Know Thyself - E94 - Jim Kwik: Being Distracted Wastes Your Potential, Do This To Sharpen Your Mind & Become Limitless

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

Jim Kwik, Bestselling Author and #1 Brain Coach shares an effective guide in helping us transcend limits and unlock our brain’s full potential. At a young age, Jim adopted the identity of having a 'broken brain' after a traumatic brain injury damped his ability to learn. In this episode he shares the mindset and tools that helped him to overcome this label and become a master of his mind.  He and André discuss simple hacks to harnessing your attention and improving your memory, revealing the information essential to learning faster and expanding your mental capabilities.  They also discuss the mindset essential to having a fulfilling life: Jim explains that the reason most people are burned out is not because they are doing too much, but because they're not doing enough of what they love. He shares how he personally created a life of alignment, joy, and fulfillment from the inside out. André's Book Recommendations: https://www.knowthyself.one/books ___________ Timecodes: 0:00 Intro 2:00 Becoming Limitless: From Brain Injury to Super-Brain  8:16 Harnessing Our Challenges as a Super Power  12:39 Transcending Self-Imposed Limitations 18:48 The Secret to Fulfillment 22:54 Drawbacks of our Digital Age: Overwhelm & Distraction 29:10 #1 Hack to Harnessing Your Attention  33:23 The Key to Learning How to Learn 45:45 Improving Memory Through Emotion 54:42 Understanding Your Own Unique Way of Learning 1:06:03 AI & Digital Dementia's Impact On Our Brain 1:15:47 Knowledge vs Wisdom 1:16:22 Cultivating the Perfect Environment for Wellbeing 1:19:19 Advice For My Childhood Self 1:20:14 Biggest Failure of our Education System  1:23:07 The Value of Flowstate & Meditation  1:30:12 Gaining The Courage to Be Yourself 1:35:23 Conclusion ___________ Jim Kwik is a world-renowned expert in memory improvement, brain optimization, and accelerated learning. After a childhood brain injury left him learning-challenged, Kwik created strategies to dramatically enhance his mental performance. He has since dedicated his life to helping others unleash their true genius and brainpower. For over two decades, he has served as a brain coach to students, seniors, entrepreneurs, and educators. His work has touched a who’s who of Hollywood elite, professional athletes, political leaders, and business magnates, with corporate clients that include Google, Virgin, Nike, Zappos, SpaceX, GE, 20th Century Fox, Cleveland Clinic, Wordpress, and such institutions as the United Nations, Caltech, Harvard University, and Singularity University. Through keynote speeches, he reaches in-person audiences totaling more than 200,000 every year; his online videos have garnered hundreds of millions of views. He is the host of the acclaimed “Kwik Brain” podcast, which is consistently the top educational training show on iTunes. KwikLearning.com’s online courses are used by students in 195 countries. Kwik, an advocate for brain health and global education, is also a philanthropist with projects ranging from Alzheimer’s research to funding the creation of schools from Guatemala to Kenya, providing health care, clean water, and learning for children in need. His mission: No brain left behind. Animal Quiz: https://start.kwikbrain.com/quiz Book "Limitless": https://start.kwikbrain.com/limitless-expanded Website: https://www.jimkwik.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jimkwik/ ___________ Looking to Start a Podcast? Podcasting Course: https://www.podcastpurpose.com/ Know Thyself Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ Website: https://www.knowthyself.one Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKg Listen to all episodes on Audio:  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927 André Duqum Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/ Meraki Media https://merakimedia.com https://www.instagram.com/merakimedia/

If knowledge is power, then learning is our superpower. And it's a superpower we all have. But your brain is like a muscle. It's use it or lose it. Digital dementia is the high reliance on technology to remember things for you. You don't have to remember your to-do's. It's in your phone. You don't have to remember phone numbers.

I don't want to memorize 500 phone numbers, but it should be concerning we've lost a ability to remember one phone number. Two of the most costly words in life sometimes are I forgot. There is an art and a science to learning how to learn. When you hear something, within 48 hours, we can lose upwards of 80% of it. And one of the ways to mitigate that is that my superpower growing up was being invisible. I would shrink all the time. Even thinking about it, I get a little choked up.

Life is difficult either because you're leaving your comfort zone or life is going to be difficult if you stay in your comfort zone. Our faith has to be sometimes greater than our fears. When we're taking our final breaths, none of other people's opinions are going to matter. There's a world that exists solely because you're in it. We're all on this journey to reveal and realize our fullest potential. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to know themselves. Today we have the privilege of sitting down with a New York Times bestselling author, an individual who is the number one world's leading brain expert, and is somebody that has been a coach to many people unlocking the full potential of their brain from some of the biggest brands in the world, some of the most prolific figures. And it makes sense because he's such an effective guide at doing just that. So Jim Quick, thanks for being here. Andre, it's a real pleasure. Thank you, everyone who's tuning in. Yeah. Where I want to start is because one consistent pattern that I see often time and time again, everybody get to sit down with, is that earlier on in their life, there was a challenge of difficulty or roadblock that became the way for them to unlock their gift. I see that in so many people. And I know that's such a strong core theme in your life as well, how you're such a prolific learner and teacher. So could you share a little bit of the background of the limit that you felt was placed on you?

earlier in life and how that became the way for your path now. I just got goosebumps. I call them truth bumps. Yeah, I think a lot of people in your community could relate that sometimes your struggles could lead to strength, that through challenge comes change. My inspiration was my desperation. I didn't know being a brain coach was an option going through school. My guidance counselor never kind of brought that up as part of the menu.

when people see me at events where I speak I sometimes if there's time I'll do a demonstration where we'll maybe pass around a microphone and 100 people in the audience will introduce themselves and I'll memorize their names or something like that and I always tell people I don't do this to impress you I do this more to express to you what's possible because the truth is every single person listening you could do that and regardless of your age your background your gender history IQ we just we just weren't taught. And the reason why I know it's possible is because I've been teaching people how to do this for 32 years. It's been my mission to build better, brighter brains. To go back to your question, I had an accident when I was five years old. I went to public school system. My parents immigrated

to the U.S. My dad was 13. We live in the, and speak the language. We live in the back of a laundromat that my mom worked at. And everybody has their kind of origin story. I'm the oldest of three siblings and I always wanted to make my brother and my sister be a good role model. So just kind of put that added pressure. But when I was in school and kindergarten, I took a very bad fall. I went head first into a heater, like a radiator, and rushed to the emergency room. And really, how it manifested was my parents said I was just different afterwards, where before I was very playful and curious and energized, I just totally shut down. Very antisocial, very shy. I had learning challenges because of it. So I had poor focus, poor memory. I would get these migraines every day

when I was five, six, seven. I just thought it was normal. I would have balance issues because of my traumatic brain injury. Took me three years long to learn how to read, and that was just very embarrassing, you know, when you would pass around the book and you'd have to read it out loud, and I just, they just, yeah, I just, nothing. And then when I was nine years old, I was being teased because my learning difficulties, I just didn't understand lessons. Teachers would have to repeat themselves. And the teacher came to my defense that day and said, leave that kid alone from the whole class, leave that kid alone, that's the boy with the broken brain. And that label became my limit. And so every single time I

did badly in school, which was weekly, I would say, oh, because I have the broken brain. When I wasn't picked for sports, which was all the time, because my balance issues and wasn't very coordinated, I would say, oh, because I have the broken brain. So adults have to be very careful. They're external words because they often become a child's internal words. And, you know, so I struggle with a lot of self-doubt, self-esteem issues, just very in that place. But, you know, the story works out. Eventually when I was 18, I found a mentor and I started getting curious about how the brain works. It's, did a title we were talking about this before I started filming, know thyself, it's, this really resonates with me. I wanted to know more about myself, you know, and especially how do my,

how's my brain works, so I work my brain better. How's my memory works? So I work my memory works. so I work my memory better. And, yeah, everything turned around. I started studying adult learning theory, multiple intelligence theory, brain science, speed reading, ancient nemotics. I wanted to find out not just the latest science, but what did ancient cultures do to remember things and learn things before there were, I don't know, printing presses and phones?

And, yeah, my grades started to shoot up after about 60 days of studying this. And I couldn't help but help other people because I feel like you learned something for one of two reasons, one, how you could benefit, but also how you could help other people. And I started to tutor and one of my very first students, she was a college freshman. She read 30 books and 30 days, not skimmer scan, but really studied them. And I wanted to find out not how. I taught her how to speed read, but I wanted to find out why. I'm like insanely curious of why some people learn something and they apply it, why other people that common sense is not common practice.

And I found out her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, was only given two months to live. And the book she was reading were books on health and wellness, alternative medicine, energy healing, you know, things to save her mom's life. And I get a call from this young lady six months later. And she's crying profusely. and when she stops, I realize there are tears of joy that her mother not only survived, but is really getting better.

Doctors don't know how or why. The doctors were calling it a miracle, but her mother attributed 100% to the great advice she got from her daughter who learned her from all these books. And Andre, and in that moment, I realized two things that, number one, if knowledge is power, then learning is our superpower. And it's a superpower we all have.

We're just not really taught. school is a great place to learn, like what math, history, science, what to learn. But they're not a lot of classes on how to learn, how to think, right, how to remember. And the second thing I learned, you know, in that moment, it's not only that if knowledge is power, learning your superpowers, is that I found my Dharma. I found my mission in life. And I've been doing it, you know, ever, ever since. And really, our mission is leaving no brain left behind.

I love that. I mean, we just met like 10, 15 minutes ago and I could feel immediately you're an incredibly genuine person. You're also very sensitive and empathetic. And what you just opened up, I want to dive a little bit deeper into it because a lot of people who are sensitives who maybe call themselves empaths or maybe even introverted, they can use that as a label to limit them like you spoke to. And I've found one of the most important. impactful shifts is seeing how things in our past and that still live within us, shifting from perceiving how they happen to us to how they may have happened for us. And so what was your process of like really harnessing the sensitivity as a superpower in many ways where a lot of people get crippled by it? So I think the sensitivity came from in my superpower. I talk about superpowers a lot and superheroes because I couldn't read and how I taught myself how to read was through comic books. Something about the stories or the illustrations brought the words to life. But my superpower growing up was being invisible. I would shrink all the time. Even thinking about it,

I get a little choked up because I would always collapse myself because I didn't want to take up as much space because I never wanted to be called on in class because I never knew the answers. I also wanted to shrink so I wasn't going to be teased or bullied. So I would sit behind the tall kid in class But because of it I would pay attention to people And I feel like I could sense when people were struggling Or they were in pain

Because I would just observe people Every day in school and outside of school And I would have a sensitivity For people going through those struggles Because I was living there you know and but I feel like also it in a way it made me a better coach because I feel like knowing knowing yourself and knowing others and be able to relate to what people go through we hear a lot about post-traumatic stress we don't hear a lot about post-traumatic growth

which is this phenomenon where you go through adversity I would imagine somebody listening right now they've gone through adversity but i know some people would say that they wouldn't change what happened because through it they found something they discovered a gift they know a purpose a mission a strength a trait and um yeah that's post-traumatic growth and so i would say that um adversity could be an advantage. But I do agree that one of my dominant questions is where's the gift in this as opposed to, as you said, instead of it happening to you, it's happening for you and it's serving some greater good. And, you know, that's the truth I choose to, I decide to believe in. There's a quote in my book limit list that says from a French philosopher saying life is the letter C between the letters B and D.

where B stands for birth and D stands for death, life C is choice, that our lives are a reflection of all the sum total of all the choices we've made up to this point. And I truly believe that these difficult times they could diminish us or difficult times can distract us or difficult times they could develop us. Right? We ultimately decide. And so I'll just remind that for everybody. It's going through hard times. There's some things we can only learn through a storm. and I don't know one strong person that had an easy life

you know so I really think through challenge leads a change and you know and to be grateful for you know I'm not saying that our origin story are like we could make up stories for any reason they're probably very valid to justify where our situation is and I also believe that we have a remarkable opportunity and almost responsibility to be able to direct our future, that we can be the pilot of our lives, not just the passenger. Yeah, I really see the growing arenas of, for example, neuroplasticity and epigenetics pointing to how much we really have influence over our own destiny.

And so I just want to ask you, how much do you feel like limitations are self-imposed versus inherent? So I believe in the majority of the using, when I reflect on my life, I realize that it's not, it wasn't so much about the resources. Like when we came here, we had, there was no, we had no money, right? No connections, no education. So it's a matter of saying, is it the external resources or maybe more the internal resourcefulness that we have? So I choose to lean into that. When I think about the challenges that I had, a lot of them were self-imposed. Either my mindset, some part of my motivation, or maybe the methods I were using,

maybe in school to study, were just the most effective. So I feel like that we are, if I could go back to like that nine-year-old boy that was teased and ridiculed, I would give him a hug and say you are enough. But the message would be more that you are 100% responsible for your life. You know, the story that I put in the book was this opportunity where I got to have dinner with Stan Lee. That's right. As a superhero, you know, fan, I pick them up and, you know, I have to ask them this question. I'm just, do I have the nerve to ask him?

I was like, Stan, and I kind of started this out. and you've created so many amazing superheroes, who's your favorite? And he says, Jim, it's Iron Man. And he asked me, Jim, who's your favorite superhero? And maybe because he had a Spider-Man tie, I said Spider-Man. And without a pause in his iconic voice, he goes with great power, comes great responsibility, right? We all, it's like in our DNA. We don't even remember where we first heard it.

Shout out, Uncle Ben. Yeah, exactly. And I tend to reverse things when I read or hear. Maybe because I had three head injuries as a child. So I heard something different, Andre. I was like, you're right. With great power comes great responsibility. And the opposite is also true.

With great responsibility comes great power. When we take responsibility for something, we have great power to make things better. And so I just want to, I have these two core beliefs that I am responsible for my life 100%. And my other belief is that everything, is figure outable. I really do. So many of us, and I'm guilty of this also, shrink what's possible to fit our minds when instead I feel like we can expand our minds to fit all that's really

possible. Yeah, I really feel like we all come into this life with sort of a defined probabilistic path kind of carved out for us through family, through society. But then as we grow and we realized that we can't take full responsibility, we can choose to consciously create our life. And so outside of taking 100% responsibility, which I feel like is such a pivotal part of it, is there any other thing after working with so many people that you see as a defining characteristic that separates people that become high achievers, performers, and really creating their life consciously versus somebody who kind of stay stuck in that path that was set out for them by mom, dad, the government society, etc.

Yeah, leaning into responsibility and just remembering personal agency, I think, is a great starting point. Because I feel like we could justify any kind of situation that we're in. And also on the other side of it, nothing changes, right? If people have seen me on so, and we're connected on social media and I'm, you know, with Elon or Oprah, or whoever, people always ask, they're curious about how we connected or bonded. And I could tell you, we bonded over books. So I think a through line is people leaning into learning and growth is consistent. But sometimes when we've been through trauma, like I think we're wired. Our souls are wired for growth and connection. But if we've been through adversity or some kind of trauma, we

prioritize safety and it kind of keeps us in our survival brain which in a way holds us hostage and we don't have easy access to some of our executive functioning our creativity our problem solving our imagination as much and so I would say that another through line besides personal agency and responsibility would be would be growth you know I feel like we grow so we have more to give I call them grow givers. I mean, sometimes people are going out there and go go getting, and it's just getting, getting, getting. Other people, they grow, they give, give, give, and they become a martyr. And some, I'm sure people in our community are guilty of this also, where you're the person people go to at work or in your family or your friendship circle that people come to you to kind of save them.

But you feel depleted. So I feel like we grow, so we have more to give. And yeah, so that constant learning and growing, accessing that neuroplasticity, I feel like we're meant to expand and to improve our knowledge, our skills, our abilities. And, yeah, there's really no limit. I feel like for me personally, one of the most inspiring parts of my path that have really showed me what's possible is getting to meet individuals that have been playing at a bigger scale and, like, more. of their capacity and potential.

And so how have you personally, what's been, maybe that's one of them, but how have you clarified what your, like what Jim's true desire in this life is versus the conditioning of what we're believed is possible to attain and then, you know, developing the strength to actually go after it.

But is there something that stands out? Yeah. I was saying before we started filming, I love that, again, the title of your show. I think there's two keys for fulfillment, at least for me personally. It would be having the curiosity to know yourself, right, know thyself. I think that's why people, they meditate or they journal.

Everyone has a different means to get there. Maybe it's plant medicine. Maybe they take these online personality assessments, whatever, right? And to get to know themselves, what they value, what they believe, you know, what they stand for. And I think that's half of the equation. but I think the other half besides knowing thyself, having the curiosity to know thyself, is having the courage to be yourself.

So many people do the inner work, they reflect, they introspect, and they have an idea of who they are. But applying that character into the world is a different game. I spent a lot of time at senior centers, nursing homes. I lost my... So my parents were always working,

like many immigrant parents and my grandmother took care of me. But when I had my injury shortly after, she started showing early signs of dementia and Alzheimer's, and she eventually passed of Alzheimer's when I was seven. So it was very confusing to me to see an adult, especially going through my challenges. She would call me by my father's name, or she would repeat something she just said a minute ago.

And that was very confusing for five. six-year-old boy. And, you know, it informed what I do now, obviously. But I would say because I spend some time at senior centers, I love learning the wisdom of, because I think the life you live are the lessons you teach. And because I didn't have the opportunity to have, like, grandparents throughout my life, I like learning the wisdom and the lessons. but I also, while I help them to polish off their memories also, I hear a lot of regret.

I mean, it's not a very positive conversation, but somehow the through line is they shrunk their life. They didn't, because of what other people expected, other people's opinions. And I feel like sometimes we know our passion or maybe more our purpose, but it's sedated underneath other people's opinions. or expectations. An example is like I would hear stories that somebody didn't pursue a relationship because of what other people would think about that relationship or they would go on a specific career path

because their parents expected them to. And I just want to remind myself, and for everyone it kind of connects and resonates with, is when we're taking our final breaths, you know, none of other people's opinions and expectations are going to have. matter. What's going to matter is things like how we laughed and how we learned and how we loved and how we lived. So I think the most important thing is to keep the most important thing,

the most important thing. Right. And so that's my true north is kind of working backwards from kind of that state. Yeah. I think earlier on in my personal path, like one fear was not actualizing my potential in this life, much of what you're speaking to, you know, not living life true to me, how maybe somebody else's planned for me. And of course, our potential is limitless, but, you know, really feeling like I could strive and live in my purpose and Dharma in this life was a very strong calling. One of the things that I learned diving more into your work was the reflection that we have more access and we're exposed to more information in one day than the average person what in their entire lifetime in the 1400s. Yeah. I

like every generation has their challenges unique to their time. Our generation in the past couple generations have this challenge, this overload of information and noise that is giving opinions and just it's just noise in general. Like so much so much entertainment and things pulling our attention away from knowing who we are, from clarifying what we want, from actively being able to go after with the energy that we have. And so I would just just love for you to share how this overload is stifling us from accessing our true potential. One of the things I talk about in Limitless are these four, I call them the horsemen of the mental apocalypse, and it's kind of amplified by technology. We train half of the Fortune 500 companies in two areas,

brain optimization, having this, you know, the hardware and also the other areas, accelerated learning, helping people to focus, read faster, understand better, think clearer, remember things and I was doing a program at Google and at the time the chairman said that the amount information that's been created from the dawn of humanity since human beings walk the earth to the year 2003 which is only a couple decades ago that amount information now is created every like two days when you think about podcasts and social media and YouTube and you know all this and so we're drowning in information, but I think we're really starving for wisdom and practical ways to be able to understand and apply all this information. And their health consequences, I talk about one of the

horsemen is digital deluge. It's just where it feels like you have to, it's taking a sip of water out of a fire hose nowadays, just to keep up and people buy books and they, they send on your shelf on red and become shelf help, not self-help, right? And, you know, it's a a challenge and it's a health crisis too because the amount of information if it's doubling at Disney speed but how we learn it and absorb and understand it focus on and retain it it's this hasn't changed if anything it's it's decreased that growing gap creates stress right they call it information anxiety higher blood pressure compression of leisure time more sleeplessness another one that we applicable to the conversation is digital distraction right it's just not just

the overload. It's just we can't focus. There's so many shiny objects and every ring ping, ding, app notification, social media alert, it's just driving us to distraction. And I think distraction like focus, their muscles. And if we're flexing those distraction muscles, we wonder why we can't be present with our friends or family or our work and our minds go different places. And so, you know, it's definitely a challenge that's amplified with technology, you know, with every, like, share, comment, cat video, it's kind of we get that dopamine flood, which is the molecule of more. And so I feel like one of the most important things we can learn is the art of learning is the art of attention, you know, and being more present. You know, the human mind, the brain could understand and comprehend,

retain, do so much. But, you know, if our focus is split, you know, on the noise, as opposed to the signal, the thing that's most important. It's a wonder why we struggle with our productivity, our performance, and our peace of mind. You know, I think peace of mind is high currency today, you know, more than ever. You know, and so controlling more of our focus and leading into that. Even with things like the questions that we ask ourselves, you know, we have about 60,000 thoughts a day.

You know, one of the challenges is 95% of those thoughts with the same thoughts we had yesterday and the day before that. And if we want to make a new change, it's hard to do if we had the same level of thinking. And a lot of those thoughts come in the form of questions. And one of the ways to really harness your focus is to ask questions that direct us towards a more empowering outcome. Meaning that sometimes are, you know, I talk about in limitless, a dominant, you know, your dominant question. You know, there's a question that we ask more than any other question. And a lot of times it's even unconscious.

We don't even realize we're doing it. You know, for me, it was like growing up, it was just like, why is this happening to me? And I started getting answers, which were probably not the most empowering. You know, I was like, how do I be invisible? How do I not be seen? I started getting answers. I probably wasn't the most healthy. And then later on, I just, because I felt I had a broken brain, I was like, well, how do I fix this?

Or how do I make this better? And I started getting other answers. But we had part of our brain called a reticular activating system, RAS, which is, is a filtering system for directing our focus. And I think one of the things we could do is ask questions. Like even when I want to learn faster, I've trained myself to ask myself, like when I'm sitting in a conference or reading a book

or listening to a podcast, questions like, how can I use this? Because if you don't have that question, you're not going to get that answer. You know, why must I use this? When will I use this? How does this relate to what I already know? How can I teach this to somebody else?

And I get, you know, answer, answer, answer. So the brain primarily is more of a deletion device. We're trying to keep information out because if we let everything in, we would go insane. We'd be overloaded. But what we let in are the things that are important to us. And part of the toolbox that we have to direct what comes in is the questions that we're asking ourselves. Yeah. This one saying I wrote felt like rings really true with this,

which is that attention is our spiritual currency. That's why we pay it. and when we're paying attention, it's like it's our life force energy given to any one thing, right? And so like you're speaking to, we have become so fractured in our attention, in our focus. And I feel like largely most of it is because we haven't discovered what we really value and what we want to pay attention to

because I can think back to, you know, in middle or high school, not really liking reading because I wasn't giving material that I found really interesting for me personally. But then I found my first self-help book. 16 and I couldn't stop reading because I loved it, you know. And so yeah, I would love for you to reflect on the how intercorrelated our values and paying attention are. Very much so. So the things that we value, like an inch another question we could ask ourselves to discover more of our values.

What's what's most important to me in life? It's such a simple question. But I feel like if you want to know thyself, part of it is knowing what you treasure. and so asking yourself what's most important to me in life or what's most important to me in a relationship what's most important to me in my career it'll kind of give you a target right to focus on because otherwise we're at the whim of everything else that's going on and I think part of the nature of our shared work and a lot of people in the community is about transcending right if you look If you look at the word trance and we're ending the trance, either maybe the trance is this mass hypnosis through marketing or media

that somehow we're limited or we're broken or we're not enough. Or maybe if it's not coming externally, maybe it's that internal like I had. And having some respects even today is the self-hypnosis. You know, I say to myself the words that I use about myself. And so I think beginning with the end in mind, which, you know, the things that you treasure and building a life around that would lead to greater levels of fulfillment. And it could change over time what you value. We're through life conditions.

Sometimes things have to happen in our life. As I mentioned, there's some things you can only learn in a storm. And some storms come to clear our path, right? But they also, these life conditions awaken us to the things that, you know, maybe. Maybe somebody has to go through a health crisis in your life to be able to value that person or, you know, or be grateful for the health that we do have. And so I think sometimes a lot of people complain about being burnt out. And certainly it's because sometimes we're doing too much, but sometimes we feel burnt out not because we're doing too much. Sometimes we feel burnt out because we're doing too little of the things that light us up, the things that we value, right?

the things that we hold dear. And so I think it's it's the clarity as a superpower. And to the degree we could do some introspection and find out what we stand for, what we believe, you know, the things that we treasure in our life, your identity, your I am statements. I feel like that's a great starting place for like even in the matrix when Neo comes to see the Oracle for the very first time in her kitchen when she's baking cookies, everything. The sign above the door of the kitchen was, know thyself.

So I feel like that's a wonderful starting point. I have an exact replica of it right above you. That's awesome. Because one, I'm such a nerd, but also, too, this being the know-thyself podcast. So here you go. This is exactly what you're referring to. I love that.

Oh, that's really, again, I have the goosebumps, the truth bumps. Yeah. Yeah. So I love everything that we're opening. There's a lot of practical advice in what you're sharing here. And how I try to position as best I can my own personal life, I really apply a lot of this first principles thinking of like,

who am I being for myself in the way that I do, whatever I do in the world? One area that I think applies to that very much so that you teach is learning how to learn. Because we're constantly taking information. We're trying to grow in mind, body, wealth, relationships, spiritually, these different areas in which we grow and learn. And so much of it is dependent upon how we intake information and how we listen. And so I would love for you to reflect on how to listen and how to learn. Yeah.

So I feel like if there's one skill to get better at today, it's exactly that, learning how to learn. Meaning if there was a genie that could grant you one wish, but just one wish, we would all wish for more wishes, right? if I was your learning genie and I can help you become more of an expert at any one subject or any one skill, would the equivalent be of asking for more wishes? I think it's, you know, people would say learning to code or learning how to market or learning how to invest, learning how to learn, right? When you could learn how to learn, what does that mean?

You could focus and concentrate and absorb information, retain it, understand it, apply it. What can you apply that to? Just everything, right? You can apply that towards medicine and money and martial arts and music and Mandarin. Everything in your life gets easier. So it's one of those lead dominoes. The first domino you hit and everything gets easier. You sharpen the saw.

And so I think learning how to learn is very important. And I mentioned it's not taught in school. And again, they teach you math, history, science, Spanish. But there's no class called concentration or focus, right? At least when I went to school, there's no class called. retention, right? They do you three hours, reading, writing, arithmetic, but what about recall? Socrates said learning is remembering. And so there is an art and a science to learning how to learn. And as people improve in that, every area of their life gets a lot easier. Some of the fundamental

principles to apply this, so if everyone can think about a subject or a skill that they want to learn. I use the acronym fast. F-A-S-T. So the F is forget, which is weird from a memory coach, right? But I think one of the reasons why we don't learn as rapidly as we can is because sometimes we feel like we know the subject already. You know, you're sitting at an event, you're listening a podcast, you're like, oh, I know that already. And I'm going to remind everyone that your mind is like a parachute and it only works when it's when it's open right and so temporarily setting aside what you know about a subject so you can discover something new or maybe hearing it in a different way because the half-life information is getting shorter and shorter right there's always new

research and new information that you know that maybe we could apply towards making things better I would also say forget about distractions I know it's easier way easier to say it than to do it We live in a world where most people are trying to multitask. And research is showing it it's very difficult to do two cognitive activities at once, parallel. Right. And so really what we're doing is tasks switching. And I feel like sometimes if you're trying to learn something, but then you're also on social media and you're doing, you're checking Slack or you're doing something else. It's really hard.

So we lose multitasking. Three reasons why you want to monotask versus multitask. Number one, you lose time because it could take anywhere from five or ten minutes to regain your focus, right, when you're going from something to another. Number two, we make more mistakes. People who try to multitask. We work with a lot of doctors and we know surgeons that are trying to multitask during operations, they'll make more surgical errors.

I mean, just think about driving and texting, right? And we're going to have more accidents. And if that wasn't reason enough to focus on one thing at a time, not only to lose time and make more mistakes, it uses up an immense amount of energy. Your brain is only 2% of your body mass, but it requires 20% of the energy. It's a real energy hog. And think about it. If you're doing an activity, like listening to this show right now, you have a part of your brain,

imagine a cognitive web lit up. But in order to switch from that to do something else, you have to kind of shut this down and activate something else and uses a lot of glucose. glucose. And so if people struggle with mental fatigue or brain fog, maybe people have two metaphorical like tabs open. And even if they're minimized, it's still taking up memories, taking up energy to kind of keep that running. So that's the F is kind of forget about what you know temporarily so you could be open-minded to learn something new and forget about, you know, other distractions. And even if something comes in your mind, you can write it down and even schedule your rumination.

If you want to worry about something, you say, okay, I'll do that 4 o'clock. But it just kind of frees your mind into doing that. The A in fast is active. And I just want to remind everybody that learning is not a spectator sport. If you want to learn something more rapidly, the human brain doesn't learn best through consumption. It's not like a teacher could push information inside your head as much as you can pull it in. And it's more, not consumption, more creation and co-creation. And so I would say.

how can you be more active in your learning? You could take notes, right? You can mind map things and we teach a whole brain note-taking technique, which I think is important because there's this learning curve, but there's also a forgetting curve. That when you hear something just once, you read it or you hear it on a podcast, you're at an event, within 48 hours, we can lose upwards of 80% of it, you know? And so one of the ways to mitigate that is to take notes. I haven't, I Most people are, and I'm curious, they could post this on social media. Do they prefer handwriting notes or digital note taking? But when students are tested for comprehension and retention, handwriting notes actually leads to better results.

Digital is great for storing and sharing. But how I handwrite notes is put a line right down the page and on the left side I capture, on the right side I create. So it's kind of like on the left side I take notes, on the right side I make notes. So on the left side, this is how you read faster, is how you remember names, some of my favorite brain foods, whatever. But if your attention is going to go, we were going to be distracted.

I'd rather be distracted on the right side of the page. And we write our impressions of what we're capturing. Like how does this relate to what I know? What questions do I have? When am I going to, how am I going to apply this information? And it's kind of like a left brain, right brain way of taking, whole brain way of taking notes. So that's being more active, asking questions.

of asking questions, taking notes, making it more experiential. The S and fast is state. And this is, again, as a coach, part of my responsibility is to remind people what they do when they're doing it really well, is that all learning is state dependent. And when I say state, I mean the emotional mood, right, the mood of your mind and your body. Because we have three parts of our brain, but the middle brain, you have something that looks like a seahorse, which is your hippocampus, which primary function is memory. And attached to it is an almond-shaped part of your brain called your amygdala, which is kind of like a switching station for your emotions. But it's interesting how memory and emotions are tied, right? Everyone knows this

because there's probably a song everyone could hear or could take you back to when you're a teenager, or a food or a fragrance could take you back to when you're a child. So the information by itself is very forgettable, but information was tied with emotions, because, you're a teenager. become unforgettable because we're not logical as much as we are like biological. You mean, you think about dopamine and oxytocin, seroton, and endorphins. We are this chemical feeling soup. But think about the emotions most people felt sitting in class. I think most people would say they were either confused or bored. And boredom is on a scale of zero to ten is like a zero. So if it's information times emotion becomes a long-term memory and it's boredom or anything times zero is zero.

And we wonder why we forgot things like the periodic table or whatever. So I just want to remind everyone as they're listening to this, if they want to get greater fidelity and retention and understanding to just notice, you could even gamify it on a scale of 0 to 10, what's your emotional state or excitement or motivation. And maybe it's a four. you know and then you could just say hey what do I need to do to make out a five or six and and that makes a big difference because like right now most people like if I said sit the way you be sitting or stand the way you be standing if you're very excited and interested in this conversation and people lean forward I sit up and I ask people like why do you even have to move because I feel like you know this is such this is an interesting topic

is a reminder that we have agency and our physiology affects our psychology And it's like even sitting in I'm speaking in town I'm speaking at a conference And the other day I was I sit in a lot of conferences waiting to go on stage The person before me was just

Putting the people to sleep Like literally people were falling asleep And I could say like okay This is happening to me Or the for me is like What lesson can I learn out of this And I started to get fascinated I'm like wow how does this gentleman

and put all, like hundreds of people to sleep at the same time. And I get, so I getting curious because that reminds me, I have agency that a reminder to everyone listening that you are a thermostat, you're not a thermometer. Where the role of a thermometer, what does it do? It just, it reacts to the environment. Whatever the environment is, it reacts to it, right? But a thermostat doesn't do that. A thermostat, it knows the temperature.

It gauges the environment. But what does it do? it sets a temperature and what happens the environment? The environment reacts to you, right? And so I feel like a big part of leadership or being, you know, the future belongs to creators is taking that invisible and making it more visible, right, through the process of this manifestation, right? So that's state.

You know, we have a to-do list. What if we started a to-feel list? Like these are three emotions or feelings I want to have and embrace, today. Maybe it's to be more playful or understanding. A lot of times when we're faced with a difficulty or a situation or decision, maybe we're stressed. We ask like, oh, what do I need to do? What if we took a step back and instead of asking ourselves, what do we need to do, who do I need to be? And maybe you decide I want to be compassionate. Maybe I have a spirited debate with the loved one and you're like, I want to step back and say this is what I need to do or say. It's like,

who do I need to be? Maybe it's compassionate. And the behavior is take care of itself, right, when you're coming from that place. And so having it to be list or to feel list, that state. And finally, the T and fast to learn any subject or skill faster is learning it to teach. The T is teach. You take advantage to something called the explanation effect. I mean, imagine everyone listening. You had to give a TEDx talk next week about some of the highlights of this conversation.

you would focus differently. You would take better notes, right? You would be personally involved and invested. And so if you want to learn something faster, learning with the intention of sharing with somebody else, and I think that's what we're here to do, we learn to earn some kind of benefit to return, right? To be able to...

Everything in nature does that. Everything in nature grows or dies, and everything in nature has to contribute to the rest of the system, the ecosystem. them. Otherwise, it's eliminated. Those are incredible reflections. And, you know, many of those stuck out to me for my own personal path with this podcast, how it relates to how I prepare and take information.

And, you know, especially the S with state, I totally can see how emotion and information are linked. And I would love for you to share some more tips around that because we all want to have an incredible memory through old age. I have found you have to like walk through a random alley or something and a weird like smell just hits you and it takes you right back to a moment in childhood or something

it's so fascinating how our brains work like that one thing that I found personally interesting is in the yogic practice and philosophy like every asana has a different correlation to our energy and our subtle body and so one of the reasons why I kind of sit like this throughout each podcast is because when you put your left heel on your perineum, I learned this from Sad Guru. It kind of activates your ability to recall information and be very

present and allow wisdom to go flow through at a deeper place. So I'm so fascinated, all these little things that once you know, you've done apply to everything that you do and when you do it and it fundamentally changes your output, your capacity. And so any reflections there and how also we can, you know, link that realization about information. and emotion being tied together to improve our memory. Yeah, so emotion, again, is it activates, it makes things more memorable, right? And we control, I want to remind everybody that we can control, you know, our influence how we feel. And part of it, a number of different ways.

Part of it is our physiology, like our breathing pattern, how we use our body, how well we take care of our body. I mean, just imagine you are gifted when you're able to drive a car, brand new car, but this is the only car. It's free of charge, but it's the only car you could have for the rest of your life. How well would you treat that car? How well would you maintain that car? Well, we're born. We have this body and part of that body is a brain. And, you know, how well are we maintaining it?

Because this is the vehicle we have to go through life with. And unfortunately, you know, the brain doesn't come with an owner's manual. And like, you buy something, it gives you instructions on how to use it. But it's not always user-friendly. And I think going back to just if you want to improve their self-esteem or self-worth, just study like your brain or your physiology. I just feel like it's so fascinating to me. It's like the most complex, you know, device in the known universe.

And it can improve yourself steam overnight, just how magnificent it is. but I feel like we use a small percentage of its potential, meaning we use all our brain, just like we use all our body, but some people just use it more effectively and more elegantly than others because it's trained, right? And part of understanding our physiology,

just understanding our feelings, and I feel like part of that is determining, like, our focus. Like gratitude is very grounding for me. That's part of my morning and evening routine to get in that parasympathetic rest and digest, And I think, you know, we could do these thought experiments to allow us to feel the emotion of gratitude. Like, what if the, here, and people could just meditate on this, what if the only things you had in your life tomorrow were the things you express gratitude for today? Right.

Or if people in a true feel truly wealthy, you know, write down all the things you have in your life that money couldn't buy. Right. And we don't have to wait for a greater life to feel grateful. we could feel grateful and have a greater life automatically. And I think gratitude is just a very high vibe vibration that allows you to kind of build abundance in different areas. But we could choose going back to choice, right? That we have the choice and these decisions that we can make.

Part of us is what things to focus on, what things mean to us, how we're going to feel, how we're going to show up for ourselves and other people. So asking those questions, like what can I be grateful for in this moment? Other questions is like what's even like what's exciting? You know, what are you looking forward to? These are questions that we often don't ask consciously. And the more we do that, the more we train and can direct our focus and the, you know, where our focus goes is where the energy is flowing and how it determines how we feel. Also determining like not only what the focus on, but what they mean.

Like just like how you said, like is this happening to you or is it happening for you? And then automatically even just saying it out loud, it just feels different. Right. Like a lot of times we find ourselves saying, oh, man, I got to pick up the kids. I got to study today. I got to work out. And we don't check ourselves. We're like, again, we're in that self-hypnosis.

And part of it is transcending, ending the trance. Maybe it's not I got to, but maybe I get to. You know, I get to work out today. I get to meditate today. I get to journal or eat these delicious, nutritious foods. And changing that one vowel from O to E got to get, it just lands, at least for me, it lands differently. And it changes how I feel.

And so adding emotion to learning is so essential because, again, we tend to forget the ordinary and we remember the extraordinary. And using the power of our imagination, it's such a wonderful way to learn faster when we could use more of our senses, we could see it and feel it and smell it and taste it and also make it in a way where we could represent,

we could represent the information inside of our mind. Like a name is very ordinary, or a number is very ordinary, a factor figure is very ordinary. But if you can make it more extraordinary inside your mind, make it playful, make some action, make it a little bit humorous, then it becomes more memorable.

Like even remembering names, right? I think it's important to be able to remember because how are you going to show somebody you're going to care for their future, their wellness, their family, whatever you have to offer them. If you don't care enough, just remember their name, right? And so you meet somebody named Mark, and what if you did this thought experiment? You just imagine putting a checkmark on their forehead.

Something so silly and childish. But remember, who are the fastest learners, like children, right? And they're playful. They're willing to make mistakes. They make fun of things. If someone's name is Mike, imagine them singing on a microphone for a split second. And when you're saying goodbye to them 30 minutes later, you're like, what was that person doing? Oh, they're sitting on the microphone, what's their name, Mike?

And not that you're sharing this information with the person, but it's a way of overcoming what I call the six-second syndrome. Somebody tells you something. You have six seconds to do something with it. Otherwise, it's gone in the ether. And even when it doesn't work, it still works. It gets you to focus on the person and it gets you to focus on the thing you want to remember, like, their name. So if a person's name is Mary, I just imagine they're getting married. right something silly or carol they're singing Christmas carols or

bob they're bobbing for apples something so silly but it keeps it entertaining in my mind and it gives you my agency back meaning you know I don't have to just do be stupid ordinary I can make something more extraordinary and I think that's the power of the mind truly being limitless you know and so you can entertain yourself and I think one of the fastest ways to learn something is education by itself is kind of boring right but it's nutritious. It's kind of like something that's nutritious,

but maybe doesn't taste that good. But entertainment tastes good, but it's not like candy. You know, like maybe it's case good, but it's not good for you. But if you can meld it to and take education, so it's nutritious and delicious, then you have the 30, which is empowerment. And I think that's really one of the goals

is to be able to take information. And I just want to remind everyone who's listening that knowledge, it's a myth. that knowledge by itself is power, right? A lot of people know stuff, but their life is no better because of it. A lot of people read a book, but if they don't act on what they've learned, their life fundamentally is no different than somebody who's illiterate, who couldn't read that book to begin with.

So I just want to remind, I feel like that for every hour someone spends listening to something or reading something, maybe have a rule where they have to put an equal hour into applying what they learn, you know, because I feel like the life again that we live or the lessons that we teach. But it doesn't, we have to go through this B, do have, share process, right? A lot of people want to jump to the have part when

it's more the being and the doing. It's so cool to see you apply your own principles as you teach and share this even with all the different acronyms and everything because I feel like it really lands and like I'm remembering everything that you're sharing as well. It's pretty meta.

Yeah, it is. But I love all the reflections about how important our perception fundamentally is and how we look at things in the world, how they're happening to us for us. And I feel like we do live in a society that really propagates comparison. And I love how you give this distinction

between thinking, how smart am I to how am I smart and the differing ways in which intelligence manifests itself. So I would love for you to share any words of empowerment and reflect on that because I think it really does activate people to really own the way in which they're intelligent. This is a great conversation. Yeah, I could. So I imagine, so we have the largest academy of accelerated learning in the world.

We have students in 195 nations. We get a lot of feedback. And I realized after three decades of teaching this that it's not, like I'm in my 50s. And so I'm in a kind of stage where I'm doing a lot of reflect. get a lot of feedback. And I realize that not everything is for everybody. Like, everybody is a little bit different, right? And it's not how smart you are. It's really how are you smart. And we all have different ways of learning. And some techniques don't necessarily work for everybody in the same way, just like some foods. Everyone's a little bio-individual, right? Or in relationships,

not everyone's looking for the same thing. And we all, just like there's love languages, there's also a language of the brain. And it's kind of like if you are, right-handed that's your dominant hand. That doesn't mean you don't use your left hand. It's just when you're using it. You have more grace. It's more comfortable. You're more effective.

It takes less time. When you use your opposite hand, like if I ask everyone to write their name with their opposite hand, it would take longer. Maybe you feel a little bit uncomfortable. Maybe the quality wouldn't be quite as good. And sometimes when we're learning something, it's like we're trying to learn it with the opposite hand.

So even if it's a subject we're interested in, I imagine some people listening, they're interested in a topic. For some reason, they're not getting it. But maybe you're trying to learn it with the opposite hand, so it takes longer and it feels uncomfortable. And it's not, the quality is not quite as good. It's kind of like the way you prefer to learn something is different than the way the teacher is teaching it. And it's like your two ships in the night and you pass each other. And you don't even realize and recognize the other ones there. There's no connection, right? And so I gave a lot of thought into this. And years ago, I created an assessment.

assessment for your brain to see what your dominant brain type will be. And it just takes four minutes. It's in the book, Limitless. We also have it online. We'll link that below as well for people. Yeah, mybrainanimal.com. And when you go through it, it just kind of like when you say, which Harry Potter character are you, which Game of Thrones character, that kind of thing. It gives you understanding to know thyself better. Right. And I'll just go through it really quickly. So it's a brain code. I use a lot of acronyms as a shortcut, C-O-D-E. These are the animals. And so the C is the cheetah. Now, I pulled from personality types like Myers-Briggs,

left-brain right-brain dominance, visual auditory kinesthetic learning styles, multiple intelligence theory at a Harvard, introvert, extrovert, pull from a lot of frameworks to create this. But once you understand your brain animal, it just makes everything easier because we give people prescriptions,

just like there's personalized medicine based on your genetic test or personalized nutrition based on a microbiome test or nutrient profile test. This is like personalized learning and training and development based on a form and assessment, right? So the C are your cheetahs and their primary trade is action. So cheetahs as the fastest animals on the planet, they thrive in fast-paced environments. They adapt very quickly. They have very strong instincts and intuition. The O and code stands for your owls, and their dominant trade is logic. They love data. They love facts and figures and formulas. Now, just even thinking about it, those two people would buy differently, they would learn differently, they would relate, communicate

differently. The D in code are your dolphins, and their dominant trade is their creativity. These are people that could see maybe they have a business, they could see, they have a vision for their business or their future. They're very passionate behind that vision also as well. They're great at pattern recognition. And finally, the E-encode are your elephants. And your elephants' dominant trade is empathy. And these are people who are your community builders. They bring people together. They want people to feel seen. They want people to feel heard. They use words. You could even, in their language you could tell. Like they would use less of I and

my, they would use more inclusive words like we or us. So it would reflect in their communication and also their criteria for learning because if you're going to teach someone how to read better, not only speed but understanding and focus, each of them have a different way

of because of their dominant brain traits to learn. And so we give people kind of a formula. And you see this We had our team go through this assessment, and our customer service team, 100% of them are elephants. And we didn't even sort for that because people will go to their strength. They'll find a role of responsibility where it's their element, right? And our customer service team, they're elephants because they have high empathy.

They're compassionate. They want people to feel seen and heard. They build our community. You know, my business partner of 17, 18 years, she's our CEO, she's a dolphin. She has this vision, you know, for our mission. She holds that constant and communicates it. Our CFO, our financial officer, is an owl. Like, he loves numbers, right?

He's always looking at the data. And so it's interesting how it shows up. It's even in pop culture. You could take any Star Trek, you know, like Captain Kurt is like the Cheetah, just goes into action. Spock would be the owl, right? Or friends. You know, you would have Phoebe, he was a creative musician, right, the dolphin, or Ross is the professor or scientist. So he's the owl. Joey is just axe. Doesn't think about it, just acts. So he's the cheetah. You know, Monica hosts everything and wants to be the center of her friend group and she's the elephant. So once you understand how you, you know,

again, it's not how smart you are, it's how are you smart. And in school, they don't, you know, like, if you even look at SATs, it's like verbal and mathematical, and it's like, it's, these are the things that are valued. And, but multiple intelligence theory, Howard Gardner's work at Harvard says there's, there's many more kinds of intelligence. Like, what about musical intelligence, kinesthetic physical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, people are great with people, intrepersonal intelligence, you know, self-to-self, visual spatial intelligence. People are great artists or graphic designers.

So the idea here is that your memory or your brain performance or your IQ, it's not fixed like your shoe size. Because of things that you've talked about on your show, things like neuroplasticity and neurogenesis, we could grow older, but in a lot of ways we could grow wiser. We can make new connections through novelty, just like building a muscle. You give it, you know, you have physical muscles. You give it novelty. You work it out. And you give it nutrition. Same thing with your mental muscles. So neuroplasticity, the brain's amazing phenomenon to be able to adapt and make new connections. The whole idea of these neurons that fire together, they wire together, right, is stimulus.

So that's why learning is so very important, exposing yourself to new ideas and insights, and then giving yourself to proper nutrition to be able to feed that mental muscle. I love that. Thank you for sharing all that. And it's also a helpful context for me as like building. a team. I mean, I know you work with so many Fortune 500 companies and implement this as well throughout that. And I'm thinking for my own team of like how Chelsea behind the scene, she's very much so elephant with the empath and also Dolphin and the Creative. And I see that within myself too.

And it's cool to, you know, obviously you want a CFO to be more of an owl. Right. Yeah, of course. And it's not, we're not any one thing. Obviously, there's a blend. Right. And again, if you're right hand, it doesn't mean you don't use your left hand. It's just that's your natural strength. And it's interesting to know what your significant other is or your teammates are because it takes the judgment out. Once you understand more about yourself, it takes away the self-judgment, but also the judgment we have imposed on other people.

And it just explains their behavior more. And I feel like that's very powerful to build a team where people are in the sitting in the right seats of themselves, where they found more of their passion and more of their purpose because they're playing to their strength and natural natural abilities. Yeah. It's kind of like love languages, but for learning. Exactly. That's exactly that. That's well put. Yeah. And that informs how we approach all those relationships too. It's like we want to love people how we want to be loved, but it doesn't work out like that. Yeah. It's even how people communicate. If you're a cheetah, a lot of cheetahs, a lot of cheetahs, they'll be right to the point. They don't beat around the bush because time is of the essence. You know,

it's owls will speak more with with facts and data in a very logical sequence. Dolphins will talk about the future. And you would influence these people or marketed. For those of you who have a role of selling or business development, you know, the owl will need that data, the case studies, right, the proof. But an elephant, that's nice. But they would, the relationship's more important to them. The trust that you have, the bond that you have, the transparency, authenticity.

You know, for Dolphin, if you could talk about their future and how your product or service fits in their future, they're going to be more understanding receptive to it. So it really informs how you could parent, how you could hire, how you could relate. Specifically, when people take this assessment, we give them strategies, follow-up strategies for free. And there's nothing there to purchase. It's just we give them ideas on how to read better, focus better, remember better, based on their brain animal. Yeah, it's fun. And then people could post it. Take a screenshot because we give you this AI art. They could post to tag you and I. Because I'm curious like your community, if there's a dominant animal type within the community. I would love to see that. What kind of zoo we build in here, fam. Yeah. And then if you tag us, we'll see it. And I'll repost some of them and we'll gift out a few copies at random of the limit list to your tribe. Cool.

Cool. Amazing. So you actually, I mean, you briefly mentioned AI. I'm curious your thoughts because I just did this super long podcast about the coming, you know, transhumanism and AI that's coming and is already here in so many different ways. I love welcoming this incredible new technology, but in many ways it can just do the thinking for us and write papers and essays for us in school. And how do you navigate? And what are your thoughts on AI and welcoming the technology? as it's for so much of its usefulness, but not allowing it to really atrophy different parts of our brain where we would have to use that. We would have to use our brain in cognitive capacities in that aspect. So any thoughts there? Yes. So I mentioned there for porcman of the mental apocalypse, and we mentioned two of them, digital distraction, digital deluge, the overload. The other two relates to this a lot. One is a digital dementia. Digital dementia is the high reliance on technology to remember things.

you. So you don't like our phones, they're like external hard drives. You don't have to remember your to-do's. It's in your phone. You don't have to remember your schedule. It's in your calendar phone. You don't have to remember phone numbers. I mean, how many phone numbers did you know growing up compared to how many phone numbers we know now?

That's something called digital dementia. It's a term in healthcare that says the high reliance on technology to remember things. Your brain is like a muscle. It's use it or lose it. And again, technology, I don't want to memorize 500 phone numbers, but it should be concerning we've lost the ability to remember one phone number or a pin number or a passcode or a seed phrase or something we just read or something we just heard, something we're going to do, or a meeting we're going to have, or someone's name.

I believe two of the most costly words in life sometimes are I forgot. I forgot to do it. I forgot to bring it. I forgot what was going to say. I forgot what was said to me. I forgot to go there. forgot the president's name, whatever. On the other side, your memory could be a big multiplier when you could easily remember facts and figures, client information, product information, speeches without notes, foreign language, and life just gets easier, right? So that's the third one. And the fourth one, Horseman, besides digital distraction, digital delusion, digital dementia, is what I term digital deduction, where technology is through algorithms is doing a thinking

for us. And again, technology is wonderful. It's just how it's applied, right? Fire is an early form of technology. Fire could cook your food or fire could burn down your home, right? It's just how it's used. And so I love technology. It allows this to happen, right?

But the challenge is if we're too dependent on it, it's like if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you're office is on the fourth floor, your apartment's on the fourth floor and you take the elevator each time, then you don't get, you don't get the workout to do the stairs, right? Or if you go into the bank, it's eight blocks away and you're taking Uber or you drive and when you could have got your steps in, it's convenient. Technology is convenient. That's a form of technology, an elevator or an automobile. but then we don't get the balance of being physically active. And if you put your arm in a cast for a year, some kind of sling or whatever, it wouldn't grow stronger. It wouldn't even stay the same.

It would atrophy. And that's what's going on with our brain. I mean, think about even something simple and we'll get into AI, like getting from here to there. There was a study done in Oxford with London taxi drivers. They would have to memorize all the roads, right? And that part of their brain was very highly connected and dense. But with technology now telling you where to go, you don't have to think.

So we're not building our visual, spatial intelligence, as we once had. And so I'm all for technology. And I feel like we have to make a decision on how much we're going to be active, like our bodies. Going to AI, we did a whole chapter in Limitless on what I wanted to do is answer this question. How can AI enhance H.I. Human intelligence. And I don't look at it as artificial intelligence as much as I do augmented intelligence. I feel like technology is

there to support us, to be a potential tool. And just remember, technology is a tool for us to use. But if the technology is using us, then we become the tool. If we're just addicted to our phones and picking up after boredom, just because we're bored, then it's using us. And that's not probably the most effective way of using it. But we have a choice. Who am I to say, like, don't do this.

But it's just, you know, is it getting you closer to what you value and lights you up? So different ways I use AI and our team uses AI to learn faster. Things like I mentioned neuroplasticity. People could go into an AI chat GPT or something and say, explain to me neuroplasticity as if I am nine years old, right? That would be a fun way to learn and build some kind of foundation. every principle I talk about in limitless from space repetition to retrieval practice you could mind mapping memory palaces AI could help support you in that right so memory palaces is a way because I was really curious

not only modern ways of learning based on neuroscience but ancient cultures and I wrote the chapter of memory is the largest chapter in limitless and I wrote that in Greece and because I found out there's a goddess of memory and her children are the nine muses of arts science and literature and i was like wow art science literature the mother is memory right so we talked about the muses too on a stephen pressfield podcast oh beautiful yeah i'm a big fan and follower of his work and so like when i was there in that spirit and i found out that there was a 2,500 year old memory technique attributed to simonides who was a poet in order in Greece and he would give this, you know, a reading. And when he left, something tragic having the building collapsed and no one survived. And he had the, because he was the only

survivor, he had the responsibility of helping family members identify their loved ones. And he was able to do that because he remembered where they were all sitting. And I bet a lot of people listening, if they think about a recent dinner party or conference, they remember who was to the left and right. And we store things in our environment, right? Because as hunter-gatherers, we didn't need to remember facts and figures, we need to remember where things were, are. Like, where's the fertile soil? Where's the clean water?

Where's the enemy tribe? That was our survival. So we store information consciously and unconsciously in our environment. So Memory Palace is a technique we talk about in Limitless and in our podcast about taking areas you're familiar with, maybe your office, your school, your home, your body, and storing the information you want to remember in those places, right?

And you just kind of walk through your palace and your mind and it reminds you. And if you've seen Sherlock Holmes, he's using Memory Palace, and it's used a lot in different places. That's a wonderful way to store an immense amount information in a short period of time. Now, you could use AI to say, hey, this is what I'm learning. Can you build me a memory palace to learn this? Or if you learn about mind mapping, which is a very creative whole brain notetaking way, you could say, like, hey, I want to mind map this, and it'll create a structure for you.

If you want to use space repetition, it could create personalized learning AI. We have a quick bot in our program where we fed it all of our training, and so it's there to be able to answer your question. So the future belongs to personalized learning, right, based around their brain type, their animal, and so much more. The frequency of how much they want to learn over what period of time, frequency, duration, intensity. So we build it out like that. And like we have a podcast.

And sometimes if I'm interviewing the expert and they are an author, I like to read books physically as opposed to on screen. I don't need an excuse to be on a screen, so I'm kind of like created these kind of scaffolding for me to get through. But if I don't get the book in time, like I could go in and go into Apar and say,

can you summarize this book? Or can you ask, what are 10, can you suggest 10 thoughtful questions that this expert hasn't been asked before specifically for this kind of audience? And not that I use anything verbatim, but it would be a nice creative partner, you know, for you. I've used that too for this podcast a couple times when I'm crunching on time just to see if anything is inspiring off it, you know?

Yeah, and you can build on it. So it's a wonderful. So AI is a wonderful way to improve your AI by, you know, using the Feynman technique where you explain this to me as if I'm eight years old, building memory palaces, mind mapping, quizzing yourself. You know, I think that's the retrieval practice. Those three parts of your memory, you encode, you store, and then you retrieve. and just train yourself to retrieve information, pull it out to see if it's really there. Helps you to retain information better.

But they could provide questions for you from a specific topic to quiz to see how much comprehension you actually have about a subject matter. So it can do personalized learning and schedules and really kind of tailor it around your outcomes. I'm very optimistic about technology. I'm glad you are.

I too am, but I also see, I think it's, is it Wally where there's just like all those super fat people and like floating wheelchairs that just are plugged into the matrix essentially. Yeah. Like that's the dystopic route, you know, where... And that's why it's just like, you know, us taking care of ourselves, you know, like, so yeah, physically and mentally, while we painted a picture, wherever, we're so dependent. And some would say we're heading there, right? And I think it comes back to personal agency. Realizing that technology can make your life more convenient, but it would also cripple us. And so I feel like we always

have responsibility, the onus is on us to be healthy and fit. Incredible. Jim, I've thoroughly enjoyed and love this conversation. I have some rapid-fire questions for you to start to close out. So you can answer these in one sentence. If we want to expand a little bit, definitely feel free to, and we'll go from there. What is the difference between knowledge and wisdom? All right. So I feel like knowledge is what is.

I think imagination is part of wisdom. So imagination really could be what could be. So I think there's a lot of, Einstein said imagination is more powerful than knowledge. I think wisdom is really the application of the knowledge that we have. And I feel like still things, we can only make good decisions based on our knowledge base. But I think wisdom is the actual experience and expression

of how we use, utilize that knowledge. What are three top tips for shaping our environment to be conducive to cognitive ability and emotional well-being. Yeah. So your external world is a reflection of your internal world. People know this when you clean off your desk or you put everything in the right folder on your computer. You have clarity of thought.

And so Marie Kondo your mind by taking care of your environment for sure. The environment definitely has an effect on your brain. So like little things, like we just did a podcast of clean air because people don't realize the amount of neurotoxins there are in an environment. And they say the average woman has over 200 chemicals before leaving the house through personal care products or perfumes. I mean, candles, the off-gassing of new furniture or carpeting. So clean environment, I think, is very important, not just through air, but also lighting. A lot of offices in schools have that fluorescent lighting, which has been shown even in animal studies.

your eyes are only part of your brain that's outside your skull and it can lead to fatigue and anxiety they use it in these places because it's cheap but clean clean lighting clean emfs right like i mean we could we've done multiple episodes ourselves on we just don't know the electromagnetic fields coming off our devices and most of them are habit like this close to your brain your brain is bio-electrical, you know, like, and a lot of kids, they sleep with their phones underneath their pillows, and we just don't know long-term effects of that. So these are just little things you could do for your environment. I would include in this the people you spend time with, because who you spend time with is who you become. We have these mirror neurons. This is part of our nervous

system where we imitate people around us. It also allows us to have empathy. So we tend to, I would say watch, which is of course an acronym. We tend to mirror the words, the actions, the thoughts, the character, and the habits of the people we spend time with. So it's not just our biological networks, our neurological networks, it's our social networks. Like, if your friends smoke, you're more likely to smoke. If you're friends who yoga, you're more likely to do yoga. If they meditate, they work out, they eat right, and like, you're more likely to do that. And so I think a big part of our environment are the people we spend time with, they say, if you're just might be careful, if you're around nine, broke people because

you're going to be number 10, right? Because we're going to adopt and adapt their standards and their habits and their thought processes. So, yeah, take care of your environment. Incredible. So air, EMF, friend group. Yeah, there's a bunch. We could go down a rabbit hole just dust on our environment. Yeah, I mean, it's literally everything that we're living in.

But the principle is just your external world is a reflection of your internal world. So, you know, if everything is messy out of place, whatever, then it's definitely imminent effect. Amazing. You answered this earlier, so you can give the same answer, Orange, it if you want but if you were to be transported back to your 10 year old self what piece of advice or what would you share with him yeah besides that reminding them they're responsible and then everything's figure outable you know and then in my 9 10 year old was just kind of a dark place um you know not having you know friendships and you know the teasing and the bullying and just not understanding

so it was a lot of i would escape in comic books or video games whatever because that would allow me to just have some kind of peace. But probably the thing I would say is that you are enough because I feel like that was the biggest challenge that I had growing up. I felt like I was broken. That was my identity. And just reminding that child that no matter what you're going through, there's a reason.

And we can get bitter or we could get better. What do you feel is the most current, enduring failure? of the education system as it stands today. Oh, goodness. All right, so there's this idea that Rip Van Winkle and the guy who slept for decades if he woke up today, the only thing he would recognize in our world

are classrooms. You know, the world, we live in an age of autonomous electric cars, spaceships that are going to Mars, but our vehicle of choice when it comes to education is often like a horse and buggy. And it's not a slight against teachers. We train a lot of teachers. Our programs are used in some of the top educational Finland and South Korea,

some of the ones most notable. My mother became a special education teacher in the New York public school system. She recently retired to help me. So she really got, but it's teachers are some of the most caring, capable, compassionate individuals. I don't think they're compensated as well as they should. But it's a systemic issue, right? Just like often, if you look at health care, you look at all these different areas, like the system hasn't changed. And so it's working exactly how it was designed to work, right?

Our school system is modeled after the assembly line. It's just like your date of birth is the manufacturing date and you're kept together. It's one size kind of fits all. And there's progress, certainly. I mean, I would love more emphasis on social, emotional learning and development. And then my contribution to this field would be learning how to learn. It's an area called meta-learning, learning how to learn. And I feel like the most important skill we can have is learning how to learn, learning how to think,

because the subject matter is always going to change. And so learning classes on learning how to learn, I just feel like that would be the biggest evolution. Because an individual's ability to learn rapidly and translate that learning in action, is the ultimate competitive advantage in a world of, we live in the millennium of the mind. Nobody listening to this is paid like hundreds of years ago, agricultural age or industrial,

like you're not paid for your brute strength. Today it's your brain strength, right? It's not your muscle power, it's your mind power. And the faster you can learn, the faster you could earn. Because knowledge stays, not only power, it's profit. There's this divide of not just those who have and those who have not. There's a divide of those people who know stuff and those who don't know.

And those people who know stuff because they're able to learn it and retain it and apply, they can make better decisions because they have a better data set to be able to make, you know, thoughtful, wise decisions in their relationships and the food choices and their economics and everything. I know there's so much there to continue unraveling. I mean, it's an abomination in so many different ways. But yeah, thank you for sharing that. And I'm going to ask you a little bit more about that, maybe off air. what's the one thing that you do that most makes time disappear for you in your personal life oh goodness i mean i mean everything from from family and friends is like in those flow states is a state where i feel like most alive yeah so i do a lot of stuff physical um because it gets

me out of my mind so it's um whether skydiving or i do the zero jrific I do. So many things are good for your brain. Dance is wonderful for your brain. Racket sports are amazing for your brain also as well. Martial arts on and off for my whole life. So I spar every day at 8 o'clock with my instructor and trainer when I'm home. So those are things that are just very thoughtful. I love when you live on the water, so it's just a lot of water. Kayaking and paddle boards. But yeah, I just feel like it's so important to have balance and harmony. Harmony is probably a better word for me.

You know, balance is like everything's equal and I don't want everything to be equal necessarily. Spend as much time in his gym as I do with at work or whatever. But harmony is like a symphony. Like you think about an orchestra, not everything is absolutely weighted equal. Not everyone's playing the same amount of airtime or music in the same amount. But everybody comes together and creates this art, right? And I think there's a science in art to our lives. So, yeah, I love reading.

And it's not just nonfiction. I used to read nonfiction. I read a book a day for four and a half years. I just think like reading is to your mind what exercises your body. And I think we all need to be reading 30 minutes a day because it's a wonderful exercise for your brain. Nonfiction, you learn through information. I read a lot of fiction now because that I learned,

whereas nonfiction you learn through information. fiction you learn through imagination. And there's so much research showing that fiction reading actually improves your EQ, your level of empathy. The narrative allows you to see things from different points of view and perspectives. So it just broadens your mind. And the one thing is I don't read nonfiction before I go to bed because it puts me in my executive kind of thinking and I don't want to be in that place.

I want to be in the parasympathetic. So fiction reading at night. But we have all chapter accessing flow sense. states and limitless. And some of the markers are you lose your sense of self, you lose your sense of time and things become effortless. So I think it's a very healing state. And so those are some of the activities that kind of put me in that flow say where I lose my sense of self and I lose my sense of time. How interrelated do you feel a consistent meditation practice is with the baseline level of freedom someone feels like they have in their life? For me, it's been pivotal.

So I've been having some kind of meditation process since I was 18. In Limelis, I talk about some sleep issues I had through, not because I'm ruminating because I have very practiced mind, but I have very severe sleep apnea, which is a breathing disorder. So I stop breathing 250 times a night. Each time is at least 10 seconds. So I wake up kind of suffocating, right? And I use CPAP breathing devices and dental devices. It's real sexy. but it's sleep is so paramount to your brain obviously clean out beta amy plaques that lead to brain aging challenges

consolidate short to long-term memory allows you to dream which a lot of creates a lot of amazing things in culture came from dream states like paul mccartney created yesterday in his dream mary shelley created frankestine in her dream right so we have a whole thing on you know how to remember your dreams and everything but um yeah going going back to this in terms of meditation i i've learned a lot of ways to compensate or at least to recoup and nothing's better in sleep but meditation has been a big practice for me so for me i have to take 20 minutes twice a day that's kind of my what works for me and some people say i don't have 20 minutes if you're so busy and stressed that you don't have 20 minutes you probably should be meditating for an hour you know you have to disconnect to reconnect and the brain's not meant to go full speed you know all day it needs a brain break and

And so for me, meditation is that kind of pit stop, that safe haven, that sanctuary that allows me to. And it's different than mindfulness, but you could also bring mindfulness in every activity. You could bring mindfulness into your eating. A lot of people are so stressed out by the food they're eating. We talk about the best brain foods and everything. But it's also how we're eating it. A lot of people are eating their lunch while they're working and they don't get in that parasympathetic, rest, digest. So it's not just what you eat, it's when you eat, it's how you eat, it's who you're eating with also as well.

But I would say, like, you know, you can bring mindfulness into brushing your teeth into a conversation. You're extraordinary with that. Like, when I watch your videos repeatedly in the common, people feel like you're really listening. You're very present with them. Your guests feel like they're seen. They feel heard. And so I feel like it's a practice and it's a muscle, right? But the thing is, when you wake up in the morning, you pick up your phone, you're training your distraction muscles and you're flexing them.

And you wonder why you can't focus and be present in other things. As opposed to, like, I challenge people to brush your teeth with their opposite hand because it activates a different part of your brain. But it also, what it really does is it forces you to be present. Because if you're not in the beginning, you're not going to be good at it. So, and then that will improve your memory also. The people that have some of the best memories, the memory recall, is they're like with you. And it's tough, like in L.A. And it's like people are always looking over your shoulder, seeing it was more important in the room and they're not there.

But I think it's just like going back to the age of attention. The conversation we're having earlier, the art of learning is the art of attention. And I think that's what people want most is to feel seen and feel heard and that you're with them in the time that you are. So one thing people can't get back is time and attention. People always can make more money or something else. That's why I have such a deep appreciation where people are listening to this right now because this is, you know, this is, it could be free, but people still have to pay attention, right? There is a cost of their time and energy, but I'm hoping people find value in that.

Yeah, yeah, they're spending their spiritual currency. No doubt. Thank you for the kind of reflection. Love what you just shared. I also feel like the true measure of success, at least in my life, is how present we are. Because that's largely to the degree our life is not passing us by without our awareness. And I can feel your presence as well throughout this conversation and how you show up in the world. So it's incredible.

The very last question, because this is the Know Thyself podcast, you mentioned not only how important it is to know who we are, to know thyself, to love thyself, but ultimately to have the courage to be ourself. So any last words you have for people that are trying to overcome imposter syndrome or feeling like they're not enough. And yeah, that's the last one. I would say to that person, because I can definitely identify with that. That creating the life you desire and deserve can be scary. And what's scarier is regret. And I feel like I do this thought experiment at the end of our lives.

I feel like you get to meet the person we could have been. And I just want, that drives me a lot. I feel a moral obligation to do what I do because shame on me if somebody is suffering and struggling the way I did. And I didn't support that person. And so I do believe the life we live or the lessons we teach. And if you're going to begin with that end in mind, is think about the things that are most important to you. And if you're fearful of what other people opinions are and their comments and expectations, it sedates like our passion and our own purpose.

So I would remind people that, I mean, the quote I said decades ago is like, your life is like an egg. That if an egg is broken by an outside force, life ends. But if an egg is broken by an inside force, life begins, right? It hatches. And if they're listening to this, they've very self-selected that they have greatness inside of them. And I think like attracts like, I don't think it's a coincidence. It's my personal belief.

And people are listening to this that I don't think it's a coincidence, that there are reasons. And there's a world that exists solely because you're in it. It's just a fact, right? And so I would feel like we're all on this journey to reveal and realize, you know, our fullest potential. You know, and I just feel like life is difficult for, one of two reasons for the person that's struggling with other people's opinions or imposterous

life is difficult either because you're leaving your comfort zone you're trying something new right you're getting into the unknown or life is going to be difficult if you stay in your comfort zone you know and so i would imagine in this community more people are leaning towards playing and practicing at the edge of their limits and if you feel fear that's that's natural right is there to protect you. But I think emotions that we were talking about earlier, they're a signposts to guide our actions. Like if you feel fearful, maybe it's an action that we need to take is to prepare, right, or to practice or to study more. But, you know, for me, it's finding something that's bigger than myself that really drives me. Even when I have my sleep apnea and I slept 90 minutes and

I traveled, I'd be on three continents in one week speaking. I still be able to show up on stages because I think about the person that's there that's listening like I was and has something that I need to hear. So I feel like that motivates me in terms of purpose. And purpose for me, when you lean into it, I feel like part of it is like our faith has to be

sometimes greater than our fears. And our courage has to be something greater than our feelings. at any given time. And this is a reminder of the people that they have, that agency, that a lot of things could happen just after just a small amount of courage. And it's a show of strength.

I think if you're kind and you work hard and you learn, then our results will show up and speak for themselves. So my heart goes out to anybody who's struggling right now. And my advice would be, when we look in the mirror, just self-care is not just eating the best foods in my sleep, but part of it is self-care is looking in the mirror and seeing the reflection back and loving that reflection back, like that person who's been through so much,

but is still standing, right? And I guarantee you you inspire people with your grit and your grace, whether they express it or not. And, yeah, and again, I feel like we can be an expiring example for the people around us and the world is the way it wouldn't be the same without them. Thank you. That was so powerful. And a previous guest just mentioned this quote from Khalil Gibran that I love that said that work is our love made visible. And I see that as a shining example in you and your life path and how you teach. So it's so obvious to me that like the love

that you have for others and helping them break free from self-imposed limitations is such a driving factor and it's so inspiring. So thank you for the work that you're doing. I too also don't believe in coincidence. And funny enough, like two or three nights ago, I had a dream about this sign. No way. This Teminooski sign. You're the first guest to like mention it or bring it up. And in that dream, I was giving it to somebody. So random. So this is yours, my friend. This is for you. No way. Yeah, of course. There you go. Yeah, I got to listen to those intuitive hits. Thank you. That's such a good. That's such a good. That's such a good. Yeah. That's such a That's an amazing gift.

Thank you. Of course. Well, thank you for knowing yourself. Thank you for sharing yourself and the lessons that is the life that you've lived. And yeah, just last words you have for our audience. Also, where can people find you and anything else before we close out? My last words for everybody is gratitude. I'm truly grateful to be here.

Thank you for holding space and for the amazing work. People don't realize the amount of energy and effort, the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to create this kind of experience. So thank you for that and to your team. Yeah, people have, I'm not hard to find online. You just search my name. We have a podcast. We've done almost 400 episodes. It's a 20-minute show.

We have online programs and around social media. But, yeah, the book is in 40 different languages and, you know, it's everywhere. So we donate all the proceeds to my book to charity. I mean, we've funded, fully funded schools in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, and also Alzheimer's research for women in memory of my grandmother. And, but yeah, I would challenge everyone to just maybe take us, you know, we're talking about the power of actions to take one small, simple step. Because I feel like little by little, a little becomes a lot.

And even if it's taken a screenshot where they're consuming it, maybe tagging us both on social media so we get to see it and sharing one thing that they learned in that's, going back to the principle of teaching. When we share it, we get to learn it twice. And then their fans, their followers, their family, their friends get to benefit from some of the information that we share today. And I feel like that's the knowledge applied, which is the wisdom. And so, yeah, and I'm just want to say, thank you. Yeah, this has been a real blessing. Thank you so much. Everywhere you guys can find Jim from the expended version of his book Limitless to the learning quiz online. Everything will be linked on in the description.

Again, thank you, Jim so much. I thoroughly, really enjoyed this conversation. And everybody, thanks for tuning in. And please let us know in which ways this was uniquely impactful for you. And until next time, be well.