Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Jim Kwik on Unlocking Your Best Brain and Brightest Future EP 372

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

In this episode of the Passion Struck podcast, host John R. Miles welcomes cognitive performance expert Jim Kwik. Jim, renowned for his book 'Limitless,' delves into his expanded edition, which explores breaking mental barriers and embracing learning, growth, and change. The conversation covers various topics, including debunking learning myths, adapting to different work environments, improving focus, and managing digital distractions. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/jim-kwik-unlocking-best-brain-brightest-future/  Passion Struck is Now Available for Pre-Order Want to learn the 12 philosophies that the most successful people use to create a limitless life? Get over $300 in free gifts when you pre-order John R. Miles’s new book, Passion Struck, which will be released on February 6, 2024. Sponsors Brought to you by OneSkin. Get 15% off your order using code Passionstruck at https://www.oneskin.co/#oneskinpod. Brought to you by Indeed: Claim your SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT now at Indeed dot com slash PASSIONSTRUCK. Brought to you by Lifeforce: Join me and thousands of others who have transformed their lives through Lifeforce's proactive and personalized approach to healthcare. Visit MyLifeforce.com today to start your membership and receive an exclusive $200 off. Brought to you by Hello Fresh. Use code passion 50 to get 50% off plus free shipping!  --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/ Unleashing Unstoppable Momentum: Jim Kwik's Insights on the Synergy of Mindset, Motivation, and Methods to Become Limitless In this emotionally stirring episode of "Passion Struck" with John R. Miles, we delve into the synergy of mindset, motivation, and methods with the remarkable Jim Kiwk. This discussion is not just about theoretical knowledge; it's about applying these insights in real-world scenarios for cognitive enhancement. Whether it's speed reading, memory improvement, or understanding the synergy between artificial and human intelligence, this episode is packed with actionable information. Prepare to be inspired and empowered to unlock your limitless potential.   Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! How to Connect with John Connect with John on Twitter at @John_RMiles and on Instagram at @john_R_Miles. Subscribe to our main YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Subscribe to our YouTube Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@passionstruckclips Want to uncover your profound sense of Mattering? I provide my master class on five simple steps to achieving it. Want to hear my best interviews? Check out my starter packs on intentional behavior change, women at the top of their game, longevity, and well-being, and overcoming adversity. Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/   

coming up next on PassionStruct. You know how there's like personalized medicine based on your genetics or personalized nutrition based on a test like your microbiome? Well, we created a model for personalized learning because everybody learns a little bit differently, right? They have a different style based on their brain animal and then informs how they could read better and remember names, learn no language, focus when they need to, and so much more. It literally affects every area of your life. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher

the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews, the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators,

scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone, and welcome back to episode 372 of PassionStruck, consistently ranked by Apple as the number one alternative health podcast. And thank you to all of you who come back to the show every week to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. Or if you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, we now have episode starder packs, which are collections of our favorite episodes that we put into

playlists. Give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either good to spotify or passionstruck.com slash starder packs to get started. In case you missed it, last week I had three great interviews. First, was with retired United States Army staff sergeant, a New York Times best selling author Travis Mills. Travis is not just a war hero, he's one of only five quadruple amputees to survive the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His journey from the battlefield to where he is today is nothing short of awe-inspiring. And his latest book, Bounce Back, 12 War Reprinciples

to reclaim and recalibrate your life, Travis lays out a powerful roadmap for how to face live challenges head on and emerge stronger on the other side. I also had a captive ending conversation with Andrew McAfee, author of the Enlightening New Book, The Geekway. Andrew is the co-director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Lastly, I interviewed Dr. Kate Boller, whose life altering battle with cancer reshapes our understanding of faith and the fragility of human existence. In my interview with Kate,

we explore the profound insights from our life's unexpected journey and best-selling works, illuminating the beauty and complexity of the human experience. I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews. And if you love today's episode with our special guest, or any of those three episodes I just mentioned, we would so appreciate you giving it a 5 star review, sharing it with your friends and families. I know we and our guests love to see comments more listeners. I am genuinely thrilled about today's episode. It's one that's been

in the making for quite some time, especially since so many of you have asked for it. And the truth be told, I absolutely share your enthusiasm because today's guest is not only a fan favorite, but also one of my personal favorite authors. We have the distinct privilege of having Jim quick with us. Jim is more than just a mentor to the masses in the realm of cognitive performance. He is a guide who's dedicated three decades to teaching the art of using our minds to their fullest potential. Jim's work particularly his book limitless has opened doors for many to rethink their mental limits.

He's here to discuss his expanded edition, which goes even deeper into the essence of what it means to break mental barriers and embrace learning growth and change. Throughout this conversation, we'll transverse topics that resonate with all of us, from confronting learning mist, adapting to various work environments, enhancing focus, and managing the onslaught of digital noise that can dominate our lives. Jim's teachings also extend to nurturing our brains to proper nutrition, understanding the cognitive boost from neutropics, and leveraging unique learning strategies like the brain animal code. Plus, he'll share insights on speed reading memory enhancement and the harmonious stance between AI and human intelligence.

We're in an era where the potential for cognitive advancement is vast. Jim is here to eliminate the path forward and give us the first steps towards transcending what we thought was possible. It's a conversation that promises to enlighten and inspire, and perhaps even transform how you engage with your own intellectual abilities. So let's embark on this journey together and welcome the incredible Jim Quick to the show. It's time to get Passion Struck. It's time to get limitless.

Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life now. Let that journey begin. I am absolutely honored and ecstatic to have one of our most requested guests on the podcast, Jim Quack. Welcome, Jim. John, thank you so much for having me.

I've been looking forward to this. I think everybody was tuning in to this conversation. I can't wait to have this discussion because your book, which I'm homing up here, is one of my all-time favorite books I've ever read. And I know it's something that our audience has talked to me about repeatedly. I wanted to get us started in a unique way because our backgrounds actually intersect in a unique way.

We both experienced childhood incidents that impacted our cognitive functions. My own encounter with a brain injury at the age of five led to learning disabilities and various other challenges, and you had a very similar trial to overcome. Could you walk us through how you navigated the aftermath of your brain injury and what provoked you to dedicate your life to mastering and now teaching these intricacies of brain performance? Absolutely, John. I know a little bit about your history,

and I love having these conversations, because it brings awareness to our brains, our very resilient, but it's also a very fragile, and something like an incident, like a brain injury early on in childhood, I had a processing issues, sensory issues, I had a lot of pain growing up, headaches, and just disorientation, poor focus, sensory issues, I had a lot of pain growing up headaches and just disorientation,

poor focus, poor memory, took me three years longer to learn how to read like all the other kids, and that was really in the beginning when you're forming your personality, it really made me insecure, a lot of self-doubt, a lot of embarrassment. And when they passed around the book and you had to read it, and I just would get it, I look at the page and nothing. I would just pass the book on and I think that's where a lot of fear of public speaking comes from is those early impressions and experiences that we have were put on the spot. And all attention is on you.

And we just don't perform very well. And you associate that to massive insecurities and other areas of your life. And that was me. I remember a defining day. When I was nine years old, I was being bullied and teased pretty harshly because I was slowing down the class. Teachers would have to repeat themselves over and over again for me to get the lesson. That was embarrassing enough, but because I was being teased, a teacher came to my defense

and she pointed to me from the whole class and said, leave that kid alone, that's the boy with the broken brain. And I didn't realize until that moment that I was broken, but that bit label became my limit. We talk about becoming limitless and redrawing the borders and boundaries of what's possible. But that's really the core of my work is to help people liberate themselves mentally from these limitations that were imposed on us or self-imposed on us, especially in the area of learning when we're just developing and maybe we don't feel like we're that smart. And I just felt like I just didn't fit in. I remember one incident I don't talk about very often, but I would always spend time with

because I would want to escape, right? And so I would escape in comic books or dungeons and dragons, and I would bond spend time with someone wanting to escape, right? And so I would escape in comic books or Dungeons and Dragons, and I would bond with the kids that had good grades, frankly, I don't know if you call them the nerds or the geeks or the dorks, but I was part of that, but I just didn't have the grades as everybody else or was in as smart as everybody else. I thought, and one one day a teacher came in and said, good news, everybody. You are an exceptional group of children. We were creating this special program

that were piloting called the MASP, MASP. And they were like, what is that stand for? It stands for more able student program. And I was me and this other kid, I was a little bit awkward, also named Joey, where the only one's not invited into this group because I thought it was going to be part of that group because these were the people I was spending time with. And Joey and I created a group called LASP, it's less able student program.

But that was like where my head space was back then. And it wasn't just something that was short term. It was something I struggled with all through school, elementary school, middle school, junior high school. I was on the other side of the bell curve that, and it wasn't because a lack of effort. I worked very hard, but I just couldn't make it. And eventually, I found a mentor around age 18

and I was exposed to books and understandings and some insights about the power of the human brain. I got very curious about just how my brain works, so I could work my brain better. And it was a tough time in my life, but eventually I learned how to compensate and do better. And I really just went all in. I wanted to learn,

since I was a slow learner with a broken brain, I wanted to learn how to learn faster and fix my brain. And I started to find some answers. And I've been teaching it now for 32 years full time as a brain coach, helping people with distraction, with memory loss, forgetfulness, helping them make better decisions, solve problems, helping them be a faster reader, understand what they read.

I think these are certain skills that aren't taught in school that really prepare us to not only survive in the 21st century, but really thrive, to be able to catch up, keep up, and get ahead. So through this, I really found more of my calling and my mission and my purpose. I believe that what you're passionate about is what lights you up. And you can have a lot of those things that you're passionate about that make you come alive. And how you use one of those passions to light other people up is more of your purpose.

And so learning in the brain, I'm really passionate about it. I live and breathe this. And teaching people how to learn and improving their brain is to light them up is my purpose. I know you talk a lot about passion. I'm just very excited to have this conversation because my message to everybody who's listening or watching is that regardless of our age or background, career, education level, financial situation, gender history, IQ, we all could have more

of a limitless mind, if you will, and do things that would absolutely astonish ourselves. Well, one of the things I love to do, Jim, is watch the way you do keynote speeches, because you absolutely are up there not serving yourself, but you're serving the audience, and it really comes out in spades and the way that you deliver your talks. So that enthusiasm and passion are right there front and center. And I know exactly what you're talking about and the way you grew up because I suffered through the same things and would see my classmates just whether

it was learning a language or math or reading, it would become my turn. And I would mix words up, I would mispronounce things. My mind would just not move as fast as they did. And so it really caused me when I was younger to pull back a lot. And then I ended up working through it. And then after I graduated from the Naval Academy, I had a couple of combat related traumatic brain injuries that brought all the symptoms back. So, I've had to retrain my mind multiple times now, I'm completely understand where you're

coming from. Yeah, we're kind of kind of spirits like that, but it's interesting how you've taken your struggles and you've made them your strengths. And I really do believe that anyone going through adversity right now, there's some things we can only learn in a storm. And some storms come to clear your path and give you clarity on certain things. As hard as it was for those 13 plus years that I struggled every single day with myself a steam and my capabilities and my confidence, I wouldn't trade it.

We hear a lot about post traumatic stress. We don't hear a lot about post-traumatic stress. We don't hear a lot about post-traumatic growth, which is this phenomenon where maybe some of your listeners can relate that they've been through something that they wouldn't wish upon anybody. And yet, they wouldn't change what happened because going through this difficult situation or experience, they found something.

They found a strength. Maybe they found a passion or purpose. They found some traits or they, they found something, they found a strength, maybe they found a passion of purpose, they found some traits, or they got clarity about something, and there was this massive growth. My two biggest challenges were learning, and because my learning was so difficult, public speaking was a big challenge, because I wouldn't want the spotlight, because I just never knew the answers, right? I would do a book report, but if it he asked me to go in the front of the class and talk about it, I would just, it wasn't even just a fear. It was a phobia of public speaking, where my heart even thinking about it, my mouth is

getting dry, my heart speeding faster, and I relive it. But it's interesting public speaking and learning being my challenges, because what do I do every single day? I'm on stage public speaking on this thing called learning, right? And I think adversity sometimes can be an advantage. I don't want to spoil it, but in the book, and this is just a teaser for the audience, Jim lays out a situation where he had a chance to make up a great grade, wrote this incredible research paper, and then doesn't present it, but I will let you read the book to understand that story in more detail. Well, speaking of setting the stage, I think an incredible

way to do it would be to unpack the foundational elements of the limitless model. And I'm going to put this book back up here for those who are viewing this because this is a picture of the limitless model that has three concentric circles, but it consists of mindset, motivation, methods, and momentum, point and this framework. And I was hoping you could walk us through them. Yes, so we could turn this into a little workshop for everybody. I believe when I teach people need to understand what's relevant because sometimes in school, when we're learning all this information, we don't see how it's important to our lives

and how it relates to some things, like the sign, cosine, tangent, X, people, children, they're trying to think like, why do I need to learn this? And I think we always have to start with that reason to get better results, that things have to go from your head to your heart to your hands. And that's really the limitless model.

I'll draw this out if you're happy to be watching this on video. If not, I'll try to explain this. Everyone can imagine it. I want everyone to think about, so limitless is not about being perfect. Limitless is about advancing and progressing beyond what you're currently demonstrating or what you believe is possible. So if you're not advancing or progressing, just think about where you're in a box. Like what area in your life do you feel stuck in a box? And you can even take a piece of paper and draw out a

box and I'll do the same like a 3D, like a cube if you will. So I just draw like a box on a little piece of paper here. But where do you feel like you're not growing? Where do you feel like you've stalled out? Could be in your income, maybe your personal growth, maybe it's an area of health, the relationship, your impact, maybe there's a gap between where you are, where you wanna be in your life or your learning. Maybe you feel like you're stuck in being a slow reader or a poor memory.

Where do you feel like you're in a stuck? So in that box, it's three-dimensional, obviously. So the three forces, you can imagine, containing you in there. And these are the same three forces that will liberate you out of that box. And everybody wants to get a little bit unstuck. And as you mentioned, it's represented by these three circles. It's a Venn diagram, Mickey Mouse, two ears that overlap in a face. All right, so you could picture it that way. And so each of these circles represent the three dimensions

that keep you stuck, but then also get you to where you want to go. And I tend to alliterate a lot, so I'm going to make them all the letter M's. And so you see the M's there, or you can imagine each one starts with an M, and you said what these are, the bottom one are the methods. And everybody wants to know the methods

for, I don't know, starting a business or social media marketing or maybe sales or the methods for having great health, a great relationship. But I realize John that a lot of people know what to do but they don't do what they know they should do. And that knowledge is not power as the potential to be power only goes power when you put it to use when you apply it. And so why don't we use the methods? We

have to look at the first the ears, the two circles that preceded. And the first one, as you mentioned, is your mindset. Now, let's unpack this. Your mindset for me, the definition are the set of assumptions and attitudes you have about something. So at events, I'll do these demonstrations if there's a little bit of time and we'll pass around a microphone to the audience and they'll introduce themselves and I'll memorize their names, maybe like 50 or 100 people's names. And I don't do this to impress them. I do this to express to them what's possible because the truth is every single one of the your listeners right now they can do that too regardless of their age or the background it's just we weren't taught automatically when I say that some

people are like that's no way I can't do that I can barely remember what I read or remember one name and it's total BS, there are belief systems, right? And I call them lies, L-I-E, and I use a lot of acronyms, so it's easy, short form to memorize it. L-I-E is a limited idea entertained. It's a limited idea that you're entertained. You're giving energy to, right? And one of those is that genius is born. And people think that.

And after doing this for a few decades, and we have students in every country in the world, we get a lot of feedback. And it's been my experience that genius is not born. It's actually built that there's no such thing as a good or bad brain. There's a train brain and an untrained brain. And unfortunately, school didn't really teach you that.

They teach you what to learn math and history science maybe Spanish, but they're not all classes on how to learn those subjects. And I realized that when you go to somebody and you say, hey, at work focus or you go to your kids and say, study or remember, that's like going to somebody saying, play the didgeridoo or play the ukulele who's never taking classes on how to do those things. Well, we certainly haven't had those classes either. And that's why I wrote this book because I think the most important skill set to master today is learning how to learn because if you can learn how to focus and read faster and understand what you read and retain information and apply it, you could apply it towards everything

in your life. Every area of your life gets better because it's that lead domino that makes everything after it easy, right? What you put that into place. So we start though with our mindset because at these events, people often pull me aside and say, Jim, so glad you're here as a memory coach, I have to tell you in the request spring. And I just feel like, I just don't feel like that. I'm smart. Or they'll say, I'd have a horrible memory or I'm too old. And I would say, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. Because these are assumptions and attitudes of mindset about what they believe is possible for them, what they believe they're capable of, what

they believe that they deserve. So someone could learn a great method for, I don't know, relationships, but their mindset is that they don't deserve to be loved, right? And then just still stuck in that box where they could learn a great method for making money on long-ain or something like that. But if their mindset is you have to hurt people to make money or money is rude of all evil or whatever, they're still going to be contained. So that's why we start with mindset and give them strategies to be able to unlimited those that negative self-talk because it's been my experience, John, if people fight for the limitations, they get to keep them, right? They're there, meaning that your brain is this incredible supercomputer and your self-talk and your beliefs are the program that will run. So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering names, you won't remember the name of the next person you meet because that's how powerful your mind as you program your mind to not remember that.

And so we start with mindset first. And in mindset, it's the idea here is all behaviors, belief driven. If you want to do a method of behavior, then you need to believe it's possible. Right. If someone wants to create a new result in their life, they have to do a new behavior. If they want to do a new behavior, they need to a belief that says that could work, and I could work it, and I deserve it.

And so part of it is understanding that mindset. Then if you come back to it in the conversation, the second M, which is the first one is mindset, the last one are the methods. I realize that keep people in a box and keep them stuck as motivation. They lack motivation, they procrastinate. So if you're stuck in that box because they're not motivated to get themselves out of that

situation. And so for me, motivation is just three things. The formula for limitless motivation to get yourself to, I don't know, exercise is great for the brain. Reading is great for the brain, right? It is P times E times S3, three S's. So we could break this down. And when people think about an area where they're procrastinating and not moving forward,

they don't have drive or motivation to do it. Now I realize that we don't have motivation, we do it. Just like we don't have a memory, we do it. We don't have focus. There's a process for focusing. We don't have people at hope and hope it's not a great strategy that they wake up and they have creativity so they can write or make videos or do something podcast or something else, but creativity is not something you have, it's something you do. So one of the first principles and limitless expanded is taking the nouns in our life and putting them in turn into verbs. So you don't have focus, you do it. It's a verb. There's a process for focusing. You don't have a memory. There's a process for

remembering something. You encode it, you store it, you retrieve it. So just like that, there's also a process for motivating yourself. And it's P times E times S3. So we could break it down. P stands for purpose. You need a reason to get the result. And purpose for me is like a set of emotions. So I'm touching my heart right now because you could have a goal in your head and KPIs and vision here.

But if you're not acting with your hands, three H's head, hard hands, then check it with the second H, which is our heart, right? Which is symbol for emotions, because we're not logical. We are certainly biological though. Do you think about dopamine and oxytocin and serotonin, all these endorphins? We're this chemical feeling soup, and that provides the fuel to move forward. So purpose is something, a lot of people say, oh, maybe they see me on social media with

Oprah or Elon, and they're like, the question I always get is, like, how did you connect? How did you bond with these individuals? And the answer is that we bonded over learning. We often bond over books, right, because they are where they are, because they're relentless readers and learners. And so even Warren Buffett reads like 500 pages a day. So knowledge today is not only power, it's profit, but you can know that intellectually that it's good. That learning more is good for your, it's brain for your career, for your income.

But still, if you don't feel it, you're not likely to do it. income, but still, if you don't feel it, you're not likely to do it. And so I just want to remind people that pain and pleasure could be signals and be useful support to be able to give you purpose. Like who's counting on you to be at your A game today? What are the rewards that come from following through and remembering this name or reading this book? And what's the pain that comes from forgetting things like that if you don't, if you lack purpose, what puts the pain that comes from forgetting things like that, if you don't, if you lack purpose, what's the pain that comes from not being educated on your industry? And if you allow yourself to feel it, you're more likely to do it. Now, somebody can have a limitless purpose and still be not motivated because they lack e, which is,

of course, energy. If let's say, I think reading is so important because that's a wonderful way to create. I know you talk about neuroplasticity in your show. Neuroplasticity is, your brain is very malleable and then you can make new connections even as you age. So you could grow older, but in a lot of ways you could grow wiser. And the key for neuroplasticity is the same as building your body.

If you wanna build your muscles, you give it two things, novelty and nutrition. And so, same thing with your mental muscles. You give it something new and then you give it nutrition. But if you're not reading, for example, each day, maybe you had a big processed meal and you're in a food coma and you're tired. And that somebody who's tired is not going to be very motivated to work out or to read or to make those sales calls. And so in the book, we talk about the 10 levers for brain energy and who doesn't want,

if people suffer from mental fatigue, we talk about the best foods for your brain, how to optimize your sleep and so much more. And then finally, you could have a limitless purpose and limitless energy and still not be motivated because you need the final part Which is often neglected which is S3 small simple steps Because the other thing that could make you procrastinate even if you have purpose and you feel the reasons and you have lots of energy

Is this thing that you're going for might be too intimidating? It might be too big like Like, I want 100,000 followers, or I want to create the next unicorn and have this perfect six pack body. For somebody, it could be too big of a leap and confusing. And a confused mind doesn't do anything. So how do you simplify it? Small, simple step.

So maybe it's not exercising an hour day too big. So that's why people procrastinate if they don't do it. Small, simple step is like, put it on your sneakers? Your workout gear. That's a small, simple step. Maybe reading 30 minutes a day is a big jump. So small, simple step, opening up a book, reading one line in a book. We have our own podcast also as well, all about brain performance. It's a 20-minute show. And we had a biological dentist on recently talking about oral hygiene good for your brain health. And we're talking about flossing. And I know you, John, have a big love and interest in behavioral, right? You want people to make behavioral change, which is where I really respect

that because I feel like we don't know it unless we're doing it. Every lot of people know what to do, but they're not doing it. So I don't feel like they really understand it unless they could implement it. But if they're not flossing or kids aren't flossing, maybe a small, simple step, flossing one tooth. Because nobody's gonna stop at one tooth. And how you find your S3 and I'll wrap it up here, one magic question that I ask myself, probably a good five to 10 times a day,

whenever I feel stalled, I ask myself this question, what is the tiniest action I could take right now that will be giving me progress towards this goal where I can't fail. That's a big question. Let's break it down. What is the tiniest action I could take now operative work now, not putting it off that will give me progress towards his goal. So I'm going to get some traction and direction towards his goal, not away from it. And where I can't fail, it's so small that I can't fail. And so flossing a tooth, getting your kids to put one sock in a hamper, reading one line in a book, putting on your running shoes. Those are small, simple steps. And I believe inch by inch, it's a cinch. Yard by yard is just too hard. So you could think big, but you need to act small, right? Small little things, add up to big things because little by little,

a little becomes a whole lot, because consistency compounds. And so this works for yourself, motivating yourself, but it also works for motivating people to do things, right? Maybe something's not buying a prospect, do they have purpose in their heart? Right? Because people buy emotionally and they justify logically. Or do they lack the energy? They're exhausted or maybe they lack energy?

Wouldn't it be a form of energy? Are you making it too hard for them? Maybe you need to make a simple opt-in on your funnel. So it's a small commitment, a small simple step that can lead to bigger things down the road. But I put this limitless model here because the intersection points is what's interesting to me. There's four eyes. You'll notice that when you make this these three circles intersect, they create like four empty spaces where they converge. And where mindset and motivation crossover, you have the first eye, which is inspiration. What does it do? It changes your mindset and gives you a little bit of motivation, but you're not including the methods.

So you're inspired, but you have no instruction where mindset and methods intersect as a second eye is ideation. You have the mindset that is possible and you're capable of it. And you know what to do, the methods, but it just stays an idea because you lack the motivation. So that's ideation. And then where motivation crosses over with methods, this is a big one, is a third eye, which is implementation.

You're motivated, you have purpose and energy, and you have the method, you know what to do. So you're going to implement, but you could still be stuck in that box because that box is containing you, your mindset. You might not think it's possible that you deserve it or some kind of constraint there. And then finally, right in the middle where all three M's intersect, you have the fourth eye, and I call that integration. This is where you're truly limitless, you're integrated.

It's just your identity can be another word you could use for that fourth eye. It's just who you are. And so the reason I put this here is because I believe to be truly limitless, right? And to light up your passions and your purpose, that you control what you can control, right? You control the controllables. And one of the three things you could always control, you can control. Right, you control the controllables. And when the three things you could always control your mindset, your motivation and the methods you're using. So many people nowadays out of fear of what's going on when they're a current situation, they downgrade

their dreams to meet their current situation. When instead you could flip it and say, what if I don't downgrade my goals and my dreams, what if I don't downgrade my goals and my dreams? What if I upgraded my mindset, my motivation, my methods? And when you do that, you create the fourth M, which is the focus of the new book, the expanded version of Limitless, which is Momentum. Right? If your mindset is like you release the brakes,

you believe it's possible that you're capable, that you deserve it, as opposed to the brakes would be, I can't do this, right? That's for somebody else could do. And you self-sabotage, or you don't deserve it. So those are the brakes. The motivation is the gas, right? And giving you the fuel, the high fuel

that's gonna get you to your destination, your goals. And then the methods are how to drive. But some people are using all methods of social media marketing or all methods for negotiation or all methods for health and wellness or how all methods for reading what I teach the last time people took a class called reading, they were six or seven and people are still reading like they were last trained, which was how many decades ago, but the world has changed a lot so much information, but how we read it and learn it's the same so that growing gap creates that stress. So this conversation in this book really is about showing people tactically how to unlimited themselves in the area of their mindset, their motivation, and their methods so they could have greater velocity and momentum in the new year. Jim, thank you for that extensive overview. I think that really does a lot and helping the listener

understand your whole model. And for those of you who haven't read Jim's book, let me just tell you how it's organized. He has an initial portion of the book where he sets up the need to have a limitless mind. And then in part two, he goes into explaining these three circles that he was just talking about. The first is the limitless mindset or the what? The next portion of the book, part three is limitless motivation, the why. And he just discussed chapter

seven, eight, nine, which are really your purpose. And how do you guide someone to discover their true purpose, energy, and what are some practical tips for someone looking to boost their mental energy? And then chapter nine, which is small, simple steps, which you just went through in detail. And then the fourth portion of the book is limitless methods, which he was just discussing the how. And then he gets into the fifth portion of the book, which is the new expanded part limitless momentum, the when. So that's how the book, which is the new expanded part limitless momentum, the win. So that's how the book is organized. I have a model that's a little bit different than yours Jim and mine. I have mindset behaviors and deliberate action as the three circles with momentum going around it. And I think

that your mindset drives your behavior, but nothing happens with your behavior, unless you're taking actions, change your habits, perform new behaviors, which then is intertwined with your motivation to take those steps. I wholeheartedly agree with that because, especially in the motivation section, not only do we have a chapter on purpose and energy and small, simple steps, there's a chapter in there on habit design, right? So people can make behavioral changes that are consistent, also how to access flow states, that state where you feel your best and you perform your best and you lose sense of yourself, sense of time, and things almost become effortless. So these are accelerators for motivation that could help unleash more fuel for that momentum that we all want. And then in the momentum part we talk about new chapters on, hey, these are in Neutropics. I've never talked about brain supplements in my 30 year career, but we highly research this and list all the human studies about Neutropics brain supplements that could actually

positively affect your focus, your memory, your mood, so you feel better, and also give you mental energy for people to struggle with brain fog or mental fatigue. We had a section on artificial intelligence, how to use AI to enhance your HI, your human intelligence, because that can provide more momentum. We talk about learning agility at work, so you can be more like your HI, your human intelligence, because that can provide more momentum. We talk about learning agility at work, so you can be more like you're physically agile,

quick and fast, and you're flexible, but how do you do that mentally at work, so you can get more done in less time? We talk about the brain types, which I'm most excited about. I feel people get them from the book, it's gonna be the biggest takeaway. We introduce a new model for cognitive types

where they're associated fun animals, which represent the four different brain codes. And once you know your brain animal, you have so much power to be able to navigate this world of this fast pace where you need to adapt based on your strengths and how to hire based on brain code, how to communicate based on your brain code, how to learn and read. It's how there's like personalized medicine based on your genetics or personalized nutrition

based on a test like your microbiome. Well, we created a model for personalized learning because everybody learns a little bit differently. They have a different style based on their brain animal and that informs how they could read better, improve, remember names, learn a language, focus when they need to, and so much more. It literally affects every area of your life. Yeah, such a great chapter. And what I wanted to do was to sporadically go through a few of the concepts from the book.

So I'm going to start out with why this matters now, which is the title of chapter two, which seems especially pertinent now in our fast paced world. You start this chapter off by saying that you're a firm believer that we all have incredible superpowers waiting to be awakened. And I know, and anyone who follows you knows you're a huge fan of comics and superhero movies, that all have these supervillains in them. What are the modern day supervillains that are keeping us from our potential? So we talk about in the book four, and I call them the four horsemen of the mental apocalypse, right? They're driven by technology.

Technology hasn't created them, but it has surely amplified them exponentially. And these are the things that hold you back in your productivity, your performance, your profitability, and certainly your peace of mind. So the first one is digital day loose. And this is the information overload we talked about. The amount of information is doubling at disenging speeds, right? But how we learn and retain it, read it, it's the same. So that growing gap creates something called information anxiety. Symptoms of this are things that we can all relate to, higher blood pressure, a compression of leisure time, more sleepless

nights. Because we're just drowning in information. You buy books and they sit on your shelf unread, and it becomes shelf help, not self help, right? We're buried in emails and messages and reports and research. It's like taking a sip of water out of a fire hose. So the methods chapter fixes that because it shows you how to accelerate your learning, how to study better, how to read faster and understand what you read to overcome digital day loose. The second one is digital distraction. And this is a big one. How do you maintain your concentration in a world full of rings and pings and dings

and app notifications and social media alerts, right? And so we talk about how to fix that in the methods by talking about harnessing the superpower of focus. And there's a whole chapter on how to have incredible leisure-like focus to catch up, keep up and get ahead. The third one is digital dementia. And this is a term in healthcare. I didn't make it up. It's the high reliance on our external devices to do the remembering for us. Like, John, how many phone numbers did you use to know growing

up? Probably 15 to 20. Yeah. So like a lot, how many do we know currently today? Current numbers, maybe a handful. Yeah. And I don't want to memorize like 100 or 200 or 500 phone numbers, but it should be concerning that most people think that they've lost the ability to remember one number or a pin number or a passcode or a seed phrase or something that is red.

I believe two of the most costly words on our life, I forgot. Think about the consequences of saying, I forgot where I put it. I forgot that to go to that meeting. I forgot what I just read. I forgot what I was going to say. I forgot that conversation I had. I forgot that person's name. Just goes on and on.

We lose time. We lose productivity. We get hurt or relationship. We lose a sale. On the other side, memory, which is the largest chapter, how to remember in the book, memory can be as a force multiplier. Memory can make you money. If you can easily remember names and faces, client information, product information, sales scripts, gift presentations without using notes or teleprompter. In the expert economy,

knowledge is not only power, it's a lot of profit. So we fix it with the chapter on memory. And finally, the fourth super villain after digital day loose, digital distraction, digital dementia is a term I coined called digital deduction. And this is where technology is a lot of times it's doing the thinking for us. So we go on autopilot, even a simple example, getting from here to there, before there was a GPS on our phones, we would need to build a visual, spatial intelligence, right, to know where we are in time and space, yet how many people automatically they go to their phone or they

go to ways and they just didn't be able to get there. But it's convenient technology. Absolutely. It allows this conversation you and I are having to happen. I love technology, but you have to balance out the convenience with how it could cripple you. A simple example is if you have to go to the bank and it's eight blocks away,

a lot of people jump in their car when they could have got their steps in. So there's a physical toll because if you put your arm in a sling for a year, it wouldn't grow stronger. It wouldn't even stay the same. It would atrophy, right? And so your brain is like a muscle. It's used to lose it. If your office is on the fourth floor or your apartment's on the fourth floor and you use the elevator every single time, you don't get those steps in. Yes, it's

convenient, absolutely. But there's also a physical toll that we're paying also as well. So in a world full of AI and technology and internet, what I'm saying is, you want to keep mentally sharp more than ever. You want to cultivate your focus, your memory, your critical thinking skills, your ability to process information rapidly because that's how you're going to really catch up, keep up and get ahead in the information age. Well, I'm going to jump to the topic you just covered, which is focus, because one of my favorite interviews I've done on the show was with our mutual

friend, Don DePonny. And I loved that the number one thing that he learned when he was a monk was the power of intentional focus and how it becomes a super power that governs everything else you do. And this era of constant distractions that you were just talking about, what's your number one strategy for maintaining focus? I'll give you a couple because focus precedes everything. A lot of people that are not forgetting a name, they're just not paying attention and

focused and hearing a name. So they blame their retention, what's really their attention, right? And so a few things to think about. First of all, your brain is mostly a deletion device. It's trying to keep information out because there's at any given time, millions of stimulus you could pay attention to. And if we let everything in, we would go insane. We would be overloaded. We wouldn't be able to process all of it. So the gatekeeper, part of your brain, they call it their reticular activating system, the RAS. And the RAS determines where you're going to shine a spotlight. You're where you're going to put your awareness. And one of the ways to really harness your focus and your RAS is asking questions. So when you ask a new question, it shines a spotlight on what's relevant to that

question. Right. The example I give in the book is years ago, we've been in years ago, my sister would send me emails and postcards, images of a very specific breed of dog, a pug dog, and she was seeding a birthday, I was coming up, she's a good marketer. Right. And because I was asking why she sent to me these photos of this dog and the funny thing happened, John, I started seeing this pug dog everywhere in my neighborhood. I would be at the health food store and someone in front of me is at the checkout line is carrying a pug dog.

I'd be running in my neighborhood and somebody's walking six pug dogs, right? And my question for everyone listening is, did those pug dogs just naturally manifest and teleport into my neighborhood? No, they were always there, but my brain was deleting it because it wasn't important until I started asking the question, then I started seeing them everywhere, much like when you buy a new car, you start seeing that car everywhere, right? And so the idea here is when you're reading something,

you're not focusing, your mind is wandering. You could ask a question like, how can I use this? How does this relate to what I already know? You could ask more questions and you'll stimulate your RAS. And then when you're reading a page, a lot of people get to the end and forget what they just read because they have no focus. If you have questions, you're like, oh, there's a pug dog, there's a pug dog, there's a pug. There's an answer, there's an answer, there's an answer. Right. So questions are the answer. So I want to be conscious even when you're focused, you could always even bring it back right now. Three of my favorite questions to ask, to turn knowledge into action, behavior, how can

I use this? So when you're listening to your show, when you're honest, listening to your show every week, how can I use this? Why must I use this? When will I use this? One of the best ways of focusing is to schedule your focus. One of the most powerful productivity tools we have is our calendar. And we might put meetings in there or doctors appointments, parent teacher meetings, whatever, but are we scheduling our implementation? Are we scheduling the things that we need to focus on? Even if you ruminate about things that you want to worry about, then schedule that.

Hey, at 415 today, I'm not going to worry about this thing that I really need to focus right now on this project with my team. And yet, I'm ruminating about this other thing. Hey, at 415, that's when I'll focus on that. And it allows you to release and freeze up that energy that I mental bandwidth to do something else. The other thing I would say about focus is focus is a muscle, right? My interview with Don de Pony has over a million views on our YouTube version and I would say focus is a muscle. That's why you meditate, right? Right. I don't meditate to get enlightened. I meditate because when my thoughts go somewhere, I think about the dry cleaning or my trip, I have to make tomorrow. When I pull it back to my breath or I pull it back to a word like a mantra or phrase,

then I exercise my focus. And how you do anything is how you do everything. So if you do a little exercise each day, one or two times a day, do a little 10-minute, 15-minute meditation to just be there with your thoughts, then you're exercising. You're working out your concentration and it'll show up later in the day when you're exercising, you're working out your concentration, and it'll show up later in the day when you're with your kids or when you need to focus on a Zoom call or something else. So I would say ask better questions and also build your focus. Do exercises, even when you're eating, don't multitask, right? Work and everything else. Just enjoy the food. Mindfulness is not

regulated to just meditation. We could bring mindfulness into brushing our teeth and eating each day. Small little things and that harnesses that and we're flexing those focus muscles so it shows up in other times of our life. Thank you for sharing that, Jim. And I'm going to jump to the last portion of your book. But before I do, I just want to dimension that chapter 13 is a great chapter that I love because it's on your memory. And it's something I use or refer to a lot because as I'm preparing for a keynote speech,

or I'm thinking about what I want to say on a podcast episode where I'm being interviewed, I use Jim's approach of thinking about my living room as I'm doing the tour around the room. I use different objects along that tour to help me remind myself of the major points that I want to cover. I appreciate that, John. What you're talking about is something called the Mind Palace or Memory Palace, where we teach people a fun exercise.

They'll see in the book for people who want to give a toast at a wedding, or they have to give a presentation on a stage, or go to an interview or a client in a sales call, that we take that maybe 10 or 20 points to your speech, and we strategically place them using our imagination in different parts of our home. And then we walk you through your home when you need to give the presentation and you remember all the different points. And it's a 2,500 year old memory technique credited to ancient Greece where orders and poets would remember things based on where they place them

on their body or you could do it for your office, you could do it your car, take places you're extremely familiar with, take the idea that you want, turn it into a picture and place those pictures around your environment. And it's a wonderful way to keep the notes inside your mind. And it's a wonderful way to learn. I find it extremely helpful. And like you, I read a lot, you

have to, if you're a podcast host, I read probably 120 books a year. Feed reading is something that's extremely important to me. I thought I read fast until I read that President Kennedy used to read between 500 and 1200 words per minute, which is insane. But chapter 14, Jim covers everything that you would need to know on how you speed read. But then in part five, he really goes into the new sections of the book. And one of the chapters I liked a lot was this chapter 16 on limitless at work because so many people are disengaged right now. And I wanted to ask you, Jim, how can someone apply the limitless model in a professional setting to align their work ambitions with this new workplace environment

that so many of us find ourselves in. The chapter on limitless of work is all about learning agility, it being mentally flexible. So if you're working remote or you're working in an office or you're doing like a hybrid, how do you maintain your level of energy and focus in those environments? I'll give you one one idea on this, right? The idea here is, let's go back to the power of questions. And we talk about in the book as a dominant question.

And the dominant question is, the idea here is you have 60,000 thoughts a day, and a lot of those thoughts come in the form of questions. And there are certain questions we ask more than any other question. And we all have it. There's a question we all ask. And but the challenge is a lot of people are asking questions

that are taking them out of their learning agility. It's making them more static. They're asking questions like, why does this always happen to me at work? Why I'm always treated this way? Or why can't I ever get anything done? And then all of a sudden, you light up, you shout a spotlight on all the reasons,

and they're not the most useful answers, right? As opposed to what's the best use of this moment right now? Like a good thing to become, learn more learning agile is to be flexible with your thoughts and your questions. So there's a great book, A Zero to One by Peter Teal, who's a famed angel investor. And here's a question, what if you had to reach your 10-year goal and you only had six months to do it? So you can't possibly do it by working harder at work, right? You have to be learning agile and thinking a different way and be more creative. Another way is integrating this with the brain types that we talk about. Understanding your brain type at work will allow you to

be more agile. So I don't know which one you identify with most people could take this quiz. We put it so this is a model I use with coaching clients one-on-one for years and for the first time in this book we release it to the public and there's four animals and you can find out yours at mybrainanimal.com. It's a four-minute quiz. It's kind of like what Game of Thrones character are you, and it'll give you personalized learning based on your animal, because it's not how smart you are at work. It's how are you smart at work. And so once you know your animal, remember C-O-D-E. The C are the Cheetos, and the defining trait for a Cheetah at work is they act, right? They are full implementers.

They thrive in fast-paced environments. They have very strong intuition. The O in code are your owls. And if you're an owl, your defining trade is logic. You love data, you love facts, you love figures and formulas. The D now notice the cheetah and the owl will operate different at work, right? They'll buy different, they'll invest different. One will be just fast going on Twitch,

when other people wanna do their research and have enough facts to pack up their decisions. The D are dolphins, and these are your creative visionaries. These are people that can see a future that maybe other people can yet see. They're great pattern recognizers and problem solvers. They're very passionate about what they do.

And finally, the E are your elephants, and they have high levels of empathy. And it's interesting because these are your collaborators. These are your community builders. These are the loyal teammates. And so all four of these, which in your brain type, your brain animal, if you will, it'll inform how you can be more agile at work.

And here's an example. We tattoo our entire team, take the assessment, the same one at mybrainanimal.com. 100% John of our customer service team are elephants. High levels of empathy, they want to be supportive, they're extremely loyal, they're community builders. Our CFO, financial advisor, is an owl. Happens because you go to where you're the role and responsibility of your strength naturally because that's your element. Are my business partner of 20 years? Our CEO is Adolphin, holds the vision for the whole company, right? And so it's interesting once you understand your brain type

because it takes the judgment off of yourself because you know how you're smart, or your strengths, and you could hire and surround yourself by other animals who complement you also. And then also informs a cheetah reads differently than an owl who's looking for all the details. Cheetah's kind of sprinting through and skimming. Adolfin visualizes what they read.

An elephant is feeling where the author's coming from different points of view. So based on your animal type, we give you a map per animal on how to maximize your animal traits. So that all the research is in the book. We pull from areas that you've studied, like positive psychology, personality types, like Myers-Briggs, left brain, right brain dominance, theory, multiple intelligence theory,

at a Harvard, introvert, extrovert, learning styles, visual auditory kinesthetics. So we melded and synergized it into this one kind of quick quiz. And yeah, I would challenge everyone actually to take the quiz. And we give you some nice AI art based on your animal type. And they can post it and tag us both on and on social media and I'll repost some of my favorite stomach curbs like which our listeners are mostly. So I'd love to be able to see that. Yeah, I love it. And the we're almost out of time here in the thing I loved about Jim's book and the thing that makes it so difficult to interview him about it is I could do an

interview with him on each and every chapter in the book. So the boil this down is really difficult, especially these four new chapters that he has. Jim, if someone wants to know more about you and I know you are everywhere, where is the best place for them to go, Jim, quick central? So I believe that there's just small, simple steps that hopefully this is not the end of this conversation. There are three things I would recommend that everyone can easily do.

We have a podcast. You can just search my name in any podcast app, Jim Quick. You just have to spell it right. KWIK. It's my real last name, my father's name, my grandfather's name. I didn't change it to be a speed reading teacher on YouTube. It's probably the funnest place because we put new content there in podcasts. Number two, the book, limitlessbook.com.

When you get it there, we have a link to Amazon and Barnes and Noble everywhere there, but when you submit your receipt there, we give you a 13-day speed reading memory program as my gift. So highly recommend you go there to get it. We donate 100% of the proceeds to charity to build schools for children around the world.

And of the third area is mybrainanimal.com. Take that simple quiz and share with the community what animal you are. And I'll actually repost some of my favorites and gift out a couple copies of the book to your community randomly. Just as a thank you for having me on your show. Well, Jim, it was such an honor to have you.

Thank you so much for being here today. And congratulations on this updated version of your incredible book. Thank you so much for being here today. And congratulations on this updated version of your incredible book. Thank you so much, John. I appreciate you. Be limitless, everybody. What an incredible interview and honor it was to have Jim Quick today. And I wanted to thank Jim Hayhouse and all this support notto for bringing him on today's show. Something I've had so many requests from the audience to do.

So I was so happy we could do this today. Links to all things Jim will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show. All proceeds go to supporting the show. Videos are in YouTube at both John Armeyles and PassionStruck Clips. I have some exciting news that my brand new book, PassionStruck, is now available for pre-order. You can find it at passionstruck.com, backslash, Ashensh struck book. And if you buy it there, I have five amazing gifts that are

valued at over $300 that you will get to use before this book comes out. Please go and check it out. You won't be disappointed. Videos are on YouTube. Evertiser deals with discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. You can sign up for my professional newsletter work intentionally on LinkedIn. You can find me on all the social platforms at JohnArmiles. You can also sign up for my personal development newsletter live intentionally passionstruck.com. If you want to know how I book amazing guests like Jim, it's because of my network. Go out there and build yours before you need it. You're about to hear a preview of the passionst Start podcast I did with Dr. Lynn Matriessen,

who's the Chief Science Officer, the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, known as Pancan. And in that interview, we go through some very important topics, including the importance of early diagnosis and new ways that early diagnosis is being done for pancreatic cancer patients. Some of the new novel treatments that are coming out

and advancements that are being made almost weekly to help combat the steadily disease will discuss the importance of educating high risk communities and why your advocacy matters so much. Immunotherapy, the K-RAS targeted therapy, and then things that disrupt that dense stromal that is characteristic of pancreatic cancer, things that will loosen that up and let drugs in better and let things work better. I was a third area of research, and I think if we can learn how to use those three approaches, those things that make pancreatic cancer so difficult to treat,

then we can get to the point where we can really start to control it and see good lots of cases of long-term survivors. The fee for the show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know someone who wants to make themselves and at less, then definitely share today's episode with you in quick. Greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love

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