic brain injury. When I was five years old, I had an accident because I was, I had very slow processing. I had poor focus, a poor memory. I struggled every single day. It took me three years longer to learn how to read. You know, I was being teased. I don't want any people here, you know, when I was nine

years old, I was being teased in class because people hear, you know, when I was nine years old, I was being teased in class because I was slowing the class down. The teacher came to my defense and pointed to me and said, leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain. Right. And that, and that, that, that affected my mindset because before that you could pretty much say I was more of a blank slate. Right. That was, that was, I wasn't born with this idea. I was broken, but every single time, you know, I wasn't picked in class for, you know, for sports or I did badly in school, which was often, I would say, oh, cause I have the broken brain. And that label became my limit. Right. And so adults have to be very careful with their external words because they often become a child's internal words. Right. because they often become a child's internal words, right? And so while, yeah.

And so while, you know, we are a product of our history, you know, the expectations of others, you know, our experience, our external environment, you know, family and everything. We and we alone are 100% responsible for our lives. And that's something I just choose.

You know, I have these primary beliefs that I am responsible for my life, good, bad, or indifferent for everything. Cause that, cause wherever, you know, whatever you feel, cause if I put the blame outside, that's where my, that's, I'm just giving up my power. My sovereignty is something else, right? To, to my, to the, my boss, you know, to investor, to, to the environment. And I don't want to do that. Cause then the benefit of having responsibility is that it gives you know, to investor, to the environment. And I don't want to do that because then the benefit of having responsibility is that it gives you the power to make things better. Like I got to go to dinner. I spent a lot of time with Stan Lee,

you know, the creator of all these superheroes. And superheroes is a big part of my mythos. I even, you know, Limitless, even as you open it up, it has the structure and the stages of a hero's journey, Joseph Campbell's work. And Stan wanted to meet Richard Branson and Richard Branson wanted to meet Stan. So I'm picking up to go to dinner and Stan's in the car. And I just, I was like, can I ask him? Is it appropriate?

I was like, okay, I'm going to do it because I need to know this because I'm just very curious. It's like Stan. And the reason why I love comic books is they changed my life. I mentioned I couldn't read for three years after my brain injury like all the other kids. But I taught myself how to read by reading comic books and something about the illustrations. And it brought the words to life. And so I'm very connected to this hero's journey. Because for me, a superhero is somebody, they're not perfect, right? They're flawed, they have challenges,

but they offer people hope and they offer people real help, right? And then that's something we all could do in our life. We can offer people hope and real help and one person can make a difference. These overarching themes, that good will eventually overcome evil. And so I was like, Stan,

who's your favorite superhero? That's the question I have. so I was like, Stan, who's your favorite superhero? That's the question I have. And he was like, Jim, my favorite is Iron Man. And he said, who's your favorite? He flipped it on me. Who's your favorite superhero? And Stan had this big Iron Spider-Man tie. And I was like, Spider-Man.

And when I said Spider-Man to Stan in his iconic voice, he said, with great power comes great responsibility, right? Something we've all heard. And truth be told, I reverse things when I hear it sometimes or when I read it. And maybe because I had some head trauma as a child. And I heard something different. I was like, you're right. With great power comes great responsibility, Stan. And the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great power. When we take responsibility for something, we have great power to make things better. Yeah. I love that, Jim. So what would you say to someone who says, okay, I get that. We've got a hundred percent responsibility for our lives, but you don't get my life.

I've had a tough start. I grew up in poverty. I'm an immigrant in a different country and I've got all kinds of struggles and discrimination to face. You're saying I've got 100% responsibility for my life, but I disagree. What would you say to that person?

I would say whatever script people have, I would say you're probably right, first of all. You're right that these are all the situations that are there. And I would say, as kindly as I could say it, And I would say, and what changes? Because for me, beliefs are something that's not necessarily true or false. For me, a belief is, is this useful or not? Is it useful for me to believe that? And I would ask that person the same, is that, is it useful for you?

Because I also have a belief that if somebody had hardship or they didn't have the connections or they didn't have the connections and they still succeeded and we all know in culture there are many examples then what happened there? My parents immigrated to the US my dad lost his parents when he was 13

didn't speak the language lived in the back of a laundromat that my mom worked at had no money, no connections or anything. And so everybody had, and my brain and everything, everybody has a story. Then the thing is that story could keep us in that mindset of stuck, like we're a victim. And my challenge is that all the excuses that,

and we all could justify where we are and nothing changes. I mean, we're like fighting for our limitations. It's like, this is all the reasons why I can't be happy. These are all the reasons why I can't be healthy. These are all the reasons why I can't make money or whatever, right? Or I can't learn or I can't read or anything. And for me, life switched when I started, because I used to say like, why do I have this broken brain? Why me? And literally, I'm activating my reticular activating system and I'm shining a spotlight on these answers. And I didn't like the answers I was getting, right? Because they weren't useful. I couldn't do anything with that. But when you had the belief, you could find evidence everywhere to support that belief. Like

you could have a negative belief and go, yeah, this is why I've got a broken brain. This is why I've got a broken brain, right? So you reinforce the narrative. Oh, absolutely. And then, so as I, you know, I talk about in the book, this dominant question idea where we have 60,000 thoughts on average a day, the challenge is 95% of those thoughts are the same thoughts we had yesterday and the day before that and the day before that, you know, and those thoughts, you know, lead to, lead to feelings. Those feelings lead to actions. Those actions lead to experience, experience, go back to, you know, modeling our thoughts, right? And it becomes this loop. And so if you're having the same 95% thoughts, feelings, everything, then how are you going to affect real change, right? You know, in yourself or somebody else. And so my thing is I got frustrated. My inspiration was my

desperation. I was going through so much pain, so much suffering, so much bullying, not feeling enough, doubting myself all the time. And then I started changing the questions. It's like, instead of like, why does this happen to me? Then I started saying, well, I'm broken. How do I fix this? I was like, okay. That gives me a little bit higher quality answers because I start shining. I start activating that reticular activating system, that RES, because primarily our brain is a deletion device. We're trying to keep information out, right? If we let everything in, we would go mad, right? We'd be so overwhelmed.

So where do we shine the spotlight of our attention? And usually, like for example, we're hardwired to respond to our name, right? If you're out and about in any city and somebody shouts your name, you're going to look regardless because your nervous system is hardwired, your RAS is hardwired to do that. We're also hardwired to look for things that are important to us, the things that we value, the things that

are survival, the things that we ask questions about obsessively. And so I started asking, how do I fix this? And I said, how do I make this better? And I was like, then I started getting answers. I was like, okay. And then with those answers, I started behaving differently and starting to get different kinds of results and that reinforced, you know, so I think we all have this kind of momentum and, you know, cause everyone wants momentum, but some people have momentum in a direction they don't want to go, you know, also as well. I mean, I think it's really powerful hearing that, you know, this idea that we have a hundred percent responsibility. As you say, you can be dealt a bad hand in life, right? For sure.

But if you don't believe you have agency to change, it's just not that useful. It's like, yeah, you can have self-pity, you can tell the story. And again, I get it. Many people have had- And my heart goes out to people who are suffering and struggling. But it was really interesting for me. Well, there's two now, but one of the conversations on this podcast that has changed me the most

was the conversation I had with a lady called Edith Eger a few years ago. At the time she was 93 and she was in Auschwitz concentration camp when she was 16. Her parents were murdered within a couple of hours of getting there. But there was something about her that was just so inspiring. She was full of forgiveness, compassion, empathy. And she said things to me, like when I was in Auschwitz, I didn't see myself as a prisoner.

The prison guards were prisoners. They weren't free in their minds. I was. She said to me, I never forgot the last thing my mom said to me, which was, Edith, nobody could ever take from you what you put inside your own mind, right? And I never forgot the last thing she said to me, which was, Dr. Chatterjee, I have lived in Auschwitz, and I can tell you the greatest prison you will ever live inside

is the prison you create inside your own mind. is the prison you create inside your own mind. I fundamentally am not the same person after that conversation as I was before it. Because if I'm ever having a struggle in my life and something seems insurmountable and I'm tempted to play any form of victim narrative in my head about, oh, poor me, blah-de-blah-de-blah. I think, hey, wrong, you know, in Auschwitz,

Edith could reframe, right? If she can do it in that hell, you can probably do it here, right? So I found that very inspiring. And literally two weeks ago, I spoke to, there's a book that's just come out called My Friend Anne Frank. So Anne Frank's best friend, Hannah Pick Goslar, it's one of the most

gorgeous books I've read. I say gorgeous, it's tragic at the same time, but Anne's best friend of moving away from Germany, coming to Amsterdam, the war's closing in, the Nazis coming in, her ending up at the age of 13 in a concentration camp for two years. And then, you know, she's liberated. She died a few months ago, just before her 94th birthday. But literally in that chair two weeks ago was her daughter and her co-writer of her book. And again, I was asking them, I said, what is it? What was your mum like? You know, that trauma as a child, she said to me, Ruthie said to me, she could deal with anything, anything. She was a doer. If there was a problem, if things weren't going well, she'd always, very much like you're saying, there was 100% responsibility. So I feel we can learn. When you see people in those extremes, right? It's not about making ourselves feel bad and go,

our pain is nothing compared to theirs. It's more, for me, it's more about, wow, if they can learn these lessons there, I can learn them here. Yeah. Those two stories gave me goosebumps. Yeah, I don't know if the camera showed it, like when you were telling it with Edith.

And I call them truth bumps because there's something that's a fundamental truth there. You know, I had 20 years ago plus, I was giving a presentation at a conference in upstate New York and like three or four hours north of New York City. And one of the other speakers, her name was Immaculee. She told a story. She's from Rwanda. And she was there during the genocide. And she hid in a bathroom with seven or eight other women and stayed there. I get choked up thinking about this.

and stayed there. I get choked up thinking about this. Stayed in there to survive for 91 days in the bathroom with seven or eight women, a small bathroom, hiding there while, you know, the most horrific things happened to the people in her life. And when she came out of that,

she found out that her entire family was, was murdered. And, you know, and it's interesting because when I met her, I just like, I, I hugged her and I just cried and, and I offered her, she was going to fly back to New York city and I offered her a ride, you know, cause I'd driven there and I, she went into detail about what she went through and I pulled over three times because I just couldn't deal with the details. So I was just bawling the entire time. And it's interesting though

because she came out of it though, she's like one of the most forgiving, peaceful people that I know. And she wrote a book called Left to Tell. And it's her story going through, and all the great stories that we, when we talk about the hero's journey, it's going from limited to limitless, right?

Going from somewhere where people are stuck or they're trapped into a point where there's some kind of change inside and they're liberated and they get a level of freedom, right? And I feel like it's so profound. And I use that also as a lesson when I see people, you know, going through situations and they come through it and they're authentically, genuinely, you know, better off than a lot of people who haven't gone through a fraction of what they've gone through. And I do believe that, again, that with struggles comes strength. We hear a lot about post-traumatic stress and I'm not minimizing that at all. That's a very real thing. You know, I get a lot of people

coming to us that want to learn how to read faster, but their nervous system is really locked up and they're trapped in their survivor brain and it's holding them hostage of their creative executive functioning and everything. And there's also something that I'm just going to shine a spotlight to whoever this might be useful for. We hear a lot about post-traumatic stress. We don't hear a lot about post-traumatic growth. This phenomenon where people have gone through adversity that they wouldn't wish upon anybody, right. But they also authentically wouldn't change what they went through because there was some kind of gift through there. They found a mission, they found a strength, they found a character trait, you know, they, they found, they found something, a purpose going through it. You know, for me, my challenge was learning every

single day, not feeling good enough every single day, being bullied for my, you know, for being different and having this kind of quote unquote disability, you know, and life has a sense of humor. And because of it also, my, my superpower was shrinking. Like I would, I would sit behind the tall kid cause I never had the answer, right? I would get sick if I had to give a book report, right? I would avoid the spotlight because I didn't want to be seen. I didn't want to be heard. Why did you call that your superpower? that, you know, when they passed around the book to you to read out loud, you know, when it got to me, I wouldn't understand any of those words. I would pass it on. That was so painful for me. I never wanted to feel that spotlight. I think a lot of public speaking, the fear of public speaking came from those reading circles because nobody's good at reading the first time. And that's what we learned. And so fear is learned outside of, you know, a couple innate, you know, fear-based

things in our nervous system as human beings. But a lot of that fear is learned outside of a couple of innate fear-based things in our nervous system as human beings. But a lot of that fear is learned. And I talk about it in the book, about the lies you mentioned that we tell ourselves. Lie for me, everything's an acronym. It stands for limited idea entertained. It's not true that you're not enough. It's just a limited idea we're entertaining at that time. And going back to the beliefs, I like to choose beliefs that are useful not enough. It's just a limited idea we're entertaining at that time. And going back

to the beliefs, I like to choose beliefs that are useful to me because I ask, is this useful or not useful? Because the truth is, again, all the excuses we make for our lives, it could be absolutely accurate and nothing changes because excuses are in effect useless. When we complain about something and we put it outside of ourselves, nothing is different. We waste a lot of time. We waste a lot of energy. We waste a lot of focus, you know, even by doing that.

And we honestly, okay, the coaching part of me is coming out. We can't be upset by the results we didn't get from the work we didn't do. You know, and so much, so many of us have to do more of that deep work, you know, in certain areas. And so even online, I'll give you a fifth one, just having this conversation with you, for the fifth horseman.

Not only is digital deluge and digital distraction and digital, a lot of the one was digital dementia and digital deduction. There's digital depression, right? People are not feeling enough and they're going through and comparing themselves to the highlight reel of everything. And I just want to remind everybody on social media that the grass is greener where we water it. And sometimes the grass is greener on social media because the filter the person is using, right? Or, and there's a whole lot of artificial turf, you know, in social media land also as well. You know, so if we, if we compare ourselves to other people, we're always going to be green with envy and it, and then that's, that's a challenge because we feel less

than right in comparison. And so I just want to bring to light, you know, there, these are challenges and it's, you know, we know that mental health, you know, uh, challenges is a, is a real, uh, loneliness, uh, you know, depression, you know, there's an algorithm when it comes to media and social media it's kind of like there's an algorithm to our mind like the algorithm is whatever you engage with you get more of you watch all the cat videos and like share them and everything

your news feed is going to be full of cats and your minds are the same way if you're just watching the news and everything that's dark and threatening and scary, whatever you engage with, you're going to get more of. So you're just going to start. Your RAS, your reticular activating system, your nervous system is just trained to look at what's threatening.

And chronic stress will shrink the human brain. Chronic fear will actually suppress your immune system. Chronic fear is a whole area of science called psychoneuroimmunology. It just makes you more susceptible to colds, to flus, to viruses. Right. So we have to stand guard to our mind in terms of what we're letting in. Going back to the conversation about mindset, though, you know, and personal responsibility that, you know, with great responsibility comes great power. I start there because I think there's three big things in mindset. So mindset is your set of assumptions and attitudes you have about something. Your attitude and assumptions about your problems. Because often people think they're problems and we're addicted to our problems, right? And we start justifying, you know, this is the reason why. And we use them as kind of evidence of why we can't be any way else.

And so if we start focusing on the problem, I had Quincy Jones in our audience. We do an annual Brain Power Conference. The music producer. Yeah, yeah. We did Michael Jackson. Yeah, amazing. We are the world. And he was in the audience. I was like, okay, I have to invite him on stage.

So you didn't know you were just doing an event and you saw him. Yeah, he was there. I mean, we're longtime friends and we collaborate on some stuff. And he was there as a guest, but I pulled I pulled him on stage and then we started going to this conversation. This was in, you know, quite a few years ago. And I was like, okay, I want to, and he has, he could speak all these languages and, and, and part of it is you were talking about music and

languages and everything. But then I was like, okay, everybody knows your successes, right? You've listed some of them. I want to know, like, tell me about your problems. Tell me about your struggles. You know, what are some of the things that you went through or currently going through? And he looked at me, he said, Jim, I don't have any problems. I'm like, you're 80 something years old. Like how you like, we all have problems. He was like, no, I don't have any problems. I have puzzles. I was like, wow, that's a mindset, right? A puzzle, like think about problem is just like, ew, I don't want to deal with that. But a puzzle is like a game. There's a solution, you know, to it. It's like a riddle and something that you can have fun with. And I was like, wow, that, that's like his, one of his, that's part of his mindset, the set of assumptions and attitudes

about problems, right? Well, I don't have problems. I have puzzles. And so that's like of his mindset, the set of assumptions and attitudes about problems, right? Well, I don't have problems, I have puzzles. And so that's like a small example of this shift. Do you know if he has always had that or is this something he has cultivated intentionally throughout his life? Like maybe the younger Quincy used to have disempowering sort of narratives and problems. And he figured

out after a while, hey, if I keep repeating that, that's who I become. Whereas if I call these things puzzles, it totally changes everything. My downstream thoughts about that puzzle are completely different than my downstream thoughts when I call it a problem. Yeah. I don't know the specific incident, you incident. He didn't know either in terms of when that happened. But it's definitely one of those lead dominoes, right? Because that informs so much downstream, as you mentioned. And he has this way of, he says you have to go to know. One of the reasons why he thinks it's important to travel,

even in your own country or in your different neighborhoods, is because you get to experience. There know, there's different words, there's different foods, there's different language and different music, and it changes your perspective. And I think a point of view, changing your point of view, who you spend time with, or the people, place, will give you a different way of looking at a problem. Because often the problem is not the problem, right? When we say we have these problems or all these situations, often the problem is not the problem, right? When we say we have these problems or all these situations, often the problem is not the problem. Often the problem are a set of assumptions and attitudes about that problem. You know what I mean? The problem is not often

the problem. The problem is more attitudes about the problem that kind of keep us in that box. So I'm just always thinking about mindset. And the three things I would think about mindset for everybody is not just your attitudes, assumptions about money. Because if your attitudes and assumptions about money is money is the root of all evil, or you don't get rich if you're hurting people, whatever, you won't use the methods, right? That keeps people inconsistent. Because that's why people self-sabotage is because of mindset. They take one step forward and two steps back, right? They buy one of your five best-selling books, right? And it just sits on their shelf, unread, and becomes shelf help, not self-help, right?

Because their mindset is, it's just like, oh, the mindset is, oh, if I have the book, then my life is better. And that's absolutely not true, right? And even if you read the book and then apply it, your life is no better than somebody who's illiterate, right? So the mindset's a little bit different. I would also say that in this mindset it's not

just your set of assumptions about health and relationships and love that will keep you from doing the methods that they're they're your your attitude assumption about yourself so there are three things that i would focus on in mindset number one what i believe is possible because if you don't believe it's possible you're not going to do it right and that's the other second thing is what i believe i'm capable of some, you could believe it's possible for someone else to heal or someone else to have a great relationship or someone else to be happy or someone else to read three times faster and understand what they read, but you might not believe it's possible for yourself. Right. So what I believe is possible, what I believe I'm capable of. And then the third one, what I believe I

deserve. Right. Because that's kind of a thermoset setting that, you know, if you feel like we don't deserve that income or deserve that relationship or deserve, you know, that level of intelligence, that impact, whatever, then we're always going to be mitigated in that box because that dimension is holding strong. So that's mindset. And the last one is methods. And the last part of it, the third dimension or the second dimension here that starts with M is motivation. So you're only going to be stuck in that box if you have the right methods to get out of that box, if you have the right mindset that allows that box to expand. And if you have the motivation to even struggle to get out of that box, right? To be able to practice and play at the edge of what you perceive are your limits. And I believe that motivation is a very straightforward thing for me. In order to

motivate yourself or to motivate someone else, your kids, your team, right? Or someone to buy your product or someone to invest. There are three factors. The formula is three parts to get limitless motivation. And limitless motivation is just P, the letter P times E times S3. P times E times S3. So really, let's just use an example. Let's say, you know, you listen to one of our podcasts and hear all these experts talk about exercising and it's good for your brain, right? As your body moves, your brain grooves. You create brain-derived neurotropic factors, but you're not exercising.

You're not moving daily, right? Because maybe you have a limitless mindset, but you're not because the first part is P, is purpose. A lot of people, they think purpose is something cognitive. I'm pointing to my head, but really I think it's more the heart. It's a feeling. It's something that you feel. You feel purpose. And if you don't have a reason, you won't get the result. Even when people forget people's names, right? So if I ask an audience of a thousand people, I say, who has trouble remembering names?

95%, 99% of people raise their hand, right? If they're honest. And then I said, okay, what if we gave you a suitcase full of millions of wealth, right? Currency. If you just remember the name of the next stranger you meet outside, who's going to remember that name now? And then those same people raise their hand, right? And then so as a coach, I'm saying, okay, how did you all become memory experts all of a sudden, right? You just said you couldn't do this and now you can do this. So I'm calling you on your BS, your belief systems, right? It's not true that you can't remember names. You're just not motivated, right? Because

we don't remember all names, but we don't forget all names either. Right? And I would say that genius leaves clues that when something's working, there's something there that's either visible or invisible to us, conscious or unconscious, that we're not connecting with. Meaning that you tend to remember the names of people that could be good for your business. They could be a whale of a client, a great person for your podcast, someone you're attracted to, right? There's some kind of reason to remember their name. And with the reason, you'll get the result. So even if you wanted to hack that, when next time you're at an event or a wedding or something, you want to remember names, just ask yourself when you're meeting someone, why do I want to remember this person's name?

Maybe to show the person respect, maybe to get a referral, maybe to make a sale, maybe to practice these things that I learned from this podcast. And if you can't come up with the reason, you won't get the reward, right? So that's the power of purpose. So some of the time people will come to you and because obviously people come to you, they want to read faster. They want to, you know, remember things.

They want to remember names. Memorize a speech, right? A fax figure is formed. They're in medical school. But you're saying, are people trying to jump the gun? Are they trying get to just the method jim give me the give me the method give me the hack tell me how to learn but you're like no no back up a minute let's go upstream what's your reason yeah without the reason forget it and that's the thing because and i truly and i get again i've got goosebumps you zoom in here like and there's goosebumps because i get so passionate

about this i feel like if you're listeners i'm gonna't know who I'm talking to right now, but I expect that you listening to this right now, you probably have forgotten more about health and personal growth and self-actualization and anything that you've heard on this podcast more than most people will learn. More than most of your family and friends have learned. You're like, your friends are probably asking you, why are you listening to another podcast, watching another YouTube, right? You know, and it's hard to change people. Like just think about how hard it is to change ourselves, right? And I would say also, how much are you putting that into play?

Because common sense is not common practice, right? My book, Limitless, when I was first submitting it to my publisher, it was all methodology. And then before I hit send on the email, I was like, will 100% of the people who read this book get the results they're hoping for? And I was like, there's just no way.

Because a lot of people know what to do, but they don't do what they know. So what's missing? Mindset. Mindset. And motivation, right? So that's why I spend most time, because honestly, a lot of the techniques, 95%, we have courses and everything else, a whole academy, students in 195 nations that go through this and like speed read

and improve their memory and focus and everything. But 95% of what we publish is free. You know, YouTube is free, podcast free, and people could, but so the things to do is always there but do you have the mentality to do it and do you have the motivation so the first thing is purpose and I'll give you a hard illustration that I had recently I was going out and about and I saw someone I thought I recognized, you ever see that?

do I know that person? they called me my name. I was like, oh, that's the person. But I didn't recognize them. It's not that I don't remember. They look totally different. Because the backstory is this person was very, very unhealthy when I knew this person. I mean, extremely unhealthy or very overweight and lethargic. And the friends, we were just, he's not a close friend, but we would just kind of coach him. Just like, oh, why don't you stop smoking that and doing this and drinking that

and trying this, you know? And he would just know, he would take pride in being unhealthy, right? And I see him years later and I don't even recognize him. He looks younger and he's fit and he's got this kind of glow. And I was like, I need to know

because Genius Leaves Coo is like, what happened? He starts telling me all the things he's doing. And I was like, there's a lot of stuff we talk about on our podcast. And I'm like, I need to know, because Genius Leaves Coo is like, what happened? He starts telling me all the things he's doing. And I was like, there's a lot of stuff we talk about on our podcast. And I'm like, well, yeah, we've been telling you about that for years. He was like, yeah, but he's like a little while ago, I was off on a business trip, killing myself.

I came back and my daughter was crying hysterically and had a nightmare that I had died, you know, and she was like, she was broken and she was just like clinging on him. And that was purpose for him, you know, and because of that, he had a reason and he got a result. Because if you don't have a purpose, if you don't have purpose in reading that book, you're not going to remember what you read in that book. And most people just read a page in a book, get to the end and just forgot what they just read because they didn't have purpose. And so I would say start with purpose

and start with learning states and these states of curiosity and anticipation and focus. These are things you don't have. These are things that you could do and create. But always start with a reason. The second thing though, is someone could have unlimited, limitless purpose to work out or to read or to start a business or finally talk to that person they've been wanting to date and still not do it. Because the E is you need energy, right?

Motivation. Somebody who is exhausted is not going to be very motivated to work out or to study that day or to make those calls they need to make. And so if you had a big process, let's say we're going back to working out or reading. If people have seen pictures of me with Elon or Oprah or whoever, people always ask how we connected. And I'm telling you, yes, we got connected by people in the same room, but how we maintained that was a deep love of learning. Because anybody at that stage, they didn't get there by accident, right? They love to read, right?

You read to succeed. Leaders are readers. We've heard this for years. As someone has decades of experience like you do and you put into a book and somebody could read that book in a few days, they could download decades and days. That's the biggest advantage I think in life, period, right?

The ROI on reading books is just phenomenal. Yeah, and that's why we do these accelerated learning and speed reading programs at Facebook, Nike, Google, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, you're right, at Harvard, different places, because especially, because you could spend four hours a day reading. Just think about all the emails and proposals

and social media and magazines, all the research. If you could just double your reading speed, cut that in half, save two hours a day, two hours a day over the course of a year, that's massive. Even if you save one hour a day over the course of a year, that's 365 hours. How many 40 hour work weeks is that? About nine. Two months of productivity, you get back saving an hour. And reading also, by the way, just for encourage somebody who's just has a book, you know know, one of our books or something on your shelf that you haven't read yet, you know, reading is to the mind what exercises the body.

I think it's one of the best ways to stay mentally fit. But let's say you're not reading each day. Like you committed to reading 30 minutes a day and you're not doing it. If you had a big processed meal, maybe that's why, because you're in a food coma, right? So the energy, you're saying, so you've got the purpose, you've got the desire, you've got the motivation, but because of maybe your lifestyle behaviors, you've got no energy to kind of act on that purpose. You have a purpose to drive somewhere, but you don't have the gas, the fuel to get you from here to there because you're in a food coma. Maybe you have a newborn child and you haven't slept in three days. You're not being very

motivated to go to the gym that day. So I would just say, you know, a lot of what you and I talk about in our books and podcasts is how to get energy, how to manage stress because stress depletes a lot of energy, how to create a positive peer group because energy vampires could steal. I think some people are batteries included. They're born with it, but some people are batteries not included and they're just stealing everybody else's energy, right? Or foods, you're being allowed processed foods and high levels of sugars and not the best brain foods. You're not, or sleep. Can we talk about, you know, like sleep? So if you're not getting that, then you're not going to be, an exhausted person is not going to be motivated, right? And soion will make a coward out of anybody.

We're not going to boldly go and do what we need to do. And then finally, you could have limitless purpose to do whatever you're trying to achieve to get out of that box. The money, the relationship, whatever. You could have an unlimited amount of energy and still not be motivated because you need S3. Small, simple steps. It's been my experience that

sometimes when people set goals, I want to make the next unicorn. I want to find my romantic partner, live happily ever after my soulmate. I want to make a million, whatever it is, I want to have the six pack. It's way too big for somebody who hasn't been close to that. And how do you break that down in this small, simple step? Meaning maybe working out, you haven't done done it, and it's been on your to-do list, and you're not doing it, that's too big. A small, simple step, put on your running shoes, right? If you can't get your kids to floss their teeth, get them to floss one tooth, right? Because little by little, nobody's going to stop at one tooth. Get them to put one sock when they're cleaning their room into the hamper, right?

Or if you're not reading, get maybe 45 minutes of reading. By the way, it takes about 45 minutes for the average reader to read one book a week. The average person only reads, what, two books a year? And there's a reason why Warren Buffett reads 500 pages a day. There's a reason why people who are very successful read to shortcut the success achievement process.

But maybe if you're not doing that, 45 minutes a day is what it takes. Someone reading, so the average book has about 64,000 words. The average person reads about 200 words a minute. If you divide those numbers, 320 minutes to get through a book, divided by seven days in a week, 45 minutes a day. 20 minutes, 25 minutes, just break it down to reading periods. And it's a little bit of work, but that's the thing.

And I know, you know what, being sick is hard and eating right and exercising is hard. We choose our heart. Being broke is hard and working and studying and implementing things is hard and we choose our heart every day because we have that choice. And so when I'm going back to small, simple steps, maybe reading is too hard.

Opening up a book is not hard. Reading one line is not hard, right? So I think that how I get my small, simple step is I ask myself this key question. And I would invite everyone to write this down. What is the tiniest action that I could take right now that will give me progress towards this goal where I can't fail? What is the tiniest action that I could take right now that will give me progress towards this goal where I can't fail?

What is the tiniest action I could take right now that will give me some progress towards this goal where I can't fail? And so then you'll get your little, BJ Fogg talks about tiny habits, right? And so you get your small simple step because little by little, a little becomes a whole lot. And that's really what,

so when I'm working and coaching somebody or I want to be able to get them to do something that's going to be empowering, I want to say, is this their mindset? Do they not believe it's possible? Do they not believe they're capable of doing it? Do they believe they deserve it? And then you know where the intervention is, right? Or in motivation, do they not feel purpose? Do they know it intellectually, but they're not feeling the purpose? Do they not have enough energy, right? Or in motivation, do they not feel purpose? Do they know it intellectually, but they're not feeling the purpose? Do they not have enough energy, right? So they have to generate more energy. Maybe we have to check their stress or their sleep, you know, or their diet. And maybe they're just confused because a confused mind won't do anything, right? And so maybe we have to break it down into small, clear, simple steps. And then finally, the last M are your

methods. And then those are the last M are your methods. And then those are the methodologies, right? And how to read faster, how to learn another language quicker, how to remember names, how to lose weight, right? And how to be able to sleep better, whatever the method, how to invest and how to do something on with AI, whatever it happens to be. The reason I just put it last is if you don't have the mindset or the motivation, you're going to be stuck in that box. And so my message to anybody, if you're going to sum this up, is I think out of the past few years, people feel a lot of fear. And when people feel fear, they're looking for safety. Fear, they're not looking to grow because that's uncertain, right? And that could be unknown and that could be very threatening. And so I would say that maybe look at it through a new lens,

kind of like Quincy was talking about. Maybe this is not a problem. Maybe this is a puzzle. Maybe instead of saying, maybe instead of downgrading your dreams to meet the current situation, maybe we should be thinking the opposite. Maybe instead of downgrading our dreams to meet this situation, maybe we should think about how do we upgrade our mindset? How do we upgrade our motivation? How do we upgrade our methods that we're using to be able to meet those incredible dreams? Yeah, I love that.

It's so comprehensive. And I think it really helps people understand why when they jump to methods without the preceding work, sure, you can make changes, but often those changes aren't long lasting. Do you know what I mean? You can do it. This is the classic January two or three week burst where you're doing the methods that you've learned about, but you haven't upgraded the mindset. You haven't upgraded your belief system. So I really, really like that approach. It's interesting to hear about

your REMS. I have this kind of mnemonic for a morning routine that I've written about. I've made videos about that. The three M's of a morning routine for me are mindfulness, movement, and mindset. So again, I'm not saying it's for everyone. You know, we all got to find what works for us. But for me, I started with some form of mindfulness practice. It could be breathing, could be meditation, something like that. Some form of movement. I like to do a five minute kitchen strength workout while my coffee's brewing. It's a system I've got going. You stack those habits. Stack it very, very small. And then the third piece for me is mindset. So I always finish off reading something uplifting or thought-provoking every morning. I can do that in

15 minutes. If I have the luxury of 45 minutes, it can take 45 minutes, an hour, but it can also be compressed if I need to, to get those three Ms in. But for me and for many of my patients, they found that that's a very helpful framework to think about starting their day. You mentioned reading, and I know you also like me talk about the importance of setting up your environment to make things easy. And so I've always got three or four uplifting books kicking around my kitchen or my living room. Why? Because A, I'm reading them. B, so in the morning, I don't then have to think, oh, well, what am I going to read today? You know, too much choice, procrastination.

I just pick up one of the books that's there. And before you know it, you've read a chapter. Yeah. So it's, and again, I want to tie in what you just said to what we were saying at the start, which is the importance of the morning. Yeah. Right?

The importance of intentionally setting how your day is going to be. And, you know, you've shared some tools, I've shared some tools, like things that people can think about. Because here's the thing, if you don't, and I get it, some people say they're busy, they don't have time.

But the problem is if you start the day reacting, consuming, watching the news, your thermostat is set at a different temperature. Everything you experience that day is likely to be affected by that. It's interesting, a few years ago, one of the things my wife stopped doing was watching anything negative. So at the time, I was watching House of Cards. I started watching it quite a few years ago now. And I thought, oh my God, this is amazing. I couldn't stop watching. And I said to my wife, I said,

hey, Vid, come on, you've got to watch this with me. She said, I think she watched about five minutes of one of the episodes and says, that is way too dark for me these days. I am not watching that. And at the time I was a little frustrated because I was like, no, I want my wife to watch it with me. But actually it was fantastic because she has made a conscious decision. And to some people that's going to be extreme, right? But actually I think a lot of the things that we regard as extreme these days are necessary because of the world in which we're living,

right? If you allow negativity in, don't be surprised when you have anxious thoughts. Don't be surprised when you're up at night thinking about the worst things that could happen in life, right? So again, we've all got to do what's right for us, but she made an intentional choice and she stuck with it. She won't watch dark films. She's not interested. She's like, it may be great, the reviews may be fantastic, but I don't want to have that kind of energy state in my mind anymore. You're a brain coach. What would you say to that? you say to that? Before we get back to this week's episode, I just wanted to let you know that I am doing my very first national UK theatre tour. I am planning a really special evening where I share how you can break free from the habits that are holding you back and make meaningful changes in

your life that truly last. It is called the Thrive Tour. Be the architect of your health and happiness. So many people tell me that health feels really complicated, but it really doesn't need to be. In my live event, I'm going to simplify health and together we're going to learn the skill of happiness, the secrets to optimal health, how to break free from the habits that are holding you back in your life. And I'm going to teach you how to make changes that actually last. Sound good? All you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash tour, and I can't wait to see you there. This episode is also brought to you by the Three Question Journal, the journal that I designed and created in partnership with Intelligent Change.

Now, journaling is something that I've been recommending to my patients for years. It can help improve sleep, lead to better decision making and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. of anxiety and depression. It's also been shown to decrease emotional stress, make it easier to turn new behaviours into long-term habits and improve our relationships. There are, of course, many different ways to journal and as with most things, it's important that you find the method that works best for you.

One method that you may want to consider is the one that I outline in the three question journal In it you will find a really simple and structured way of answering the three most impactful questions I believe that we can all ask ourselves every morning and every evening Answering these questions will take you less than five minutes But the practice of answering them regularly will be transformative. Since the journal was published in January, I have received hundreds of messages from people telling me how much it has helped them and how much more in control of their lives they now feel.

Now, if you already have a journal or you don't actually want to buy a journal, that is completely fine. I go through in detail all of the questions within the three-question journal completely free on episode 413 of this podcast. But if you are keen to check it out, all you have to do is go to drchatterjee.com forward slash journal or click on the link in your podcast app. I mean, it's similar to when people feed their body, right? They could feed themselves some gluten or whatever. And some people are more sensitive to certain things. And I see that no different than you feeding your body certain foods that might be a little bit people, some people could enjoy in the

moment and everything. And there may be some long-term consequence, but they are willing to accept that. And other people a little bit more sensitive and just saying like, I can't really do this right now, you know, with mine. And so as you feed your body, you could also feed your, you're also feeding your mind and food is information certainly. And Netflix is information, certainly. Yeah. And Netflix is information also as well. And again, it's just, I personally don't judge what people do. No, me neither. And I know you don't either. And it's just, but I do say that if people do that and then complain about something that's coming from that behavior, then I get a little bit like people getting personally responsible.

Yeah. get a little bit like people getting personally responsible. Yeah. Joe, I want to talk to you about reading a little bit and learning because you help people read quickly or quicker than they currently do. And it's interesting. One of my cousins the other day said to me, he's quite a bit younger than me, said, I just can't read books anymore. I don't have the attention span to read. Right. And I think many people feel like that. So they go, oh, it's not for me. And it may not be for them, but part of me feels that just many of us have untrained the skill or we've allowed technology to overwhelm us and we've now trained ourselves to be distractible. I kind of want to know your perspective on that. And then I wonder,

maybe it's a good way of tackling this is to walk you through, I guess, my process for getting ready for podcasts, because that generally involves a lot of reading. So I can tell you what I do, and you can maybe tell me how I can improve it. So first of all, maybe we tackle this thing, maybe tell me how I can improve it. So first of all, maybe we tackle this thing. Are people able to read less than the past? Okay. So focus, as we were talking about morning routines and touching your phone and doing those things, I think focus is a muscle, right? And I don't think it's something you have. It's something that you do and you could flex that muscle. And that's one of the reasons why I personally choose not to touch my phone the first half an hour, hour of the day. Because when you wake up in the morning, you know, you're in this relaxed state of awareness, you're very suggestible.

The first thing you do is pick up your phone, which has access to the world's information. And you're just context switching for thousands and thousands of times, you know, in a very short period of time. You know, you're rewiring your brain, number one, for distraction, right? We talked about that. But you're also rewiring your brain, number one, for distraction, right? We talked about that. But you're also rewiring your brain for reaction, right? Because every, I don't know, voicemail, text message, email, whatever, can put you in a mood that could hijack your mood. But in the beginning, you know, when you say you want to practice mindfulness in the morning, that's not very mindful, right? Just sharing, you know, switching from context to context.

You mean mindfully reading Instagram posts is not that mindful? Well, even when I have people like, you know, brush their teeth, trying with the opposite hand, it's not just about you know, the cross-lateral and potentially, you know, engaging a different part of their brain. Yes, but it's also a gateway

habit that allows, wow, if I could brush my teeth with the opposite hand, what else can I add in terms of stack my habits? But also, you're not going to be good at it at the beginning, so it forces you to be mindful. So mindfulness doesn't have to be regulated just to meditation. We could bring mindfulness to when we eat, right? We could do everything. And then if you're eating with the opposite hand, as an example, right, then it forces you to be present. Right.

And for me, I like that feeling as opposed to, you're right, it's not just what you eat, it's how you eat. Right. And a lot of people are working while they're eating, so they're not in that parasympathetic rest and digest place. And so they're probably not even getting a lot of, you know, what they could get out of consuming. And I'll go into the reading in a moment. Just on the consumption part, in the morning, like another framework I use for my day, and it's not perfect, right? All these are like little filters. Generally, I like to keep the morning free. And of course, there's other things, doctor appointment, I have to do this for my child, I have to have this other podcast interview.

But generally in the mornings, I like to create. I found for me, my brain mode in the morning is to be creative. So I want to output. In the afternoon, I tend to consume. And that's where I tend to do some study, read for a podcast, listen to a podcast, have conversations with people. I tend to consume information. So I'm putting information in. And then the last, where I create, consume, in the evening, I tend to consume information. So I'm putting information in. And then the last where I

create, consume in the evening, I want to clear. And that's what I'm trying to do. So I want to clear my mind, meaning I want to write down the things I have to do the next day, maybe so I could get it out of my mind so I don't have to ruminate about it. Or maybe I'll do some yoga nidra and just do some breathing meditation to clear my mind. Or maybe I'll journal some yoga nidra and just do some breathing meditation to clear my mind. Or maybe I'll journal and I'll just write it or I'll talk to my wife and talk about what I did that day to clear my mind. Fan of journaling? What's that? Are you a fan of journaling?

I am. Why is it good for our brain? So for me, I journal at two different times. I tend to journal in the morning and in the evening. That's my personal preference. And again, people could find their own way and figure out what works. In the morning, I do have this gratitude practice.

I really think it's important. So many people actually will tell me that I'll do a gratitude practice when I have something to be grateful for and something to that nature. And I was like, okay, that's interesting because I don't think you have to,

and that's what I told this specific person. I was like, maybe you don't have to wait for a greater life to feel grateful. Maybe if you feel grateful, you'll have a greater life.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Because I'm always like, just like the responsibility and power and reversing and I just find that's kind of my thinking style. Because I think that

for people to feel, how are you going to have more if you don't appreciate what you have? I know so many people, even clients that have a lot, that they're just not very happy people. Some of them are miserable because they don't even appreciate the things. And I think if people want to feel truly wealthy, a mental exercise I do is write down all the things you have in your life

that money can't buy. If you could hear this right now, would you give up your hearing for a certain amount of money or whatever, right? Or a thought experiment, like what if, you know, what if the only things you had in your life tomorrow were the things you express gratitude for today? Not wrote it down, but actually express gratitude for the people or the things, you know, and I just feel like gratitude is just such a healing emotion. You know, it's just like like it trains my nervous system that there's enough. And I think honestly, my experience has been what you appreciate appreciates.

Meaning what you appreciate in your life tends to appreciate, meaning it enhances or gets or grows. And so that's what I want to have. That makes me feel good. And it also puts me in that kind of parasympathetic. So I tend to have it you know that makes me feel good and it also puts me in that kind of parasympathetic so I tend to do gratitude in the morning and night and it helps me for me to journal because I everybody has a different process than sometimes you can imagine but I like writing it down I mean I very much echo those views about journaling for me also it's a morning and evening practice I in the morning it's about gratitude it's about setting

an intention for the day you know know, similar practices, maybe word is slightly differently about trying to frame the day you want to have. Again, it's about intention, right? It's about not living a reactive life, not being passive. It's about being active and about trying to generate the experience of life that you want. And then in the evening, you call it clearing, which is a really nice way to think about it. It's about sort of reflecting on the day, like an athlete would always have a coach and reflect on their performance, right? That's how they get better. They assess, they go, yeah, but you can improve here. Oh yeah, great. I can tweak it there. That's how they get better, right? That's how they become high high performer but we all want high performance in our life you know whether it's high performance as a father as a mother as a work colleague we all want those things and and so I kind of feel

a process of reflection is very very important for us daily if you can I'm very biased towards analog things right I think as the world becomes more and more digital, you know, you've been in my kitchen, you've been in my house, it's a very analog setup intentionally. In fact, me and my wife are currently having a discussion about a smart TV. I'm reluctant to get one

because I want to make the behaviors that I don't want to engage in myself or I don't want my kids engaging in it. I want them to be difficult to do at home. I don't want them to be easy. So I'm saying if we get a brand new spanking TV where things work, currently we've got this old version box where Netflix takes like five or six minutes to load. It's a bit slow. I love it because that friction to do that behavior will often mean it doesn't happen. So as the world becomes more and more digital, I personally like to set up things in an analog way at home. And I like to write in nice journals that feel good. And I wanted to ask

you before we go back to sort of reading, like as a brain coach, as a memory coach, as someone who's spent over 30 years now helping people with the stuff, is the act of writing it down in your mind different from typing it into, let's say an app in your phone? I mean, I've seen some research supporting that it is. What's your perspective on that?

That's been my experience also as well, especially with our students and the feedback that we get. We have students in every country in the world, 195 nations, and people vastly prefer handwriting than typing, digital. Let's take note-taking, right? We know that there's a learning curve, but there's also a forgetting curve, that when you hear something on a podcast or in a lecture, you can lose upwards of 80% of it within the first 48 hours. But in order to mitigate that, capturing it is certainly great. Now,

digital is great for storing. It's great for ease of sharing with your team and your family, right? And files. But actually, when students are tested for the things that matter, comprehension, retention, handwriting notes, XC surpasses digital note taking. And part of, I'll give you one reason why is a lot of people are pretty good typers and

they could type as fast as you and I are speaking, but you can't possibly handwrite that fast. So what does it do? It forces you to filter. Yeah. Like, is this important? And organize the information. So you're not just... Because the worst way of taking notes

is having everything verbatim. That's not helping anybody. All the research has shown that keywords are more important than just having a transcript of necessarily, of given that. It certainly helps to read it, but if you could pull out information

and do practice retrieval and test yourself and teach somebody else, you're going to learn it way far better. But I prefer lifestyle more analog because I don't need another reason to get on a screen. It's a little bit hard when I'm traveling because I like to read. So I can't necessarily bring five books

and traveling with a carry-on or something like that. But I like, I'm very tactical. And also I do like handwriting because even in just thinking about it logically, right? Leadership or innovation, it's an inside out process, right? You're taking something invisible in your mind and you're making it invisible,

like an invention or one of your books, right? Or a podcast. You're taking something in your mind before it actualizes in the physical environment. And I love handwriting something. And I've always been like this because it's the first step of making something in your mind visual on the outside. And I think that's the beginning. That's the first step of the creation process. Going back to the conversation about reading speed, how do you read? So right now we have the right mindset, right? The leaders are readers, that reading is your mind would exercise your body, a purpose. So you're not reading without intention, right? P times E times S3. And the methodology is, okay, so first of all,

I want to make it easy. Just like you were saying, you don't want to get a smart TV and you don't want Netflix to load in split seconds because you want to make it difficult. And that's part of designing habits, proper habits. You want to make the things that are not good for you more difficult. If you don't have your phone on your nightstand when you're sleeping, then you're not going to pick it up. Putting it in your bathroom is probably a safer place, you know, and just like doing the things I want,

like I put a kettlebell and a chin-up bar, right, you know, at the entrance of my office and I'm just like, I see it and it was just easy to do just like you do something when you're, when you're doing your, making your coffee, right? I mean, that's, why not make the good things that are good for you easy to do and the things that are not good for you more difficult? If you are going to get that thing, that alcohol, why don't you put it in the basement in a very difficult place so you have to, oh man, I don't want to go

downstairs and do that or that candy bar or whatever or just not have it in your home which makes it a lot easier. Just like if you're not good with bread, it doesn't agree with you and you're at a dining table and they bring you bread, you could either look at that bread and say no 20 times in your mind throughout that whole evening, or you could just say no when they bring it to you. And then you don't have to say no every single time you use up all that energy and

intention. So going back to the power of purpose, I'm the same way with my reading, right? And I set up my environment just like you do. I have books specifically around, and I do read multiple books at a time. And I'm a big fan, especially the past few years of reading fiction books. A lot of times I obsess about nonfiction. I'm like, what's the purpose in this? I want to read books on neuroscience, adult learning theory. And I've seen so many benefits of reading fiction. And even research shows it improves empathy,

character development, imagination, problem solving, pattern recognition. It also improves your EQ. Where reading maybe something else is your IQ, this is more your emotional quotient. And so I also schedule my reading. And so I'll say this. So I mentioned that it takes about, if you're, if you're a basic reader, 200 words per minute, then you get through a book 45 minutes a day. So I schedule that. And I recommend everyone schedule it. Cause if you don't schedule your

workout or you don't schedule your meditation, I mean, we schedule parent-teacher meetings and doctor's appointments and investor meetings or client team meetings, whatever, but we're not scheduling our own growth. So you've said, I think before, reading is a workout for your mind. Is that what you said? I think reading is to your mind

what exercise is to your body. So then if we use that analogy and go, yeah, you scheduled your physical workouts, you need to also schedule your mental workouts. Yeah, and I think some people don't, you scheduled your physical workouts. You need to also schedule your mental workouts. Yeah. And I think some people don't even, don't schedule a physical workouts and they don't get to it. And so they, because life fills up those voids and then it's at night and after dinner, like, oh, I forgot to work out or I just don't have the energy to work out. And that's the thing is prioritizing the most important things, keep the most important things, the most important things.

And I think top of that is self-care, you know, and self-care is not just, you know, working out. I think also part of self-care is self-love. You know, we started that in the beginning of the conversation, that part of our journey is, you know, looking in the mirror and falling in love with that person looking back that's been through so much, but is still standing, right?

Just like how you're saying, if you love yourself, you're not going to, I mean, if you really deeply care about yourself, you're not going to do things that would potentially harm it by eating certain things or otherwise, just like you wouldn't do that things

for someone you love. And just if you love somebody else, and I would say no amount of love from somebody else is going to give your soul what it needs from you, right? The love and caring and compassion you need from you. And I'm not saying it's easy, right? And this whole thing, nothing I'm saying is necessarily easy. I would do say it's simple, but simple doesn't mean easy, right?

And so what I would do is schedule it because if you don't schedule, I think the number one productivity performance tool we have is our calendar, right? But if you don't put it down in your calendar, it's likely not going to get done. So I would schedule that 45 minutes or 20 minutes of reading, whatever you're committed to, you know, also as well. When you have a book, if you're reading, in case you prefer analog, and if you're watching this on video, you know, I'm just grabbing my book, you know, so like even basic things, right? When I'm just grabbing my book. Even basic things. When I'm looking at this and I open up the book,

when I'm looking at it at this angle here, I'm taking the book and I have it flat on the table for those who are just listening to this. If I'm looking at this angle from where I'm sitting, I'm sitting upright, then the words appear smaller at this angle because I'm looking at it at an angle.

Now some people, what they'll do unconsciously to make it easier for them to read is they'll slump over like this so they could see the words better. But when I did that, what happens? I go into this kinesthetic posture, which is slower than visual posture. I collapse my diaphragm, which we talked about

is also the key to getting more oxygen to your brain. That's why people fall asleep when they're reading often because of their physiology is affecting their psychology. I would also say when you're reading something and you're going through enjoying this, number one, have an intention. Why are you reading this book? Because the fastest way to read something

is not to read it at all, right? So if you ever read a page in a book and got to the end just like nothing registered, maybe you don't have questions. Going back to the reticular activating system, how a part of it is initialized by questions. So it's kind of like a long time ago, maybe 20 years ago, my sister would send me these pictures and emails, postcards of a very specific kind of dog, breed of dog, pug dogs, right? These kind of smushy, fun dogs with smushy faces. And they're very compliant.

You can dress them as like ballerinas and they're just, oh, whatever. And I was like, why? My question was, why is she sending me these? And she's a good marketer because she's seeding because her birthday is coming up, right? And I was like, okay. And funny thing happened.

When I started asking the question, I started seeing these pug dogs everywhere. Like I'd be at the grocery store checking out and the person in front of me is holding a pug dog. And I'm running in my neighborhood and somebody's walking six pug dogs on a leash. And my question for everyone listening is, did these pug dogs magically appear in my neighborhood? And no, of course not. But I wasn't paying attention because again, your brain is primarily a deletion device, right? So we're not shining a spotlight. And so

it's in the dark for us. And so, but once I started asking the question, I just started seeing the pug dogs everywhere. And so my question for everyone listening is what are your dominant questions? You know, my dominant question was, how do I be invisible? So I got really good ideas on how to shrink and not be seen in class. And that was my result. A dominant question I talk about in the book is a friend of mine found out her dominant question out of the 60,000 thoughts.

Some of them are questions, the one she asks all the time, how do I get people like me? And you don't know anything about her, but her career, what she lived, but you know a lot about her. Someone's obsessed with how do I get this person to like me? That's the question they're asking. What's their life like, their personality?

You know, they're a martyr. People take advantage of them. They're a sycophant. Their personality changes depending on who they spend time with because they want to be liked. And it's interesting, you know, like you don't know anything about her, but you know a lot about her because you know the question.

And my principle here that I'm talking about, questions are the answer. You know, like the example I put in the book with Will Smith, I train a lot of actors how to speed read scripts, memorize lines. I'll give you some speed reading tips in a moment. Just because these illustrations, these stories stick with people. We were brain training during the day. We're in Toronto in the winter. In the evening, he's shooting his movie, right? Superhero movie.

And it is cold and it is not, people think it's very sexy and very thrilling to be on a movie set, but it's really just people just waiting all the time. And during this waiting outside, his family's there and I'm there outside and we're freezing, just kind of watching these monitors underneath this tent. And he's bringing us hot chocolate that he made himself, even though it was a crew that could make it for him. And he's cracking jokes and telling stories. And I found out earlier that day, his dominant question is, how do I make this moment even more magical? How do I make this moment even more magical? And I realized that evening, he was demonstrating that question at that time

by making the hot chocolate and cracking cheese, just bringing more magic into it. And my dominant question could be like, what's the best use of this moment, right? I mean, you read the book Zero to One by Peter Thiel. He says like, if you had to reach your 10 year goal, but you were only given six months to do it, how would you go about doing it?

And you ask a different question, you're gonna get a way different answer, right? And so my question for everyone listening, what do you think your dominant question is? Because that determines your focus and that focus determines how you feel and what you do and what you experience in your life. Do you have your dominant question?

Yeah, for the longest time, it was how do I make this better? Because remember, I felt like I was broken. So my dominant question came out of my struggle. So I was like, how do I make this better? It's a very empowering question that isn't it? It is because then I start shining a light and saying, oh, there's a pug dog. There's a pug dog. There's an answer. There's an answer. There's an answer. But even within the question is the energy of agency. Like it's built into the question. That's why for me, it's such a wonderful question. It's, you can't adopt a victim mindset with a question like that. Yeah. And that's, and that's great. I got goosebumps again. Cause that's, again, I call them truth bumps because the presupposition is you do have the power to make it better.

Right. And so people could ask a question like, how do I make the most of this moment, right? The three questions I ask when I read, going back to the reading nonfiction, preparing for a podcast, how can I use this? Why must I use this? When will I use this? So think about the power if you're reading something

and not normally getting, you know, maybe 10% of what you think you could get out of it. If you start reading something, a normally getting maybe 10% of what you think you could get out of it, if you start reading something, a book on health and wellness and on glucose and whatever you happen to be reading, how can I use this? Then you're like, oh, there's a pug dog, there's a pug dog, there's a pug dog.

Just like when I teach students how to do well in standardized tests, like reading comprehension, I always tell them, go read the questions at the end first and then start reading the reading comprehension. Then you're like, because then you know what the tell them go read the questions at the end first and then start reading the the reading comprehension then you're like because then you know what the author is looking for then you have answer there's answer there's answer why read all this get to the end and not

and they're like oh that's what was important right and so you ask your question so in the beginning of my book every single chapter starts with three primary questions to activate their reticular activating system. So they're looking for that answer. So when they read it, they're like, oh, there's a pug dog, there's a pug dog, there's a pug dog. So three questions I ask every day of my life, especially when I'm in learning mode, how can I use this? Then I'm like, there's the answer. I could use it this way, this way, this way, this way. Why must I use it? So it goes from my head to my heart. So I have purpose. I think about all the rewards and how my business, my podcast will be better. My book will be better. How can

I use this? Why must I use it? Because without reasons, you won't get the results. Just like asking, why do I want to remember the person's name? And then I say, when will I use this? And that's the scheduling. Because going back to the lie, limited idea, entertain, the knowledge is power. It's not, it's potential power because power when we utilize it. I have a primary belief that every hour you spend listening to a podcast like this, to be fair, you should spend an equal hour putting it into action, right? Every hour you spend reading a book, every hour you spend in a lecture, you should spend an equal hour putting into play, right? And I think that because otherwise nothing happens. If nothing

changes, nothing changes, right? I want to get really like fundamental. And then when will I use this? And then I schedule it. I'm like, oh, this is a great thing. I know why I should use this. And then I schedule like, oh, I'm going to do this, you know, do this, add this part to my podcast here. So one of the ways in which people can get better at reading is by asking the right questions beforehand. Yeah. Like what I'm thinking about is, let's say someone's bought a book that they heard a guest on a podcast, so I'm going to buy that book. But the book hasn't been read yet, but took the action, they bought it. And some days they're trying to look at it and they're probably reading the same

page over and over again that and they just can't move forward with it so why might that be well I don't know to me it's like okay you could be tired right so nothing's going in that day it could be that the book was poorly written right so therefore it's not you, it's actually the book isn't that well written, which does happen. Or I'm guessing it could be that you've not primed yourself in the right way to read it. Is that sort of how you would look at it? Yeah. And built in everything you just said, again, personal responsibility and agency, it's there. Even if it's not a book and it's a lecture, I'll even find, I'll notice I'll control my state. Like I have to, I go to a lot of conferences.

I speak for a good part of my living and I can be on three continents in one week. We're in front of 250,000 people a year, usually at live events. And I could be sitting in the audience waiting to go on and somebody else is speaking on something in the industry. And I can see the effect by looking at people around me as they're falling asleep, right? We've all been at lectures

like this or even in school. And I'll take agency. I honestly, I will do this just not because I'm so enlightened. It's just, I don't want to be bored, right? I want to control how I feel because I'm a thermostat. I'm not a thermometer. I don't want to be bored just because I'm reacting to people. And I'll change my mindset. I'm like, wow, this is fascinating. How's this dude like putting everybody to sleep all at the same time? And I'll actually get curious and I'll get energized thinking about that, but that's how I'll entertain myself. Or if I'm in a movie and I have to stay in the movie and I don't want to leave because I have family there for friends I'll just like think about other things about how I could apply this and use this and and so on because I'll take responsibility for how I

feel and what I'm thinking and what I'm doing we could always control our mindset our motivation which are feelings and the methods our behaviors. So the same situation's going on, but your experience off that situation now becomes very different, doesn't it? Very, very good. And not just like a book is poorly written. I could try to find the gems there or I could take responsibility and say,

this is not book, it's not for me. And that's just my agency. I could walk out of that movie or walk out of that speech or anything else. So I start with having the right questions and have purpose. Like I read with intention or I listen with intention, right? People aren't randomly listening to your show. They could because they like you, right? And they know you offer value and they would get even more if they thought like, oh, like what are the kind of

questions that I have so I could have, because you pull information inside here by asking questions, right? And if you don't have those questions, nothing is going to register because you can't push information into somebody's head, right? A podcast can't push information, but you could pull it in. Yeah, it's interesting, Jim. I've maybe for two or three years now on the audio version, so not the YouTube version, on the audio version when I record my outros, I always say, you know, what's one thing you can take away from this conversation

and start applying into your life? And I do that very intentionally because it's like, okay, you've heard a lot. You've hopefully been inspired, but let's just make it one thing. What's one thing you can take away and apply? But I was um researching you for this conversation you talk about the importance of you know you've already mentioned how much we retain how much we forget within 48 hours and you talk about the importance of teaching it when you teach it to someone else so I was thinking maybe for next season I might might tweak my outro to be instead of just one thing you can apply and what's one thing you can teach someone else about what you learned. Do you think that would make a difference? Yeah, I think both. Both may be rich, but if you want a single

one out and people could test this because everyone's a little bit different, but I learned so I could teach. I have a philosophy that when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. And I also feel like we teach the things we most want to learn. That's a different subject because I wanted, I was a poor learner, right? And my struggle became my strength. And so I teach other people how to learn. I think that if you give someone an idea, you enrich their life. But if you teach someone how to learn, they can enrich their own life. Kind of like that owl, like learn how to fish. And so what I would say is, yeah, absolutely. If you want to learn, okay, so when you're reading this book,

have a purpose for doing so. Notice that, I just want to close this out, that if I'm not going to bend my body, and if you're not watching this video, I have the book again on the tabletop, and I'm in visual posture, meaning I'm upright and I'm breathing properly and I don't want to see at an angle. So instead of collapsing my body, I just want to close this loop. Then you just move the book, right? So now I could see the book and at an angle, I can even rest it on the table or rest it on my knee. And that makes a difference.

It does. Because over time, especially if you're reading faster, you know, part of what keeps people reading slowly is just visual fatigue. So if the book is at an angle, then the words are smaller, so more difficult to read logically. But if they're tilted towards me, then all of a sudden they are noticeably larger and easier to read.

Yeah, I love that. And then I have questions that I'm asking. So then I say, oh, there's the answer, there's the answer, there's the answer. So I never get in a situation where I read something and I just forget what I just read or didn't understand it. It just like time passed when you in one eye out the other or whatever. And then I'm asking questions. Now that's for smart reading, but for speed reading, if you want greater speed, like, like all we teach is not, it's not skimming or scanning.

Like we work with a lot of attorneys, a lot of financial advisors, a lot of medical doctors. You don't want your doctor to get the gist of what they're reading. I don't. So a lot of traditional speed reading is scanning, skipping words, getting the gist of what you read.

That's never worked for me because I started as a memory trainer. So one of the ways you can improve your reading speed is, first of all, get your base rate. So I would say, put a mark in the margin. Pick up a book that you're reading or a brand new book. Put a little mark in the margin where you're starting currently today. It might be somewhere in there. And then read for 60 seconds.

Set a timer, your phone, to go down for 60 seconds and have it ring. And then put a mark in the margin where you left off. So in 60 seconds. Set a timer, your phone, to go down for 60 seconds and have it ring. And then put a mark in the margin where you left off. So in 60 seconds. And then count the number of lines you just read. And you could guesstimate. So if there's two words in a line, don't count it as a line. And then you have your lines per minute. That's how many lines you read in a minute.

And you could easily also kind of approximate how many words there are per line. And most books you'll find about 10 words per line, right? If I was to count or average the average number of words per line, about 10. So let's say you go through and you read like 20 lines and simplify it in 60 seconds, 200 words per minute, right? And that's by the way about the average reading speed, about 200, 250 words per minute. Now, if I ask you to pick up where you left off and put the clock on 60 seconds again, pick up where you left off,

but just do one thing different is what I'm gonna ask you to do is just underline the words with your finger or a pen. You're actually not marking it, but just like use it as a visual pacer. And a visual pacer. And a visual pacer could be a pen, a highlighter, a mouse on a computer. I use my finger because everyone carries them with them. You don't have to worry about them at all times. If you just underline

the words, you don't have to touch the page, and you did that for 60 seconds, and count the number of lines you just read, that second number will be on average 25, 50% or more. So, okay, I love this. So you read one section to get your baseline. Right. Then you're not rereading that. You go into a new section. So you're putting a mark in the margin where you start, and where you end, count the number of lines,

and you have your base rate. And then the second time, all you're doing is as you're reading the new piece of, the new words, you're just underlining with your finger. Yeah. You're just going under nine. You're not, yeah, exactly. You're just going left to right, left to right, left to right, right, left to right, back to left and not right. And you're just not everything, just keywords. No, no, you're not marking it. You're just literally using your finger and going right underneath and like this.

Oh, the whole thing? Yes, just like this. And you're just following your eyes across the page like this. Wow. I'm telling you, you don't have to believe everything I'm saying. Everyone, listen, just pick up a book and do it.

And then count the number of lines you did, even without practice. You haven't even practiced this. But if you practice it, it'll even be more. And I'll tell you why logically, because as human beings, we want the explanatory schema, the reasons why. A couple of reasons.

First of all, kids naturally, when they're learning to read, will use their finger while they read to help them to focus. Until, depending on what kind of school system you went, you got unique feedback. Some people got a ruler to their hand or whatever because they wanted,

and I'm not saying there's a conspiracy trying people not to use their finger because they want to keep people ill-informed or anything. I'm not saying that. But if you just use your it's interesting, kids organically use their fingers to help them focus. Interesting also, we do it.

So when you do this, notice, when I ask you to count the number of lines you just read, everyone will start doing what? Using their finger to point. One, two, three, four, when I ask you to count the number of lines you just read, everyone will start with doing what? Using their finger to point. One, two, three, four, five. Or a pen. One, two, three.

Because you're using a visual pacer to count because you know it helps you to focus. So why not use that while you read? The third reason why you use your finger while you read or a visual pacer, again, you could be using a pen across. You're not marking it, right? You're just going right above the line. It's because your eyes are attracted to motion.

Because as hunter and gatherers, like if you're in a bush and you're hunting lunch, right? There's a rabbit there, there's carrot, whatever your lunch is, right? If a bush next to you moves, you have to look at what moves because that's survivor, survival. Number one, it could be lunch, or number two, you could be lunch, right?

So you have to look at what moves in your environments. And so when you're underlining the words across the page, left to right and back and forth, your eyes are being pulled through the information as opposed to your attention being pulled apart, right? And the other reason why, because right now if someone just walked across the room that we're in, everyone would look, even people watching on video, right? You and all of us, because your eyes are tracked into motion. So when your finger is going across the page, your attention is being pulled through it and it maintains your focus. But another reason, if that wasn't reason enough, it's how your neurology is set up. Certain senses work very closely together.

So for example, do you love like a fresh piece of fruit, like right off the vine, right from the farmer's, not something that's been sprayed and waxed and sitting in a store for six months, but something like, have you ever tasted a great tasting peach? Yeah. Yeah.

And so in actuality, we're not tasting that peach. What are we doing? We're smelling that peach. The tongue is not capable of really tasting what a peach tastes like, but the sense of smell and taste are so closely linked that your mind can't perceive the difference. It can perceive the difference when we're sick.

If your nose is congested, what do a lot of foods taste like? Tastes bland, right? Yeah. Because your sense of smell and taste are so closely linked. Wow. So is your sense of sight and your sense of touch in your nervous system.

So like if, like, you know, we have a newborn baby, you know, if I was starting to like, you know, but if you're going to infant and take your keys and just shook the keys in front of the infant or, you know, that understands and say, look at, look, look, look at these keys. What would the child naturally do? Grab them, right? Because that they associate looking with, with touching, right?

In fact, when people read using their finger, they say they feel more in touch with their reading over time. Oh, here's, here's another way. If someone loses their sense of sight, how do you read? You use your braille, touch, right? And so I would encourage everyone to do is just a kind of a quick tip

because obviously, you know, we do trainings. Yeah, you do full courses that people can sign up for. Yeah, 10 minutes a day for 30 days and we'll triple anyone's reading speed with much better comprehension. But even if you just underline the words while you read, you'll feel not only greater speed, a lift of 25-50%, but you'll feel more in touch with your reading also as well. Especially if you're adding the questions and everything else we talked about. And so I would say everyone could experiment with that.

Can I give a link? Yeah, sure. If people go to jimquick.com forward slash more, K-W-I-K.com forward slash more, there's actually a free one hour masterclass where I'll actually work and walk you through it. You bring a book online and I'll show you how to do this visually. And I'll show you some really cool shortcuts,

but that will boost your reading speed 25, 50%. And that's not a little bit, that's a lot. That's a lot. Right? If they say time is money, how many people got a 25, 50% return on their investments last year, right? So it really adds up over time and little by little, a little becomes, it becomes a whole lot. Yeah. I mean, thanks for sharing that. That's brilliant. I mean, I guess I would, I've never measured, I would consider myself a quick reader

relative to what I see around me, but I don't do that. I don't think I put my finger there. So I'm already really excited because I reckon I get through two to three books a week just for this podcast. Yeah.

Right. And I think it's interesting hearing you talk about learning and reading. And like I, what have I intuitively found over five and a half years of doing this show works for me?

Well, I don't do, I never will allow the publisher to send me an electronic book. So it has to be a hard copy. It's just, again, I don't want any more excuses to be on a screen. So it's a an electronic book. So it has to be a hard copy. It's just, again, I don't want any more excuses to be on a screen. So it's a hard copy book. And initially I had to get over this hump of writing in books because initially I was like, no, I can't put a colored pen inside this book. I can't underline something. This is like a work of arts, you know, but I've got over that. Like I will literally with my colored pens, I will read stuff. I'll underline key sentences. And of course

I've got some of those questions are built in because I know the guest is coming in two days, right? I'm going to be on the mic. So I want to be well prepared. I don't have a researcher. I do it all myself. So I'm reading the book. I'm underlining keywords, key phrases. Sometimes, stroke often, I'll have a journal next to me and I'll write down key quotes or key ideas. But they're only words or a few words. I don't write questions for my guests. I don't have have set questions I just have themes and ideas that I want to go through so I let it sort of hopefully just breathe organically

and see where we go to in a conversation and then I guess roughly one hour before the guest arrives in the studio you know give or take sometimes it's half an hour sometimes it's 90 minutes before but I would say on average an hour before the guest comes,

I'll look at the notes I made in a journal. And then I open up this book, which is my sort of podcast book now. And I will just write down key words, key ideas, try and put them in some, you know, group them in certain areas. I will use colors. Colors are really important for me. They're always having, even as a kid, when I was revising at school, I've always wanted a black, red, green, and blue pen. And, you know, here's the irony. I very rarely look at these things when I'm actually in the

conversation, but they actually, I think they almost just prime my brain. They almost allow me to consolidate the information that I've absorbed and they give me a safety net one hour before a guest arrives in case I ever forget what I'm saying or in case I run out of things to say, which I don't think I've, I can't remember the last time I did that.

But I don't know, that's kind of a brief sort of overview of my process. What does that sound like to you and how might you improve it yeah and i love it have you always been so you're very you're very good at putting things in action and you you you're very you're very fast to to implement things like that um you tend to be very um more intuitive also yeah in terms of well i've just done your brain quiz and you don't know the answer. So we'll go through that in a minute. I'll tell you what my,

you know, where we got to with that. But yeah, I would say that's right. Yeah. So, all right. So when you're talking about a brain quiz, because I'll customize it for what we're talking about. So your process obviously works

because you've refined it over, you know, lots of episodes and a number of years. And so we tend to, with all our learning, as you have a certain level of schema and background information, start making things more elegant. And I really do believe that it's not how smart we are, it's how are we smart. Especially in the work we do in education, it's not how smart you are, how smart your significant other, how smart your kids are, how smart your team is,

how are they smart? And we all have a preferred way of learning and executing, right? Beyond learning styles, you mentioned the brain quiz. So over the past 12 months, we refined our teaching just as there's personalized medicine

or personalized nutrition. This is a way of kind of personalizing your learning around how you prefer to learn or lead or live. All right. And I pulled as inspiration from Myers-Briggs and left brain, right brain dominance theory

and multiple intelligence theory and all these different areas. And we've discerned that there are about four cognitive types. And I think everybody could, I'll go through them really quick. Everyone could kind of see themselves in that or see friends like, oh, I know what animal that person's going to be. For you, I would guess it was a cheetah, if I was a guess. And I made it simple.

It was. Okay. For me, it's code, C- if I was a guess. And I made it simple. It was. Okay. For me, it's code, C-O-D-E. And everything is your brain code. And people could take this, it only takes a few minutes, like probably take like three, four minutes.

Yeah, three, four minutes. It's really fun, actually. Yeah. So people can do it for free, they can just go. Yeah, it's mybrainanimal.com, mybrainanimal.com. mybrainanimal.com. And you can see what brain animal you are.

Now, the animals are the letters C-O-D-E code. So the C is the cheetah. The cheetah are your fast actors. They implement very well. They tend to be very intuitive also as well. So you can write notes, but you go by your intuition. You don't have to refer to it. It's just you're in the moment. And you could pitch and toss back and forth.

And I love that because you're such a great listener. And we can go fast-paced because I like quickness also as well. That's part of my style. And you don't just learn things. You put things in action. I've seen your show over the amount of years and just like you are nailing, just like even how your platform has grown

because you're implementing things and you're just probably thinking like, and you thrive in fast-paced environments. And maybe because of medicine, you had to do that. It trained you to be able to be quick on your toes and be a quick thinker, right? The O are your owls. And we're not any one of them. You have a primary and a secondary because we're all a blend. Nobody's 100% any of these animals, but it gives you a filter just like when I was going through the limitless model

of how to look at transformation, how to look at leadership, how to look at learning. The O owls represent logic, right? They love data. And that might be your secondary. You love data, facts and figures and formulas, white papers. You like to look at the evidence there. And now, by the way, these are two people that could also blend, but they could also learn

differently, right? Or they invest differently, right? A cheetah could invest in certain ways, you know, and maybe tolerate a little bit of risk, do things with intuition. An owl is more, look, I want to see these numbers and so on, do their diligence.

Okay, the D in code, cheetah, owl, the D are your dolphins. These are your creative visionaries. These are great problem solvers. They have an exceptional ability to do pattern recognition also as well, as you can imagine. They have great imagination. They're creators, right?

And then finally, the E are your elephants. And your elephants, I would say they're highly empathetic, strong interpersonal skills. They thrive in collaborations, team environments also as well. And this is a highly abbreviated version. But when people go, we've designed very specific questions. And usually people know which answer it is, or they struggle between, is it this one or this one?

I didn't overthink it. I just thought, what was the first one that's... And that's the perfect way of doing it because that's what a cheater would do. And then afterwards... I like the idea of being a cheater, I must say. Yeah, when you get... You'll also get a report for you

and we customize personalized learning depending on what brain animal is your dominant and your primary this is how i would go about reading this is how i go about studying or note-taking or memorizing something so depending on which four you are the relevance is that you'll send people who do that quiz online like a personalized way yes of tackling life even things like goal setting like a che, like they go in sprints. So we said, you know, like even recommendation for goal setting and goal getting,

you'll see this report on a cheetah creating clear short-term goals, right? Going from here to here to here, because that would be aligned with your personal performance cognitive type. And it's interesting. And then I also weave in stories in there of these four animals, kind of like And it's interesting. And then I also weave in stories in there of these

four animals, kind of like a child's book where you could see these, these four animals that play at school or at work. Right. Because it's interesting when you have your team do it, because we got a lot of insight also. Um, cause we also see the back end, all the numbers in terms of what percent, you know, are, are, are each in different environments. If I speak at a leadership conference or I speak at an entrepreneur event or a student event. But our team, it was interesting where our customers,

like our customer experience people were really in that empathetic kind of space. And our finance person was clearly an outlaw. It's interesting because I also show people, I give them sample careers where you would thrive because based on your predilection for logic or speed or empathy and so on. So it's kind of fun. It's at mybrainanimal.com and we're loving this because it informs. I think in order to be happy, and I'm looking forward to having you on my show and talk about a happy mind and a very full life. In order to be happy, I feel like you need two things.

You need to have the curiosity to know yourself and then the courage to be yourself. Meaning that, you know, curiosity to know yourself, that's why we go to therapy, you journal, you do the inner work, and you get to know yourself, your identity, what you believe in, what you stand for, what you value in your life, what's important to you, what you live for. have done some of that work. Yeah. And it's deep work. But then having the courage to be yourself. So having the curiosity to know yourself

but then having the courage to be that person. Love that. You know, because sometimes, you know, I spent a lot, I lost my,

so when I had my head injury, my parents were working a lot. So I was, I had a lot of, and three accidents before I was 12. My grandmother was my primary, you know,

caregiver. She, when I was going through one of these issues, started showing early signs of dementia and the passing of Alzheimer's. She would call me by my father's name, say something she just said and just the situation. So we donated a good portion of the proceeds to this book to not only build schools around the world, Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, healthcare, clean water, build this actual facilities, teachers, but also Alzheimer's research for women because women are twice as likely to experience Alzheimer's than men.

And yet a lot of the research is done on male brains, treatments on male brains. So that's something I'm very passionate about. But that informed what I would do as a living in terms of education and brain health, you know, for this. But I spent a lot of time because of it. I didn't have, I lost all my grandparents very early.

I spent a lot of time in senior centers, in nursing homes. Because I, number one, I helped polish off memories because that's my superpower. But I also, I get to hear wisdom, you know, that I didn't have a lot growing up from generations. And I feel like the life we live are lessons we teach, right? The life we live are the lessons we teach, you know, people around us.

And then somebody who's been on this, you know, on this earth longer than me, they have lessons. And it could be lessons of examples or warnings, right? But lessons either way. But I also hear these amazing stories, but I also hear when it gets very intimate, some regret creeping in. You know, they talk about, you know,

and the regret is always not what they did, but what they didn't do, right? And we know that, the regrets of dying. But somehow the regrets I could sum up is they somehow shrunk their life in some way or limited their life because of what other people would think. They didn't pursue that relationship that they were really infatuated with, but because of what society would think about that relationship. Or they pursued a career path because it was expected by their parents or some form of that.

a career path because it was expected by their parents or some form of that. And I just want to remind people who are here that when you're taking your final breaths, it's not a fun conversation because I tend to be more positive, but I'm going to be very practical. When we're taking our final breaths, just like how I fast forward at the end of my day, I was like, what three things happened personally, professionally, if I really said I was happy? You deal with your life also. Because when you're taking your final fast forward to the end of your days, at that time, when you're taking your final breath, none of other people's opinions, their expectations are going to matter. None of our fears are going to matter. What's going to matter is how we learned,

how we laughed, how we loved, how we lived. Right. And I just want to remind people, you know, the whole idea of beginning with the end in mind, you know, for, for me, somebody asked me recently, like, you know, cause I was, you know, new, new father. And I was saying like, I want to do this. And people like, you know, you want to make your son proud. Yeah. I want to make my son proud. I want to make, you know, parents proud, all of that, you know, the two, you know, my, my, my, my wife, my son. make your son proud? Yeah, I want to make my son proud. I want to make parents proud. All of that. My wife, my son. But when I think about it, the two people I want to make proud,

really, a nine-year-old boy that was going through all those challenges, that was being teased and bullied, called broken. I want to look back. I do these mental experiments all the time. I want to make the nine-year-old me proud. Then I was a fast-forward 99, hopefully. I'd be doing this a the time. I was like, I want to make that, you know, the nine-year-old me proud. And then I was to fast forward 99, hopefully, you know, I'd be doing this a long time. I want to make that guy proud also as well, you know? And so, you know, that, that, that, that's what I can control, you know? And I, I just feel like the life we live again are lessons that we teach. And I think we're all in this quest, you know, to realize and reveal our fullest potential.

This book, over 30 years, you know, I had an opportunity to scale my business, infomercials and franchises and train the trainer and, you know, all this kind of media book deals. I never said yes. And in 2019, I got in a car accident. I'll talk about this. And you create a very safe space. I never said yes. And in 2019, I got in a car accident. I'll talk about this. And I, um, you create a very safe space. I just appreciate you. Um, I almost died. And, um, and it made me

think about that, put everything in perspective because I never want to be famous, right? I want to help people, but I don't need to be known for it just because I'm very introverted. And I'm just, I like to, you know, do things that like that. Um, and that helps me have some kind of harmony, not balance, but harmony kind of like an orchestra kind of, not everyone has equal amount of everything, but they play music and it's just your art. Um, but when I had that kind of near death experience, I, I signed the book deal that's been in my inbox for like 10 years, you know, um, because I was made me think about what I leave behind and it really kind of made me think, you know, and you, you might have, you know, have this experience or know people have had that kind of near death experience.

Maybe just think of, of legacy, you know, and my next book is, it's different. It wasn't inspired by death. It was experienced by the birth of my son. So now it's inspired my life. And because I wanna leave the world brighter for him. And it's just become very personal for me in terms of clarity of mission, building better, brighter brains, no brain left behind, but also depth of purpose. Yeah.

Thank you for sharing that, Jim. And it is a great book. And I can see why it's been so popular and helping so many people. It's really fascinating to hear where it came from, where that energy came from. So I really do appreciate you sharing that. Just before we finish off talking about building better brains, on a slightly, I guess, lighthearted note, juggling is something I've seen you talk about before. You know, why is juggling so good?

And then something I haven't heard you talk about, but I'm interested, because I play with my kids regularly, table tennis or ping pong. So juggling, what's the deal? Why is it good? Does it matter if we're any good or not? And then maybe table tennis or ping pong,

is that also good for our brains and why? Yeah. There's a study done here, Oxford University, saying jugglers actually have bigger brains. They create more white matter. I believe as your body moves, your brain grooves. I think the number one reason we have a brain is to control our movement,

which is interesting to watch. You know, my son starting to learn how to crawl and we know that those cross laterals are very important for brain development and, you know, the communication between left and right brain and corpus callosum, that kind of bridging station. So, you know, as you move your body, it challenges different parts of your brain. So it's not just a mind-body connection. There's a body-mind connection that even using your opposite hand will stimulate different parts of your brain. Even when I

challenge, you know, for people who are just alphas and they're very achievement oriented, try using your finger opposite hand. Speed reading. Yeah, try using your left. If you're, you know, 11% of the population is left-handed, but if you're listening to this in your right hand, try using your left. If you're, you know, 11% of the population is left-handed, but if you're listening to this in your right hand,

try using your left hand, because potentially, what if it could stimulate the right side of your brain? You know, they say that your left side is very, and this is oversimplification. Yeah, for sure. Logical, but you're right, saying more imaginative, creative.

But just imagine using your left hand to stimulate different parts of your eating, and it'll make you more mindful, certainly. In the beginning, it might be difficult, because you're focused on doing it right. Like if I asked you to write your name with your opposite hand, it probably wouldn't be so good. And that's how I see learning also. If I asked everyone to write their first and last name, actually you could do it now. Write your first and last name on a piece of paper.

And then... With my left hand? No, no, no, with your dominant hand with my dominant hand yeah and then when you're done switch hands and then below it try below that with your opposite hand you know and as you're doing it oh wow and i. It feels weird. Oh, wow. And the quality is probably not as good. So those are the three differences, right? You can just leave it at that. I get it. So the second time it takes longer, it was uncomfortable and the quality is not quite as good. And I often feel like when people are trying to learn something, they're trying to, and

they're not getting it, even if they're interested in the topic, maybe there's just not, maybe the way you prefer to learn it is different than the way the teacher prefers to teach it. And I'm taking my hands and kind of passing them. There's no connection. It's like two ships in the night and there's no connection because how you learn it is different how to teach it. So maybe it's a learning disability or maybe it's a teaching disability or it's just not that communication where you have unification and connected. And so maybe you're trying, oh, here's another way to

put it. Maybe trying to learn it with the opposite hand. So it takes longer, it feels uncomfortable and the quality, the end result is not quite as good as if you're going to use your dominant hand. So it takes longer, it feels uncomfortable, and the quality, the end result is not quite as good as if you're going to use your dominant hand. And that's what going back to the brain quiz, once you know what your strengths are, you can take the judgment out, you know, and you're not judging a fish, you know, by its ability to climb a tree, you know, that whole thing. You know, you could honor your own strengths and know that you could also develop your weaknesses, certainly, because we give you protocols on how to be more owl or be more cheetah and so on. But going back to using your opposite hand or something or table tennis, table tennis

is wonderful for the brain. I've had multiple matches with Dr. Daniel Amen. It's his favorite brain training. Really? Table tennis? Yeah, table tennis. It's literally what he says is the number one physical activity for the brain thinking speed, reaction time, hand-eye coordination

it's a good cardio if you're doing it well but I love table tennis me and my son particularly play some pretty good you know games of reaction speed everything and I'm A. I'm enjoying it I'm having a blast. But B, it's kind of like,

I know I've read support, this is good for our brains. And sometimes we'll also play left-handed. So we're both right-handed because I know it feels different. But after a while you start to groove and you get it. And I'm like, this is good for my brain.

I know it is. In fact, there's a, you know, arguably the world's greatest ever snooker player, a chap called Ronnie O'Sullivan. Now, I don't know if he's completely right-handed and then he learned this with his weak hand or whether he's ambidextrous. I couldn't tell you that. But he can play almost as good with his left hands.

And actually, when he initially started doing this in composition, some of his opponents wouldn't shake his hand. They thought he was taking the mickey. They thought he was being unsportsmanlike. Oh, I can, you know, like the quip, oh, I can beat, you know, like you might do with your mates when you're younger. I can beat you playing with my left hand mates kind of thing. But actually he's learnt he can play both handed. And so on one side of the table, if someone has to use a rest because of just the mechanics, he doesn't have to, he just flips to his other hand and doesn't need to use the rest, which is really interesting. Yeah. I didn't grow

up with a ping pong or table tennis in our home, but it's something that I enjoy now. We have one in our home and when people come and they're decent at it, I'll play left. I'm right-handed, but I play left-handed. And I've noticed that my left hand is actually getting, in some ways, my slice is better than, my backhand is better than my forehand, like my dominant hand. And so, yeah, table tennis, ballroom dancing, juggling,

all of that is very stimulating for the brain. The juggling, going back to it, you could watch a video. I could juggle, right? But I'm not juggling swords and flaming like chainsaws, but you could watch a YouTube video. What I do, a couple of tips on this though, the reason why it's like juggling besides the building better brains is it's nice to challenge yourself. It's, you know, getting this end result because I feel like it's a good metaphor for life because how many of us don't feel like we're juggling everything in life, right? But the other part is it forces, it actually helps with your reading, interesting enough, going back to speed reading, because if I'm juggling three balls up in the air,

I have two eyes. I can't look at all three balls with just two eyes, right? So I have to, instead of my foveal vision, like really narrowing, I have to soften my gaze to get more of my perceptual vision, right? Be able to see more my field of focus. And that's the kind of focus similarly, I noticed when I started teaching juggling is that I read. Because when you look at a, and I'm opening a book, if you look at this word liver, right, you look at that word liver. So you have to, there's about 10 words per line, as we mentioned, flush toxins from the liver. Then there's something called fixations. So this is what keeps people, another thing that keeps people reading slow. When you're doing a fixation, that means a fixation is an eye stop.

So if there are 10 words per line, you're fixating on each word, you're making 10 stops. And it's kind of like if you're driving on a road. Keep pressing the brake. Yeah. It's like, doom, boom, boom. It's like, or traffic's like, boom, boom, 10 times. As opposed to, if I look at, you know, the word here and I could see the word to the left and to the right. So I could soften my gaze with my peripheral vision seat to the left and to the right and maybe see three or four words at a time. So then it only takes two, three max fixations to get across the page. So instead of 10 stops, it's less traffic. It's just like one, two, and then I'm done.

Can I just say, it's just amazing that you're unpacking the art of reading. For many of us, we learn how to read at school or from our parents, and then we've never given it any thought. I haven't. I just open a book and read, but I'm already thinking, I can use my finger now. Wow, I think I'm pretty quick anyway. Let's see what happens when I start using my finger and now I'm thinking am I you know super focused on one or two words or can I soften everything be more relaxed

and you know have that more peripheral vision two practical things that I can implement straight away and then in order to do that you have to relax right so when I'm juggling like this I open I expand so I could see this you know field of play

so I could take everything in same thing when I'm looking at a this, I open, I expand so I could see this field of play. So I could take everything in. Same thing when I'm looking at a page or a line. And also that relaxed state is not putting me in fight or flight. Sometimes when we're so narrow focused on something that... Yeah, no, I love it. And it's more taxing when you're looking at... Think about even just the muscles in your eye having to go from da-da-da-da to go from and then sometimes what we're doing is regressing. We're back skipping. Have you ever noticed you reread words or go to reread whole lines? And that takes up a lot of time. And I want to honor

what you, what you know, what you, you know, the self-reflection and the awareness that yeah, reading is a skill and it's going to be improved through training. But when's the last time we took a class called reading? We were six. So the difficulty and demand has increased tremendously. But how we actually read something is the same way as we did as a child. And we haven't upgraded those skills. That's why I think this is so important. I'll tell you the big thing in terms of what,

and by the way, when you understand your peripheral vision, then you don't even have to go across the page. You could indent, you know, a handful of whatever centimeters to the left and to the right and in between. So you don't even have to go all the way across. You could just stay in the middle and still see what's left and right. And there's another, save another 25%, right? And this adds up every single day. You're getting that time back. The other thing is the thing that's actually challenging the most for readers. Have you ever

noticed when you're reading something, you hear that inner voice inside your head reading along with you? You hear that voice inside your head? Hopefully it's your own voice. It's not like somebody else's voice. The reason why it's a challenge is if you have to say all the words inside your mind in order to understand, that means your reading speed is limited to your talking speed, but not your thinking speed. Right? The reason why most people read 200 to 250 words per minute is that's the average rate of speech. And can you understand faster? Of course, but you can't talk that fast. So let me ask you the underlining. Like, so we're reevaluating what we learned.

Do you need to say words, right? Like computer, New York City, in order to understand what those words are? No. No, because you've seen them how many times? 100,000 times. And they're called sight words. Words that you've seen thousands of times,

you know by sight, you don't have to pronounce by sound. And 95% of what we're reading on a regular basis are sight words. Just like when you see traffic signs or a stop sign and it says stop, you don't say stop, but you understand what it means, right?

And so that's most of the words. Could this be one of the reasons why I'm, I don't, I haven't done this enough to say this for sure, but I'm not, I think, like sometimes when I try audio books, like I love listening to podcasts, but I'm not sure I love listening to audio books. Like I much prefer real books.

And I wonder if that's because I think I'm a quick reader. Do I maybe find like the audio book too slow for the speed that I like to go at? Could that be a reason? Yeah, and I'll give you a couple of distinctions. But I love podcasts. Yeah, so some people, let's deconstruct this and pack it.

So some people will listen to a podcast or audio book at faster speed they'll do it at 1.5 or 2.0 they might be doing it right now because no one can speak that fast but we can understand that fast and that's just another evidence that we can be reading faster than we currently are

when people are mostly reading they're reading one word at a time and I'll tell you if you get distracted while you read which is a lot of people When people are mostly reading, they're reading one word at a time. And I'll tell you, if you get distracted while you read, which is a lot of people, it's because you're reading too slow. Let me say that again. Most people think they get distracted because they're not interested in the topic. And that could be a contributing factor.

But most people get distracted because they're reading too slow. Because your brain is this incredible supercomputer. And when you're reading, you're feeding this supercomputer one word at a time. Metaphorically, you're starving your mind. And if you don't give your brain the entertainment it needs, it'll seek stimulus elsewhere in the form of distraction. So you start thinking about other stuff. I love that. It makes total sense. It's like if you're driving.

If you're driving down your wonderful neighborhood here, you're not really focused on driving, right? But if you're racing a car at F1, if you're driving slow, you can think about the dry cleaning, about what you should have said on the podcast. You could be drinking coffee, texting. You could be five different things when you're going slow because you could be that. But if you're going fast, are you thinking about, are you trying to text? Are you trying to drink coffee? Are you thinking about the dry cleaning? No. Because the speed gives you the focus

and the focus gives you the comprehension. So most people think if I read any faster, I won't understand it. Actually, because we test, we have more data than anybody. We have the, you know, our flagship speed reading program has been around for a long time. We actually find that the people who are reading faster actually have better comprehension in general

because they have better focus. Because when they're going faster, there's no time to be distracted and thinking about other things and trying to give, some people read so slowly, they fall asleep because they're just bored, you know, and then they're multitasking and everything because they're not giving their brain the stimulus it needs. So it

entertains itself in other ways. So there's a big science and art to this. In the training that we do, we show people because there's no quick tip for it on how to reduce the sub-vocalization. So you're only saying the words that are new to you.

And the words you have to pronounce because they're not familiar to you. And then we teach all the different ways to take notes and to study and underline, do all the fancy stuff. But the idea here is prioritize reading because leaders are readers. You read to succeed.

Reading is your mind, what exercise your body. That's the whole mindset part. And give yourself a real purpose to read. Don't just read randomly. You read for purpose because you want to implement it. How can I use this? Why must I use this?

When will I use this? And then the method, upgrade your reading of skills and abilities because it's just like Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. The seventh habit,

sharpen the saw. If you have all this wood you need to cut and you have a blade that's dull, when do seventh habit, sharpen the saw. If you have all this wood you need to cut and you have a blade, you know, that's dull, when do you want to sharpen it? At the end, in the middle, or the beginning? In the beginning. Because if you wait to the end,

you just struggled a lot. You wasted a lot of time. You suffered, you stressed. And when you sharpen the saw, like this Limitless will help you read every other book. This is like, you know, Lord of the Rings, like the one ring that controls them all. Limitless is like the one book

that will help you learn, read, and remember them all. You go through this and then everything after that, you sharpen the saw and it's just a whole lot easier. Jim, I could talk to you for hours. There's so much wisdom about memory, learning, focus, attention that we haven't even got into. Of course, you've got all your online courses, you've got your Limitless book, you've got your own podcast. So there's plenty of resources that people can go to to learn more. I've really enjoyed this conversation.

As you know, this podcast is called Feel Better, Live More. When we feel better in ourselves, we get more out of our life. Your whole mission is to help us have better brains, better functioning brains, which is going to help work, relationships, hobbies, whatever it might be. So right at the end of this conversation, I wonder if you could leave my audience with some wisdom, some insights, some sort of practical tips. If they feel inspired by what they've heard, what can they do right now to start improving how their brains function? Yeah.

Okay. So I would say within the next hour, definitely the next day, put something into action, right? The knowledge is not only power, it could be profit if it's utilized. And I don't mean just financial profit. Certainly the faster you can learn, the faster you can earn.

Most people listening to this, it's not like 100 years ago. You're not compensated for your muscle power like it was back then. It's your mind power. It's not your brute strength, it's your brain strength. So I would say prioritize your ability to learn how to learn. If there was a genie who could grant you any one wish, you would ask for limitless wishes. But if, let's say I was your learning genie, I could help you become an expert in any one subject or any one skill.

Yes, you could pick ping pong, you know, or you could think about neuroscience. But if you could say like, hey, I want to be excellent at learning how to learn, every area gets easier. Medicine, money, martial arts, music, Mandarin, everything gets easier. So I would say the first thing is prioritize learning how to learn, whether it's reading better, improving your memory focus.

These are not things that you have. These are things that you could do. And genius leaves clues, right? So you can learn how to learn, right? Whether it's through us or just finding it online, learn how to learn. The second thing I would say is just read more. That's kind of obvious, but I'm just reiterating what we've talked about here, leaders or readers. Even if it's just 10 minutes a day, make it super easy. Carry a book with you. When you have downtime, I do so much of my reading just like when I feel like time opens up. Meeting starts 15 minutes late and that 15 minutes adds up. So I just like picking up a book or if I'm waiting online at the DMV

or something like that is to read more. Third thing, think about your dominant question. I'm talking about things that we've gone over because it's a rapid review. Think about what your dominant questions are because you change your questions, you change your life. Maybe your question is,

how do I make this moment even magical? What's the best use of this moment? What's most important to me right now? Or how can I make that nine-year-old version of me proud? Whatever your focus goes, that's where the energy is definitely going to flow. And then the last two things I would say, take the quiz. A small, simple step you could do is post your quiz result and tag us both

so we get to see what you are and share one thing you're going to do for a better brain like share what animal you are get a nice we created these AI animals personalized you could post it online

tag us both I'll actually gift out three copies of Unlimited List just the three random people who do that so it's a small simple step you could take to really show your fans, your followers, your friends, your family, something new about you. And then because you tag us, I'll get to see it

and I'll repost some of those. And then the last thing is teach it. My philosophy on life is you learn to earn to return. You learn so you can earn so you have more to be able to return. I think one of the best ways of returning something is it teaches somebody else. You take advantage of something called the explanation effect.

The explanation effect is exactly what it sounds like. If you learn with the intention of explaining to somebody else, you're going to learn it easier and better. You're going to learn it easier and better. You're going to own it. Because when you sum up what you learned here, and that's active retrieval, that's another practice you could use,

you're not going to use necessarily my words, our words to explain it. You're going to use your own words, and then you're going to have that ownership. And I think that's the most beautiful thing. If you gave me a certain amount of currency and I gave you the same amount of currency, nothing happens. It's the same thing right but if I share a new idea with you and you share a new idea that's why your community is so amazing and I'm a big fan of your show

and your YouTube I subscribe to you know it always shows up early and even on social media also on Instagram but then I share a new idea with you and you share a new idea with me all of a sudden we have two brand new ideas and all I just ask is that you don't keep it an idea, you turn it into some kind of implementation.

Because that's the ultimate thing, is the integration. You know, when your mindset, your motivation, and the methods, when your head, your heart, and your hands are all aligned, then you're living a limitless life. You know, and I truly believe

there's a version, if you're still listening to this, I promise you, I'm talking to the person listening to this right now, there's a version of yourself that's patiently waiting. And the goal is you show up every single day until you're introduced. Jim, love everything you're doing. Love the impact you're making on the world.

That's coming on the show. Thank you. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. As always, what is one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life? And in the spirit of today's conversation, what one thing can you take away and teach to somebody else? As this is the last episode of the season, I have two quick favours to ask. Number one, if you have ever received value from this podcast and have never got round to leaving a review for the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, I really would appreciate it if you could take a moment right now to do so. It will only take you about one minute to do so, and it makes a really big difference. Secondly, if there

is anyone in your life who you feel would benefit from listening to this episode or this podcast in general, please do spread the word. My team and I work very hard each week to make this show in order to help people improve their lives. And of course, the more people who listen, the more people who can experience benefits. So my request is simple. Can you share this show over the summer with five people in your life who do not currently listen? If all of you were to do this, I honestly feel we could create a powerful, positive ripple effect where we help more people feel happier and healthier. No pressure, of course. If you don't want to share for whatever reason, that is completely fine as well. Before I sign off, just a quick thank you from me. I really appreciate all of you who

take the time each week to listen, comment on social media and share these episodes with your friends and family. It really means a lot. It's amazing to see the impact that this show is having. I really do hope you manage to have a relaxing and nourishing summer. And of course, I will be back here in September. And as a little teaser, I have some absolutely fabulous guests already lined up. Always remember, especially over the summer, that you can be the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle changes is always worth it because when you feel better, you live more.