THE ED MYLETT SHOW - The Ultimate Hack To Limitless Thinking w/ Jim Kwik

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Tap into your inner GENIUS and revolutionize how you think, learn, and succeed!This week, we're diving into the art of maximizing your brain's potential with the incredible Jim Kwik, a master in brain optimization techniques.He was once known as the boy with the BROKEN BRAIN.But Jim overcame a severe childhood injury to become one of the world’s foremost experts on learning theory, neuroscience, and brain performance.It's not just about Jim's inspiring journey; it's about what his insights can do for YOU. We're going to explore practical, powerful strategies to elevate your cognitive abilities and unlock new levels of personal and professional achievement.Together we’re going to help you put on your thinking cap and dig into how to OPTIMIZE YOUR BRAIN to help you live better and accomplish more including:Discovering your BRAIN TYPEHow to REMEMBER more LEARN at maximum retentionHow to harness diverse thinking styles for extraordinary results.Understanding your RAS and the brain's role in filtering information.Mastering the art of note-taking for better recall and understanding.Exploring Neuronutrition and the impact of diet on cognitive function.Strategies for developing brain health from an early age.Tips for achieving your peak Flow State for maximum productivity.This episode is about transforming how you think, learn, and grow. It's about taking your brain health into your own hands and unlocking your limitless potential. Join us for a session packed with actionable insights and start your journey to a smarter, more capable you! 🧠💡🔥

This is the Edmila Show. I welcome back to the show everybody. Today is a treat for me because I have a friend here and not only just a friend, it's somebody that I really admire in my personal life. He's always the smartest man in the room, yet he never has the need to make you feel like you need to know that. His level of humility is so inspiring to me because he's become such a successful man. But he's a coach to so many famous people, celebrities, actors, entertainers,

behind the scenes on their brain, on their life. He's been somebody who's helped me with my own life. Every time I see him, I just want to give him a hug, tell him how much I love him. He's just a tremendous human being. And having said all of that, he's also a brilliant man. And he's one of a kind. And we're going to dial right into one of his great strengths today, which is your brain and how it functions and how you can get it functioning better. I can't think of a topic I'm more excited about covering with the best in the world. So Jim, quick. Welcome back for the second time to the show, brother. It's been too long. Yeah. And my let thank you so much for having me on your show and thank you,

everyone who's tuning into this, uh, brainy conversation. Well, here's his book, everybody. It's the expanded version of limitless. And I have to tell you, if you look at me holding it up, you're most of your listeners on audio, but there's just pages marked after marked after marked for my own usage because it's so... Jim's been on before, we talked a little bit about this, but this time I got to read the entire book in this expanded version today. You guys, it's really a textbook on your brain and how to get it to optimize to your full potential. And we're going to talk about that on today's show. So let's start with this. I just took a quiz right before I came online here that's in the book about the different brain types.

It turns out I'm a cheetah. What are you, by the way, and then explain to him what the heck this means? Because I think even understanding your own brain and what type you are gives you a lot of insight on how to make it optimal. So I am an elephant, my primary, my secondary is an owl. And yeah, we'll talk about for people just tuning in,

they're wondering, what does that even mean? So we created as part of the new expanded edition, creating moments in your life. I believe one of the most important parts to having fulfillment, greater levels of success is knowing yourself. I think a big part of our own success and fulfillment is having the curiosity to know ourselves and then the other part is having the courage to be ourselves, which

is a totally different game. So I created this assessment for people and I know themselves a little bit better and know the people around them. I pulled from, it's a cognitive type assessment, which only takes about four minutes to go through. And I pulled inspiration from things like personality types, like Myers-Briggs, science and psychology, like left-brain, right-brain dominance theory, visual auditory, kinesthetic processing. We pulled from multiple intelligence theory, how regardless we're kind of Harvard University, introvert, extrovert, and so on. And I realized that after 32 years as being a full-time brain coach, that not everything works for everybody. Just like we're all bio-individual, and not everybody reacts to every food the same way. And just like there's personalized medicine

based on an assessment, like your DNA, or personalized medicine based on an assessment like your DNA or personalized nutrition based on a nutrient profile or maybe your microbiome test. We created this simple test for personalized learning and performance based on our dominant brain type. And so there are four brain types. We found out that are four buckets. And once you know yourself, you can really lean into your strengths and leverage them, not only for reading faster, improving your

memory, having better focus, but also for negotiating, for sales, for parenting. And once you understand other people's brain types that really informs your next moves if you will, to have greater levels of learning and life. What's the difference in a cheetah and an elephant, for example, those two types? Yeah, let's go through all four. They're four animals. I'm like the king of acronyms. I love it.

Short cuts. Code. Remember your brain code, C-O-D-E. The C stands for cheetahs. And cheetahs, their primary trait is action. Like, you are a man of action. So cheetahs, and cheetahs, their primary trait is action, like you are a man of action. So cheetahs think and act at lightning speed. They thrive in fast paced environments.

They adapt, making very quick decisions. They trust their instincts. They have extremely strong intuition, and they're able to adapt in rapidly changing environment. They're very, very swift. The o in code stands for the owl. And the owl, their dominant trait where the cheetahs go for action, owls are go for logic. Okay, so they're very analytical, methodical,

detail oriented. And by the way, we are not just one. We are a composite of all these animals, but usually there's one that's a primary, that's more dominant. So the owl are your deep thinkers. They analyze information. They consider every angle before making a decision.

They love facts and they love figures. They love data. The DN code are your dolphins. And these are interesting people. They are their primary trait is creativity. They are creative visionaries. They, they see the bigger picture. Maybe other people can get grasp this vision.

They're guided a lot by their innovation, by their pioneers in their field. Think about the Walt Disney's, the JK Rawlings in the World. And finally, the E encode are your elephants, and their primary trait is empathy and collaboration. So elephants are at the heart of any team, any friend group. They have keen sense of empathy, which allows them to understand and collaborate with a diverse group of individuals. They often serve as the glue that holds teams together. They want people to feel seen. They want people to feel heard.

And it's interesting. When we had, this is a model. And remember, all models are, we know that the map is not the territory, that the menu is not the meal. But it gives you distinctions and a lens to look at your performance and the decisions you make, also the people around you. And it kind of takes a judgment out of it. Even with something like speed reading,

which we've talked about in a previous episode with you about memory improvement, I realized that it's not how smart somebody is. It's not how smart you are. It's how are you smart? It's not how smart your kids are. It's actually how are they smart? And everybody expresses genius in different ways. You would think that even your career paths, owls, if their brain animal type is an owl, these are your data analysts, these are your engineers, these are your accountants, these are your research scientists, your software developers,

Cheetahs are your entrepreneurs, right? They adapt, they have strong intuition, their action oriented mindset, could be also, Cheetah could be an EMT, or a sales, a professional athlete, like Serena Williams. Dolphins would be, find roles, responsibility, where they had a graphic designer,

or maybe a writer, a marketing specialist, a film director, elephants would fall in the, maybe they're a social worker, PR specialist, a teacher, a project manager. Well, I think also, Jim, it helps getting people on the right seat on the bus when you're hiring too, or moving people around. Like, you know, for me, I was, I was doing this. I'm like, I need to give this to my team because I have a funny feeling. I have a few people on the bus.

They should be on my team, but I have them in the wrong seat based on their brain perclivity. I have them in the wrong seat. They're very, very much so. And so we could use this. We have companies. We serve half of the Fortune 500 companies and they apply this to be able to communicate better, to be able to sell better, to be able to hire better in the area or even parent better, but certainly for hiring, a cheetah, think about hiring, a cheetah tends to value efficiency and results. So they might lean towards hiring candidates who demonstrate initiative, the candidates that could quickly adapt, which is one of the most important traits nowadays, people who are decisive, they would manage, cheetahs would manage a very specific way too.

They're great at delegating tasks to set, they set clear expectations, KPIs, they might need to ensure that they're not pushing their team maybe too hard or too quickly. So there's, it definitely informs an owl, you think about hiring as an owl, they would appreciate candidates who exhibit strong analytical skills, attention

to detail, more systematic approaches. They would manage in a more structured, predictable work environment, and they might need to be a little cautious also, because every strength also has coupled with some kind of maybe drawback that they might have a cognitive bias or blind spot for. Well, that was me. I had a jump in and tell you that one of my biggest mistakes I made young was I hired people that were my brain type because I thought they were the smart ones. So everybody around me was it was it was a was a dog on cheetah.

And I needed some dolphins. I needed some elephants, right? I didn't I thought, well, the smart people are just like me. So I had a that's not the right seed on the bus. I don't think you want your CFO to be a cheetah, right? Exactly. Like, love languages. If somebody had their love language, people tend to whatever their love language happens to be, that's what fulfills them, but that's also how they often communicate. So words of affirmation, but if your partner loves acts of kindness or service, then it's like we're not meshing.

And that happens all the time when we're trying to learn something often a coach or a mentor is different than, so you have to be able to adapt. So for an owl, their drawbacks, they can be overly cautious and overanalyze and become too rigid in the process and never take action. They're just ideate all the time. Selfens can inspire very well because they have a lot of passion because they have this vision

where they may motivate teams with their enthusiasm. However, they might occasionally overlook the details, the nitty gritty logistics of other things. And finally, the elephant, if you're thinking about hiring and managing candidates, that an elephant would hire for our team players, right? However, you know, a drawback might be they might occasionally struggle with making tough decisions that might upset somebody also, also as well. But it's interesting. Once you understand your brain type and people could go through the quiz online or they through the book. It also determines how you can parent or even communicate. Let me ask you this. So when we go through the brain, one of the things about Jim's work

is like, it helps you hack your brain. And for me, because I am a cheetah wanting to be productive, right? Like I want to be productive. And I, I think sometimes I lose my ability to retain information and to stay focused. So I'm reading, I read this again. And these are just things that stuck out for me that I want people to know on the break. Like literally you guys, we could do an hour and a half in the book and I give you hacks in the that are in the book, which we're going to do now. And it still wouldn't be 20% of the book.

There's that much in there, okay? And so I'm going to tell you something that'll shock you about him. And I said, one, he's introverted and two, I got to tell you the story from when he was a little boy. And I could see my son getting emotional and I was getting emotional telling the story. But I think it's some way every person can kind of relate a little bit. So just tell him, tell him the story you know I'm asking about. Yeah, and I'll build up. This is the 30 seconds before that. I mentioned I had an accident when I was five years old, a very bad fall in kindergarten class.

I went headfirst into an iron grade radiator and that's where I became very shut down. My parents said before I was very energized, and very curious, very playful, but I just emotionally, socially, just isolated myself. I mentioned the migraines and the sensory balance issues. I was never picked for sports ever. I was always the last one that the team had to have.

And when I was, took me three years longer to learn how to read, which I mentioned, when I was nine years old, I had processing issues. So teachers would have to repeat themselves over and over again in order for me to understand. And I was being teased one day more than others, other days, and the teacher came to my defense. She pointed to me and said, leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain. And, you know, I didn't know I was broken. And adults have to be very careful of their external words because they often become a child's internal words, right? And

so that label became my limit. So every single time I did badly in school, I was like, oh, because I had the broken brain. I wasn like, oh, because I had the broken brain. Wasn't picked for sports, I had the broken brain. So that was tough. But because of it, my superpower, I talk about superpowers a lot, mostly because I got exposed to comic books and they taught me how to read.

Something about the illustrations. It just kind of bypassed and helped me understand in my learning language and superheroes offer hope and help and one person can make a difference. I loved all those themes, right? And I would escape in those comic books because I was in a lot of pain. You know, my parents, they immig superheroes just was my escape and my inspiration. But going back to that, my superpower growing up was being invisible. Like even talking about it, I could feel it in my voice. Like I would compress myself so small, punch my shoulders in, collapse my diaphragm because I didn't want to take up a lot

of space because I never wanted to be called on in class because I never knew the answer. And I would always like sit behind the talk it. I would, you know, get sick before I'd be quiz or test. I would be sent to the nurse's office. And it wasn't just like, it was just, it was a big challenge. And so I, my superpowers made was being invisible. But because of it, I would just watch people and I would be able to text suffering because I know what it feels like. And also, I wanted to be very quiet

because I didn't want to be bullied that day or picked on. And so this is every day through school. It was elementary school, middle school, junior high, in high school, what you're referring to is I was failing high school English. And they called my parents in, and that was so embarrassing, because I'm the oldest of three siblings.

I want to be good role model. My parents, they sacrificed a lot and many jobs. That's probably why I had so many head injuries as a child, I wasn't very well supervised.'s probably why I had so many head injuries as a child. I wasn't very well supervised. And, but I was so much pressure. And in this, you know, the teacher, my parents, me, she was explaining to me, to my parents,

how I was just, I was gonna fail. And I begged her to be able to give me a second chance, give me some kind of opportunity to make up for it. Cause I was very hard working. That was the frustrating part. I would work three times harder than everyone. I mean, that was, you know, how I was raised, but I couldn't keep up. And so she offered to give me extra credit to do a book report on Albert Einstein and,

you know, pretty smart guy. And I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to show this class, the teacher, my parents that I'm worth this. So every day after school, you go, I would go to the library. This is before internet, right? And I would spend hours there.

And so after doing that for weeks, I was so proud of this final product because I just did so much. I found out by the way Einstein had his own set of learning challenges, right? And he learned differently than people around him. And so that gave me inspiration. But the day it was due,

and my parents surprised me and had it professionally bound. And when I saw it, I was just so excited to hand it in. And throughout class, class was until later in the day. I was just, I was always thinking about was handing this piece in to the teacher and class comes towards the end of the class. I can't wait to hand it in.

The teacher says, okay, class, we have a surprise for all of you. Jim, come to the front of the class and give your book report. Now, I didn't know I had to speak on this book report. I was just, I just thought I had to write it and be able to turn it into my extra credit. And I was so scared. I sounded like I, I know public speaking is a big fear for everyone, but I'm phobic.

So I couldn't breathe like my heart's beating out of my chest and I'm shaking, panicking. And I spit out, I lied. I said I didn't do it to the teacher and from the whole class, and you can see her disappointment there also as well. And after the class ended, I was the only one there, and I remember, it's like it was yesterday, I'm getting choked up even thinking about it, getting up from my desk, walking over to the doorway, and on the way out, I reached into my book bag, I took out the professionally bound book report and I threw it in the trash that was sitting,

you know, by the doorway. And I think I felt like I was throwing out, I don't know, hope, my potential, my worth, and that that was kind of the place I lived in. A lot of self-doubt, a lot of embarrassment, shame, fears. And it's funny though, right? Because Ed, by two biggest challenges growing up, we're learning and public speaking. And life has a sense of humor because all I do is public speak on this thing called learning.

And it's just a reminder to everybody that our struggles can be strengths, that difficult times they could distract you or diminish you or they could develop you. You know, we always decide. It's amazing to me that the number one brain guy on the planet was the boy with the broken brain and the young man who literally lied that he didn't do his extra credit report and throws it in the trash because he didn't want to get up and speak in front of 30 other kids in class

as one of the most prolific public speakers in the world and Everybody hearing this the reason I wanted you to hear that story is because it is true that in life You're most qualified to help the person that you used to be. Oh, I love it. I just kind of goosebumps Yeah, and it's just a fact. It's just it's just an absolute fact and that's not my saying It's it's been out there forever, but it's a fact. And Jim is living proof of that. But there's notion of the forgetting curve and how your brain really works from a neuroplasticity standpoint, but also your ability to stay focused. Can you explain to them what the forgetting curve is and why it's relevant when we're

doing work that matters? Well, there's a learning curve, there's also a forgetting curve. And the forgetting curve states that when you're exposed information just once, then within two days, 80% of it is forgotten. Right. And so what in the nature of our work, when it comes to memory training, helping people remember client information, product information, languages, gift speeches without notes is about mitigating that, that forgetting curve.

And when you talked about neuroplasticity, neuroplasticity is this phenomenon, this incredible phenomenon, that our brains have to be able to adapt to novelty. It's, neuroplasticity is driven by two factors, novelty and nutrition. And the reason why neuroplasticity, and you've covered this a lot with experts on your show, is so important because that means that our brains aren't fixed like our shoe size,

that we could grow our memory, our happiness, we could change our thoughts, we could change our routines, our behaviors, our habits, because our brain is more plastic in a positive way, because it's malleable. And just like building your physical muscles, you have to give it novelty and nutrition. Right. You have to give it some kind of stressor, some kind of workout, and then you have to give it proper nutrition. So what you nourish flourishes, same thing with your your mental muscles. So one of the things that we added in the updated version, the expanded version, besides the cognitive types and all the applications towards learning and leadership and sales is Neutropics. And I've never covered that in 30 years. Yeah. These are supplements that can help boost your focus, your memory, your mood, your mental energy also as well. But that's how

you create neuroplasticity. And so while we could get older, we could always learn. And so it's not true that the older we get, kind of teaching an old dog, new tricks is absolutely a fallacy. It does require a little bit more work when we're past the age of 25, you know, I'm in my 50s, but it's having strategies. And this is the challenge in school. They teach you what to learn like math and history, science, Spanish, but there's zero, literally zero classes on how to learn. There's no history, science, Spanish, but there's zero, literally zero classes on how to learn. There's no classes on focus, concentration, how to get into a flow state, how to be creative.

No classes on memory, I always thought it should have been the fourth hour in school. They teach you reading, writing, arithmetic, obviously spelling, they'll just spelled not within our, this is not one of them, but what about retention, right? Socrates said learning is remembering. And so we want to be able to fill in those gaps for every people of every age and stage of life.

Let's talk about remembering. So you're going down the road, I want to go down. One of the other things I talk a lot about is the RAS. So I'm rereading the book. This is like, I don't know, two weeks ago. And there's this little blurb in the book where you say, the question, the questions are the answer. And it's kind of an RAS hack.

This is huge for those of you that want more retention, want more focus. So explain that to them Jim, because this is right up my alley and a use of the RAS that I not thought of before. So primarily our brain is a deletion device, right? It's trying to keep information out at any given time. There are millions, if not a billion different stimuli we could focus on externally or internally.

And if we let all that in we would go insane. We'd be completely overloaded and overwhelmed. And so what we pay attention to, our RIS kind of acts like a spotlight and draws attention to something that maybe we weren't paying attention based on something that's important to us. Like hardwired into our particular activating system is our name. That's why names are so important because it's one of the early things that we learn, you know, when we're children, probably one of the very first words we heard, one of the first words we learned how to write and think about the love and the encouragement when most people were given around their name.

That's why they say a name is a sweetest sound to a person's ears. So that is part of your RAS. If you're, I was running a marathon years ago in Washington DC and I remember at the 18th mile, somebody was shouting my name, Jim, right, very common name. And I know I didn't know the person, but I still looked because I'm

wired to look because my RIS allows that in. So one of the ways of stacking and utilizing your RIS is by asking questions. So questions shine a spotlight on the things that are important to us. So as an example, years ago, a long time ago, my younger sister would send me emails and postcards of a very specific breed a dog, a pug dog. And my question was, why does she keep on sending me all the dozens

and dozens of photos of pug dogs? And I realized that her birthday was coming up. And she was a great marketer. And she was receiving her gift, right? And a funny thing happened is I started seeing these pug dogs everywhere. I would be at the health food store and the person in front of me, I swear,

is holding a pug dog ready to pay the register. I was jogging in my neighborhood and there's this guy walking six pug dogs. Now my question for every single person listening is, did those pug dogs law of attraction just magically pop into my neighborhood, a teleport and manifest around me? No, they were always there, but my brain was deleting it because that wasn't important until I started asking the questions, and then I started seeing these pug dogs everywhere. Even a basic study tip is you

read all these reading comprehension and all these paragraphs, maybe multiple pages and then you get 10 questions at the end that the the testers want you to be able to answer. Well, the first and foremost, you should read those questions first, right? Because you don't want to get the end of reading, you know, multiple pages on a time test and they say, oh, that's what was important. Then you ask the questions at the end first, and then all of a sudden, when you're reading it, you're like, oh, there's an answer, there's an answer, there's an answer. And it just makes it more seamless. Like, even how we design the book, it's not just teaching you accelerated learning speed reading, memory improvement, focus flow. But it's also structured in a way. Every chapter starts with three

questions to get people's RAS engaged. When they're reading, they're looking for those answers specifically. That is brilliant right there. So everybody, you're teaching something to someone and you're trying to retain information. It's the questions that guide that light in your RAS to find the answers. Here's the questions that guide that light in your RAS to find the answers. Here's the other thing I've always struggled with. And I know the answer now, because it's in the book, but I want you to give it to everybody or one of them.

I had a hard time in college, particularly during lecture where I would write notes, and then I'd remember nothing. And then a lot of the people listening to my show go to events. They go to business events. They're taking notes the entire time. And I know this because I host events and I speak at a lot of them.

The retention level, I think even most people listen to be honest, to say, is very, very low. So one of the things in the book, you actually teach hacks on how to properly take notes. And this is stuff you guys, this will help the students in your life, this will help those of you that are trying to learn and grow. Here's how I know this is big.

Sasha, my producer, just leaned in as I asked that question because people want to know this because it's something everybody relates to. I've gone back and looked at notes from meetings that are two and three years ago in my life, brother. And I'm like, I have no recollection of writing this down. I have no recollection of anything this person just said.

And I even noticed this with my son. He's a really, really good golfer. When you play golf, Jim, with someone who's a great golfer, you and I have talked about golf quite a bit, actually. And my son can remember every shot on every single hole that he's played. I can't, I can play a golf course on a Saturday, come back on a Sunday. I don't even remember the fourth hole. And one of the reasons I believe is my son is taking notes on his round as he plays it and it upgrades his retention. So give us some note-taking tips and hacks for retention. So as you mentioned, you and I, we produce events, we speak on the same stages, and we know

that with the forgetting curve, if they hear a speaker just once within a couple days, most of it is gone 80% at least. And then it'll be time. It just just just disappears for a lot of people. And one of ways of mitigating that is by taking proper notes. Now, it's interesting because people could take digital notes or handwriting notes, but when university students are tested for the things that matter, comprehension and retention of the information, then actually handwriting notes by far get

performs better for both understanding information and retaining information. Let's say also one of the reasons, like digital note taking is great for storage and sharing information, but if you can do the handwriting notes first and then digitize it or you have a device that allows you to take notes and it digitizes it automatically, then that's preferred. But the reason, one of the reasons why is most people get typed pretty fast and you could probably type and transcribe as fast as Ed and I are speaking, but nobody can hand write notes

that fast. So part of handwriting notes, one of the reasons why it's more effective is it forces you to filter the information, to organize it, and prioritize the information because you're it, and prioritize the information because you're not writing every single word down. Even when university students are tested, the actual worst way of taking notes, besides not taking notes, is full transcription.

The best way is having key ideas and key thoughts, and maybe putting it and capturing it in a way like more whole brain, like mind mapping is a very famous way of using both your left and right brain. I have a very simple way that anybody, a lot of people won't, they won't grasp mind mapping because it has colors and it looks a little bit too creative. So if you're not a dolphin, maybe it doesn't really mesh with you.

Then I would say simple way of taking notes is take a piece of paper. And if you people want will have to be watching this on a video, I'll just illustrate it, but just, you don't even have to see this, put a line right down the page, and on the left side, I want you to capture on the right side, I want you to create.

Now, that's very, very subtle. So on the left side, the things we're talking about here, what are the best brain foods, what are the top tropics, the boost your, your focus and your productivity, how do you read faster, and tropics, the booster, your focus, and your productivity. How do you read faster? That's your capturing.

But if your mind is going to wander, your right brain is going to search for entertainment elsewhere. I'd rather it go on the right side of the page instead of thinking about other things. So what you're going to write on the right side is you're going to write your impressions of what you're capturing. So I'll say it in a're going to write your impressions of what you're capturing. So I'll say it in a different way. On the left side, you're capturing your note taking. On the right side, you're creating your note making.

And so it's very, very subtle difference, but you're on the right side, you're writing your impressions of what you're capturing. So maybe you're putting things like, how does this relate to what I already know? How can I use this? When will I use this? What questions do I have about this subject matter? And so that's a very left brain, right brain, more whole brain way of taking notes. It's very simple. And I feel like it's so important nowadays. Most of your listeners

have forgotten more about personal growth and wellness and success than most of their friends and family have, right? And they're probably thinking like, you know, but you still need to keep it elegant, taking complex information. I'll read all the white papers, but I always realize that education doesn't really get the result. If you can make it super simple, like what is the tiniest action I could take right now, that would be progress towards his goal, where I can't fail. And this is something so simple and the return is so the reward is so huge. What about teaching something? So when you leave an event, is it healthier for retention, if say you go home and your

boyfriend or girlfriend or your spouse is, hey, what did you learn there to actually download and teach them what you've learned? Do I've always felt like I retain more when I teach or is that a fallacy or is there some accuracy to that? Yeah, it's absolutely true. They call it the explanation effect. The explanation effect basically states exactly what you said when you learn something with the intention of teaching somebody else, you're going to learn it so much better. And so even when people are listening this episode, why wait? Do it right now. Think about if you had to think about somebody you wish was listening to this. And obviously they should post it and share it and spread your podcast.

You know, I think everyone listens to your podcast already. But if they had to give a TEDx talk the following week, would they focus better? Of course they would. Would they take better notes? Of course they would. Would they post more questions on social media? Of course they would. They would own that information. So when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. And that's the explanation effect. It's a wonderful way of accelerating your learning.

Okay. So I'm going to ask you a dual question. I want to go back to something you said earlier because I, you finished it. And then I was so excited to ask you the next question, but This new tropics idea there's a couple things in the book that are new the new tropics stuff I'd like you to talk about and this is gonna sound disconnected, but to me it's like nourishment So I'm gonna ask both questions together and then you can go You also talk about the second brain In the book the second brain being the gut so talk nourishment, and I'm just gonna throw the ball at you and let you kind of kick it around and answer it back,

but you know why I'm asking them together. One, what new tropics do you recommend if you do, I know you do, but if you do. And then tied into that, because that's kind of nourishment for the brain, so to speak, what about this second brain aspect as well with your gut? So I mean, everyone can imagine like their brain is the leaves of a tree and then going down in the soil is and the roots are coming from your gut.

And so your second brain is incredibly wise. But if it's clogged up with all this process foods, high sugar food, refined foods, lots of ingredients that we don't even know how to pronounce, and then there could be some issues there. There are certain foods, every ingredient that we talk about, we talk about the best brain foods, but also we added a new chapter, the new book is all about momentum. You know, it's all, we talk about mastering your mindset, your motivation, how to overcome procrastination. I have a formula for that. And then also the methods for accelerated learning, speed reading, memory enhancement,

focus flow and all that. And the focus of the new book was really about momentum. And so knowing your brain type gives you momentum, right? And knowing the brain type of other people allows you to sustain it. AI, we talk about AI improving your HI, your human intelligence, and different ways you could do that to create momentum. And Neutropics is a whole area of science called Neuronutrition. So there's certain things that ingredients that your brain is only 2% of your body mass,

but requires 20% of the nutrients. And some of those nutrients are different than the rest of your body. And so in no particular order, I would always prefer people get it from foods, but we know how depleted foods are, and sometimes we're traveling and eating at hotels or fast food. We don't get those nutrients. So for example, there are brain supplements and their nitropics,

and I'll go through some of each. So coline would be a brain supplement. It's a nutrient, you know, it's usually found in eggs and soybeans. It plays a vital role in brain health. It's a crucial component of acetyl colon, which is a neurotransmitter that supports things like memory, things like cognitive function. And so, you know, if you're not getting it from your eggs, then you could supplement with it. Another brain supplement are omega-3 fatty acids, particularly DHA, because your brain is mostly fat. And DHA is the primary, it's the structured component of the brain that plays a key role in memory and overall brain health and function.

And so if you're not getting it from wild salmon, sardines, you might need a supplement. So a nutrient profile, because I talk about in the book, meta-learning, the hardened science of learning how to learn. But let that's the software. We still need to take care of the hardware, that three pound matter between our ears called our brain. And so if you're lacking vitamin D, your B vitamins, so important, especially B6, B9,

which is full A, B12, it's vital for brain health. You're not going to be able to get an effect your mood, if it affects every brain function. Magnesium, I mean, these are the basic supplements. It's so important. It's a little bit responsible for hundreds of physiological processes, a bit of effect your learning, your memory, your mood. Then it could also affect your sleep also as well.

The magnesium 3 and 8 has been shown to help people to sleep better. But going into the nitropics, some of my favorites, ashwaganda, it's an adaptogenic herb. And again, I'm not a nutritionist or a doctor. You could just, but everything we put into the book, I reference all the human studies.

I've noticed, I just jumped in, Ashwagandhas helped me with like anxiety as well. Yeah, it's incredible for, it improves mental and physical resilience, it can help, as you mentioned, reduce stress and anxiety and also improve cognitive function. There's a, a Neutropic, it's a whole coffee fruit extract. So whole fruit from the coffee plants,

usually a byproduct that they threw out, but it has it's an extremely strong antioxidant. It has a positive impact on cognitive function. There's something called phosphatitol serine, which is phospholipid, and these are big words, but it is so important for brain cell membranes. It's been shown to improve memory, learning, cognitive

function. Elthienine is an amino acid. It's often found in green tea. It's a very popular nitropic. It promotes relaxation without the drowsiness and it can enhance brain function. What I like about it is if you pair it with caffeine, for me, I'm very sensitive with caffeine. Personally, it really could affect my sleep and my kind of my, give me the jitters, but althinine helps to mitigate that. And so if you pair it with caffeine, you know, in the morning, I have to do it in the morning

because I can't do caffeine past like 12 or two o'clock. It gives you more of a relaxed alertness, if you will. But something that I think that, um, people don't realize is a popular, uh, workout supplement called creatine. And, you know, it's a substance that's naturally produced in our body. It's primarily found in meats and fish. But if you're not getting enough of it, it plays a crucial role in energy metabolism, specifically, not just for your muscles, but also your mental muscles. So, it helps you to create more energy, more brain energy. So, for people who suffer from mental fatigue, a little brain fog, you know, it can improve

your cognitive function, especially at tasks that require a really strong short-term memory. Yeah. And quick thinking. So, creatines's a fun one. We talked about last time some of the foods at Tumoric was one of the brain foods, but it's the curcumin that that's the active ingredient as potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits,

very neuroprotective. Many people know I had a traumatic brain injury when I was five years old, I was put in special education because I had learning difficulties. I had migraines every single day. I just thought it was normal for kids to just kind of be in chronic pain

and I had balanced issues and took me three years long and I was a little bit older and had to read. And then the last one I'll mention is Lions main mushroom. It's getting a lot of, especially the past few years, a lot of a lot of attention.

It's a unique, nitropic. It has neuro protective effects. Whole area of science we're talking about. It's a unique, nitropic. He has neuro protective effects. Whole area of science we're talking about. It's called Neuronutrition again, but it's been shown to stimulate the synthesis of nerve growth factor, which could enhance cognition by reducing inflammation

and promoting overall good brain health. You said something about trauma when you were young. And I'll let you know something. Both Jim and I are shy. I think we bond over it. So when we're in green rooms, or there's lots of speakers around Jim and I usually to try to find a way to be alone together,

or we actually get alone, because we're both extremely, I think it's safe to say, extremely introverted, both of us, which surprises people, because we're both speakers, we're in public all the time. And, but it's definitely true for me and I.

And I think people are surprised to hear that. They're hearing that from you the first time because you were like the best speaker on stage. And I think people, but you have to be that expressive because otherwise your stories won't land. Right? Or you want to have the impact that you desire and that people deserve.

Thank you. But yes, I think they'd be surprised at that with you. And I think one of the reasons I love Jim, one, he's just a kind, gentle, generous, brilliant man. It'll give you the shirt off of his back. He's done things for me. You guys just so you know, like on short notice, moved things, moved his world around to be there for me. And it's something I've told him I'll never forget and I will never forget. But the other thing that I've never forgotten, if you just share it for a minute, you should talk about trauma when you're young,

is I picture little Jim in school and he's not doing very well. So he gets a chance, I think the story is do the extra credit and to do an extra work. But this notion of, I think every human being can relate on in their way to this moment that happened to do an extra work. But this notion of, I think every human being can relate on in their way to this moment that happened to you

in your life, and I don't wanna tell a story, I want you to tell it because you lived it. But I actually was telling my children, because they knew I was interviewing you today for Thanksgiving, I was talking to them about, hey, what do you have coming up? I said, I'm excited to get to talk to Jim again. And I said, my son really loves Jim's speaking style.

It fits my son's personality very, very well. For memory, I want a memory hack here. And I think my new favorite is the storytelling element of remembering things because I, for some reason, it just works with me. I'm sure you know the reason. But everyone here loved to be able to remember words better, names better, whatever it might be.

And, and, or, you know, there's an exercise in the book with 10 words and then telling a story. So would you just give us that? I call it a hack, but it's a strategy for recall and memory. Because Jim can go into a room and remember 200 people's names like that. It's just insane. But give them that strategy or A strategy you think that they probably have not heard

before. Yeah. So there's this story method here. Let's make it interactive. We can just like until a little kind of like a, I'll test everybody right now. I'll give everybody a list of random words, right? Because if you want to remember languages or vocabulary or speeches, it comes down to words. Can I push you and I'm going to have you do it with Sasha?

Can we do it with Sasha right now? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. Come on in here, Sasha. Sasha's getting on my show. Come in here. I'm going to put Sasha on. I'm going to watch you do it with Sasha.

So Sasha, we're going to use a story method. You know, we've done the previous episode, how to remember, like foods and speeches. This is a way, and it is a master storyteller. One of the reasons why, and many reasons why, he just crushes it on stage, and makes everyone knows the stories, because they stick in people's minds. I mean, before we had printing presses and everything else, we would remember things through stories, right,

through sitting around campfires before all the external technology. So let me, let's, I'm going to give you 10 words to memorize. You can do the best you can. I'll write them down. However, you would normally memorize these 10 words, right? You ready? Ready awesome fire hydrant balloon batteries barrel board like a surfboard diamond Okay sir lance a lot mask toothpaste sign okay all right so those are 10 mask, toothpaste, sign. All right, so those are 10, actually I should memorize this with you. Okay, those are 10 words. Now notice, and you're thinking Jim shut up,

so I could like write these down. Nobody gets all 10. Very, very, very rarely I'll say some kind of technique, but do you remember some of the words? Fire hydrant. Yes battery balloon board Sir mix a lot balloon again

That's it for me. All right, so this is interesting because the other thing I'll teach everybody here when you're listening We tend to remember so the first word was fire hydrant I'll give you the list of words fire hydrant balloon batteries barrel Board Diamond Surlancolot, mask, toothpaste, sign. So and I'll tell you this is I'll even give you more than just this method.

If you if people listening here and I hope they did it with us, if you tend to remember fire hydrant, it's a principle of memory called primacy. We tend to remember things in the beginning of something. If you tend to remember the last word, which was sign, then that means recency. So if you go to a party and you probably remember the first people you met and the last people, the most recent people, right? What other words did you remember? Balloon. Balloon. Why did you think you remember Balloon? I think I was like, oh, all these bees.

Perfect. So I locked that wallet in. Another principle. So what we're pulling out of here are principles of recall. So the first one was primacy, the second one's recency. The other thing is chunking. When you organize, because it went the three, it went balloon battery barrel board. And some people remember four or three of them because

is the alliteration, right? B, so it's chunking and organizing. We tend to remember things. So if I gave people this a 20 random words and see how well they did. But then I said, okay, well, now these are presidents, state capitals, fruits, and colors. You probably remember more because there's an organization you're looking for. Any other words that's to sit out for you? I said sir mix a lot, but it was sir Lance a lot. Not good of it. Maybe didn't you know hear it because I was going quickly or you know, there's always this deletion and the little distortion. I mean, even when they take expert witnesses, not everybody experiences the same thing. But other things you might remember are things

that you pictured. I don't know if you pictured any of these images. Or some people would remember something like toothpaste because it's something they use every single day. And that's a principle for memory familiarity You tend to remember somebody who has the same name as someone familiar to you, right? Ever if you remember something like a diamond some people there's some emotional content there that people associate to it So they're more likely to remember it or if I said mask maybe because people remember mask with the pandemic or something,

right? So my point and bring this up and I'll tell you, I'll give you the method is that when we remember something, it's not random. There are, there's a principle that's being in play. And if you use those principles for the other things you want to remember, you remember a whole lot more. So I'm going to take, like, you noticed that did you, any of these you put together, did you remember like two of them because they kind of like you linked them together a little bit? You know like like maybe there was you saw them the two of those objects together. I tried to link the first two balloon and fire hydrin because yeah let's do it. So let's everybody do this. So remember this, everyone, then do this with me.

And you could close your eyes if it's safe to do so. If you're not working out or driving a car and take a deep breath, breathe normally, helps you focus a little bit. There is no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's a train memory and an untrained memory. So let's do this. I'm going to walk you through this, take the principles of recall and then turn it into a story. And I want you just to imagine this.

And if you can't imagine it, imagine you can imagine it. We'll do it very quick. All right. I want everyone in listening, imagine a fire hydrant in your neighborhood. Even notice what color it is. What color is yours? Red. Right.

It's red. And I want you to imagine tieietuit is a gigantic helium balloon, a gigantic helium balloon, or many, many big helium balloons tied to it. So many that it lifts and tears the hydrant from the ground and water spews everywhere. And you look up in the sky and there's this fire hydrant going up in the sky, like, like, kind of up, and all these balloons tied to it. Now, out of nowhere, a barrage of batteries come and pop the balloon. So just imagine it and keep your eyes closed if

you want to help you focus. But imagine all these batteries. Notice what brand the batteries, what brand the batteries are popping the balloon. Duracell. This is a branding question. So it could be C batteries, Ds, double A's, but it's Dura-Cell batteries. And the batteries are coming from this guy that's hiding in a barrel. So just imagine this barrel and that all the battery, full of batteries. And the guy's just chucking these batteries out. What makes this barrel unique on the side of it

is a surfboard, a board, right on the side. And rolling down the board is a diamond, but not like a half a carrot or one carrot diamond. It is like 128 carrot diamond. It's like the size of a lissea basketball, and it's rolling down the board. And it falls off the board, the diamond, and it hits a knight in the head in his helmet. Surlance a lot. It's Surlance a lot lot and an oxymal cold. And you go to save Surlantz a lot by bringing him a mask, an oxygen mask.

But before you put on the oxygen mask, so imagine you're taking off his helmet, you're putting an oxygen mask. But before you do, you notice the mask is dirty. So you clean it with toothpaste. You're cleaning it with toothpaste before you put it on. So mask toothpaste, and when the toothpaste is done, you throw it and it goes to a big neon sign and it explodes toothpaste everywhere on this neon sign.

And maybe the neon sign says limitless, all right, an anxious explodes, all right. Now that's a story. We're using some of the principles of emotion, making these a little different. And now what I love for everyone to do is start with a fire hydrant. And when I say fire hydrant, what was attached to the fire hydrant? The balloon. The balloons. And what pops the balloons? The batteries. The batteries, the Dursel batteries. And the batteries were, there was a guy hiding with the batteries in a what? A barrel.

A barrel. And on the side of the barrel was this, the surf board, right? And rolling down the board was a what? Diamond. The diamond. And the diamond fell off the board and hit who in the head? Sir, Lance a lot. Yes, and then you bring him in oxygen.

Oh wait, mask, mask. Yeah, yeah, it's all good. Toothpaste and then sign. Perfect. And then you have all 10. And I bet you could do it backwards too, right? If you go from the neon sign and right before the sign was what? Was it toothpaste?

Masc. Mask. Uh huh. The Lancelot. So great, great job. Thank you. So thank you so much. That was a lot of pressure right there.

Yeah. That was definitely not planned. That was pretty good. So I'm back there going. I have some of this. So I wasn't I could even hear all of them. You got fire hydrant. You got fire hydrant balloons, batteries, barrel, board. I'm skipping ends up with Sir Lancelot. Yeah, but that's crazy. The mask and the toothpaste in the side and the toothpaste explodes into a neon sign that says limitless on it. And here's the thing crazy. I'm just in the back of the head. I'm saying, like how you use it every day. Yes. Let's say, let's and it only takes a couple minutes.

But let's say that you want to memorize something that was just back in school All right, something that's very boring non-relevant to your life Technical like what was a class that you had to do some some of that memorization back in let's say high school Like what are some classes that just a lot of techniques of technical stuff. Oh gosh algebra. Yeah like algebra or math or science. Yeah. So if you take something like, I don't know what science did you study back in high school. I take biology. Biology. Lots of things there, right? Or biology, biology, chemistry, physics. Chemistry. Yeah. Like in chemistry, let's say chemistry, right? What was something that people needed to memorize in chemistry? There was that big thing on the periodic table.

Yeah, so people wanted to apply to memorize a periodic table, right? Using this story method where you could see it, feel it, some emotion, and hear it. And all you have to do is take the things that you want to remember and turn them into a picture, or a sound alike. And so if you know what that element happens to remember and turn them into a picture or a sound alike. And so if you know what that element happens to be and what it's used for, you can picture that or something that sounds like, kind of like you're playing a dictionary

if you got people to say word and you draw in ear and it's that sounds like. So even like this, so the elements are hydrogen, helium, lithium, brillium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, and neon. And I could be making this up for people, but they're absolutely true. Okay. Jeopardy is my plan B if this whole speed or remember, it's more like that.

So hydrogen, like, just think of something that sounds like hydrogen or sound, or like, close enough that we're going to remind you of, of, like, a picture that you could picture. Something that sounds like, so for me, hydrant would be like a hydrant, right? So everyone could picture that as the first element. And then helium is the second one. So what can you picture for helium? What's a picture? Like what can you, what's helium, when I say helium, what do you think of?

Oh, you're asking me. I'm thinking of an athlete that I know named theleum. Yeah, you do something sound like or for most people. A lot of people listening helium like is used like for balloons, right? Helium balloon. So all the story method is is taking the fire hydrant and attaching it to the balloon to help you remember the periodic table. And then some people are thinking,

like, oh, this sounds familiar. The next element is lithium, which is used in batteries. So all you have to do is attach batteries to the balloons. So imagine a lot of a barrage of batteries popping the balloon. And the batteries, the next one is a brillium, barrel-illium. So for me, I picture a barrel. So imagine a barrel full of batteries popping the balloon that's hold in the fire hydrant, right? And for people listening

from before, that's the same exact story that we did. So, so good. By the way, barrel ilium, the board is boron. What was going down at diamond made of carbon? That's a six element. It falls on a night's head. That's nitrogen. You bring them to oxygen mask. Oxygen is the eighth element on the periodic table and then you clean it with toothpaste fluorine like fluoride fluorine is the ninth element and then the toothpaste goes into the neon sign and neon is a 10th element on the periodic table. Jim, quick, what the heck? I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta D, I gotta D in chemistry in high school. And by the way, I'll never forget this. Where were you in my life? Do you know how much, you would have just saved me so much stress? I'll never forget this.

anecdotally, everybody. Mr. Park, God bless him. I don't know if he's still alive or not. I remember Mr. Park would sit there, because I was an athlete and he would say, Mr. Mylett, I remember the direct quote, you were unequivocally the dumbest student I've ever had in chemistry, he would say this to me. And my buddy Rich Fry, if he's listening to this, Rich Fry and Ed Mylett are unequivocally

the two dumbest students I've ever had in my class. The truth is I wasn't dumb. I just had no memory skills that I hadn't developed. And I gotta tell you something, brother, every time I'm with you, I learn. And I told you guys this in the beginning, he's the smartest guy in the room who never feels the need to let you know that he is.

He makes you feel smart. And so to just the thing that the boy with the broken brain becomes this expert is just it's mind blowing to me. And I hope you guys today, like for me, I've never had Sasha sit in the seat before and put her on. That was incredible. I'm off. I'm off. I by the way, I always say that I know I shouldn't say that I don't have a great memory. So I'm off camera. I can't even hear all the

words. And I can go right now to the fire hydrant with the balloons all the way up to the bat. I mean, even hear all the words and I can go right now to the fire hydrant with the balloons all the way up to the bat I mean the battery in the barrel with the surfboard and then all the way down to Sir Mixer a Lancelot Who's got the mask on I mean it's crazy that I can have this memory And this is regardless of people say we have students in every country in the world You know, I've been doing this for three decades and I realized that it's not again When you understand how your brain works you could, again, when you understand how your brain works, you can work your brain.

When you understand how your memory works, you can work your memory. And there's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's really just a trained memory and a trained memory. And it's so important in life. 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 they just read.

I forgot what they said. I forgot what I was going to say. I forgot to go to that meeting. I forgot what they just read. I forgot what they said. I forgot what I was going to say. I forgot to go to that meeting. I forgot that person's name. And so the reason why we made the largest chapter in the book on memory improvement. There's simple techniques to be able to remember client information, product information, give speeches without notes. And so, so, so much more because I think memory is a multiplier. It can make every area of your life better. And yeah, it's super easy. We all have. I'm just curious, this isn't in the book.

Jim's a new dad. It's got a 10 and a half month old at home. Is there something you're doing with your child that we should all know you're doing to give this person the quick brain, the super brain, that there's just something you're doing or things you're doing to cultivate this young brain quick brain, the super brain. There's just something you're doing, or things you're doing to cultivate this young brain that's developing right now,

that someone should be doing with their child, their children, they could be doing for themselves. Future children are gonna have grandchildren. I know you're doing something that we should know about as you've entered. Yeah, I think baby development, and this is a new field for me. I'll pull back and say that

I'm in my 50s. This is our first child and I was ready to just teach everything and I realize that I'm learning so much more than I feel like teaching, at least at this stage of his life. You know, the act of being present like like this child, this child is so curious. He's just always looking and trying to figure things out. Also the importance of movement, because that crawling motion is so important for brain development, because as your body moves, your brain grooves.

So I would say in no particular order, okay, movement, I just mentioned. So that's important for sensory integration, important for motor skills, important for cognitive development, even their studies done in the area of educational kinesiology, simple things like if people take their hand or elbow and touch the opposite knee and just kind of raise your knee and go back and forth. Could they're called cross crawls by brain gym. I'll do this with with him, you know, first few months, just kind of taking his hand and touching the opposite leg and go back and forth. Helps with cognitive development, you know, but my ideas I'm thinking about is social

emotional growth, which is so very important. So practical things for movement or like things that we know that are proven like tummy time, safe exploration space so they could just discover things and just be fascinating curious, interactive play, so very important. Think about how fast children learn because they play so much. And sometimes I said this to an audience recently and they're like, oh, some guy said, I stopped playing because I grew older. But it could be the opposite.

Maybe you grew older because you stopped playing, right? And I like adding play so much to my speeches and presentations because I feel like we learned best when we don't even realize that we're learning, that we're willing to make mistakes when we play as opposed to, oh my goodness, what's everyone going to think? Children have a lot of these mirror neurons and just like adults have it, a mirror neurons, like a mirror that gives you a reflection allows you to imitate, it creates empathy. So these kind of mimicry games that you could play like clapping hands or making faces,

of mimicry games that you could play, like clapping hands or making faces, or babies could learn. I'm a big fan of spending more time outdoors also as well and doing some baby yoga or something, but frequent talking, verbal interactions, so very important for the baby. If they're not talking and speaking yet in the beginning, and giving them exposure to different vocabulary,

not just the simple stuff, but I feel like it's also very stimulating, singing songs, it also introduces to child rhythm and can enhance an invincibility to distinguish sounds, which is a key component to language learning. My wife speaks Korean with the baby, so we expose it to both, you know, languages Could help differentiate languages and even there have been studies shown that you could even teach potentially

Where I believe genius is not born. It's built because everything nothing's fixed We stimulate learning all the time. I mean, it's there's interactive engagement You know, but you don't have to make it so, because nobody's going to do it perfect, right? It's messy, just like learning is messy, life is messy, but repetition, positive reinforcement, getting on a good routine, especially sleep routines. Let me tell you where he's helped me a lot. His work has this new work, and I'm processing it because I want to use it, and then I want to be able to teach it as well, I'll give Jim credit when I do it, but that's getting into flow state.

We've all had into flow. We've all had those moments in our life, you've had it on stage, Jim, so a vibe where you're like, wow, this is just better than I feel like I really am. We've all had those moments if you're an athlete or as a mom or a dad or at your work, it's you're just in that flow state. And I've never really been able to describe very well publicly.

I do it privately with my one-on-one coaching, but like, how do you get in there? What is it? What's the process? What's a hack? And you do. And so I feel like one of the great gifts of my podcast is that people get access to information they should be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for. And I feel like this bit right here goes right to that point. So let's talk, I'll just turn it over to you.

Talk about flow state for us. Yeah, there's a whole chapter and then the new book on accessing flow states. So let's define it a flow state. Your flow states are the state where you feel your best and you perform your best. I mean, who doesn't want to spend more time there, right? It's people call it like the zone. And the way it's just like, the three markers for it to keep it simple. This remember set, SET, yes is self. We lose our sense of self, our ego.

We're not thinking about ourselves or how we look or anything like that. The E really is effort and there's very little effort to get this incredible reward for this activity. And finally, the T is time where we lose our sense of time. So we lose our sense of self, we lose our sense of time, and things almost feel almost effortless because you lose your sense of time

where it's like you don't know five minutes or five hours went by. And I'm sure some people listening, they've had this experience It and and I realized that with all kinds of with everything There's always what it looks like magic There's always a method behind the magic always when people are succeed in their relationships or their health They look younger. They feel great or they're making money. They're doing something other people aren't doing right

You said it like this genius leaves clues, success leaves clues, right? So my work is really trying to figure out the method behind what looks like magic, even at events where I memorize 100 people's names or 100 random words and numbers, forwards and backwards. I always tell people I'm too impressed, I do as I express you what's possible because the truth is we all can do that. It includes flow states. So, so the three factors again, loss, you don't have a sense of self, it's very low effort and you lose your sense of time. Now, one of the ways to get into

flow state is understanding challenge and capabilities, right, the two C's because we won't get into flow state if, for example, the challenge is too big and the capabilities to meet that challenge is too low, right? Because then you're just going to be stressed out of your mind. Challenges too big, but your competency is too low, your capability. Now if you reversed it, you're also not going to get in flow state because the challenge is too low, it's easy and your capability is way too high. So you're just bored, right?

So it's not going to get you into that flow state, that zone. So what we're looking for is a closer match where your capability and the challenge is there because it forces you to raise your alertness. You have to pay attention, you can't mail it in, but it's not so overwhelming because chronic stress will shut down different parts of your brain. It'll keep you from not being creative, not flexible, not be able to tap into your executive functioning. And so one of the ways to access flow is to challenge yourself in a way that your capabilities

and sometimes you have to lower your challenge or up your challenge and help your capabilities also as well. But it can definitely be done by design. And there's also brainwave states that could also support this. So we have, if you're hooked up to an EEG to measure your brainwave activity, there are four primary brainwave states. There's beta, alpha, theta, delta. Delta is your sleep, right? Beta is when you're most alert, you're awake.

What's interesting is the two brainwave states in between. So Theta state is a state right before you go to sleep. So it's slow wave state, but not so slow, you're resting, right? You're asleep. And so Theta state is a state of creativity. And so by design, you can get into theta state and be more creative to come up with ideas to be able to solve problems.

In fact, Einstein and at Princeton would sit outside of his home and sit on a rocking chair. And he would hold a rock or something like that. And he would do these thought experiments, right? And where it was sitting on a beam of light and heading towards a clock and is a clock, you know, what does that look like from that beam of light kind of thing? But he would hold a rock. Why? Because he didn't want to fall asleep. Because he fell asleep. He wouldn't be able to do the access that

data state. But he just wanted to be right on the edge. You know what put you in a data state? Showers, water, running water. Have you ever noticed like when you're taking a shower, you come up with some more ideas and insights? Very much so. Yeah, I took six showers at right before just to prepare for this. I could tell brother. It's obvious. But the water was put into that theta state and that's a relate to relax states. You don't have to wake up and say, Oh, I hope I'm creative so I could write today or do my music. It's, you know what it is. It's about

taking the nouns in our life and turning them into verbs. So you don't have flow. There's a process for getting into flow. You don't have motivation. There's a process for motivating yourself. You know, our mutual friend, Brendan Bershart says, you don't have energy. You generate energy. There's a process for generating energy. You don't even have focus. There's a process for focusing. It's a verb. The benefit of taking nouns and turning them into verbs, it gives you your agency back.

You don't have the hope because hope is a really good strategy. You hope you had to wake up energized or motivated or focused. You don't even have a memory. There's a three-stage process of encoding, storing, and retrieving that you could actually memorize, right? And so we have more power than we think. The last phase, though, alpha is really interesting when it's related to flow because the alpha state, where theta is where you're most creative, where, in my face coming out, Alpha State is a state of accelerated learning. So it's a state of relaxed awareness. And that's where they've done studies in Russia where they can learn languages

faster and just by getting accessing this Alpha State. And even that's how hypnosis works. Like a good hypnotherapist will put you in a relaxed state of awareness where your critical mind is set aside and you're just more susceptible and to be influenced by positive affirmations or new belief systems, right? And so that would put you in alpha state. Three things that everyone can do to access that brainwave state, it's visual auditory and kinesthetic. So visualizing and using your imagination will put you into an alpha state. Auditory music, there's certain music that will put you into an alpha state. Auditory music, there's certain music that will

put you into an alpha state. It's not heavy metal and rap, it doesn't put you in a relaxed state of awareness, but classical music. Specifically, we talk about it in the broke, like some of my favorite, if you're going to make like a playlist, broke music from the Baroque era. It's a baroque music from the baroque era. It's a modality, a hundale. It's 60 beats per minute. So it harmonizes with the resting heart rate. So visual, visualize auditory music and kinesthetic feeling-based breathing. So rhythmic breathing with a longer exhale will put you into an alpha state.

And isn't it interesting that some meditation processes use all three? You could visualize this mantra or this word, that you're, or the can of whatever you're visualizing, or good hypnotherapist will take you down an elevator or set a stairs visualization, and then they'll have people relax and do the breathing, and maybe they'll have sounds of nature

or class me in the background to put you into that deep state. And but instead of this hypnotherapy to be able to install new belief systems, which is extremely relevant and powerful rewarding, you can do this for accelerating your learning. So you could you could put yourself in this state. So whatever is going on, you're listening to an audio book or reading, processing something,

all that information will be better retained because of it. You guys, I love Jim Quick. I think I've said that today several times. And now you all know why I love him so much. I want you to go get limitless. The expanded addition is given all the money away that he told you from the book. It's Jim Quick, which is KW, I K. Make sure you're following my dear friend on social media and everything that he creates and innovates is worth your time. That's why the most famous people in the world he's their coach. Thank you so much. You know, I love... Happy we have to have you back on our show also. I love that, man.

Our podcast and yeah, it's just... I believe there's a version of everyone listening that's patiently waiting and the goal is we show up every single day until we're introduced that person. Bro, I love you. Thank you so much. All right, everybody. Share today's episode.

Max, out your life. God bless you. This is The Ed and My Let's Show. you