Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - How To Optimise Your Brain Health, Improve Your Memory & Unlock Your Full Potential with Jim Kwik #469

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

After suffering a traumatic brain injury as a child, this week’s returning podcast guest was labelled "the boy with the broken brain" by teachers and peers, shaping his beliefs about his own capabilities and potential. Fast-forward to today, and he’s transformed his challenges into strengths, becoming a world renowned brain coach who’s helped thousands of people around the world enhance their memory and improve their brain performance. I’m delighted to welcome Jim Kwik back for our second conversation. If you don’t know Jim, he’s spent the last three decades teaching his learning techniques to students from universities such as Harvard and CalTech. He’s also helped executives and employees from companies such as Google, Virgin, Nike and institutions like the United Nations to get the most out of work and life.   Jim is also the author of the bestselling book Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, And Unlock Your Exceptional Life and his first appearance on my podcast 12 months ago now, is one of the most downloaded episodes in this podcasts’ history.   In today's conversation, we cover many different topics relating to our brain and its limitless potential, including:   the importance of continuous learning, how small changes can lead to big improvements in brain function, the impact of our self-talk, the role of our environment in shaping our productivity, the importance of managing our energy and emotional states, the power of choice in personal growth, and we discuss many practical techniques for better time management and focus.   One of the highlights of this episode is a real-time memory activity that Jim guides us all through, demonstrating the practical application of his techniques and showcasing how anyone can improve their memory and cognitive abilities if they have the right strategies.   Jim is such a wonderful and caring human being and a quite brilliant communicator, who has lots of practical knowledge that he is super passionate about sharing. And, I think his own journey from struggle to success, serves as a powerful reminder that each of us has a brain with incredible, limitless potential. Sign up for Jim's FREE Brain Summit on 5-7th August here https://www.jimkwik.com/livemore. 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://airbnb.co.uk/host https://vivobarefoot.com/livemore https://drinkag1.com/livemore Show notes https://drchatterjee.com/469 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.

There's a version of yourself that's patiently waiting, and the goal is we show up for ourselves every single day until we're introduced. But those little things matter, and you matter. Like whether you see it or not, your presence in the world makes a difference. 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.

Do you think that your brain's potential is limited? Or do you think that you can continually keep improving it depending on what you do? Well, this week's returning guest, Jim Quick, was labelled the boy with the broken brain after suffering a traumatic brain injury as a child. Now, this label shaped his internal beliefs about his own ability and potential for many years. But fast forward to today, and Jim has amazingly transformed his challenges into strengths and has become a world-renowned brain coach who's helped thousands of people around the world enhance their memory and improve their brain performance. Jim has spent the past three decades teaching his learning techniques to students from universities such as Harvard and Caltech. He's also helped executives and employees from companies such as Google, Virgin and Nike

and institutions like the United Nations. He's also the author of the bestselling book, Limitless, upgrade your brain, learn anything faster and unlock your exceptional life. And his first appearance on my podcast 12 months ago now is one of the most downloaded episodes in this podcast's history. Now in today's conversation, we cover so many different topics relating to our brain and its limitless potential, including the importance of continuous learning, how small changes can lead to big improvements in brain function, the impact of our self-talk, the role our environment plays in shaping our productivity, the importance of managing our energy and emotional states, the power of choice in personal growth, and so many practical techniques for better time

management and focus. In fact, I think one of the highlights of this episode is a real-time memory activity that Jim guides us all through, demonstrating the practical application of his techniques and showcasing how anyone can improve their memory and cognitive abilities if they have the right strategies. Jim is such a wonderful and caring human being and a quite brilliant communicator who has bucket loads of practical knowledge that he is super passionate about sharing. And I think his own journey from struggle to success serves as a powerful reminder that each of us has a brain with incredible, with incredible, limitless potential. Why are you so passionate about brain health?

Well, my inspiration really came from my desperation. I mentioned our previous episode, I had a traumatic brain injury when I was a child. I was five years old and I took a very bad fall in elementary school. And, you know, I was rushed child. I was five years old and I took a very bad fall in elementary school. And, you know, I was rushed to the emergency room. My parents said before I was very playful, very energized, very curious, but afterwards I shut down. I would have these migraines every day as a five, six year old. I thought it was normal. Balance issue, coordination issues, focus, memory. It took me three years longer to learn how to read.

At that same time, my grandmother who was taking care of me, she passed of Alzheimer's when I was seven. So I started seeing, not only going through my issues, but if anyone's listening and they've had a family member or somebody close to them have brain aging challenges like dementia. She started calling me by my father's name and she repeated something she just said 30 seconds earlier. And it was just very confusing as a child. So, but it informed what I do today. You know, I was labeled, I had a teacher call me the boy with the broken brain. That was kind of my moniker throughout school. The kids would call me that too. And just as importantly, I was calling myself that.

So every single time I did badly in school or wasn't picked for sports, I would say, oh, because I had the broken brain. And so those are my struggles. And I don't know if your listeners could relate to this. I'm sure some can, that your struggles can become strengths, that adversity can be an advantage, that with challenge comes a level of change.

And so having lost my grandmother, who was the world to me, to Alzheimer's, to having my broken brain, my traumatic brain injury, to having my learning difficulties, it informed what I do today. And it's been over three decades as a brain coach, helping people. My mission really is to build better, brighter brains, no brain left behind. It's interesting hearing your story. There's obviously the personal struggles you've had. the personal struggles you've had. It's what you saw with your grandmother.

And it's fascinating to hear how those experiences as a child have influenced you today in terms of what you do. You know, you're helping many, many people around the world improve their brain health. A theme that has come up regularly on this podcast over the past couple of years is that of regrets and i think about your work sometimes through the lens of regrets

what is the cost of people not optimizing their brains not doing the things that you recommend that will help them with their focus, their memory, their performance, and ultimately their brain health? I spent a lot of time every year in senior centers in nursing homes, maybe because I lost my grandparents at such an early age. I go there to, I go there initially to help them with their memory,

to polish off their memories. Because I feel like when we lose our memory, if you know somebody who's lost their memory through brain aging or other conditions, it's like they lose who they are. It's almost like our identity, our humanity is a tapestry of our life. But if you were to erase that, then who are we, right? So while we teach people how to remember facts, figures, foreign languages, formulas,

so on, I think remembering your loved ones, remembering your lessons, remembering the times you laughed and loved and lived are most important. But when I'm in the senior centers, I also, I gained a lot of wisdom because I didn't have those grandparents to pass on that information, the life experience. I believe the life you live are lessons you teach others. But I also hear regret, exactly what you said. they limited their life because like they didn't pursue a relationship because of what people thought about that relationship or that person, or maybe they chose a career path because it was expected of them by their parents or something like that. So there's this form of regret that comes out. And I just want to remind everybody who's listening, when we're taking our final breaths, and it's not a positive thing to think about maybe, but beginning with the end in mind and making the most of your time, when you're taking your final breaths, none of other people's opinions or expectations are going to matter.

None of our fears are going to matter at the moment. What's going to matter are the things like how we laughed, how we loved, how we learned, how we lived. And it's knowing that could inform what we do today because tomorrow is not guaranteed. And a lot of us have past histories. We've talked about this in the previous episode, that things shaped us. And I would say that while,

I just really do believe while change and growth is scary, nothing is as scarier as regret or nothing is as scarier as being stuck somewhere you're not supposed to be. Yeah. Life is short, right? It is. And then yet today in the now, Eckhart Tolle's work,

the power of now is what we have. And I think our now is more powerful than all our yesterdays combined, because this is where we could actually affect change. Yeah, I think now that I'm, and I have been for a few years now on the other side of 40, you start to look at life differently. You start to realize that actually time is limited, right? You know, you understand this concept more and more of mortality, that life can keep getting better and better for sure, but at some point it's going to end. And I think that's been such a powerful realization for me because it then gives an

urgency to day-to-day life. It doesn't mean you have to get out of bed and be stressed out. I don't mean that kind of urgency. I mean the sort of urgency where I feel that every day counts. You don't have limitless time, to use the name of your book, right? You don't have limitless time. Time actually is limited. And therefore, the habits and the practices you recommend people to improve their brain, their focus, their productivity, to help them read faster, to learn more things. I actually think there's an urgency there for all of us to start engaging with those things. Otherwise, without us realizing it,

we're kind of just wasting our days. Yeah, there's that mental exercise, this thought experiment, and I would challenge everyone to do this with us. It's that idea that some of us have seen, you might have heard of it. It's like if you were to wake up and there was 86,400 pounds, dollars, whatever, in your bank account, and it's yours every single day. But at the end of the day, it vanishes.

And then it replenishes the next day. And the idea behind it, this thought experiment, is what would you do with that money? If you woke up and there was $86,400 in your account, but you knew at midnight it was going to disappear, how would you invest that money? And you would invest in things that really mattered, right? That could be there for you. But that's our time because there are 86,400 seconds in a day. 86,400 seconds in one day. And it's the same thing. Whatever we don't invest into the future,

we just lose. And then it's also interesting to think about because let's say you're in your day and you're somewhere and somebody treats you badly, maybe a stranger on the street, and you lose like 10 seconds of just anger. You wouldn't spend all the other money trying to get back that $10, right? But a lot of us do that. And I'm guilty of it also as well. You get slighted or you get a comment on social media and it just like, you could dwell on it for 10 seconds. But some people, what they do

is they take all their other money or their time, hours to get back that 10 seconds, which they'll never do, right? It's a great analogy, this idea that we're spending time all the time. We're spending it. We don't think about that, but we are spending it. Now, I really like this analogy,

but I imagine some people could misinterpret it and go, okay, that means time is limited. I need to make the most out of each day, which I don't disagree with. I think we should try and make the most out of each day. But some people, especially in this culture, will interpret that as the most out of each day means working as much as I can. But that's not what you mean, is it? No. I mean, I think it's what is really important. Everyone's a little bit individual, like just like even with nutrition, everyone's a little bio-individual based on their values that they hold. I think it's very important. So for example, when I wake up in the morning,

I do this thought experiment where I imagine myself, again, coming back that night into bed. Fast forward to the end of the day, and my wife asks how my day was, and I say, it was amazing. What a happy day. What a great day. And then I ask myself, what had to happen that day, today, in order for me to feel that way? And I just think of three things personally and professionally, and that's my target. that way. And I just think of three things personally and professionally. And that's my target. Because if there's a book by Dr. Stephen Covey, seven habits of highly effective

people that says began with the end in mind. And that's my way of practicing that. Meaning that you know, when it's time to celebrate in sports, for example, because you see a scoreboard, and you know, if you've won, well, I don't think we create that for our day. And you know, this cliche where nobody comes to the end of their life wishing they spent more time in the office, right? But beginning with the end in mind, I feel like sometimes we're burnt out

not because we're doing too much in our day, but maybe we feel burnt out because we're doing too little of the things that light us up, that make us come alive and designing a life around that. And for everybody, it's different. You know, it might be work. Some people, they love it and it juices them. I love my work also, but I think it's important to also have a harmony in terms of the elements that, you know, make us more whole. And so, and time, I like this conversation because I've never talked about it,

but it's really the thing that we all have that's equal. That's literally probably the only thing because everybody has different levels of education, opportunity, network, income. But we all have 24 hours in a day. But it's how we use that time that really, I feel like matters. I think something you said that was so important, which is this idea that how we wish to live our lives and spend our time is individual. Okay. What works for you is what works for you. What works for me is what works for me. And we shouldn't judge others for living the life in the way that they want to live it, right? As you say, for some people,

it will be their work. Having said that, I think what's great about those questions and that thought experiment you do first thing in the morning is that it brings an element of intention to your day and therefore to your life, right? So you're intentionally deciding this is what is important to me. Whereas I do think that many people, they're so busy, they just stumble out of bed, they're straight onto their phones, they're reacting to the world and they're not spending a moment to intentionally think about how am I spending my time? Is this in harmony with who I am? Is this what I want to be doing day after day? And so I want to talk to you a little bit about time management, Jim. I know people come to you and seek you out for a variety of different reasons, I know people come to you and seek you out for a variety of different reasons.

But I think one thing they want is to manage their time better. How do you see time management? And I believe you have a model to explain that. An eight-part model, is that right? Yeah, we built it out. It's a framework. I'll give everyone an acronym. There are nine elements elements including time management to be able to get the most out of the day.

And I feel like that's what most of us want. And so we can go through it really very quickly. Yeah, let's go through it. I encourage everyone who's listening to take some notes also. There's this learning curve, but there's also this forgetting curve. Sometimes when we hear something,

we forget it the next day. So using the acronym LIMITLESS. So these are the areas of management to really improve your productivity, your performance, and I believe your peace of mind. And so the L in LIMITLESS is learning management. So this is learning management. If you want to get the most out of the day, I feel part of that day has to be spent in your own growth. I feel like we're most happiest when we're growing and when we're giving. Meaning that just like in nature, everything grows, it's green and it grows or it's brown and it rots, right? And everything has to get back to the ecosystem. Otherwise it's eliminated.

And so I think we learn more so we have more to be able to share. I call them grow givers. We grow so we have more to give as opposed to go-getters back in the 80s. It was very, you know, get, get, get. And then you could give also, but then you become a martyr.

But I think you grow so you have more to be able to share, right, get. And then you could give also, but then you become a martyr. But I think you grow, so you have more to be able to share. And so learning management is prioritizing learning in the day. Because some people feel like learning is done, the two dips that we see in cognitive performance is usually when people graduate school and when they retire. Meaning when they retire, a lot of times they retire their mind. They don't use their mind as much. And unfortunately, their body isn't far behind. But also some people associate learning just to school and education. They don't realize it's a lifelong process. But then when they graduate school, like, great, my learning is done.

And then they don't use their minds as much. So for example, we have a to-do list. I think it's very important to have a to-learn list each day. And I think it's very important every month to learn something new because the human mind is the ultimate adaptation tool. Well, what does that actually mean practically? And I guess what I'm getting at is, and I'm really conscious of this now with this podcast, is

each week I talk to incredible people and they're sharing ideas and their perspective and little tips and tricks that people can use. But I imagine sometimes it can be overwhelming and people can think, yeah, but all these things sound amazing, right? I want to do that. I want to do all these things sound amazing, right? I want to do that. I want to do that. I want to do that. I want to learn Spanish. I want to, you know, go to the gym and work on my zone two and my high intensity. And I also want to see my wife and my children and my job, right? So a learning to-do list, just sort of expand on that a little bit.

How simple can that be for someone? So Benjamin Franklin used to have something he called the five hour rule, where it's learning an hour a day for five days that week. And now everybody could change it, right? It could be 30 minutes, it could be more than an hour and so on. But it wouldn't be 10 minutes, right? Exactly. I mean, because again, our value in society is, it's not like it was thousands of years ago or even hundreds of years ago, whereas our muscle power today, it's our mind power, right? It's our ability to solve problems, our ability to think, uh, to be able to come up with solutions and innovations. It's not as our brute strength today, it's our brain strength, but our brain, our mind only expands,

but with new ideas and new lessons, right? Through neuroplasticity and so on, through novelty and nutrition. So the idea here is you have a to learn list. So you are very clear on learning outcomes because that's, you could, any skill, knowledge, skill, and ability, you could adapt, right? So the idea here is just that genius is not born. It's built systematically through discipline, through focus, through proper training or coaching. And so for, let's say you have a to learn list, I think, you know, for me,

it's reading. That's my go-to. It's my, I think reading is to your, in the last episode, we did a whole masterclass on speed reading and smart reading, right? So I definitely think people should listen to that. But on my to learn list are things that I wanna challenge myself, new knowledge, skills, and abilities so I can be more valuable in my society and for my team, for my family and so on. So how does that work out functionally?

I think the most important thing is you schedule that because you schedule things, but we don't always schedule our personal growth or sometimes people don't always schedule our personal growth. Or sometimes people don't even schedule their workouts and they never get to it and they wonder why because it wasn't, I think the number one productivity tool we have is our calendar, right?

You put doctor's appointments or you put meetings or investor meetings, PTA teacher meetings with your kids, but we're not scheduling our learning as much. So I like to schedule our learning. It could be podcasts, it could be audio books, it could be coaching, it could be reading books. My preference is to read. I'm like you, I like to read analog, not on screens. But I will listen to an audio book and a podcast. I just have to do it at faster speed because of time, right? And so my to learn list, I have a dedicated time that I want to learn.

I read every single day. I mentioned in the previous episode, in the morning I create, in the afternoon I consume, in the evening I clear. So it's a way of, you know, we could talk about other elements that's coming up in the acronym. But, you know, my consumption time is the time I'm reading and learning. I'm listening to the shows. So the L of Limitless is learning and-

Learning management, yeah. So these are all gonna be nine management systems, if you will. Yeah, and I love what you said that they're about productivity, performance, and peace of mind. Yeah, and even prosperity. When you put these together,

I think people, when we're done with it, they'll see how this can relate to all the treasures of their life. The four P's there, limitless. I remember in our first conversation, you use lots and lots of mnemonics. Just a quick detour from limitless for a minute. Why do you use mnemonics so often? Is it so that you can remember things clearly, you can solidify them, you can learn them? Because when you have to go through the creative process of making the mnemonic, you're presumably locking it into your brain. So maybe expand on that a little bit. Yeah, for both reasons. I come up with these mnemonics because a lot of us in school, they were very effective in memorizing certain things

like the colors of the rainbow or the planets, or in the US you have the Great Lakes homes, the acronym homes like Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior, right? Or ROYGBIV or for the colors of the rainbow. We did a medical school one for the cranial nerves, which I absolutely cannot say on a microphone. But again, mnemonics are there for a reason.

So I come up with it. It helps me to integrate it. So the number one reason you learn it is for yourself. But the second reason you learn anything is that you can teach somebody else. And I find that when I'm giving keynote presentations or I'm on somebody's media and people ask the listeners, the audience, what they learned, they could go back to the mnemonic.

And it's a nice reminder, memory device to be able to, like scaffolding inside their mind to more immediately recall the information. recall the information. And then, but yes, constructing that acronym or mnemonic also helps me to encode the information so I get better store it and retrieve it, you know, out of our memory. So is that something like your job requires you to, you know, go on stage in various places around the world and talk to people, go on podcasts,

make courses, communicate. Do you think mnemonics are helpful for, you know, any one of us, you know, in terms of helping us learn, do you think mnemonics are helpful? I do. I find that they're a simple form of a simple memory device. I mean, we could talk about the memory palace and mind mapping and chaining methods

and alphanumeric codes. There's different techniques for improving your memory that are certainly more advanced. But if people are, this is the first time they're exposed to my content or coaching, then it's a simple way for everyone to understand the information or at least have a way of organizing the information that's more memorable. Okay. Let's move on to the I. Yeah. So the first one again is learning management. And then just the other thing for learning, I just want to underline and highlight what we talked about is teaching. Because if you want to learn something, learn it to teach it. Even if they're listening to this episode, think about somebody who you wish was listening

to this episode and certainly share it with them. But you could also think about somebody who you wish was listening to this episode and certainly share it with them. But you could also think about how would you present this? Like if they're going to ask you what you learned from this episode, and you're going to talk about the limitless kind of like day management system, you know, because then you have ownership of the material, right? You're going to learn it better, you're going to focus focus better and so on. So learn to teach, wonderful way to improve your learning. So the I is importance management. And so I'm obviously creating words that fit into Limitless because I feel like it's not so much time management. And we will talk about the T in Limitless is time. It's priority management.

You know what I mean? And so the most important thing is to keep the most important thing, the most important thing. And so I feel like to get the most out of the day, we have to be focused on those things that are most important. Because so many of us get really good and things that maybe in the end don't matter as much, but because we're not intentional about it or we're mindless about it, then we just feel busy

and we feel like we're making progress, but we're running in place. And I think a lot of people, you know, including myself, sometimes we associate busyness with, like people ask, like, how's your day? And how many times do we say, well, it's really busy or how's things going? I'm really busy. And we use busyness almost as a badge of honor because I think the subtext that we're communicating is like, if we're busy, we're important.

You know what I mean? We're valuable because we have so much that we need to do and so many people are counting on us. And I just want to remind people who are listening that you don't have to fix everything and make every single person in the world happy. your key values, and then work backwards from that. Now, even when I'm planning my day, again, I'm focused on three things personally, three things professionally, that thought experiment I do in bed when I wake up, and that's my six things.

And those are what's important for me that day. And that gives me a target. Like this is one of those six things, this conversation I'm having with you, right? And then when I'm here, I'm completely here. And I know when I go to put my head on that pillow tonight that I could have a level of satisfaction and even cheer because I focused on the things that matter. Because the opposite of not having that, like let's go through the opposite of not learning. If we're staying the same and we're the same person we were five years ago that probably wouldn't make us incredibly happy well is it even possible to stay the same life is always moving i'm not entirely sure it is possible for us to stay static i kind of feel we're either growing

or we're contracting i don't think being static is an option yeah Yeah, and that's why I really feel like every day we have a chance because we can make a new choice. And so life is difficult for one of two reasons. Either we're leaving our comfort zone or life is difficult because we stay in our comfort zone. And I just want to remind everyone that we could do hard things. Looking in the mirror, part of self-care is not

just, you know, eating the best brain foods and optimizing your sleep. It's looking in the mirror and, you know, loving the person, that reflection that's looking back that's been through so much, but is still standing. Yeah. Just on this topic of importance management. Yeah. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Airbnb. Now, I've been using Airbnbs for many years now for pleasure and for work. And last year, when I was in London for a few days of work,

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all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. That's drinkag1.com forward slash live more. If you're not intentional in the morning about what those important things are, you may also end up in a situation where you have done the important things, but you still feel as though you haven't done anything because you haven't specified it. This idea that our to-do lists are never done anything because you haven't specified it. This idea that our to-do lists are never done. There's always emails accumulating. There's always jobs accumulating. So you could have done those six important things, but you wouldn't even realize it. And you would just think that you're not winning at life.

And there's a couple of things you mentioned so far, which relate to a journal I brought out at the start of the year called the three question journal which had in it and has in it the three most important questions I think we can ask ourselves in the morning and in the evening and interestingly enough they kind of mirror your work a little bit because one of the questions is which quality or qualities do I want to showcase to the world today? You ask yourself that in the morning. And it's very similar to the question you ask yourself, you know, in order to tell your wife at the end of the day, I had a great day. What would today need to look like? And people can choose whichever question they want. But I think it's, for me, it's just a very simple question to

go, you know, let's say I want to show the world the quality of patience today. And it means I'm thinking about that all day. And if I'm tempted to rush or to get snappy, because it's in the back of my mind that patience is what I want to show today, I'm much more likely to behave in that way. And one of the other questions for the morning is, what is the most important thing I have to do

today and again people say well there's more than one and yes of course we might have lots of priorities but I personally have found it and with many patients in the past very useful to actually narrow it down to one thing like initially it for me it started off with work life and family life. And then over time, it's morphed into one. So I challenge myself each morning to go, what is the most important thing? And sometimes it's to do with family. Sometimes it's to do with my health and working out. Sometimes it is to do with work, but it forces me to make a decision first thing in the morning.

And I think that's really powerful. I like that a lot. make a decision first thing in the morning. And I think that's really powerful. I like that a lot. And it's said that the word priority was only plural. I was, you know, just a few decades ago before it was just, what's the priority? What's the one thing that's most important? And I agree, life and our personal and our work,

it's integrated. You know, for me, it's not about balance. It's more about harmony. Balance for me, it feels like it For me, it's not about balance. It's more about harmony. Balance for me, it feels like it's very stressful, like a balance beam. And if you look up the definition of balance, it's just equal weight. But I don't necessarily want to spend equal amount of time working as I do working out. It's not equal, but harmony is like an orchestra. Not every person contributes the same amount of time, equal balance, but they all do their thing and then it creates this amazing symphony,

this amazing work of art. And that's how I kind of look at life a little bit more. It's very dynamic and doesn't have to be equally balanced. But where you are is where you are. Like if you're with your kids, you're completely there and you're intentional about it. And so I don't think it's so much amount of time because that time really is a feeling, right? It's a state that you feel, just like when you said patience, we said for learning management, you can have a to learn list. You could have a to be list., I'm going to be patient today.

And then, because a lot of times when you're faced, when we're faced with a difficulty or a demand, we usually go in like, what do I need to do? But if we step back and said, before we ask that question, who do we need to be? And if we decide we're going to be patient, the behavior is take care of itself automatically. It's like going further upstream, isn't it?

Very much so. So you got that be, do, have, share, kind of that syntax of success. But the I is importance where the things that matter least, that matter most shouldn't be at the effect of the things that matter least. And so I encourage people to get clear on their values.

And part of what's important is asking yourself a question. Like, what's most important to me in life? And then you could stack those values, or what's most important to me in my career? What's most important to me in my relationship? But if you ask a general question like, what's most important to me in life? Like, what comes to mind for you?

Like, what's most important to you in life like if i don't even think straight away family wife and kids comes like almost like a gut reaction and then and that affects your your decisions on how whether you're going to go speak at an event well we were talking about this just now right and i was saying to you, because of the age my kids are now, I would make very different decisions, I think, around my work life and my life if I didn't have my children and my marriage. I just would. I just would and like we all do like our life situation determines a lot of the time the decisions we make but but the the intentionality with which I've thought about this over the past few years that's what's changed talking about what you're saying going further upstream until I intentionally realized how important my family was to me. I've always known it's important to me, but when you really embody it, go, no, do your actions and the way you're spending your time

reflect the fact that your family are important to you. And once you get clear and you go, well, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, or maybe I'm away more than I would ideally like to be. If I put the family first, if I go, you know, I've mentioned this a couple of times on the show. And one of the reasons I'm not speaking in London this weekend is because it's a weekend, right? You're at the events. I'm not because in the summertime and the springtime, as we're talking, those weekends are really precious to me. Okay. It doesn't mean I'll never do one, but it takes a lot for me to give up that because it means it's less time with my children

whilst they're still at home and at this age. And that clarity has been transformative for me because it stops a lot of downstream decision-making at its roots. Do you see what I'm saying? Yes. It's one of those things where I'm the same. Families is very, very important to me. And even on going on this trip, I'm knowing I was going to

do that. It informed because there's other values in terms of presenting that I'm, that's being met in terms of what's most important to me. But knowing I was going to be away the week leading up to it, I was making all this emotional deposits for my son to my wife and spending time, intentional time, not being distracted on my phone. So that when I have to go away, it's more understandable because I've invested in that relationship. because I've invested in that relationship. So like, but going back to family, what feeling, what's the underlining value that family gives you? Well, love, connected, supported, nourished. Those are the words that come up for me.

I would say those are your values, your values are love and connection. Like family is a means to the end values, which is love, connection. Like for example, my top values in order, because the order matters also because it's how you make decisions. Love, growth, contribution, adventure.

Those are my four primary values in that order. And I make decisions based on those four values. So love, the connections that I have with family and friends. Growth, I want to grow more because that is a high value of my work and my own personal transformation. My third value is contribution because I grow so I have more to contribute because if I didn't grow, I wouldn't have a whole lot of value to share. And then recently, the past few years,

I added the fourth value consciously, which is adventure. Because I also want to have, I realized that i wanted to have fun in the process yeah you know going through life looking back adventure is a lovely term yeah it's something so that and it informs when i go on trips like i am now to add things into it that that are fun right yeah and it's funny when you say family also i feel very strongly jim that and you know you like me come from an immigrant family right so um i don't know your parents story

my dad when he came over to the uk and worked ridiculously hard like many people do, but dad only slept three nights a week for 30 years. He was working days, he was working nights to give us and his family back home in India a better life. So growing up, I didn't see dad as much as I guess I see my kids, right? But dad was doing what he felt he had to do and he probably did have to do it, right? He was supporting his value, probably his family. You know, my personal happiness doesn't matter. What matters is that I provide. Now I'm speculating because I didn't have that conversation with my dad. But I imagine it would have been. And dad also became very, very ill on the back of overwork. He had lupus, kidney dialysis for 15 years, and was very sick for a number of years, for almost 15 years. So having seen all that, I also, when I think of family, I think of

the sacrifice that mum and dad made for me and my brother. And I think, rightly or wrongly, I feel that that would have been partially wasted if I then do the same thing and I overwork and don't see my children and my wife like dad did. So in some ways, I feel I'm almost paying homage to my dad's sacrifice by intentionally making these decisions. He went to a new country with nothing, had to make his name and make his way and deal with discrimination, all kinds of other things. But because he's gone through that and mom as well, I don't need to. Do you see what I mean? So I kind of feel that's part of it for me as well. And his sacrifice became your blessings, right? And so my parents immigrated to the United States. My dad was 13.

He lost both of his parents. So he came because they couldn't afford, he came to live with an aunt and uncle in the States, didn't speak the language and have any money. They live in the back of a laundromat that my mom worked at. They had many jobs and they worked really hard. I had this mantra growing up though, that family is, is most important for my dad. He would say that every day because he, you know, he lost both his

parents at a very young age and those life conditions shape your values, right? So no wonder family is important because when you, when you have loss, you know, you structure, restructure your value system. And so, so that's probably one of the reasons why family is so important for me. And it's, you know, for other people, they have their own stories, but I do believe our, our ancestors, their, their, their sacrifice has become our blessings, right? And, and the gifts that we have today. But for importance, it's honing in what's most important to you.

So you ask yourself, what's most important to me in life? And then put those things in order because some people want security. And that's most important is safety because of their experience. And then they make decisions based on that. And so I think the most important thing

has to be the most important thing. And whatever your answer is, that's okay. It's up to you to answer that. And it's different for everybody. It could evolve over time. Yeah, but at least take the time to ask yourself that question. I think that's the key message, isn't it?

I think having the curiosity to know yourself, you know, and then having the courage to be yourself. That's a big part of it. Okay, so we've got learning management, importance management. What's the M? So the M is when we're talking about, when we've even gotten to time management,

I think it's really about mind management. So the M is mind management. You need to manage your mind. And so what I mean by that is our minds are the operating system for our life. It's how we perceive the world. It's how we make decisions. It affects how we feel. And even so we touch on any part of your mind, things like our self-talk, right? Our belief system. And I think managing that is important to win the day. Yes, you need a learning management process.

You need to focus on the important things, but you also have to manage your mind because your mind is your most powerful asset, wealth and otherwise. So things like our self-talk, things like analyzing the lies that we have. It's like these having a lot of, I think it's this idea of having strong beliefs

weakly held. And I don't know who to attribute that. That's not to us on mine, but it's the idea where our thoughts become more of our reality. But how mindful and intentional are we paying attention to our own thoughts and our own mental programming?

Even when we're remembering names, I tell people that your brain is this incredible supercomputer and your self-talk is a program it will run. So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering names, you probably won't remember the name and the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to. And so in Limitless, I talk about lies that we need to unravel around learning. Like things like genius is born. There are a lot of people who believe that you're just born with genius or you're not. And I give evidence that genius is built. And what does that allow you to do?

It allows you to say like, okay, your intelligence is not fixed like your shoe size. You could actually grow it through their own study and discipline and so on. So like another lie is that a lot of people believe is knowledge is power. And it just simply isn't, right? Knowledge has the potential to be power. It becomes power when we apply it and we utilize it, right? A lot of people know what to do. They're very knowledgeable,

but they're not doing what they know. And so that's another line, but it comes down to managing our mind. And so I feel like it's important while the importance we're looking at our values for managing our mind, I think it's important to sensitize ourselves to our self-talk because it's hard for a negative mind to create a positive life. Right. When you're always asking like, why me or looking for evidence, why does this always happen to me? Why am I not enough? And then we come up with these answers that are not probably the most useful. And so also analyzing our beliefs, like our, when's the last time, like when I was nine years old, the teacher pointed to me in front of the whole class and said, leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain. And then that was imprinted,

that idea that I was broken. But I held on to that for another decade and a half. I was going to ask you that, Jim, actually. I noticed that when you mentioned that at the start, that is a powerful message to be given at that age right so you talk a lot about this empowering mindset you know positive self-talk how did you go about changing your self-talk after such a powerful and influential experience? I mean, did you believe you had a broken brain for many years? I believed it. And so then my question became, how do I fix it?

So my mind management, and maybe it was inspired by my parents. Like my parents, they're not the wealthiest by any stretch or the smartest, or they're not the most spiritual, and they're not the most health conscious, but they're just really just, I'm blessed because I feel like I won the lottery. They're very good people. They're hardworking and they're extremely kind, right?

And I just, to honor my parents, I feel like when I was growing up and I'm the oldest of three siblings, I want to be a good role model for my brother and my sister also as well. Because those are my value system, my family, right? In terms of love. And so I guess what got me through this is I wanted to be valuable like we all do. And so it got me through those tough times, but it wasn't easy, right? Like the daily saying to yourself, I would say like, oh, because I'm broken, I'm broken, I'm broken.

But then I started asking, well, broke things, you could fix broken. Can you fix something that's broken? And then I asked, well, how do I make this better? How do I fix this? And then I started getting answers slowly and with those answers came action. And so I feel like the things that happened to us, you know, this idea where it just maybe it's not happening to you, it's

happening for you, that there's this gift through struggle. Like my two biggest challenges were learning and because of it, public speaking, because I never knew the answer. So don't call on me in class. If I had to give a book report, I would be terrified because I just wasn't as smart as the other kids. I mean, it's remarkable to hear that because if you go on YouTube and type in your name, there are countless videos of you on stage. Public speaking and learning. In front of hundreds of people and really nice venues. And you are giving really commanding and very grounded performances on stage. And the

reason I share that, Jim, is I think that's empowering because if you can change from being the kid with the broken brain to being this confident, sought-after speaker, I think that journey is inspiring for people who might think at the moment, well, I've got negative self-talk. I'm scared of even going to my work and having to present in front of my colleagues, right? There'll be people listening right now who feel like that. So I guess the question is, how do they start changing it? Is simply asking some of these questions

we've already covered. Is that how they do it? Is just becoming aware of it? I mean, what do you recommend? So I think awareness is the starting point for any kind of change. I would also say that a reminder as we're mapping out this process of transformation,

wherever you are, where you want to be, that the people you look up to, every professional was once an amateur, right? You know, every expert was once a beginner because everybody starts at an amateur, right? Every expert was once a beginner because everybody starts at that place, right? And so I would remind people that our struggles can become strengths. And again, my two biggest challenges

were learning and public speaking. And how I do is public speak on this thing called learning, but adversity can be an advantage because it forces you to grow. And with challenge again, comes change. And I think also on another level, we're best suited to support the person we once were, right? So when I feel like when I'm talking, I'm talking to a nine-year-old that was going through, that was in despair, that didn't believe in himself, that had learning difficulties, that was called broken. And I think we're all really well-suited to support the person we once were. So I think all change begins with a choice. There's a quote in Limitless that says,

life is the letter C between B and D, where B stands for birth and D stands for death, and life C is choice. And in these difficult times, they can distract you, or these difficult times, they can diminish you, or these difficult times, they can develop you. We decide with the choices that we make. And one of those choices we make is in the area of our mind,

like what we're thinking, what we're going to choose to believe, those paradigms and perceptions, frameworks that we have in the world that informs what we're going to do and how we're going to feel. Yeah. But it is interesting to reflect looking backwards. Not everything makes sense when you're going through it. It's been my experience, though,

with hindsight, of course, that when you look back, that maybe things... I wish this for so many people listening, that I hope if you're going through struggles, that you can't... You're going through a storm. That when you look...

Sometime in the future, you'll look back knowing why it happened the way it did and and to another level maybe even are grateful certain things happen the way they did yeah um like it's like post-traumatic stress we talked about last time post-traumatic growth that's this psychological phenomenon that you you went through adversity you wouldn't wish upon anybody but you wouldn't change it for yourself because you discovered something,

you discovered a purpose or a mission or a meaning or a strength or a trait that you didn't realize that you didn't, that you had. I mean, that word choice, I think is one of the most important words for us to sit with. Everything is a choice. You can be someone who thinks you are,

a victim to the world, right? Or as you say, you could say that actually it's happening for me, not to me. And that is a choice, right? You can justify it the other way and go, no, that's not true because you don't know my life. Sure. But it's not about whether we've had a hard start or challenges in our life. Everyone or many people will have a totally valid story of that. It's not saying that's not true. For me, it's about what good is that disempowering story doing for you? How does it help you? Yeah, you had a bad start in life. I have real sympathy for that.

Okay. I wish you didn't. But at the same time, if you want to change things, you have to think about that C word, choice, and go, I have a choice with how I look at this. What is the upside? What have I learned that I would not have learned had this not happened to me? And once you start practicing doing that, I think journaling is a great tool for people to do this on a regular basis, you start to do it automatically. Like I really feel, Jim, I've got to the point where most adverse situations, I can now pretty quickly flip it and go, okay, but what's the upside here? Where's the gift? Where's the gift? Yeah. What can I learn from this? Because there always is. It doesn't mean it ain't hard. Yeah. Do you know

what I mean? That no one's saying it's not hard and it isn't, you know, causes sadness and all kinds of things, but there is a choice and you can choose to live life with that mindset. So that I would categorize all this under mind management. You are managing your mind and not at the effect of what's going on in your environment, right? You're determining your own reality with the choices that you're making. And part of the choices we're making is what to focus on, what questions we're asking ourself, like, where's the gift in this, right? And like, what can I learn from this?

This is managing your mind. And I feel like, again, a negative mind can't create a positive life. And not that I want to be all just positive all the time either, right? You have to look at reality. Sometimes you can be so positive that things are going to work out and you don't take the necessary actions when your health or your family or business or whatever. And so it's, it's, it, again, it is making those choices and the choices. I want to remind people also, there's only four choices you can make. When I was thinking about this the other day on the train, I was thinking,

if you want to create a new result in your life, which most of us do, you have to make a new choice, right? And I believe all behavior is belief-driven, right? You need a belief that says that's even possible. But going on the choices, you can only make, there are only four fundamental choices to make a change.

You either could stop something, you could start something, you could do less of something or you can do more of something. That's literally the only things you could do. Because if you did the fifth thing is not do anything. That's insanity, right? Doing the same thing, expecting a different result.

So you want to create a new result. Let's say it's wellness. You got to stop something, start something, do less of something, do more something. You could stop smoking, right? You could start meditating. You could do less binge watching television sitcoms, or you could do more movement throughout the day, right. And so like all those choices, and I like to, I'm not saying this is easy, but I'm saying it is pretty straightforward and simple. And so when I'm looking at how to make my life better, I could ask myself these kind of questions like, what is this, is this good for my brain or is this bad for my brain? Something simple. Or, you know, the questions that you're asking yourself, you know, where's the gift in this?

And then I can ask, what can I stop? What can I start? What can I do less of? What can I do more of? And those little things add up to big things over time because that consistency compounds. Yeah. And so I think that's, that's the importance of mastering your mind because it gives you awareness and it reminds you of that you have agency, right? That you don't have to believe everything that you're thinking. Before we get to the eye of limitless,

I was just thinking, Jim, that at the start of this conversation, we both were sharing how life is short, time is limited. Let's not waste our days away. Let's look after our brains, let's be intentional and live lives to our fullest potential as much as we can, right? You mentioned some sort of habits there, right, which are really interesting to me. And I wanted to know, what do you think are some of the common habits that people all over the world now are engaging

in each day that have been detrimental to their brain health? Vivo Barefoot are one of the sponsors of today's show. Now, I am a huge fan of Vivo Barefoot shoes and have been wearing them for over a decade now, well before they started supporting this podcast. I've also been recommending them to patients for years because I've seen so many benefits. I've seen improvements in back pain, hip pain, knee pain, foot pain, and even things like plantar fasciitis. And contrary to what you might initially think, most people find Vivos really, really comfortable. But I have to say, especially at this time of year, as the temperature is starting to drop, their winter boots are absolutely fantastic

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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. As of now, I'm coming to 15 venues all over the UK. All details can be found at drchatterjee.com forward slash tour. So tell your friends, put the dates in your diary, and I very much hope that you can join me. This actually leads to the I. The I is implementation management. Okay. And so the idea here is that is the things you're doing, which would include your habits.

is that is the things you're doing, which would include your habits. University studies suggest about 40% of our day is spent habitual, like mindless. We're just going through a routine, but we're not thoughtful about it because we're on autopilot, right? And so implementation management is managing your actions and your own behaviors, which would include your habits because that's habitual.

And so the idea is you create your habits and your habits create you. And also habits could also be giving you a negative result, certainly as well. There are certain things that we're doing that we could stop or do less of, right? The choices. And then you could always do the opposite. You could do, you know, start something new or do more of something that's positive. I would say the diet, right? What you eat matters, especially, you know, especially for your gray matter. So I would say on the opposite side of all the brain foods that we talk about, like avocados and blueberries and so on, I would say the processed food, refined foods, a lot of chemicals in foods, the high sugar,

the glucose spikes, that's something that could be detrimental to our brain, right? Second thing, negative self-talk. When we say, why me? Why does this always happen to me? Why am I not enough? I'm not that smart, whatever it happens to be. People at events, they say that to me all the time because they know I'm a memory coach

and they come to me and say, Jim, I think I'm getting too old. I have a horrible memory. And I always say, same thing, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them, right? And so the idea here is negative self-talk could be detrimental.

Third thing, being sedentary, right? We live behind screens. I don't know about most people, but I do. And we're not moving. And the number one reason, I wanna remind everyone, the number one reason we have a brain, its number one function is to control our movement. And as your body moves, your brain grooves.

And so I would say something that's negative, a negative habit is not moving. They say sitting is the new smoking. But when we exercise, we create BDNF, brain-der derived neurotropic factors which is like fertilizer for your brain for neuroplasticity when we

exercise we create dopamine, serotonin endorphins, these important neurotransmitters and substances that are really good for cognitive health and cognitive performance when we move we create blood flow so it's more oxygen to your brain. I mean, there's so many benefits,

changes that reduces stress and so on. So being sedentary. I would also say being around negative people, it's not so much good for your brain. We all know that sometimes you spend time with people and I don't know if you ever noticed, like some people, it seems like batteries are included, but there are a few people

that batteries just were not included and they like take all your energy and your drive and your motivation and your creativity. So I would say who we spend time with is who we become. Yeah. that are not who you want to be like or aspects of them that they don't inspire you. I mean, we all need people to cheer, lead for us, to be kind to us, to encourage us. And if you haven't found that person, you know, be that person,

be that person for somebody else, be that person, especially for yourself. So a negative peer group. And again, those people could be your family. It could be your friends, people closest to you. And they could be sincere, but they could be sincerely wrong too. They could have good intentions.

Maybe they're like, oh, I always listen to those podcasts and reading all those books or whatever. And maybe they don't want deep down, there's a secondary gain. They don't want you to outgrow them because they don't want deep down, there's a secondary gain. They don't want you to outgrow them because they don't want to be separate from you. So it'd be good intentions, or maybe they don't want you to get your hopes up or, you know, and they're trying to protect you. It's funny, you know, thinking about podcasting and a couple of things you've said, you know,

earlier on, you were talking about the importance of learning and people who listen to podcasts like this one or yours or you know many others are making a commitment to learning right especially these kind of you know these sort of podcasts it is about learning information and hopefully implementing elements of that or at least getting you thinking and learning new things about the world, right? So I think that's important. But I kind of feel, would podcasting have blown up the way it has if people weren't as isolated as they are around the world? I really think about that a lot. If we had really strong, cohesive communities, I wonder, like I wonder sometimes if, I don't think it's clear cut or black and white, but I do believe that some people don't have their own peer networks that support them.

And so they will, let's say, listen to this show each week and hopefully it's done in such a way that they feel like it's a couple of friends talking and it's a friend of theirs who's talking. I genuinely feel that people start to develop that connection to their favourite podcast host. I certainly do with the podcasts I like to listen to.

You feel like that person's almost your friend and that you know them. So I actually think they, in some ways, help us feel connected and help us feel as though, you know what, there are people out there who think like me. Because I think a lot of the time people are in

work environments or family environments who are not as interested in health and growth and wellbeing. And so I think podcasting helps. I'm doing a UK theatre tour next year. Oh, wow. And, you know, trying to create something really special, unlike anything I've ever done before. Something immersive and transformative with lights and music. Yeah, really, we're working hard on it. And one of the reasons is because I think we want to be surrounded by people who think like us and want to grow like us. And there's power in being around other people, isn't there?

I feel like we wanna know that we're not alone. Yeah. Right, and just in our identity and who we are. I mean, I feel like we wanna fit in and belong and we wanna stand out at the same time, right? There's this pendulum where we wanna belong and be part of something, be understood, be seen, not feel like we're kind of weird. But when you get to be around other people who think similar, it can be great. And then also we want to also stand out because that's why we grow

in our specific traits. With our friends and family, sometimes the people that we care about most are the ones that hold us back because we give them permission and we give up our sovereignty to their expectations and opinions. And I want to sort of remind everyone, you can love your family, but they don't have to be your peers. Like when I say have a positive peer group, I'm saying self-selecting individuals that their opinion affects how you feel, you know, and affect your standards, right? Meaning I have this rule that just don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from. Don't take criticism because like a lot of us are fearful of other people's opinions and expectations. But if you want to do anything in your life,

you know, there's this judgment that comes around it and people have their opinions, especially on social media. And we could decide and hold that internal reality that, you know, we will work on having the people around us that we could identify with, that, you know, that they can relate to, that inspire them. And I certainly have, you know have people like that also as well.

So yeah, going back to the habits, this is just all about implementation. And so implementation management is managing the things and getting yourself to do the things you need to do, even if they're difficult. and getting yourself to do the things you need to do, even if they're difficult. You mentioned some of the habits that people are engaging with

that are maybe sabotaging their day-to-day lives in many ways that are stealing their life away without them realizing. If we flip that and think about, well, you have so many habits you recommend to people. We covered loads in the first conversation, but I don't know, if I said to you,

Jim, what are three of your favorite pro-brain habits that people could do? How would you answer that? Let me give you a few more of the negative habits and then, because that'll inform the positive ones. So we talked about a bad brain diet

is probably not good for your brain. Definitely negative thinking is a habit, habits of thought. Not moving is a habit, being sedentary. So obviously the opposite of all these make a difference. A positive peer group is good, but a negative peer group could affect your words, your actions, your words, your actions,

your thoughts, your character, your habits. A dirty environment. I mean, we don't think about our environment as much, but our external reality affects our internal reality. So you notice like you clean your desk or you put everything in the right folder on your computer, you have clarity of thought. But a messy environment, it reflects, you have to use so much energy to hold where everything is. Yeah, for sure. And I feel like that wouldn't be a good use of our brain. So a negative habit would be sustaining a dirty environment.

Head injuries, I would put that up there because I get to work with a lot of extreme athletes or UFC fighters or football players and hockey players that have had trauma. Not learning something is not good for your brain. So if you're not learning, you're not growing, you're not challenging. And so our brains are like, it's an organ, but it acts like a muscle. It's use it or lose it. And so I would say not learning every day

could affect your brain and that's a habit. And then being stressed all the time could affect our brain. Whatever emotional stress, financial stress, whatever the stressors are, chronic stress has been showing the shrink the human brain. And so not having coping mechanisms for me you know so to answer your question like habits that have really helped me of late i would say

spending more time in nature because i'm not on my screen nature is very healing, clean air, better lighting. I feel grounded. It reduces my stress. I also could do that with my family. So it's family time or walking the dogs, things like that. So I would say that that's good. I would put one more negative habit on there. Besides the things we've talked about in the last episode, like touching your phone at night or in the first thing in the morning,

all those things, anything that would affect your sleep. Any habits that would negatively impact your rest and recovery at night. And that could be a habit of drinking caffeine later in the afternoon. It could be being on screens, being on screens, you know, certainly also as well. It could be ruminating, which is a habit of like all the things you need to do or all the things that worry you. And I'm not saying, yeah, it's easy to mitigate these things, but the self-awareness is a starting point for all change again. So good habits for me, being out in nature, going to bed at the same time is so very important to me.

I mean, I don't know. It took me like, I'm turning 51. It took me like a long time to get to the point where I'm just okay with going to bed at like 9 9 30 and you know so like for me welcome to my world man yes i love it i love i mean and a lot of this the impetus was having a one-year-old because you know we're just exhausted and he wakes up in the in the middle of the night and so we want to sleep closer to when he's sleeping. But the idea here is prioritizing your sleep. So nature, going to bed at the same time each night,

even on weekends, and no one's perfect about it, but it's made a big difference in my life. And then the last thing I would say for my brain, and there's tons of stuff that on our podcast in the book, like literally I could spout off 200 different habits um the habit of looking for joy i i mean i i have this the question this thing i talk about called the dominant question and we mentioned it very very briefly in our first conversation but when i was with will smith i trained a lot of actors how to speed read scripts,

memorize their lines, be focused on set. And this dominant question and idea is like, we have 60,000 thoughts on average a day. A lot of those thoughts come in the form of questions. And there's certain questions we ask all the time that we don't consciously and unconsciously. And those questions determine our reality. And his dominant question we found out is, how do I make this moment magical? And he gets answers, right? And then I was like, okay, my dominant question is, how do we make it better? So how do we make this question better? And he was like, okay, instead of how do I make this moment magical? How about, how do I make this moment even more magical? With the presupposition being this moment's ready magical.

And this is a question he consciously asks himself or he's programmed himself to ask. Oh, no, I don't know if it was programmed, but he, and it explains a lot of like, you know, like when we're shooting in Toronto, a superhero film, and it was like two o'clock at night. It was a night shoot. And it's not very glamorous. It's cold. It's in February in Canada. And, but his family and I are in a tent, shivering a little bit, watching the screens. shivering a little bit watching the screens.

And he's, during the break, he's making us hot chocolate, even though there's a crew that would do that. And he starts telling us stories and cracking jokes. And that's a result of that dominant question. How do I make this moment even more magical? And I'll talk about the power of questions in another letter that's coming up for Limitless in the acronym. But the idea here is that one of my habits is just trying to find more joy, more magic.

And I think what we look for, we're more likely to find. It's like that red car experiment. what's that, that red car experiment. It's like, you know, you see, if I asked everybody like in the past 24 hours, how many red cars they saw on the way to home or work, you're like, I don't know how many, but you probably saw them, yes.

But if you're offered somebody, you know, $100 for every single red car they saw, they'd be very clear in seeing the red cars. And I feel like there's a lot of things we could be grateful for at any given time, but we're not asking those questions. I think that's such a key point when we think about joy or gratitude or how do you make this moment magical?

Literally in the last week, my daughter has been doing this game with me. I don't think this game existed when I was at school, but it's something to do with when you see a mini in the road, like the car, a mini, you sort of give someone a gentle punch and you say a few things now it's nuts because i didn't know there were that many minis on the road right but suddenly you're playing that game you're seeing minis everywhere and now when i'm not in the car with my daughter i am seeing minis everywhere right those minis have just not suddenly appeared on the road right it's your awareness you know

the intention has been put out that you're looking for minis and it's the kind of thing with negativity or positivity right you can train your brain to start looking for joy you can train your brain to be grateful yeah but you've got to set the intention i love that i i think and i think everyone would benefit from making that a habit. And habitual things like even asking that question is, what can I be grateful for in this moment? It just sensitized you to see more minis. That's always there, but we weren't paying attention.

Your brain primarily is a deletion device. It's trying to keep information out. If we let everything in, there's a billion stimuli that would overload us, right? But when you ask questions, we activate that reticular activating system, which is like a spotlight, you know? And so you start seeing what you're asking for. And I think that's a great habit to be in. Gratitude habit is so good for your brain because it gets you out of fear and gets you out of stress. Because again, chronic stress shrinks your brain. Chronic fear will make you more susceptible.

The colds, the flus, the virus will compromise your immune system. But I think gratitude is an incredible antidote. And so you can even do a thought experiment. It's like, what if the only things you had in your life tomorrow were the things you express gratitude for today? Like, wow, that would change things for me. At least like I'd be expressing my gratitude

for all the little things. Cause I didn't wanna lose them the next day. But also the act of expressing it as a habit, I'll feel, you know, the benefit that comes with it also. Okay. So that's implementation. Okay. The T in Limitless is time management. So this is, there are ways of managing your time and time management systems. I make them one of the nine

elements of management because I feel like, you know, you can be really good at managing your time, but if you're not good at managing your priorities or managing your mind or managing, you know, like your growth, then I feel like it's only one aspect. And there's different systems. You know, for me, I think, when I think about time management, I'm looking at decision fatigue, this idea that you can only make a certain amount of good decisions in a day. And then after you've used them up, you can't... Have you ever been at a restaurant at dinner time and you're looking at a menu and you don't even know what you want because you're just spent mentally. Yeah, 100%.

Right. And so the idea here is systemize your life as much as possible so you don't have to think about, make decisions on what you're going to eat that day or plan to wear or whatever. And then you can save those good decisions for things that matter, right?

So if you have systemized way of food prep or getting food delivered, whatever you happen to do, you don't have to spend a lot of energy. And so, because there's a big cognitive load and cost to a lot of this. For time management, I like to do something called task batching,

where I batch a lot of the similar tasks together as best I can. And obviously everybody has a dynamic life and family and responsibilities and appointments. So you can't always do that. But to the best of my ability, I like to chunk my communications, for example, all at the same time. Or when I do podcasting and interviews, it's only a certain amount of hours in a day or a specific day where I do all my communication to catch up for things. We don't realize the cost of switching tasks, do we? Yeah.

So it's, again, the task switching, there's three costs, I would say. So you're not multitasking, you're task switching. And this is an argument for monotasking, like focusing on one thing. First, we lose time. Whenever we're task switching, it takes five, ten minutes when you're going from one activity to another to regain your focus. So you're losing time.

The thing you think you're gaining by multitasking, quote unquote, which again is a myth, is time. The second thing, mistakes. Whenever you're trying to multitask, you're going to make more mistakes. I mean, think about somebody texting and driving, right? Like you're going to have more accidents for sure, right? You're doing two cognitive activities at once. I mean, if you just think about that for a minute, it's the most ridiculous thing in the world to text and drive. Yet most people or many people have done it and continue

to do it. But if you actually step back and think about it, you're like, this is the craziest thing in the world. Yeah. But think about how our devices are rewiring our brains like all the time. I mean, how many times do people open up their phones? And that's why if you don't set constraints or borders or guardrails around these things, then the technology uses us, right? Especially when we're picking up our devices out of boredom. Like if you're online or whatever, and I understand if you have to do some work and I totally understand if, especially if your career or your school, whatever it's dependent or you have to be in touch with your family, totally understand that. But a lot of us are doing it just out of mindlessness, right? And then, or out of boredom,

just to get that dopamine hit. And we can't even be quiet. Like why we're waiting in line for whatever we're gonna eat or mailing something at the post office, whatever. So that could be a challenge. But going back to time management, like I do task batching because the third challenge with tasks switching, not only does waste time, you make more mistakes, use up a lot of energy. Like if you're focused on an activity

like reading or whatever, a certain part of your brain is lit up, right? It's something, imagine like a cognitive web. And in order to go from that to like going to Slack or social media, whatever, you got to shut this part of your brain down and then re-engage. And it uses a lot of blood glucose, right? And then we just, we feel like we have too many tabs open and wonder why we're just spent and depleted. And maybe because we're trying to do too many things at the same time. And so when it comes to time management, I like to batch my tasks, similar tasks together so I could just kind of stay more in a flow kind of flow.

And so I do my communications at a certain amount of hours or certain days. And it just works really well for me. I mentioned I break my day into three areas. In the morning, I create. In the morning, I create. In the afternoon, I consume. And in the evening, I clear. So in the morning, I want to pull out information out of my mind.

I'm most creative. I write. I script podcasts and so on. In the afternoon, I consume. I'm reading research, reading books, listening to podcasts, listening to audiobooks. I'm putting research, reading books, listen to podcasts, listen to audio books. I'm putting information in. And in the evening, I want to get in that parasympathetic rest, digest.

I want to sleep well. I clear. What is that? I could, you know, talk to my wife about my day. That's a way of clearing. I could plan my day out the next day to get that out of my head so I don't have to ruminate it. And just on that, Jim, for anyone who might be thinking, well, Jim, I don't have that kind of autonomy over my day. I guess if someone's got a conventional,

which I guess is becoming less conventional these days, nine to five, let's say, or eight till six, I guess there are ways of applying those principles. So they could, if they can get up and spend 10, 20 minutes in the morning focusing on themselves, they could be reading, for example, and learning first thing in the morning. When they get home, they could do, as you say, talk to their partner if they have one or journal or, you know, there's a way of applying it, even if you don't have the autonomy that you might have, for example.

Completely. And yeah, as I said, I'm never perfect because there's always days where I have to do an interview or have a doctorate and do something. But it's your intention. So I'm not asking people to model the process. I'm asking people to look at the principle. Because behind every principle, there's a promise. So the idea behind the principle we're talking about

is to the best of our ability to be most efficient and effective and have more enjoyment also, because less taxing, less stress, is to batch similar activities together. And nobody ever gets 100%. I've never had that experience ever in my life. But the idea here is if you're doing certain things, do one at a time.

And if you can stack the things that are similar together, you're going to be more productive and you'll get more out of the day. You won't waste so much time. You won't make as many mistakes and you have more energy. And another time management is things like the Pareto principle. I mean, it kind of overlaps a little bit with importance management, but the Pareto principle is the 80-20 rule, right? You focus on the 20% of your time management, the 20% that gives you 80% of the results, right? There's 20% of what you're eating that's giving you 80% of your health, or 20% of the people that give you 80% of the happiness and so on, focusing on that 20%. As opposed to focusing on the 80% that gives you only 20% of the returns, right?

Cause that's marginal returns. Also there's an Eisenhower matrix, for those of you familiar with it, based on importance and urgency. So imagine a quadrant, four quadrants, and as things go up, it's more important. And as things go left, it's more important. And as things go left, it's more urgent. And so if you see the quadrants, the bottom right is not important and not urgent.

That's probably, you should delete everything in that category, right? If you're on the bottom left, then it is urgent and unimportant. I would say for that, if it's urgent but it's not important to you, the second D is delegate, right? You delegate the things that are in that box. If you go directly up top left, those are things that are urgent and important, right? So in that area, the D is you do it. If it's urgent and important, you do it, right? And then finally, the top right, which I'm hoping is where most of us spend time with, it's important, but it's not urgent.

Like eating a good meal is important, but it's not urgent, right? But if you don't do it regularly, it becomes urgent, right? Because then you're in a health crisis. Like your relationships are important, maybe not urgent, but if you neglect it, then it becomes urgent. It goes in the top left quadrant. You've got this matrix in Limitless, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. And then the top right is, since it's not urgent and it's important, then the D could be you decide or you defer it, meaning you and it's important, then you could, the D could be, you decide or you defer it, meaning you schedule it, right? And, but this is idea, this is just another model Eisenhower matrix. So I didn't create it,

but it's a model for time management to be able to know where to put your time. So in under time management, I'm thinking about task batching. I'm thinking about the Eisenhower matrix in terms of urgency and importance even the things like the Pomodoro technique that says you can only work

25-45 minutes before your focus your mental energy just kind of declines so the idea here is every half an hour an hour take a 5 minute brain break and that's good for time management, you know, also as well to kind of refresh your mind. Yeah. And I think that's one thing that in this, in this culture of busyness and urgency and everything's important and needs

to get done now, people forget about the importance of breaks. They keep pushing through, working through their lunch break, thinking that actually it's helping. And they don't realize that actually five minutes, if you've got a garden or get out of your office, look at the sky, look at the trees, go for a walk up and down the stairs. When you come back, you're going to be recharged and get more done than had you just try to work through. I just still don't think people get that.

Absolutely. You have to disconnect to reconnect. And it's like even in the race cars, they do a pit stop so they could just check everything, recoup and then go and fire on all cylinders. So I agree.

Also for your memory, because for people like say, I don't know how you were in med school, but a lot of people cram, right? They pull all-nighters. And imagine studying for seven hours straight with no breaks. There's a principle in memory, a principle is called recency and primacy. Recency says you tend to remember something in the beginning of something. Primacy is you remember something in the beginning, recency, you tend to remember things at the end or more recent.

So the idea here is if you go to a party and meet 20 people, you'll probably remember the first people that you met there and the last people you met there, primacy and recency. If I gave you a list of 20 random words, you probably remember the first few words and the last few words, right? Primacy and recency. So the idea here though, the challenge though, is like if you study eight hours without any breaks,

all other things being equal, you remember things in the beginning and things at the end, but there's a huge dip in the between. Now change that to taking a break every hour. Not only does your brain get a reset and a recharge, but you create more primacies and recencies. You create more starts and stops, right? So you get to pick up a lot of that information

and learning in between. Yeah, love that. Loads of techniques there for us to experiment with. I would challenge everybody to, the Pomodoro is like a tomato, right? So it's like I have a tomato timer analog, like a cooking timer from the kitchen. I set it for 45 minutes and I just do my deep work.

Then I take a five minute brain break, another 45 minutes and it works for me. So you don't wait for you to feel it. You get on top of it and go, no, I'm 45 minutes, I'm taking a break. Yeah. And I decide at the end of 45 minutes, because if I'm in a flow state,

like I'm getting there, then I just will keep on going until I see some kind of diminishing return in my energy level, in my focus, in my creativity, whatever I happen to be doing. You know, I'm gonna be sensitized to that, but I don't wanna push through to a point where I can't recover.

So that works for me extremely well. Okay, we're just over halfway through your limitless model, right? We've done L-I-M-I-T. What is L? The second L is lens. And what I mean by that is lens management. Lens, for me, is a tool to focus. All right?

So this is like your focus management. You have to manage your focus because your focus is reality. If people want to remember names, it requires focus. If you want to remember what they read, it requires focus. Because if you aren't focusing on when you're hearing the name, you're not going to remember the name. If you read a page in a book, get to the end and forget what you just read, you don't have focus because focus will give you the comprehension and the retention that you want. Now, when I say lens, it's interesting. I don't know if you did this. When I was a kid in the summertime, I would take out a magnifying glass, a lens, and people would burn things, like leaves or whatever. And I would do that. And I found it really interesting

because that point that's doing the burning, it's very sharp, it's very bright. And isn't it interesting the words we choose to use to describe people? If we say somebody is sharp, we say they're bright, what are we implying? That they are smart, right? That they are intelligent.

Someone's bright, they're intelligent. Maybe they're not smarter. Maybe they're just better smart, right? That they are intelligent. Someone's bright, they're intelligent. Maybe they're not smart or maybe they're just better focused, right? What that lens is doing. So lens management is focus management. And I think it's important to manage your focus. And one of the best ways of doing that we talked about is asking questions, right?

Questions are an incredible focusing tool. It's like you ask yourself, like, where are the minis, right? And you ask that question repeatedly and it becomes almost a dominant question. So you start seeing minis everywhere. Did they magically manifest in your neighborhood? No, they were always there. But as I mentioned, your brain is a deletion device.

It's trying to keep most information out. It only lets in the things that are important to you. And how do you let it know it's important? You ask questions because that means you're interested and there's some kind of emotion, you know, payoff on it. And that's why I love that question each morning. What is the most important thing I need to do today? Because just imagine you do that

every day, that quickly builds up, right? It very quickly adds up. That means each day you've directed your focus going, this is important. Hopefully you complete that task, whatever it is. You do that for 365 days. Oh my goodness. You know, that's a lot of important things that you've done. And it's again, yes, it speaks to importance management, the eye, but it also speaks to lens and directing your focus. Even when you're reading, you're reading a book, right? And we talked about this in the last episode on speed reading and smart reading. If you ever read a page in a book, got to the end and just forgot what you just read,

I guarantee you, you don't have enough questions. Because if you had questions about what you're reading, like how does this relate to what I already know? How am I gonna use this? Whatever your questions are, then you'll be reading it and you're like, oh, there's a mini, there's a mini, there's a mini. Don't you have, I think I saw this one of your videos, Jim,

like a lot of people listen to the show because they wanna live a healthier and happier life. And often they're thinking about habits that they can implement into their life. I think you have something where you say for any habit you want to bring into your life, you've got to ask yourself three questions. Is that ringing a bell?

Yeah, I mean, for learning, especially, when we talked about earlier that knowledge is not power, it's a potential power, it becomes power when we apply it. I think how we take knowledge and turn it into action, the three questions I ask when I'm learning something, and I can give you questions for every kind of situation that I ask myself, when I'm learning specifically, I'm asking, how can I use this? Because when I'm reading, it engages my focus. So if we're talking about lens management, reading, it engages my focus. So if we're talking about lens management, the questions are dictating,

I get pulled through what I need to, I'm pulling it in. Like you can't push a rope. If you like, you can't push this, but you could pull it. Right. And so the idea here is the questions pull information. And so I asked myself, how can I use this? Then I asked myself, why must I use this? So it goes from my head to my heart. Then the third question is when, when will I use it? Again, one of the most important productivity performance tools you have is your calendar. But if I think for every hour people spend listening to this conversation or reading a book or whatever, a general rule is to spend an hour, an equal hour putting it into action, right?

You spend an hour listening to a podcast, at least spend that another hour or some time putting it into play. Yeah, I think those questions are brilliant because yes, it applies to learning. It applies to a habit that they hear, right? They think, oh, that sounds interesting. Okay, how can I use this habit?

Okay, that's getting them to think a little bit. Why must I use it? Yeah, because without that why, without reasons, you won't get the results. Even if people forget names, yes, part of it is, what we talked about, their attention, they're not focused on the name, but part of it is there's no emotion.

Like, why do you want to remember the person's name? Yeah. Maybe it's to show the person respect. Maybe it's to get a referral. Maybe it's to do a sale. Maybe it's to practice these things I learned on the podcast. And then it's when will, when will I?

Yeah. So then it goes from your head to your heart, to your hands, meaning how can I use this? You're coming up with all ideas in your head. Why must I use this? The heart. And then the hands, when? When am I going to act on this?

And so I feel like when you have those three things in play, there's less friction to learn something, to do anything at all, or even to take some kind of action that you need to take that might be even uncomfortable. But the lens, the idea behind this, again, is one of the tools we have to focus our lens is the power of questions. Like even going back to some of the other management, like the importance management, you could ask yourself, use your lens and your mind management to say, what's the best use of this moment?

Right? Like something like that just changes. You take a pause and you're like, okay, it re-centers you on what's most important. Or questions like Peter Thiel has this question who's an angel investor says, what if I had to reach my 10-year goal, but I only had six months to do it? That's a different kind of question because you can't possibly work hard enough to do it in six months. So you have to ask a new question to be able to get to that goal, right? So questions, I believe, are the answer. In the chapter on thinking towards the end of Limitless, there's a lot of that in there, which I found really, really interesting. Okay, what's the E?

So the E in Limitless is energy management. If you wanna get the most out of the day, you need energy. And I just wanna remind everybody that you don't have energy, you do it. So we talked about this in the earlier episode, take the nouns in your life and turn them into verbs. Meaning sometimes we hypnotize ourselves into submission and we say, I don't have motivation today. I don't have energy. I don't have focus. I don't have a good memory. These are not things

you have. These are things you do. And the benefit of turning it into a do, a verb, a process, is you get your agency back. We talked a lot about in the previous episode about personal responsibility and having agency and being a thermostat, not a thermometer. A thermometer reacts to the environment, a thermostat sets the environment. It gauges, it knows the temperature,

but it also sets a standard and the environment reacts to it. And we want to act more like a thermostat because we are the pilot of our lives. We're not the passengers, right? Going with the winds of wherever people are, other people and agendas and everything moving us towards something. So you take the nouns, you turn into verbs. You don't have focus. There's a process for focusing. You don't have a memory.

There's a process for memorizing something that we teach. You don't even have energy. You generate energy. So when I say energy management, in order to win the day, you need high levels of energy. And then, so that's where the opposite of everything I talked about earlier about the bad habits is instead of adding a bad brain diet, have a good brain diet, right? You know, instead of, you know, all those negative thoughts, have some empowering thoughts because that energizes a higher vibration, right? Instead of being sedentary, you move, right? And movement generates energy, you know, and then supplementation, there's supplements.

We have a whole new chapter in the book on nootropics, neuro-nutrition, where cognitive health comes from that brain foods. The avocados, the blueberries, the wild salmon, the turmeric, the green leafy vegetables. If your diet allows the eggs, the choline in eggs, acetylcholine leads to good brain health, cognitive health, for good cognitive health. And if you don't get those, if you're not getting the wild salmon or the sardines or the flax seeds, you could supplement with omega-3 DHAs, right?

If you're not getting the turmeric, you supplement with curcumin. If you're not getting the eggs, you know, the choline, you could supplement with choline, right? And because, you know, we don't always eat a pristine diet. You know, none of us really do. So you get your levels tested, your vitamin D,

all the essentials for good cognitive health, right? And you supplement where needed. And there are also ingredients that have been shown through human studies to boost, now that's cognitive health, this is cognitive performance. So subtly different, right? Yeah, that's where the nootropics would come in.

These are science-based ingredients that will affect your mental performance, your executive functioning, your memory, your focus, your mood, and your mental energy, right? So it's not cognitive health, get your foundational vitamins and minerals, essential fatty acids, and so on. Cognitive performance, there are these substances like caffeine, like creatine. Most people associate creatine to working out,

Most people associate creatine to working out, but it's one of the most studied substances. And it's also been shown to be really good for your cognitive health and cognitive performance. For mitochondria, for mental energy, to stave off like sleeplessness, like when you're not able to offset some of the negative effects of not getting a good night's sleep and so on.

You know, and some of my favorite ingredients that have been shown to boost focus, memory, mental energy, some of them, I mean, the range of Bacopa. Yeah. I'm sure it's pretty popular. Some of your audience might've heard of it. Ayurvedic medicine, you know,ic medicine, wonderful, great for your memory. And there's a whole new chapter, isn't there, in Limitless?

Since we last spoke, you've re-released the book with, it's an expanded edition. And how come there's a chapter on nootropics? Is that because people were asking for that? Is that because of new research? So the book came out in 2020, which was interesting for a book. We recently updated it for a post-pandemic AI world. So all the original

great content updated, and then we added many new chapters, a chapter on AI. How do you use AI to enhance your HI, like your human intelligence. So for me, AI is not artificial intelligence, it's more augmented intelligence, right? For me, technology has always been like a support tool, something to partner with to make your life easier, right? Or better, improve your progress. So we show people how in that chapter, how do you use AI to enhance your intelligence, your performance and everything? Because I think the future of education is really personalized learning. And there's different aspects of that, of using it. Even something simple, like what if I said

something like neuroplasticity, people could go and they don't know what that is. They could go into an AI chat bot and say, explain to me neuroplasticity in a fun way as if I'm 10 years old. And then it'll put out a couple of paragraphs and give you a foundation to build on, right? And that's a way of learning faster. And every technique in the memory technique, and the memory is probably the largest chapter in the book,

memory improvement, how to remember names, languages, speeches without notes and facts figures. A lot of the techniques you could go into, like we talked about memory palaces and chain linking and story methods. You could use an AI program to say, hey, I need to memorize this. Use the memory palace, create a memory palace for me

to be able to easily memorize this script. Can I ask on memory? I know we covered a lot of it in our first conversation, but I was thinking about this yesterday, this idea that there's many things we want in life. Yeah. And we kind of understand that to get them, we need to work at them.

For example, if we want to run faster, we don't just expect that to happen. We sort of understand that if, let's say I do a 5K every Saturday, if I want to get a faster time, I will need to do some sort of training to get that. But I kind of feel with memory, we just start to worry about it when it starts to fail or when we perceive it to be failing. We just take it for granted. Whereas really, if memory is such an important part

of our experience of life, which it is, we kind of need to be taking active steps to maintain it and improve it. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I believe there's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There is a trained memory and an untrained memory.

And unfortunately, like a number of important subjects not taught in school, school taught us what to memorize, math, history, science, but there was never a class on how to memorize or how to remember. Socrates said, learning is remembering. And, you know, I wrote the chapter in Limitless

on memory in Greece. I found out there was a goddess of memory, Nemanides, and her children are the nine muses of science, literature, and art. So the nine muses of science, literature, and art. So the nine muses, science, literature, and art, their mother is memory. That's cool. And that's so important because people ask like, why do I have to remember something if it's online?

And here's, I can give people a number of reasons, but our lives are a reflection of the decisions we've made. We've covered that, right? The choices we've made, but you'd only make a good decision based on the information that you know at that time. And if you know it,

it presupposes you've remembered it, right? And there is no, Socrates said again, there is no learning without remembering. And that's why I think memory is so very important. So to go to your point, when you're talking about marathons or 5Ks There is no, Socrates said again, there is no learning without remembering. And that's why I think memory is so very important. So to go to your point, when you're talking about marathons or 5Ks or physical fitness, yeah, I think it's very important to be mentally fit today.

And memory is a big part of that. And memory, regardless, as you're listening to this, of your age or stage in life, we can all improve. And with simple things that make a big difference there's a game that's very popular in the uk um i think it's called i went to the market okay and we often play as a family and maybe it's not from the uk maybe it's from the us or another country but this idea that you know let's say it's my family my daughter might start and go

i went to the market and bought an avocado and might start and go, I went to the market and bought an avocado. And then my wife will go, I went to the market and bought an avocado and an apple. And my son will have to do apple on, you know, and so on. And you keep going until someone gets it wrong. Is that a good game to train and practice on memory? And if it is, how might you tweak it to make it even better? Yeah, good question.

So memory is use it or lose it. And I also believe that how you do anything is how you do everything. And so I feel like anything that challenges your brain is forcing you to make those connections and exercise your mind. But it's also how we're doing it. let's say like back in school, I wasn't good at anything. The only class I did well in, like all through grade school was typing. And it wasn't, it was just because when I would visit my great aunt and uncle, they had no toys in the house.

They would just have this rusty, dusty typewriter. So that's all I had to play with. And in middle school, let's say age around 12, I went to a class on typing and this was back before computers. So we had typewriters and they would rate your, just like how we rate people's reading speed, your typing speed. And for the first time on the chalkboard, I was number one because I was the fastest. And then my name was Quick, which is my real name, my father's name, my grandma. I changed it to do what I do,

which is speed reading and speed recall and speed thinking. But I use this hunt and peck method I invented, right? Using my two index fingers. And a week into it, a teacher was like, hey, we're gonna teach everybody how to type. And I just wanted to take the test because this would be the first test I do well on. I was like, you don't have to teach me. I got this. But she was like, no, Jim, you have to use all your fingers, all 10 fingers.

And there's home keys and everything. And I tried it. And what do you think happened to my typing speed? It went down, right? Because it was awkward and it was different. And then, so what do I do? I go back to my hunting and pecking using my two fingers, right? Interesting thing happened after a week or two.

Like I went from number one as the fastest typer to number three, to number seven, to number 13, all the way down to the bottom because all the other kids learned it using their 10 fingers. And it took my slow brain all that time to realize, hey, that's not fair. They're using five times more fingers. And it took my slow brain all that time to realize, hey, that's not fair. They're using five times more fingers. So I have to work five times harder in order to keep up.

But that's similar to, you know, it's not, practice doesn't make perfect, right? Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice could potentially lead to perfection. But if we're practicing the hunt and peck method with two fingers, I'm only going to get as good as what I could do. And it's similar to what we talked about in the last episode about speed reading. Reading is a skill and it can be improved through training. But the last class most people took on reading, they were like six or seven years old. So most people are still reading like they're five, six, seven years old, the same way. The difficulty and demand has increased a lot, but they read it the same way they learned it. And they can keep on practicing their old ways,

but it's like practicing with two fingers to type. You're going to get a cap if you're just, this is because this technique is inherently limited, right? As opposed to something that's more efficient, using more of your fingers. Same thing with reading and going back to memory. Yes, it's good to engage your brain by memorizing the avocados and the apples and everything else. And if you were to memorize it using a technique

that you can get better at, like one of the techniques that we teach in Limitless, then you're getting really good at techniques that are at a higher level, like typing, and you could take that same technique and use it to memorize other things. That would be the benefit. So yes, I like that game. And I would just teach people a couple of quick memory techniques so they could practice that and get good at that so they could use it to apply

towards remembering what they read or remembering conversations. Anything that you can share with us on the show at all? For the market game? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for me, I play a market game

with our family and I just put the foods on our body. Hold on, just on another note, if you're around at a family do with Jim Quick, we're playing a memory game. I'm thinking, what is everybody fear around? It's like Jim's gonna crush us here. This is, yeah, it's a little unfair,

but it's surprisingly how many of our students and my even friends are just better at certain things than I am when it comes to memory. But everyone could do this. We could play a memory game right now. I'll share my 10 favorite brain foods and everyone can memorize them. Okay.

Does that work? Yeah. All right. So we'll take 10 places and I want everyone to do this. And even if you think you know what this is, practice makes progress. All right. So this is a wonderful opportunity to exercise your brain. So let's take 10 places in our body going from top to bottom. And you could do this with me and just say it out loud,

touch that part of your body. So number one is top. So I want everyone to say, to touch the top of their head and say top. Top. Top. And that's your verbal memory. Two is nose. So what's number two? Nose. And then we're going right down the body. Number three is mouth. Say it out loud.

Mouth. Mouth. Four, you're going to go to the side is your ears. Ears. Good. Five is throat. Throat. So we're exercising our memory you remember number one

top top nose mouth ears throat good number six are your shoulders shoulders so everyone listening say it out loud even if there are people around you they'll just think you're a little weird um but yeah, that's your verbal memory. Seven is collar. Collar. Good. Eight are your fingers. Fingers.

Nine is your belly. Belly. And 10 is your bottom. Bottom. All right, so now you have 10 places. And this is a technique that's about 2,500 years old from ancient Greece. This is how they would memorize poetry,

memorize speeches using places they are familiar with. So they call this the memory palace. You're creating a place that you are very familiar with, that you close your eyes and imagine where everything is. And you're putting the information you want to remember in those places. So you're creating like a little journey for yourself. Now, instead of using your office or the mall or your home, we're just using our body as an example. But you could use any of these.

You could use your kitchen if you like. So let's go back. The first place is what? Top. Top. And the first brain food, I'm going to go through this really rapid fire, avocados. Now, again, everyone is bio-individual and some people could be allergic to certain things. And so everyone's a little bit different, but I'm just going to state my 10 favorite. I want you to imagine avocados

on the top of your head. So here, I want everyone to pretend you're 10 years old. You're very creative. You're adding some emotion in there. Because if you could, most people forget something because they only hear it. And there's a proverb that says, what I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand. What I do and feel, I understand. I heard the name, I forgot the name. What I see, I remember. I saw the face, I remember the face. And what you feel and do, you understand better. So the top, I want you to just imagine guacamole as a scalp conditioner. Right? Great. You go to your nose and if it makes you laugh, then you're definitely going to remember it because the emotion, it'll help you remember it. The second place is what?

Your nose. Second brain food, blueberries. I want you to imagine blueberries coming out of your nose. Even if you can't imagine it, imagine that you can imagine it. Blueberries stuck in your nose. What does that smell like? What does that feel like? I like to call them brain berries. They're high antioxidants and very neuroprotective. Number three is your mouth.

Third brain food is broccoli. There's a number of things in broccoli that are good for your brain, vitamin K, the sulforaphane, which is good for cognitive health, especially if you sprout the broccoli seeds. So it's like many, many, many more times sulforaphane, but broccoli stuck in your teeth, but you could taste it, but it's a big stalk of broccoli and it's embarrassing. You have something stuck in your teeth, but it's broccoli. Taste it, feel it, great. Fourth place on your body were your ears

and the fourth brain food, olive oil. So I want you to imagine you're cleaning your ears with olive oil. What's that feel like? Or maybe you're wearing olive earrings, something to remind you of olive oil. Okay, number five is your throat. And I want you to remember eggs. If your diet allows, again, the choline in eggs, precursor to acetylcholine, which is good for

cognitive health. And so imagine a hard-boiled egg stuck in your throat. Instead of an Adam's apple, you have an egg. Or maybe Humpty Dumpty is touching your throat, whatever, right? But your throat. All right, number six are your shoulders. And the sixth brain food are green leafy vegetables. So imagine shoulder pads of kale and spinach. You're looking to your left and your right, and you're having shoulder pads, but they're made of this green leafy vegetables, kale and spinach. You're looking to your left and your right and you're having shoulder pads, but they're made of this green leafy vegetables, kale and spinach. Okay. All right. Seven is your collar

and it was salmon. So your omega-3, your DHA. So I want you to imagine a necklace made out of salmon sushi? Maybe make it a week old. So a week old salmon sushi. Okay. All right. So you never, ever forget that. Eight are your fingers. So just wiggle your fingers. And the eighth brain food is turmeric. So imagine that golden powder, you just can't get it off your fingers. It's like in your nail bed and everything. Golden powder. The active ingredient is curcumin, which lowers inflammation. It's a good brain food.

So you can't get the turmeric off your fingers. All right, nine is your belly. And I want you to imagine the ninth brain food are walnuts. So imagine eating walnuts out of your belly button. That's kind of weird. But honestly, if you're walking outside and somebody was on the bench

eating walnuts out of their belly button, would you need to study it for an hour? Would you need to rehearse and repeat it a hundred times in your mind? You see it once and it becomes unforgettable because it's something that's ordinary and you made it extraordinary in your mind. And so imagine you're eating walnuts

out of your belly button. Walnuts, a number of benefits. They're vitamin E, very neuroprotective. Walnuts kind of look like a brain. That was a little memory trick to remember it. And then finally, the 10th place on your body is your bottom. And let's make the 10th brain food is dark chocolate.

And I don't want to know what anybody is picturing right now, but dark chocolate and bottom. All right, now imagine you are at the market or let's say we call you up and say, hey, we're going to be doing this brain healthy dinner tonight. And you, the listener, we call you and say, can you stop by the market and get these 10 brain foods? And you're driving, but you can't write it down.

So you put it really quickly, as I said it, because it takes a lot more time to explain it than it does actually to see it, right? And presumably the more you do it, the quicker you get at this. Absolutely, absolutely. And so you have the 10 things, you put it on your body.

And so now you're at the store, you're walking around the aisles and I'm talking to the listeners here. Do you remember what's on the top of your head? What brain food? Avocados. Avocados. And coming out of your nose,

you use blueberries, those brain berries. And stuck in your teeth is the broccoli. And then you're cleaning your ears with the olive oil and stuck in your teeth broccoli is the broccoli and then you're cleaning your ears olive oil with the olive oil and stuck in your throat is an egg is an egg good

and you have shoulder pads kale and spinach kale and spinach good and you have a necklace that's made of salmon and that could be sardines it could be flax

you know your omega threes and then your fingers turmeric called in turmeric good and then your belly button walnuts walnuts And then your fingers, you have like- Called in turmeric. Good. And then your belly button- Walnut. Walnuts. And then your bottom, you have the- Chocolates.

Yes. And then it's amazing because I'm- I haven't written anything down, right? That is just in real time. No, no, no, no, no, no. The lesson here is when you understand how your brain works, you could work your brain. When you understand how your memory works, you could work your memory. your brain works, you could work your brain. When you understand how your memory works, you could work your memory. I could go into the science of it a little bit, but basically we remember things based on place. I mean, think about a hunter gatherer. We need to memorize formulas and lots of numbers or whatever. We need to memorize where things are. Where's the fertile soil? Where's the enemy tribe? Where's the clean water? You know, where's the crops,

where's the food, everything. Where are the animal, like whatever you're hunting. And so we learned to store things in locations. So this is piggybacking on how our brain already is organized and why not put the important information you want to remember in those places. Now you could use your home. You could stand in your, imagine you're standing in your doorway of your kitchen and you're just going clockwise. So like number one can be a microwave. Number two is the stovetop. Number three is the refrigerator. Number four is a dishwasher. Number five is the sink. And then you have five new places and you could walk into another room adjacent and then do that again for six, seven, eight, nine, ten. So you can use this principle.

To memorize facts, client information, product information, key points to a speech. Yeah, I was going to bring up the speech actually. I've always given speeches without notes. I've just never liked going on stage with notes. But I gave a talk last week and again, all I think about is arc and narrative. I think, what is the story? What's the journey? Like, what are the four points or the five, where are you going to start? Where are you going to end? And how are you going to make that journey? I rely on memory for that. Maybe there's more of these techniques I use without realizing it in terms of how I create that arc in my head.

But I imagine a simple way that I could apply that is next time, let's say I'm giving a speech or a talk and let's say I have five key points I want to remember, I could use parts of my body or parts of my house, right? And create a story and a visceral feeling about that and the house, right? And create a story and a visceral feeling about that and the location, right?

Very much so. Yeah, I get to train a lot of the top TED speakers and actors. And sometimes they don't have to say things verbatim. They just need to remember their key points. Yeah. And because what's the challenge sometimes, and speakers would likely relate to this

if you're in the middle of a speech and somebody asks a question and you go to answer it and you come back and you're like where was I but with this it allows you to for example I talk about these 10 keys for your brain you could take those 10 keys because if you're memorizing you know your content

that's your expertise you just need a reminder of what point and so let's say it's a good brain diet I could go back to that microwave If you're memorizing, you know your content, that's your expertise. You just need a reminder of what point, right? And so let's say it's a good brain diet. I could go back to that microwave, which is my first place and put all the good brain foods in that microwave really quickly. And then I go to the stovetop

and the second key to better brain is killing ants, automatic negative thoughts. So I imagine roasting ants on that stovetop. The third key for a better brain is exercise. So I go to my refrigerator, I open it up Imagine roasting ants on that stovetop. The third key for a better brain is exercise. So I go to my refrigerator, I open it up and I'm doing all the calisthenics, CrossFit inside the refrigerator, right? I go over to the dishwasher and that's brain nutrients.

And I open and it's like all the supplements are in there. I go to the sink and that's a positive peer group. And I just imagine all my friends washing their hands in that sink, right? And so that's a way of anchoring the things that you want to remember to the areas you're most familiar with. It could be your home.

It could be your car. It could be a past home. It could be the mall. It could be your school. It could be your neighborhood. And there's so many techniques and limitless about this, which we're not covering.

And I know after our conversation last time, many people, including really good friends of mine, did some of your online courses and just found them profound in terms of increasing reading speed and memory and those sorts of things. So this stuff really, really works. Jim, I really want to be respectful to your time.

We've got two S's left. Deliver this, right? What are the final two S's? Let's go. The last two S's of limitless as you're managing your day to win the day, the next one is your state, state management. And I feel like, just like we talked about,

there's a to-do list and a to-learn list. And even on priority, on the importance management, a not to-do list and a to-learn list. And even on priority and the importance management, a not-to-do list. Because I think part of figuring life out is deleting. Remember I said you stop something or do less of something is having not-to-do list. Like not touch your phone the first 30 minutes of the day or the last hour of the day. Not-to-do list. But when it comes to your state, I think it's important to even have a to-feel list. So when I say state, I mean your emotional state, like a

snapshot of your mood and your mind. So how do you feel? And so feelings, just like when I said, you don't have focus, you do it. You don't have motivation. There's a process for motivating yourself. You don't have creativity. There's a process for motivating yourself. You don't have creativity. There's a process for being creative. You don't have energy. There's a process for generating energy. You don't have feelings, you do them. Right. And so, and there's a process and every feeling has an action attached to it because a feeling is a signal. Emotion is the energy of motion to signal some kind of action. If you feel nervous or scared, maybe it's an action that you need to prepare for that talk or that presentation in that school or work, right? So have a to feel list. And like, what are three

things you want to embody in terms of feel that day? And because here's the thing, all learning is state dependent. And that means that we tend to remember things that make us feel a certain way. Just like when we did the brain foods, which I've challenged people to see if they still remember. So wherever they are, if it's safe to do so, pause the podcast and see if you can remember them. Absolutely.

I think that'll be really useful experiment to run. And at the end, when you're done, like post it online, tag both of us on there so we get to see it. Yeah, I'd love to see that. How many do you remember? Absolutely.

I'll repost, because you'll tag us so we'll see it. I'll repost a few and then we'll gift out a few copies of the new Limitless edition. Oh, wow.

Thank you. Just randomly, just as thank you for having me on the show. But the idea here is information by itself is forgettable. Information combined with emotion becomes unforgettable. And just like you tend to remember blueberries come out of your nose because that's kind of ludicrous and a little

funny, you're more likely to remember it. So you understand how your memory works, you can work your memory. So state management is you are a thermostat. You can determine how you feel because you either change the external world or you change the internal world. And I think the quickest way of changing how you feel is like right now, everybody, sit the way you'd be sitting or stand the way you'd be standing

if you're really excited. That was the feeling. You're really excited about listening to the two of us have this conversation. You're very interested and excited. Now, my question for all of you is, why do you even have to move? You should, you should be excited anyway, right? But you know, your physiology is

going to affect your psychology, right? And so the idea here is you control how you feel. And if you don't feel something, you're not going to remember it, you know, and all learning is state dependent, but so is life. Life is a set of emotions. You ever have emotions and time like stand still? Yeah, exactly. Or a certain set of emotions and it just goes by really, really fast. So those emotional states affect how we perceive time and it receives our environment, our reality.

So I would say for state management, remember, you don't have to be at a 10 all the time, but have some mindfulness and say like, hey, these are't have to be at a 10 all the time, but have some mindfulness and say like, hey, these are three states I want to cultivate. Like for learning, for me, I want to cultivate playfulness. I want to cultivate a level of focus. I want to cultivate confidence, which is an emotional state. And then once you do that, you could play a game inside your mind and say how playful do I feel on a scale of 0 to 10 or how excited do I feel on a scale of 0 to 10

and you say okay 4 then you play this game in your head and say well how do I make it a 5 or how do I make it a 6 you don't have to jump all the way to 10 but like okay well maybe I'll reward myself with this and I could get two more points on that and feel more excited or maybe I'll reward myself with this. I could get two more points on that and feel more excited.

Or maybe I have to change it in my head. So I turn this into this and then I get some perspective and it makes me feel a little bit more excited. Because every level you jump is a huge level in emotion and learning also. So manage your state for yourself and also for other people. And then finally, the last S in Limitless, if you want to win the day, you also want to be able to manage your surroundings.

So surrounding management, that's your environment. And I feel like our environment, again, our external world is a reflection of our internal world. And so whatever is in your environment if it's very creative you're going to be more creative right if you put in your environment things that have more joy you know things that

bring you joy that's awesome by the way the million subscriber plaque that brings me joy knowing that your work gets out to so many people like that and so I'm saying is like having things in your environment, pictures of loved ones

or the things that you're proud of, that's helping manage your surroundings because again, that affects how you feel. And if you're making progress, right? Especially clean environment, one that's organized, inspiring for you. And I love it. I mean, a negative thing, so.

Limitless, wow. So that's a great m love it. I mean, a negative thing, so. Limitless, wow. So that's a great mnemonic, learning important, well, learning management, importance management, mind management, implementation management, time management, lens management, energy management, state management and surrounding management. I love it, there's something there for all of us. Jim, you've been really generous with your time and how much you share as per usual.

I know one of your missions in life is to leave no brain behind. And I know you're planning something special this summer, this big online event. Can you just tell us a little bit about it? We've never done anything like this. We invite all your listeners for three days virtual event that will upgrade your learning and upgrade your life. And what we're going to do is really show you the key elements to have limitless success. In terms of your mental performance, in terms of the treasures of your life. And we've put together a faculty of amazing experts and individuals that would charge a fortune to get consulting from,

but we're making it completely free. So it's an online event? It's an online event. Completely free? It's in the most beautiful studio that we broadcast. You could join us online. There's Zoom cameras. We'll be able to see all of you, thousands of people.

And we're bringing in the world's experts on the mind and learning and health. And we're going to share and just pour into you and your family and your team. And so we're very excited. We're excited to have you also as well. If anyone's interested for this free event, what do they have to do to sign up?

Yeah, very simple. So you could secure your spot online. You just go to jimquick.com forward slash live more. Okay, so the podcast name, feel better, live more. So live more at the end. Absolutely. jimquick, K-W-I-K.com forward slash live more.

And you can secure your spot and share it with your friends. Share that link with your friends, your teammates. It'll be three days. If you miss it, you'll miss a lot. So make sure you schedule the time. And it's going out live. It's going out live.

We'll send the recording out. We'll do a little bit of a, like maybe a 24 hour replay for it also as well, but it's the most highly produced virtual event. And what's the dates of the events? Yes. It's August 5th, 6th and 7th. Okay, great. So people around in the summer who want to spend some time learning about their brains and how to upgrade them, they can check this out. Amazing. All the information will be on the website, all the expert speakers, and there's no cost at all. It's just available. So I encourage people to share it. You can post it online, but it's really to be able to, I believe you change

your brain, you change your life, you change your brain, you change the entire world. Jim, that sounds amazing. Totally aligned with your mission of helping more and more people upgrade their brains. To finish this conversation, you were once a little boy who was told they had a broken brain and you have managed to change that whereas now you're a

world-renowned brain coach right for someone who's listening and feels that they've got a broken brain and feels that they're not living life to their full potential, what are your final words for them? Yeah. If I could talk to that nine-year-old kid that was struggling with his self-esteem and he had a lot of doubt and he would have all these learning disabilities who just wasn't like the other kids.

The two things I would want to install is number one, you are 100% responsible for your life. Like what happened, happened. And maybe it's unfortunate, but what are we going to do about it now? But you are 100% responsible. So I would remind all of us that we have a level of agency, that we can't always control what's going on on the outside, but you can always control three things, your mindset, your motivation, and the methods you're going to, your actions, right?

You can always control your head, your heart, your hands, and have some kind of influence on those things. The second thing I would just remind this person that's struggling is that everything is figureoutable. When you commit to something, everything is figureoutable. And I have that underlying belief, whether it's true or not. I just feel like, is it true that I'll figure it out if I have that belief? No.

But if I don't have that belief, I don't think I'm gonna randomly just hit that goal or make that happen. What I've discovered over the past three decades is that you listening, if you had the tenacity and the interest and desire to listen throughout this episode, I would say you've self-selected that you probably have forgotten more about personal growth and health and wellness

than most of your family and friends will ever learn, and that you're a special individual, and that we're all on this path to reveal and realize our fullest potential. And I would say that it's a real honor for us to be on that path with you. I mentioned this in the previous episode, that I believe there's a version of yourself that's patiently waiting. And the goal is we show up for ourselves every single day until we're introduced. But those little things matter.

And you matter. Like whether you see it or not, your presence in the world makes a difference. And you're enough, not because you bought something or taught something or did something. It's just you're enough because you always were. And so I would remind you that self-worth and self-esteem, self-confidence, they all start with the word self, self-love because you can't get it from somebody else.

And no amount of validation or love from somebody external is going to give your soul what it needs from you. And so I would just remind those listening that your superpower is your uniqueness. And we can either get bitter or we can get better with the choices that we make every single day. And who's counting on you to be at your best? The person you want to make proud of, I got asked this the other day, who are the two people you want to make proud of?

And automatically I was like, I want to, you know, my parents, because all the sacrifices. And then I was thinking about kids. But really my answer was, I want to make that nine-year-old kid that I was, I want to make him proud. The one that was being bullied, staying up all night, couldn't read, all of that. And then the other person I was thinking, I want to fast forward to when I'm 90. I want to make that 90-year-old version of myself proud.

And so I feel like if this hits with anybody that's listening, is ultimately it's an internal game a lot of life. And I think that the choices that we make make a difference. And even the choices we make in kindness, there's this huge ripple effect that could affect the cosmos that we never know, you know, where those little things lead to, you know, especially what's going on inside. Jim, very inspiring words.

Thank you for sharing. Love your work. Love what you're doing. Thank you. Thanks for coming back on the show. Thank you, everybody. Love your work. Love what you're doing.

Thank you. Thanks for coming back on the show. Take care, everybody. Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life. And also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else.

Remember, when you teach someone, it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and to somebody else. Remember, when you teach someone, it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information. Also, don't forget about Jim's free online virtual three-day event this August that he mentioned towards the end of our conversation. You can see all details at jimquick.com forward slash live more. Now before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday Five. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email, I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I've

been consuming and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect. And I have to say in a world of endless emails, it really is delightful that many of you tell me it is one of the only weekly emails that you actively look forward to receiving. So if that sounds like something you would like to receive each and every Friday, you can sign up for free at drchatagy.com forward slash Friday Five. Now, if you are new to my podcast, you may be interested to know that I have written five books that have been bestsellers all over the world, covering all kinds of different topics, happiness, food, stress, sleep, behavior change, movement, weight loss, and so much more. So please do take a moment to check them out. They are all available as paperbacks, eBooks, and as audio books, which I am narrating. If you enjoyed today's episode, it is always appreciated

if you can take a moment to share the podcast with your friends and family, or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week. And always remember, you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle changes always worth it. Because when you feel better, you live more. Thank you.