Good Life Project - Accelerated Learning As a Path to Freedom | Jim Kwik

Episode Date: April 30, 2019

Jim Kwik (http://kwikbrain.com/) is the founder of Kwik Learning, host of the top-ranked Kwik Brain podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kwik-brain-with-jim-kwik/id1208024744), and a globally-acclaimed expert in speed-reading, memory improvement, brain performance, and accelerated learning.This is pretty surprising, given that a brain injury left him learning-challenged and labeled the 'boy with the broken brain' as a child. He has since dedicated his life to helping others learn and live their brightest self through courses, keynotes, consulting and media.In today's conversation, we dive into his powerful journey of discovery and, in the latter half, Jim shares key ideas designed to help us all learn better and live bigger.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So after an accident that led to a traumatic brain injury as a young child, my guest today, Jim Quick, was labeled by a teacher. He actually overheard a teacher describing him as the boy with the broken brain. And he struggled to learn in a way that left him feeling not only personally demoralized, but also socially judged. And it took years longer, for example, for him to even learn how to read than other people. And this led to just constant struggle through all of his early years of education and life. But all of this changed when after finding his way into college, but then being on the verge of dropping out because he just wasn't able to make it work. He had a single conversation

with somebody that would change his life and awaken him to his own potential, really, to not only keep up, but to cultivate the ability to read lightning fast, to devour knowledge at an astonishing speed and become a, I guess you would call it a super learner. And for Jim though, interestingly enough, because he's also kind of wired for service, that wasn't enough. He saw so many other people around him who had suffered like him, and he decided that he needed to share what he had been learning with others. So he began teaching his ideas while still in college, actually. That in turn launched a complete change in his life, in his career, and along with it now a powerhouse accelerated learning and brain optimization company called Quick Learning and fueling it all, sort of a, I guess,

a mission to share tools and ideas that both alleviate suffering and also eliminate a common source of self-judgment and social isolation, which is learning. Jim also hosts a really wonderful podcast called Quick Brain, where he shares conversations and tips designed to help you learn better, faster, and with greater ease. It's one of my go-to sources for wisdom that helps me kind of work and live as close to my potential as possible. Jim is also a friend and he is one of the go-to people in my life that I turn to when I need to figure out how to unlock my brain. So excited to share this conversation with you. And be sure to keep tuning in to our special second weekly episode this month

as we introduce you to new musicians and singers and songwriters and performers every Thursday throughout the month of May. Super excited to bring this to you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun.

On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! y'all need a pilot flight risk i was trying to remember we have so many friends in common i was trying to remember the first time we actually met and i don't know if this was it but it was pretty close i think because i remember being in a a double-wide trailer in old Vegas when Zavos founder Tony Hsieh was sort of trying to rebuild that entire area.

And you were hosting one of your Superhero U events in this sort of modified trailer. And it was just a relatively small group of people who were there. And I was like, wow, this is just this really interesting, cool, eclectic gathering of fascinating people. And they're all here because Jim asked them. That's amazing, Joe. That was back in 2013. It was interesting because we had hired a group from Stanford University that creates all the games for Survivor, all the challenges. And we put challenges all around the city

because at that time, Tony was doing his downtown project and just launched it, wanted to host us there. And so that was really special. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. That was one event. You have done so many events now in different parts of the world of all sizes, gathering people, really around a focus on how to be the best version of yourself.

And a lot of that, of course, comes out of your personal story. It's interesting. I recently had Scott Barry Kaufman on who, when he was really young, he said he could barely hear for the first three, four years of his life. And then when he started to be okay, he had auditory processing disorders and was labeled as ungifted and slow and tested really poorly on IQ tests. And he said he literally, he would be in class and hear stuff. And it was almost like he couldn't process it in real time. He said he felt like he was downloading into his head so that he could replay it in his own time, sort of slower and process it the way he needed to process it. That was actually his inciting incident that led him into this incredible career as a researcher around redefining human intelligence and potential. You have a different but oddly related story that brought you into a

place where today, you know, from the outside looking in, you're an advisor to, you know, like some of the most accomplished people on the planet around learning and performance. But you came from a place where, you know, you were labeled and you labeled yourself anything but that person. Yeah. Even hearing you describe it, school was not a pleasant experience for me. I feel like in those labels, they go a long way. You know, even thinking about it right now, I get my heart, I could feel it starting to race because I never wanted to be there because of my learning difficulties. You know, I've had that brain injury when I was five and it was happening in class,

so that didn't help. I was in kindergarten and growing up, my superheroes were firefighters because in my neighborhood, I lived by a fire house and I used to marvel because I just did this idea as a child to see these men and women go into harm's way. And there were some people like cowboys and other people like doctors or whatever it is. But one day in kindergarten, the teacher says that there were sirens outside and there was a little gathering outside with fire trucks. And none of us could see because we were only five years old outside the window. So we all grabbed our chairs to prop us up,

and somebody grabbed, one of the other children grabbed the chair right from underneath me, and I fell headfirst into a radiator. And I couldn't remember anything after that. My parents said I was never the same after that. Something had changed. Did you end up in the hospital for that? Yeah.

It sounds like it was some sort of bad concussion. It was. I had multiple stitches, and there was a traumatic brain injury. And I had learning difficulties. I remember a lot of friends in elementary school, they created this group called MASP. It stands for More Able Student Program. Talk about labels. Yeah.

My friend Joey and I, we were the only two kids in our clique that wasn't asked to be part of that group. So we created our own group called LASP, Less Able Student Program. But I had focusing issues, processing issues. Teachers would repeat themselves four or five times. And, you know, it's kind of like this imposter syndrome. I pretended to understand, but I didn't really understand. And, um, I mean, what was it actually like for you when, when that was happening? What was your experience of when somebody would, would you'd be in a classroom and a teacher is teaching, doing what they would do? Was it that you weren't hearing it? Was it that you just, you weren't, there wasn't an understanding of what was?

It was, it would be like almost like the equivalent I would imagine is if somebody was talking in another language, I didn't understand even reading. I didn't, I couldn't read like everybody else did. It took me an extra few years to learn how to read. But I even remember where you remember you would get in those circles and you would have to pass around that book and you would have to read out loud? Every single time that book got closer, inch closer and closer to me, I would, I feel, even talking about it, I feel it. My heart racing and just the panic that I would have because when I looked at words, they just didn't mean anything. And I didn't understand how other people saw something that was there. I just, it's like looking at hieroglyphics.

And I think that's where a lot of fear of public speaking came from, honestly. You know, I know it's a big fear people share about getting in front of a group of people and being vulnerable like that, but I think it comes in, it was imprinted in us at a very early age. And I remember when the book finally came to me, I would look at it and I'd want to cry. And sometimes maybe I would have missed up. And I would just pass the book on and the teacher would understand. But I didn't know. I was a young kid at that time.

I mean, it's interesting also because I want to think that it's changing a bit in education right now. But I know when we were kids, class participation was a big thing. You know, it wasn't your grade was based at least in part on are you the kid who chimes in? Are you the kid who goes to the board? Are you the kid who participates, who reads when it's your time to read or volunteers to do that? So, I mean, it's interesting because not only sounds like not only would you feel the judgment just from yourself and sort of like the anxiety, but there's so much expectation that you'll be different in class and that you will understand and you will step up. I remember crying at night with my parents just thinking that there was something, what was wrong with me. At the age of nine, one of my teachers was talking to another adult, maybe thinking I wasn't paying attention and pointed to me and said, that's the boy with the broken brain, you know, and I don't think it was malintent. I just

feel like sometimes we do things that we're completely consciously aware of. And that became my inner talk because I remember every time I did badly on a book report or a quiz or an exam, or I wasn't picked in gym class to be part of a team. I remember saying to myself, it's because I have the broken brain. And I talk about, you know, you talked about superhero you and being the best version of ourselves. I'm excited about superheroes because that's how I taught myself how to read through comic books. You know, late at night, I'd be the kid underneath the covers when my parents thought I was sleeping with the flashlight and something about the illustration and, you know, the hero's journey kind of brought the words to life. And that's how I eventually learned how to read a few

years later. But I think my superpower in school was being invisible. Like, I can't tell you all the time, Jonathan, like I would 50 times a day, I would just hope that the teacher wouldn't call on me, that I wouldn't, you know, I would never, all through school, even high school, I never raised my hand once. Because it's just that panic of having all the attention. And I just, I didn't, I mean, maybe I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be heard. But in that moment, I just felt like I didn't have anything to offer. And I didn't want that spotlight in any way. Yeah. I mean, want that that spotlight in any way yeah I mean how did that how did that affect you um I mean did was there a sense of being other or did you feel

like well kind of maybe everyone feels this way no I actually thought I was completely unique um it's constantly and even my you can see my physiology even just changing because I'm regressing um I I would close my shoulders and I would just shrink and try to be smaller so I wouldn't be seen. I would always sit in the back of the class, you know, away from everybody. And I remember there was this one bully and I would just, because I'd be targeted because I'd be very passive and introverted, but not just introverted, but also shy. And I remember even when one day like this bully was like, you know, kind of just harassing me and I, and it wasn't so much was kind of just harassing me.

And it wasn't so much the harassment. I just didn't want to draw attention to me and get anyone else to be able to see. And it's just not a happy time when I think about school. And so I think a lot of times now I indulge in comic books still to this day and video games as fun hobbies because I want to relive a lot of my childhood. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because on the one hand, you can look at that as a form of escapism. But for you, it was escaping into something that turned constructive rather than just hiding from a reality that you had to deal with. It became not just an escape, but a pathway.

It did. It's kind of interesting that two of my biggest challenges growing up were learning and public speaking. And life had the universe as a sense of humor, because that's what I do for a living, is I public speak on this thing called learning. But I think through our struggles, just like in the hero's journey, they can become strengths. And we have mentors along the way.

We have challenges along the way. And through suffering led to mentally these quote-unquote superpowers. And I think, you know, when we talk about superheroes, the reason I use that as a metaphor is it's somebody who has discovered and developed their superpowers. And I don't mean shooting lasers out of your eyes or leaping tall buildings. Although that would be cool. Yeah, I wouldn't say no to those things. But our unique ability, our strengths, our talents, if you will.

But just having those things doesn't make you a superhero. You have to use them for some kind of good. And I feel like my passion is what lights me up or lights a person up. And my passion really is learning now because I was hungry for it when I was a kid, but I didn't know how to do it. But I think my purpose is what lights up other people. So my passion is learning, and my purpose is using that learning to light up others. And so I was grateful to find it at an earlier age. Like when I was 18, I finally realized what I needed to do to be able to compensate

and be able to, quote-unquote, succeed in academics. And then I got results, and then I got actually really angry and upset because I went through all this struggling and suffering, and I didn't have to. I could have been taught these things back in school. So what was it that turned that light bulb on for you? So there were two incidences. In high school, I was failing out of English, and they called my parents in. And, you know, my parents, they immigrated here, didn't speak the language.

We live in the back of a laundromat. So they are my superheroes because they're not the most intelligent or the wealthiest or the healthiest or the most spiritual, but they're really good people. You know, they're very kind. They do what they say they're going to do. They work hard. And, you know, I had this pressure where I didn't want to disappoint them. And I have a younger brother and a younger sister, and I wanted to be. And he was one year ahead of me, and he was a genius. He missed one question on his SATs, so he had to take it again, so he got a perfect score the next time. He was valedictorian, he was head of the debate team, the math team. And I feel like

when I was coming through in high school, you know, people have cognitive biases for things. And I feel like people, my teachers would think I would be the same kind, but I was on the odd. I was on the other side of the spectrum, suffice it to say, you know, I made. And so those kinds of pressures, but when I was failing out of English, my teacher brought my parents in and it was embarrassing. And they said, Jim has to do something to be able to pass this year. Did your parents have a really clear understanding of the depth of your struggle up until then? They did, but they were very encouraging. But I didn't have tiger parents that made me play the piano and the violin and get perfect scrapes.

It was clear I was not going to do that. So they loved me for me. And you could tell my mother became a special ed teacher because she didn't know how to help me, frankly. And because she would work with me every day and they would be patient. But I just didn't learn like everybody else learned because of my injury or my learning style and such. But my English teacher was very understanding. She was like, I'm going to give Jim a chance and he could do some extra credit on a book report. And she wanted me to research people like Albert Einstein and Da Vinci and spend time in the library and do that and write a book report on it.

And I agreed to do it. And I was like, my parents took me aside and said, you know, really encourage me that I could do this and to do a good job on it. So every day after school, I would go in the public library and study this and write it. And when I was done after a couple of months, when it was due, my parents helped me get it professionally bound. I was really proud of it. And I remember the day in class where it was time to turn it in. And the teacher at the end of class said, you know, I have a surprise for all of you. Jim, come up in front and talk about your book report. And you had no idea that was coming? Not at all. Not at all. I thought I would just turn this, you know, my work in and that would

be good. Like I mean, I'm getting even dry mouth thinking about this, my throat, because I got so nervous. I was perspiring and my heart's beating on my chest. It wasn't a fear. It was like a real phobia. And I couldn't breathe. And when I finally could say something, I told the teacher in front of the whole class that I didn't do it. And this is something I worked on five days a week for weeks. And I was really proud of it. And I was just too scared to present it. And class left.

You know, I was the only one there. And I took the book report out of my backpack and I threw it in the trash. And, um, I don't know, metaphorically, I could feel like maybe I was throwing away something else, like my gifts or my potential, but that, that's how horrible it was. Did the teacher know what was really going on? I'm sure she did. Like my, my parents knew my, my teacher knew, but it, you know, it's just, and that was, that was my struggle. And that was, that was my, my reality. It's like, nobody knew what to do about it. They had compassion for you. They're trying to help, but they didn't know. Like, what do we do? Yeah. And so I struggled a lot in, you know, in private and I, I spent a lot of time inside my own creative imagination and I'll end alone. And so, you know, even at home, it's just, I wanted, it was the pressure of wanting to show myself and show my family and my friends that I was, I was worth something, but I just didn't know how. And I think that's why when, when I was 18, I was lucky enough to get into a state school. And I thought freshman meant a fresh start.

And I took it that way in orientation. And I was like, I remember going to orientation. My parents took me there. And it's a big deal, me going to college. And we didn't have the money, much less. But I was the oldest. And I wanted to show the world and make my parents proud and show myself that I could do it. And I purposely picked a school I knew no one knew who I was because I feel like even at that age, I knew that a lot of our energy goes to the expectations of other people.

And because I was so conscious of how people looked at me and I was so insecure, I wanted to find some place where nobody knew me so I wouldn't be stuck in there. Even in fact, I've never said this out loud, but I don't, when I visit family, I don't stay with my parents because I don't want to be in that same bedroom because, you know, how sometimes certain environments anchor you to that. I don't want to feel like what it felt like being that insecure teenager or child. And so when I got to college, I thought I could make a fresh start. I took all these classes I was interested in, and instead of doing better, I did worse.

And that was really shocking because college is markably more difficult because you spend a lot more time by yourself than you do in class. And then I was just like, I'm going to quit. After a few months, I was like, I'm going to quit. This is a waste of money that I don't have. And a friend of mine said, hey, because I didn't know what to do. I'm going home back to California this weekend. I was in New York at the time to visit family. Why don't you come with and just get some perspective? And that word means a lot to me, you know, perspective. Whenever we're stuck someplace in a certain thought pattern or a certain situation, I feel like changing place, environment, or people that

you spend time with really changes the way you see things and your point of view. So I agreed to go because I've never traveled to the West Coast before. And was this a new friend from college who sort of had a different frame for you? Yeah. I mean, they didn't know, we didn't have history together, but we spent time because I used to play tennis and, you know, people bond over common things. And the family was pretty well off. You know, they had tennis courts and, you know, the father walks me around his property before dinner and asks me a very innocent question that you would ask

an 18-year-old kid, how's school? And as emotionally reserved as I am, and definitely was back then, I just break down and I start bawling. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. That's the worst question to ask me. And I tell my whole story about being the kid with a broken brain and, you know, I'm doing really bad in school and I'm ready to quit. And I have no idea how I'm going to tell my parents. And I can't bear to disappoint them, but I can't do it. And it was a really dark time. And when I said that, he's like, Jim, why are you in school? You know, simple question, right? But I, and I was like,

I don't know, that's what you're supposed to do. Right. But I didn't have an answer, but he asked like essentially why you're there, what do you want to be or do? And I didn't have an answer. And it's interesting how questions change our focus. And so no one's ever asked me that before. So I didn't have an immediate answer. And I go to answer him and he just like pauses and he grabs a notebook out of his pocket and tears out his shuffle sheets and makes me write down like all the reasons why, you know, you can kind of cue the music. Like this is like the men, you know, coming to, you know, some kind of realization, but I ended up writing a book, a bucket list, if you will. I didn't know what it was. And, um, when I'm done, I start folding the sheets to put

in my pocket and he grabs it right out of my hand. And honestly, can you just imagine like this guy's obviously really, you know, successful, whatever that is. And I'm in this 18 year old confused kid that just feels like out of place. And, and I've never ever written, I wasn't even conscious of much less written explicitly what my dreams were at that time. And some guys, strangers just reading them. And I've never shared that with my anyone. And, um, I don't know how much time goes by Jonathan, but he looks at me, he's like, Jim, you were this close to everything on that list. And he spreads his index fingers about a foot apart. And my natural reaction is, you got to be kidding me. There's just no way.

Give me five, 10 lifetimes. I'm not going to crack that list. I'm not that close. And he takes his fingers, his index fingers, and he puts them to the sides of my head, meaning what's in between. My brain is like a bridge and, you know, the key. And he takes me into his home, into a place I've never been to before a room. And it's wall to wall, ceiling to floor covered in books. You know, I mean, can you, I had a library in

somebody's house. That's just like epic right now. But at the time it wasn't because I've never read a book cover to cover. I'm still a poor reader. It's like walking to a room full of snakes, right? Like that, that's how my association was to books. But make makes it worse. He starts grabbing these snakes off the shelf and, and hands them to me. And I started looking at these titles of books and you depreciate it. They're the biographies of men men and women in history and early personal growth books. And he says, Jim, I want you to read one book a week. And automatically, I'm like, I can't.

You got to be kidding me. And I go into my story. And I'm fighting for my story. And I really find that if you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. When we argue for, oh, I have a horrible—people come to me all the time. I have a horrible memory. I'm too old. I'm not smart enough.

It's not just your limitations. It's your identity. Yeah, and that's really what it was. It's like your identity was the identity of a person who had a limited capacity. Yeah, it's like, that's not me. And that's interesting

because even when I think about it, when you say that, it was like at that time, it's like, yeah, school's not me. I'm not, I'm not. Right. But it's not even school. I mean, you were told that at a really young age, like your identity is the identity of a person who's not capable of performing on the level that everybody else is.

It's like whether you're in school or whether you're at work, wherever it is, it's like, unless something happened to change that identity, to change your understanding, it's almost like, you know, it wouldn't matter if you were in school or somewhere else. Like that's just who you are. And I had all the evidence to confirm that identity, you know, cause I would look for it. Right. And that's what you just keep racking. And then you ignore all the other stuff. I don't know if you were planning on sharing, but do you remember what was on the list? On the list of my, my, my bucket list, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the things that I was writing on the list were things I wanted to do for family because this year, these are things they could never afford or would never, even if they had the money, they wouldn't do for themselves. So it's like, we, you know, we had, you know, one family car that they would share and you know

in carpool we had one you know we didn't live very large my family never had a lot of possessions and that wasn't important to us as much as experiences you know but even growing up we would always go kind of local for vacations like i grew up in westchester right here here. We would go to Lake George, but they would make it amazing because I never felt like we had like lack, but they didn't have a lot of the abundance in that area. So it was like things like family vacations and home and experiences. And I remember I didn't really understand it because they always made the best of everything,

but I grew up playing tennis. My father and my mother, that's how they kind of met. But I wanted a tennis racket, and I just didn't realize that my family couldn't afford a tennis racket like that. So it was just things for them and my brother and sister that we didn't have as much as our friends that we grew up with. But because a lot of the things have to do with family, I agreed to read one book a week.

You know what I mean? Because when I told him that I can't do this because I have all this schoolwork, I was like, are you deaf? Have you not listened to everything I've said? And he and I said, I have so many midterms and stuff that's back waiting for me at school. And he said, Mark Twain's favorite quote, which I didn't realize it was Mark Twain's quote

at the time he said don't let school get in the way of your education and then when I said okay but I still can't commit because if I do I'm going to follow through with it and that's when he took out my bucket list which he still had and he Jonathan, like every single thing on that list. You know, the vacation I wanted to take at Disney with my family and all these things. You know, my, my father immigrated here and he left his brother and sister back in, in, in Asia because they couldn't afford to have him at 13. They couldn't feed him. So he came here to live with aunts and uncles, but it was like a trip back there. And it was just little things like that, that,

you know, I recently got to check that off on the bucket list with my dad. I had a trip in Australia and I brought my dad and we went back to Jakarta where he grew up and I got to see where he was born. And, and, and that meant something. And we went to the stadium. They have these Asian games. It's kind of like the Olympics there of Asia and the last time he was in that stadium we took a tour there was with his father right before he left and his father passed away

right after that at the age of 13 so it was pretty epic for me to be there in that stadium with my dad because last time he was there was with his dad who passed that's why he came to America because he didn't have his father passed. And so, um, so I got to fly my family there and we got to share that experience, but that was high on the, that was top of my bucket list because

that's why family became so important because when my dad left, you know, his mom and his younger brother and sister, you know, that changes your values in terms of what's most important. So we always grew up with that mantra of family's most important. Man. So because he read those things off, like go to Indonesia and stuff like that, and my goals, I agreed to read one book a week. And so now I'm back at college, fast forward, you know, then I'm at my desk and I have a pile of books I have to read for school and a pile of books that I promised to read. And I already couldn't keep up with one of those piles of books. So what do I do?

I just live in the library. And I don't eat. I don't sleep. I don't work out. I don't spend time with friends. I don't do anything other than live there. And I'm just wasting away, you know, losing all this weight. And I end up passing out. I'm out wasting away, you know, losing all this weight. And I ended up passing out.

I was out of sheer exhaustion. And I fall down a flight of stairs in the library, hit my head again, which is great. I woke up two days later in the hospital, and I thought I died. And maybe a part of me wanted to or wished I did because I was suffering so bad. And because what's hard is when you feel like you could be better and you think it's unfair that you have you working three times, four times harder as everybody else and still not even getting average, you know, and I just felt like unfair and I felt I was disappointing and I just feel like I was not worth anything. And I thought there had to be a better way. And at that time, the nurse came in with a message for me. I mean, it came in the

form of a mug of green tea, but on the green tea was a picture of a drawing of Albert Einstein, which is kind of interesting because that's what I did my book report around. Right. At the end of high school. Yeah. And it had the saying, that quote, that we've all heard in different versions, the same level of thinking that's created your problem won't solve it. And it made me ask another question,

like what's my big problem? My big problem is I'm not smart enough. I don't know how to learn this stuff. And how do I think differently? It was like, I don't know, maybe I could learn how to learn this stuff. And then I asked the nurse to bring me the course bulletin for next semester for classes

and I looked through all the courses and you know that there are all classes on what to learn, math, history, science, Spanish, but there were no classes on how to learn, how to focus, how to be creative, how to think, how to solve problems, how to read faster, how to learn, you know, how to focus, how to be creative, how to think, how to solve problems, how to read faster, how to study, remember all the things that I, that I teach now.

Had you, I mean, I'm curious also, had you, because of the struggles that you had earlier when you were in high school, did you have any sort of like augmented education or special ed classes or tutors or people who were, who were there specifically to help you try and get those skills? I had, so in my struggles in high school, I had a group of smart friends, which made it easier in a way, but also harder in a way because of comparison. Like my friends were all on the debate team and on the math team and because, okay, so

like this idea people have of high school with you have these cliques so I was with the geeks and the nerds and because we played Dungeons and Dragons and played video games and read comic books because that was our shared you know hobbies and interests but the difference between me and them is they were top of their class I'm not making a generalization but I kind of am because am because that's what they've gravitated towards. And those are my interests. It made it easier because they helped me, you know, and they helped to tutor me and help me with some of my work. But it also created a standard of comparison that made it even more clear that I wasn't, you know, as smart as everybody else.

So when I left the hospital, I put my studies aside because honestly, it wasn't, you know, as smart as everybody else. So when I left the hospital, I put my studies aside because honestly it wasn't helping very much anyway. And I started, I found a book in visiting a friend in a dorm room. There was a book on study skills and there was a chapter on speed reading. And it was the first time I even, I didn't even know that existed. And I just started studying, studying. and I became obsessed with this question, like, how does my brain work so I could work my brain better? Like, how does memory work so I could work my memory? And I started getting all this information and studying it for about, about six to eight weeks, about two months. And then I remember the moment that a light switch went on because my grades started to improve, you know, almost immediately, you know, but really two months into it.

Because I remember I was in this big lecture center, you know, 400 people or whatever. And back then there was no internet, but they had those slide projectors, like with the overheads. Yeah, the overheads. Transparency. Yeah, exactly. The transparencies that are rolled out. And the professor put in, you overheads. The transparencies. Yeah, exactly. The transparencies that roll out. And the professor put some text on there.

And I, you know, me, who's generally always quiet, trying to be invisible, always, I laugh out loud. Like, literally laugh out loud. Like, not, you know, but like, you know, a couple seconds of just laughter out of nowhere. And everyone turned around and looked at me, which is my nightmare because I can't believe I did it. I was just in a place where I just, and then about 15 seconds later, more people started laughing, right? And essentially what had happened was he put a transparency on there with that had like some humor and a joke. And I read it really fast, you know, processed it really fast. And then everyone else in the class started, you know,

do so a little bit later and then a lot of lag time. But that's when I realized that I was learning faster and processing. It's like your Jeopardy champion. Yeah. You read the clue faster than anyone else. It was. It was like my limitless moment, but I didn't realize. And it was interesting because, you know,

I never made a sound in class ever for anything, but it came out kind of spontaneously. And it, you know, it was just, I left with a different step, you later is I got upset that this wasn't taught to me earlier on, like simple adult learning theory and study skills and note-taking skills and test-taking skills, all these things. And yeah, I was upset that I'd struggle and suffer. Because I mean, I would imagine at that moment when, like in that moment in that classroom, when you wake into this and you leave and you have a spring in your step, there's like two things happening. One is like, oh, hell yeah, like I actually can do this. But the other thing is like what you were just saying, like, wait a minute, you know, the last 18, 19, 20 years of my life, I was actually capable of doing this also, but it took sort of me getting to being brought to my knees and then scrambling to figure it out myself to do it. Like, what if I had this skill set when I was four, five, six, seven? And what if other people did it too?

And that became my, I got almost militant about it because I got angry and that's not my go-to emotion. But I was really upset because daily suffering, I mean, maybe it's made me a better teacher or coach because I have empathy for people that struggle. And then, you know, that feel like, you know, when you talk about the word identity where people feel like they're not enough. I feel the nature of your work and some of the work I do and some of the people who are listening, it's really about this word transcending, ending the trance. I think that there's this mass hypnosis through media, through marketing that says we're broken, just like I was when I was a child,

that we need to be fixed, that we're not enough. And I know that because I was very ingrained, even though I had a positive childhood with my family, but there was this always conscious elephant in the room that I brought with me everywhere that I don't belong. But also, I mean, it's like there's a labeling and a separation and an allocation of resources that starts from the earliest moment in life and then in school. Like in school, whatever it is, second grade or whatever it is, you can take the gifted and talented test. And if you don't get the score, then you're in with everybody else. And if you do get the score, then you get the special teachers and you get the extra resources and you get all this.

But the interesting thing is, A, that's so wrong. Because even like from a pure science, it's not predictive in any way, shape, or form. The same kids take the same test in ninth grade and you have a completely different outcome. But also, I mean, just creating that identity, you're not expressly telling the vast majority of kids, you don't get into that.

Well, you're not good enough. You're not capable enough, but you are. And then the resource allocation changes. And what's fascinating to me is that that exact same sorting hat and then resource allocation thing follows you for life. If you look at the major corporations now, one of the things that they're trying to do is figure out who are the quote high potentials, which bugs me.

Because then, oh, well, the high potentials are the one where we're going to give them the support and the structure and the mentoring because they're the ones who are going to track to the highest levels and take us to the next place. But it just completely, I mean, that sorting and labeling and cutting off of resources follows, it exists in the biggest organizations today. And I had that even in third grade when they created that MASP group in elementary school, More Able Student Program. I got to one day sit in on it, you know, as part of it. And they had this huge, like, thought bubble,

like literally fans in this huge plastic, like, I don't know what it was. It was like this, like, plastic castle that they had in there. And they would do these, which also it's reinforcing, you know, and creating even more of that separation and ability and belief. But I was really amazed that they had access to that. My mission really is, because I suffered and struggled so much, is no brain left behind.

You know, and I know what it feels like to feel like you're not enough and to feel like you're falling behind and that you're working and it's unfair. We tend to ask this question around intelligence and have an identity around how smart we are. You know what I mean? Whether it's an IQ test or it's an SATs or these standardized tests. It's, you know, strategy, things that they don't necessarily teach or prepare us for in today's world. And, and really, I feel like it's not how smart you are. It's really, how are you smart? That there's people have different ways of learning and understanding things and applying things. And, you know, and you've heard this conversation, we've had it before,

that we grew up with a 20th century education, which at the turn of the 20th century, we're talking about working farms and factories and taking direct orders. And our school system's kind of like that, you know, where our age is kind of like, you know, we're put in these little buckets and it's kind of cookie cutter.

And I know it's improving in some areas. And it's just a system issue where we live in an age, you know, I've said this before, but electric cars and spaceships that are going to Mars. But our vehicle, when it comes to learning and education, feels like a horse and buggy. Like it literally, if Rip Van Winkle woke up today after decades of slumber, the thing he would recognize most are our schools. And it's not a slight against teachers. You know, I have multiple teachers in my family. It's just, you know, a system issue for the world we live in today that the world is, you know, progressed a lot. Yeah.

I mean, but what do you think that issue is? Because we keep hearing the call of, you know, on a culture level, on a society level, we've got to keep up no matter what country you're living in. You know, we can't lose the edge where we need to go and we need to be able to sort of like match up to whoever else is out there. The clear way for that to happen is education. And yet the resources allocated almost across the board, especially in the United States, to education is such a small fraction. The incentives that are given to teachers that go into the profession, the support that's given to them, the compensation very often that's provided, it almost pushes people who want to be of service, who are really bright, who can innovate and change the

paradigm away from it, rather than saying like being really inviting and doing the things to evolve it. Like, do you have thoughts on why we're still so locked into the place that we're locked into? Yeah. I mean, part of it is human beings in general are very resistant to change. You know, I mean, anyone who's tried to even change themselves, you know, the people, this comes up all the time where people, especially with family and friends, you know, I think a lot of people could relate to, you listen to podcasts, obviously, right? You watch these YouTube videos, you go to conferences and, you know, and you read books and maybe a family member or two are like, why are you going to another thing and listen to all that stuff all the time? And sometimes it's the people that care about us the most.

And it can be sincere, right? Maybe they don't want to lose you. They don't want you to outgrow them or be disappointed and get your hopes up. So it could come from a caring place that they could be sincere, but also sincerely wrong sometimes also. But we move sometimes towards the expectations of, you know, our peers. And so some people, things are generally, it's hard enough to change ourselves, much less change people around us. And so I think systems are, don't change as easily. Just like, you know, that, that story you hear about the, the family,

you know, these moms that are just, they always cut the ham and they cut the edges. And like, why do you do that? Why do you do that? Why do you do that? But eventually it comes to great grandmother. We had a very small pot and we don't question things as well. So status quo, small to change. And some people are incentivized just like like in every industry, for it to remain. Yeah, it's like they say the mavericks of every industry,

the people who shatter paradigms, they're hated, they're hated, they're hated, they're hated. And then it's accepted. They are like the innovators, the people who change the world. But because there are so many people, there's so much, we keep coming back to this identity thing, there's so many people where their identity is built around the assumptions that created the existing paradigm. And if you tear down that paradigm, you're tearing down their identities unwittingly. And they will fight that tooth and nail because then who are they in the world?

Yeah. And that's a big part of unraveling because even people who want to learn faster, I think, you know, when I started this, and I even started my first corporate business, you know, training in companies was when I was 22 with people twice and three times my age. And sometimes it's hard even at that point because some people feel like they've been in industry and they have 30 years of experience.

You know, and you know the joke, right? It's not 30 years of experience. Sometimes it's just one year of experience repeated 30 times. But one of the ways to learn something better is to forget what you already know, but that requires you to set your ego aside and have it more of a, in Zen, right? They talk about a beginner's mind and emptying your cup and we can never update it enough because especially today, the half-life of information, because you know, we've, there's so much new research. I read recently that someone graduating school is going to have anywhere from eight to 14 careers.

Yeah, that's what I've seen also. Not jobs, like different, because who knows verticals, like where the world's going to be. None of us know where the world's going to be five, 10 years from now. And that's why I feel like out of all the subjects that we can learn in school, a good starting place is just having more curriculum that's relevant to people at a meta level. You know, they call it meta learning, right? The science of learning how to learn because school teaches you what to learn and what to think, but not necessarily how to learn and how to think. And I feel like, you know, if you could learn how to learn, then you could apply that towards music or math or martial arts or marketing, you know, to a greater degree. All those subjects are important, right?

You know, math, Spanish, all those things. It's just, you know, allocating resources towards things that may be higher leverage or more of a force multiplier. Like all this stuff I learned about parallelograms, I'd rather have learned about how to do my taxes. You know, like, because now there's no parallelogram season coming up. I need to like, I have to prepare for parallelogram season, but tax season. That would be cool though. Yeah, absolutely. But it's just learning how to learn, I think is a good start. And also nowadays it's hard. I don't envy teachers because kids are growing up swiping and on digital devices

and they're hooked and they're addicted to it. And which is changing, you know, rewiring our brains for distraction. And I mean, we could have a whole topic about that. But how do you go from

growing up on joysticks, like where information is flying at you billions of pixels at a time to being sitting down in a classroom being lectured to. And the human brain, you know, like the 20th century education prepared us for the 20th century world, but it trained us to be passive. And I'm not saying in all cases, because certainly

there are exceptions, but as a generality, it was a teacher repeating information to you and wrote learning and you were supposed to consume information quietly by yourself. But the, we know this, the human mind, it doesn't learn through consumption. It learns by pulling information and creating. It learns more through co-creation, right? And socialization and using our nervous system and rolling up our sleeves and getting involved. And even we know kids now that are more, and I'm generalizing here, more kinesthetic learners. We know that moving your physiology, as your body moves, your brain grooves, you create brain-derived neurotropic factors. And it actually, it's like fertilizer for the brain. But those kids that especially need

that, we punish them for acting up. And actually the worst punishment is we don't let them go play outside in recess when they could use some of that energy and we make them sit in detention. And so it's really having appreciation for who we are as individuals. And I'm not saying it's at all easy, but it's kind of interesting with technology. I'm not saying it's bad. or never before has this been, we have instant access to all the knowledge in the universe. But I think maybe the way teaching would go would be they'd be more facilitators, be running experiments with each other, creating groups that, and with a special focus again on skills that people could use in their career and in their life.

Yeah, and also learning how to learn. I mean, I think making it more experiential, and there is a big move in some places towards experiential education. Like there's a whole- There's definitely pockets of progress. Yeah, no doubt about it. But I mean, it's interesting that there's experiential

is definitely super powerful. I see people flipping the classroom where, you know, whatever the sort of like the actual knowledge transfer part of it gets done remotely or in video or at night. And all the time that you're with a teacher is actually interactive experiential time. It's processing together, which I think is really fascinating. But also like the bigger thing, like you talked about, like the instruction on learning how to learn, the meta learning part of it, you know, it's like, that's the master key for everything else. And if you could transfer that so much earlier in life, it makes everything else come easier. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

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Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Circling back to it, we never sort of really described what you ended up doing. I mean, you hit a point where you start to discover this and you're in college and it transforms your experience of who you are and what you're capable of doing. And it also lights a fire to create this mission inside of you to say, okay, so I'm going to go deep into understanding, to devour, research, to digest, you know, like every form of understanding, learning, accelerated learning, meta learning, so you can really understand this and then turn around. And like he said, when we just started this conversation, not just go out there and use this yourself, but you then become the person who wants to share this with the world.

I feel like, again, passion and purpose for me, passion is what lights you up. So learning all of a sudden lit me up. And then purpose is how you light up other people. And so I wanted to show people how to learn. That became my mission. And this was over 25 years ago, and I'll be doing it the next 25 plus years also as well. How I, how I got started though was, and I don't share this very, very often, but it's, so I was underweight. I was 117 pounds when they found me in the hospital, you know, when I was in the hospital and the food wasn't really great, like most colleges. And my friends are ordering like Pizza Hut and Chinese food and all this stuff and I couldn't eat. And, and I was tutoring all my friends already because I was just helping them because I was just like, hey, there's a better way.

And I was kind of like the elusive obvious. And a friend was like, hey, why don't you tutor this? And that way you could eat like the rest of us and such and also help people, which I was committed to doing. And I didn't know how to do that because I've never done anything like that before. I was on the other end getting the help. But I noticed that one night there was a classroom that wasn't being used. And I was like, okay, I had this idea of what if I put five, 10 people in that room and taught them for a couple hours what's working for me. And then maybe afterwards one or two of them want to be tutored and I could help them, you know, and help them to be able to make their lives better and make a little bit of money so I could eat. And so I go back to my dorm room and

I take a piece of paper and a marker and I write free speed reading memory class, you know, get better grades in less time. And I put the classroom Thursday, 7 p.m., right? And the next morning, I just make a few copies on the way to class. I put it on bulletin boards. And fast forward, Thursday, 7 o'clock, I go there. And I'm just walking there, hoping just five people show up and that they'd be interested in this so I could serve them. And I turn the corner, and there's this crowd of people, Jonathan,

right outside the classroom. And honest to God, my reaction is, oh, shoot. I hope whatever's going on ends soon so I could do my thing. And I walk there and I approach them. And I can't even get in because there's a tall guy in the doorway. And I tap him. I was like, what's going on inside? And he looks down at me.

He's like, there's a speed reading class. And I swear to you, I say, wow, what a coincidence. Like, what are the chances there's another speed reading class in the same room at the same time at the same, you know, night. And I pushed my way in and people standing in the back, it's places packed and nobody's teaching. So you see where this is going, right? And it takes my slow brain because your perception is highly tuned to like and shaped by your beliefs, right? And I don't believe everyone's there for me. But I realize that they are.

And I do a head count. Instead of five or ten people, there's 110 people. And remember, I'm 18 years old. I'm wearing T-shirt shorts. You know, there's a lot of assistant professors and law students, you know, older kids there. And I have nothing prepared to talk about. And I'm phobic of public speaking. I've never done it ever.

And so my heart is beating out of my chest. I literally cannot breathe. I'm perspiringly crazy. And I don't know what to do. So I leave because I just can't do it. And then I wish I, that would have been a better story, but I leave and I go by these fountains and water always relaxes me. I don't know if it's that my, it's my element or what, but I just close my eyes. I do this little meditation because I have so much anxiety because I can't even go back to my dorm room because my friends will tease me. But I'm doing this walking meditation eventually back to my dorm room and I hear a voice inside my head and it's my mom's. And she essentially says, you promised these kids

that you're going to help them and you're disappointing them and you're disappointing me. And unconsciously walking back to my dorm room and I stop and I take one step back to the classroom. And it's kind of interesting metaphorically that one step in another direction in your life changes your destination. Some people will call it your destiny. And I go back in and I apologize and honest to God for two hours, I teach, but I don't remember any of it. It's embarrassing. But at the end, you know, when you, things just flow through you and you don't know, it's just, but at the end, I come out of this like trance and I just like, I don't know how to help everybody here,

or even if you're interested, but you know, I need about 10 hours to teach you this, what I've learned to help me maybe two hours a week, next five weeks. And I'd say, you know, I get $30 an hour because I used to get that teaching tennis back in high school. And if you're interested, I'll be in the student center tomorrow at noon. And Jonathan, everybody just gets up and they leave.

I mean, there's zero interaction with me. And I just, and I'm, when everybody leaves and it's probably what, a nine, 10 o'clock at night, it's quiet, right? And I'm in the room alone. And I feel two things. I feel completely confused, like what just happened. And also I feel completely exhausted because I, you know when you get yourself to do something you never thought you could do. And I'm just spent emotionally, physically, mentally, and I fall asleep right on the floor on the carpet. And it's the best sleep of my life. And sleep is one of the biggest challenges I have in my life. I don't talk about it, but I suffer from very struggle with very bad sleep apnea. And I stopped breathing 210 times a night and I wake up not being able to breathe. And I have a CPAP device that has surgery and dental devices. But for about five years straight, I slept for about two and a half hours a night. Not because

my mind is busy or anything. I have amazing control to be able to calm my thoughts. I fall asleep rather quickly, but I just wake up with this issue. But I end up having the best sleep ever in my life. And I get woken up the next morning by the class coming in next morning. And I freak out because I'm on the carpet. And I just look up and all these people staring at me, drooling on myself. And I just, I run back to the class, back to my dorm, shower, go to breakfast. And I was like, go to class. And then, oh, 12 o'clock, I promised I'd be in the student center.

And I'm going to student center hoping one person didn't think I was a complete moron. And when I get there, there's that entire group like waiting for me. And at the end of two hours, 71 of these kids signed up for a program that didn't even exist. On a side note, they did it for $300 a person because I didn't realize math, 10 hours times 30 hours. I didn't realize that kids could go to ATM machine, even better, and take out $300, because I didn't have an ATM card and I didn't know what that was.

So now I'm not even 19 years old and I have over $20,000 cash. And I've never seen $500 cash in my life. And I go back and I think about what I'm gonna do with it. And I think about my mentor, not letting school get in the way of your education. And I use practically all of it. And I think about my mentor, you know, not letting school get in the way of your education. And I use practically all of it. Part of it I use to feed my body because I'm so underweight and get my pizza and chicken and broccoli. But the most of it I use

to reinvest in my education, which is audio cassettes back then. I don't want to date myself, but every book I could get my hands on on my craft. I traveled around the world learning this art of meta-learning and anything that be able to optimize my brain, my cognitive function, my focus. And the reason why I'm still doing this to this day is because one of those young ladies, she was actually from a different school locally. She read 30 books in 30 days. Now, I just want that just to sink in. If you could go online and just get 30 books on leadership, negotiation, relationship, leveling, whatever. And I found out, I didn't want to find out

how. I knew how she read them, but why? And I found out that her mother was dying of terminal cancer. Was given 60 days, two months to live. And the books she was reading were books on health and wellness because she was determined to save her mom's life. And six months later, I get a call from this young lady, and she's crying and crying. Can't get a word out of her. And I find out that they're tears of joy, that her mother not only survived, but is really getting better. Doctors don't know how or why. They called it a miracle. But her mother attributed 100% to the great advice she got from her daughter, who learned it from all these books. And at that

moment, I realized that if knowledge is power, learning is our superpower. And it's a superpower we all have inside of us. And that's what my commitment is to people, regardless of their age or their background their career education level financial situation gender history iq that who we are is actually even greater than what we're demonstrating and if you're struggling and suffering with digital overload digital distraction digital dementia which is new term in health care like memory loss because we're so dependent on our smart devices. It's not our fault. It's just we weren't taught how to do these things.

And my mission, coming from the kid with a broken brain, is to make every brain just better and brighter and leave no brain left behind. Yeah. And it's so interesting the way you describe that also. And one of the things that I think has sort of, it's been an unspoken theme in this conversation is shame. Yeah.

I think so many of us have a shame when we feel like there's a level that we're capable of performing at, but we can't figure out how to access it. Or we just feel like we're not actually capable of performing up to the level that, that society expects of us, our family expects of us, our friends, all around us. And then we create for ourselves. And if we believe that we just have what we have, you know, and it is what it is and there's nothing that can really be done about it, then that can spiral you into a pit of despair, futility pretty quickly,

and shame around, well, I don't want anyone else to know this, and blame. To a certain extent, this is me. It's my fault that I can't do these things. There's interesting parallels also with your work. You're out in the world now for two and a half decades taking those seeds that were planted in this one experience in college and building a company and building programming and building experiences that have now helped millions of people literally change the way they learn and then perform and interact

with the world. And you have, and you're regularly on stage, which is kind of fascinating too. You being this person, you being on this mission, you now having stepped in the place that you defined as fear on so many levels for the first half of your life and now spending the second half and hopefully the other five halves doing the same. How has the experience of you being the person who is not just learning, but sharing, leading, affecting and empowering others to experience change in their own lives, how has that changed you? Yeah, I mean, the greatest gift that I get from doing this daily because it's, I still to this day, as you mentioned, do these, these coachings and these, these speakings from stage. I never take for granted

on social media when, when I get tagged a hundred times a day for some kind of, and it's not just, I could read faster or, Oh, I remembered everyone's name today. You know, I had that at the office. It's more like I had this experience with my child. You know what I mean? Something similar to that because I always come back, my referential index, like everybody else's themselves, you know, and I really want to talk to that, that person who was willing to do the work, but didn't know where to go. You know, I didn't know that there were books, like I could, you know, go to a bookstore and pick up a book on this subject or get, you know, these resources, but it lights me up. You know, I have to confess that if somebody

else would do this, I would support that person because I'm still very introverted and shy, you know, that's still, and I'm okay with it. I know that there are things I could do to get over, you know, stage fright or, you know, being more confident in certain situations. But my nature, you know, as we read books like, you know, like Quiet and the nature of that is more to be behind the scenes. But I had a near-death experience a handful of years ago. And it made me just think about, when you think you're going to die, it makes you think about what you're leaving behind. And I feel a moral obligation to do what I'm doing. And that's really what gets me on stage.

Whether it's 100 people or 10,000 people, it's still nerve-wracking for me. I could reframe it into excitement. I could use my tapping or I could visualization. But at the core of it, it's not my nature to do that. And then afterwards to see everybody and, um, and say hi, hello to everybody and answer questions and photos and stuff. I love hearing the stories cause it feeds me and, but it also, my nature is, it takes, it takes energy from me. Um, and because of my sleep challenge, which is still, I still have these breathing issues. I have a finite,

you know, I've trained myself to look for where the gift is. So my, everybody has struggles and adversity. And I believe that difficult times could define you. They could develop you or they could diminish you.

We decide what it's going to be. But when I had these learning challenges and I didn't know where to go, I found the two gifts that came from it is I became a great learner and more of an educator on learning and public speaking with the lack of sleep because it's still strenuous, especially getting on planes to do what we do to speak. And also it's depleting when I, some speakers go on stage and they're energized by it or performers are energized. For me, it's not my nature. It takes an immense amount of resources to do that. But the gift for my sleep, for example, when I ask where's

the gift in this challenge, number one, it's forced me to double down on everything I teach, meaning I'm a product of like what I teach. I wouldn't be able to perform the way I do without having these routines and these processes but the other gift that's come out of it is everything in my life is hell yes or hell no you know because when you have a finite amount of energy or emotion

like right now Jonathan there's nowhere I'd rather be with no other person because that's I feel like a lot of people are depleted or burnt out because they say yes to too many things. And it takes up a lot of energy. And for me, I only do the things I feel completely

aligned to do. Because with lack of sleep, I have to guard that time. And so what I do is I push myself to do it, even when I didn't sleep the night before, out of moral obligation, because what does feed me are those stories. Because I can identify with some aspect of not feeling enough or feeling shame, that there's something that's individually wrong with us. And my message to people, I always compare people's life to an egg, that if an egg is broken by an outside force, life ends. But if it's broken by an inside force, life begins.

And great things begin, tend to start on the inside. And my message to people is they have greatness inside of them. They have genius inside of them. And if you're struggling in certain ways, it's just only because maybe you weren't exposed to these tools. And it's unfortunate that it becomes self-fulfilling and that lack of resources becomes a lack of internal resourcefulness, but that's not the case, that we have incredible resources and resourcefulness inside of us.

I mean, if we are aware enough to understand our nature and then understand how to gather and harness those resources rather than how to just constantly bleed ourselves and ignore them and i feel having personal agency you know i so stan lee recently passed and he was a big hero and and a friend you know the past 10 years. And he has this phrase that says, Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility. And the first time he said it to me in a conversation,

still with my learning challenges and I have dyslexia, I've reversed things. And I was like, yeah, with great power comes great responsibility. And the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great power. When we take responsibility for something in our life, we have great power to make things better and I feel like that's a starting point to be a great leader or a great learner, a great parent is to take responsibility where a lot of times we you know, we make mistakes

and we feel like mistakes define us, but I feel like mistakes don't define us. I posted this the other day that if you make a mistake, and this is a big challenge for a lot of people when it comes to expectations of other people. Like I was doing this training for Jim Carrey and we take a break in his home and we're making guacamole. And I was just like, why do you do what you do? Like, I'm always interested in human motivation going back to like why this young lady read 30 books in 30 days. Cause I feel like we know what to do, but we don't do it. And he was like, what drives me, my mission, Jim is I act completely crazy and insane on, you know, on camera because I want to give people permission just to be themselves. And that's why

he does it. He calls it his religion is freeing people from concern. That's his concern is that I believe you could go broke buying into opinions and expectations of other people, that when we die and we're in a coffin in that box, there's no room. There's no room for possessions. I don't acquire a lot of possessions, but there's no room for regret. And I spent a lot of time in senior centers, an inordinate amount of time, because my grandmother, when I was a child, passed away of Alzheimer's. And I don't talk about it a lot, but that also shaped me, because when I would go see her, she was living with us, but when I would spend time with her, when she called me the wrong name or she repeats something we just talked about, you know, that was, again, when I was a young child, also going through my own learning challenges, that was on the other spectrum, you know, and it leaves an impression, you know, and my're, my inspiration really was my desperation because I

didn't know if that was going to happen to me. And plus I was already starting out really in a bad place, but I spent a lot of time, um, in nursing homes and senior centers. Um, especially when I just lost my great aunt also, uh, recently, because I think there's, first of all, a lot of wisdom there because I feel like we can learn from everybody, that everyone is our teacher, that the life we live are the lessons we teach. And, you know, generations, I love hearing those stories and I'm not there to necessarily improve their memory, but just, I love them telling stories because that wisdom, because it polishes off their memories when they share those stories. But when it gets really real and they talk about this thing called regret, those that do, invariably it's always, I somehow shrunk my life, you know, went to become a doctor, whatever it is. And I feel like that it's hard to sometimes, again, we give the power to the people that we care about and we don't maintain our sovereignty.

And I'm not saying get rid of your family, your mom, whatever, your in-law, whatever. But it's also you should choose who we give that courage and that power to. Yeah, I think the agency is a word that you've shared a bunch of times. I think it's really, a lot of this comes down to that. And also it's a belief in the possibility that you can stand in a place of agency in your own life. Because sometimes we don't know that

and we don't believe it. And if you don't believe it, I mean, you're never gonna, then you have no reason to even try to be intentional about the way you live your life. You wake up in the morning and just react, react, react. And that's it. And that's the thing, a lot of the,

and even the wording we use, because you have such an awareness of words and how they affect our mind. Even when it comes to learning, people wake up and they say they write and they wake up and say, I hope I have focus today. I hope I'm creative today. And these are things that you have. You don't have focus. You don't have concentration. You don't have creativity. You don't even have memories. These are things that you do.

So you got to take those nouns and turn them into verbs. And when they become a verb, that gives you a level of agency or personal power because you could do something. As opposed to, oh, I hope I have some energy today. As opposed to you doing things that give you energy. And if it's responsibility, starting going back to with great responsibility comes great power. And the metaphor that I use is just the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. You know, a thermometer, it's only job and function, it reacts to the environment, right? And as human beings, we do this, we react to politics, we react to the weather, how a client treats us. But those

who can identify more with the thermostat, sure, certainly a thermostat gauges the environment, but a thermostat, you know, sets a temperature and then what happens to the environment? You know, it proactively changes and I feel like that we have a responsibility. Like I teach this four steps to learn any subject or skill faster and I just use the word FAST. My last name, you know, obviously is really quick, you know, that's my father's name, my grandfather's name, but, you know, this is kind of my destiny. But FAST, the acronym, and we've talked about actually two of these elements already. If you want to learn a subject or skill faster, the F stands for what I recommend is forget, meaning just forget temporarily what you know about a subject. You know, if you want to learn sales or marketing, it helps to just be aside what you currently know just so you could

potentially learn something brand new. Because I think as coaches, the two things I look for a coaching client are some kind of drive or interest or motivation, right? Because you can't give that to somebody. And the other one is that they're teachable because somebody could be driven, but not open-minded or teachable. They're not going to get any kind of result. And somebody could be open-minded, but not be motivated. And so those are the two qualities that I look for. So the F in fast hands for temporarily forget what you know about something, because you could potentially learn something brand new. Also forget about situational things,

because I think in a world full of distractions and app notifications, social media alerts, if you're listening to a podcast and you're also trying to multitask, that doesn't work because we know that that's a myth. Yeah. Could you fold expectations under that too? It's like, forget about expectations. Yeah, absolutely. I like that also. So forget about, you know, your current knowledge about something, you know, you can always come back to it and reevaluate it, but, you know, forget about maybe situational things. So you're not splitting your focus because we know that's not very effective.

Forgetting about your expectations. And I would even see, I would even add into expectations or limiting beliefs because your limitations, because some people, you don't know what you don't know. And the reason why, you know, when I get in front of groups and I memorize a hundred people's names or words or numbers, I don't do this to impress them. I do this more to express them what's really possible and maybe to change some of those beliefs in terms of what's possible because I didn't know that was possible until it was demonstrated for me. And so I'm not saying these are easy things to do, like forgetting about situational things. Tactically, what do you do? Just write them down.

If you're thinking about the kids or the dry cleaning, write it down. Don't resist it because you resist it. You're just going to think about it more and just know that it's written down. You can come back to it. So the F is basically that, you know, start with a beginner's mind

so you can learn something new. If you want to learn something faster, the A is active. And we talked about that too. Then 20th century learning train us, education train us to be passive. And here's the thing, learning, just like life, is not a spectator sport. You know what I mean? And we learn the best not through consumption, but through creation and co-creation socially.

And so it's not just your neurological networks, it's our social networks and collaborating. And so it's so important. And so to be active and not,and that comes out to responsibility, too, because a lot of people say, okay, it's my coach's responsibility to do this to me or the person on stage or the person I'm listening to on an audio book. I'm going to pay you to fix me. Exactly. And so we have no responsibility, so we have no power. And so the A is being active, as active as possible. Take notes, ask questions, experiment. The S in FAST stands for state, which is just a fancy word for

your current mood of your mind and your body. But we know learning is state dependent. It's just proven. And I think one of the keys to long-term memory for people who want to have a better memory is information is forgettable. We forget information all the time, right? Because there's billions of stimulus, but information combined with a level of emotion multiplied becomes a memory. And we know this because all of us have a song, a fragrance, a food that could take us back to when you were a child, because that information tied with that emotion made it memorable and unforgettable. But the challenge is most people learn things in a very subdued, sedated state. Meaning that if you think about school, what was the primary dominant emotion people felt? You know, like when they're sitting in

chemistry class or whatever, what were they feeling? Probably half the room is bored. The other half of the room is confused. But on boredom, on a scale of zero to 10, not the emotional scale zero. So if information times emotion is, you know, long-term memory, then if the boredom is zero, anything times zero is zero. And so that's how learning is state dependent. And so what I would say is who controls how we feel, right? Do we wake up every day and just saying, you know, no, because we get set on scale. We, and simple hack is on a scale of, rate yourself on a scale of zero to 10, how do we feel? How motivated do we feel? Maybe say it's a four and then see, test yourself and challenge yourself,

play with yourself, say, well, how do I make it go from four to a six? You know, well, maybe if I visualize this or reward myself with this. And I would also, when I talk about state, reintroduce the state of play. You know, one of the reasons why I love your work so much is, you know, education is here and empowerment is here, but entertainment is just so much more engaging. And you just look at this industry, you know, in the industries. But somebody the other day is like, Jim, no, I don't play anymore because I grew older. They're like, maybe it's the opposite. Right, got it backwards.

Exactly. Maybe you grew older because you stopped playing. But children, they learn incredibly well because, you know, going back to Jim Carrey, they're not concerned about what other people think. Right? You've heard these, seen these memes before about a child learning how to walk

and they could fall and four or five, six times they don't say, okay, I'm not going to walk anymore. But, you know, as adults, we try singing or we try coding or we try something. And going back to the power of mistakes, I always tell people, make your mistakes old. Old, O-L-D. You know, O is, first of all, own your mistakes, right? Because most people want to blame somebody else. But if it's a mistake and hurt somebody else, apologize for it, be accountable for it and do the best you can to fix it, but

own it. And the L is learn from it because that's one of the purposes, you know, we don't, I don't really think that failure is the opposite of success. I just think it's part of success, right? It's a stepping stone and we only fail to learn something. And there's always a gift in something because we get feedback. And so you need to be able to learn from it. And then finally, the D in making mistakes old is don't repeat them because that's the biggest challenge because we, we are so wired to be consistent, you know, with our thoughts and everything and our identity, but we end up dating the same person, you know, or making the same investment or make, or making the same horrible hire or whatever the mistake is in our health.

We eat the same bad food. So we just repeat the same thing over and over again because we didn't learn from it. We don't remember the pain from eating that, all that gluten or, you know, or that kind of person or whatever, you know, to have a relationship with. So I would say D is don't repeat it. But going back to the S in fast is just be aware of your state because there's no point in learning something. And I, I, my, the state I love is curiosity. I, I, I, and gratitude and curiosity go, I've gone so far, you know, in my life because when things get hard and we have adversity, which invariably it happens, I always come back to what am I grateful for? And a thought experiment I do regularly because I like these imagination,

creative thought experiments is, what if tomorrow the only things I had in my life were the things I express gratitude for today? And I just go through and I feel it because that state. And then curiosity, there's a Rumi quote, and you probably have heard this, but it says, sell your cleverness for bewilderment. And bewilderment is such a cool word. When's the last time people felt bewildered about something? And then Jim's like, oh, I don't have curiosity. It's like, you don't have curiosity, you do curiosity. It's like you ask questions to get curious about things. But we've been on autopilot for so long, and we just hope things just happen to us or don't happen to us. And hope is just kind of a sucky strategy.

And so state, monitor your state, because if you're in a curious, fascinated state, you're going to learn faster. And finally, the T is teach. The T in fast is teach. The T in FAST is teach. And I know you're a master at this. If you want to learn faster, learn with the intention of teaching somebody else. So I would recommend people, whenever they're moving forward or re-listening to this conversation or what have you, is when you're learning something and you want to learn it better, think about somebody that you love or somebody on your team, somebody who would benefit that you wish was learning this with you, and learn it for them. And learn with the intention of teaching them or giving a TED talk, you know,

Monday about it. Cause you know, if you were had to teach it, would you focus better? Would you take better notes? Would you would own it and become part of who you are? And you know, I always tell people when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. And so intent matters just like in life and it matters in learning so i mean it's interesting also with that last one you've kind of turned on your head social the social dynamic because in the early days like most of us experience um the social pressure of teaching something as like a negative thing but you're actually using that as a motivation to for growth you know So there's a social

context, which now becomes something which actually motivates you to become better and to be in service of also. I went to, back in the past life when I was in law school, the person who graduated number one in the class ahead of me, she had these astonishing grades, and I once asked her, how do you study? And her answer was, I never sit down to take a test until I've learned the material on a level where I would feel comfortable walking into the same room and teaching it. And I was like, oof. I just got goosebumps.

I am not getting anywhere near that. I literally just got goosebumps. I call them truth bumps. But I feel like there's that phrase that we all hear in culture saying, those who can't do, teach. You can't do business, teach business. But I actually, I have to be honest, the first time I heard that phrase, I didn't process it as a negative. I actually thought like, oh, if I can't do something, teach it so I could do it. And we've all, we've all heard the phrase, you know, we teach the thing that we need to learn most. But when I read a book and I'm an avid reader, how I learn with the intention and the excitement to teach and to be able to share it.

And I feel like it encodes it differently in my nervous system. And so I think that ultimately, again, the life we live are the lessons we teach. And part of my passion in learning the way I do, we learn things for two reasons. One, to benefit ourselves, but then to benefit the people around us. And I always play it forward. I really think the equation is learn, earn, return. You learn so you can earn. And I don't mean financial treasures.

Obviously, learn faster. The faster you can learn, the faster you can earn. And I don't mean financial treasures. Obviously, learn faster. The faster you can learn, the faster you can earn, especially in today's economy. But all the treasure of your life. It could be your health, your relationship, anything. But then you can return. You have more to be able to return. So it could be, do, have, and then share. I think that that's really key for a fulfilling life.

Yeah, which actually feels like a really good place for us to come full circle. Um, so if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? You know, my, my big thing right now is, um, I mentioned this accident that I had a few years back and it made me think about, you you know it makes you reflect on things and what you're going to leave behind and then for me a good life is somebody who showed up and played full out meaning I feel like you could only be truly you have a really good life if you have the curiosity to know yourself like self-awareness i think that's why we journal we meditate because we want to know we do our sparkotype right you

want to do awareness to know ourselves because that's a great gift because we're all different and our differences are superpower but you need the curiosity to know yourself and then when you after that or during that knowing, then you need the courage to be yourself. Beyond other people's expectations. Because I feel like a lot of people feel burned out or they feel tired. Not because they're doing too much. Because they're doing too little of the things that make them feel alive. And in order to do that, you have to have self-awareness.

But then once you know it, what your passions are, your strengths are, your purposes, then you have to do it. And that's a different game. That knowledge is not power. That's the biggest myth in the personal development industry. You know, all the books, tapes, coaching programs, podcasts in the world, they don't help. They don't work unless you do.

And so a good life is, Bruce Lee says, the key to immortality is first living a life worth living. And for me, it's knowing yourself and then being yourself. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com. Or just click the link in the show notes. And of

course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share, share the love. If there's something that you've heard in this episode that you would love to turn into a conversation, share it with people and have that conversation. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk.

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