The Jefferson Fisher Podcast - #1 Memory Expert: How to Think Clearly When You’re Put on the Spot

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

Have you ever known exactly what you wanted to say, only for your mind to go completely blank when the pressure is on? In this episode, I sit down with brain coach and memory expert Jim Kwik to talk about why that happens and how to train your brain to perform when you need it most. We get into practical ways to improve memory, focus, and thinking speed, how your inner dialogue affects the way you communicate, and why relying too heavily on AI could actually weaken some of the mental skills you need most. Jim also shares simple techniques for remembering names, thinking faster on your feet, and keeping your brain sharp for the long haul. Buy Jim’s new book, Limitless Daily: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/761666/limitless-daily-by-jim-kwik/  Join me on Supercast for ad-free episodes, bonus content, and AMAs: https://jefferson.supercast.com/ Leave me a voicemail to be featured on the show! https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/ask-jefferson  Order The Next Conversation Workbook: https://www.jeffersonfisher.com/workbook Thank you to our sponsors: Our Place. Visit https://fromourplace.com/JEFFERSON and use code JEFFERSON for 10% off sitewide. David. Subscribe and save 10% on every order’ at https://davidprotein.com/jefferson  Cozy Earth. Upgrade Your Every Day. Get 20% off at cozyearth.com/jefferson or use code JEFFERSON at check out. BetterHelp. Click https://betterhelp.com/jeffersonfisher for a discount on your first month of therapy. Order my book, The Next Conversation, or listen to the full audiobook today. Like what you hear? Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a 5-star review! Suggest a topic or ask a question for me to answer on the show!  Want a FREE communication tip each week? Click here to join my newsletter.  Join My School of Communication Watch my podcast on YouTube  Follow me on Instagram  Follow me on TikTok Follow me on LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca. I don't want humans become more artificial because the danger is not cognitive offloading is the trend towards cognitive surrender. If it's thinking for us, then what happens to a society that can't critically think?

Is the reliance on AI making our brain weaker or stronger? Your brain grows through stressors. But what happens when AI removes all the friction? There was a recent MIT study and the students had to write communication essays. Group A used chat GPT, group B used Google, and group C neither. Which one had the most cognitive engagement? It was the one that did the work themselves. What's more interesting for me was,

is there a reason that our inner self-talk is usually harsher? I get emotional thinking about this. I had some severe learning challenges after my traumatic brain injury at five. I was called broken by a teacher in front of the whole class when I was nine. I was called the boy with a broken brain. That label became my limit.

With the brain injury, it was one limitation. Far greater limitation was a conversation I was having inside my own head. Your brain is this incredible super. a supercomputer and your self-talk is a program all run. People come to me and say, I have a horrible memory. I'm just too old. And I would say the same thing.

I always say, stop. There's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's a trained memory and untrained memory. How do we stop our minds from going blank? What causes our brain to underperform? What is the number one thing that somebody can do that's going to start improving their brain? Yeah, absolutely.

I've never talked about this, but this is what I do personally. How do we stop our brains from forgetting what we want to say? in the moment? Well, I feel like sometimes we don't rise to level of our aspirations or expectations. We fall to a level of our training. And it's especially more difficult when you're under pressure. Right. It's like if you have a fire extinguisher in your home and there's an emergency and a, you know, fire, it's one thing to know where it is. It's another in the moment to think about what to do. Yeah. When you're under literally in a kind of a bad storm and there's family and everything's going on. Right. And sometimes maybe people feel like that.

in the conversation. Maybe they've read your book or this in a podcast and they know what to do, but are they able to kind of retrieve it when they need it the most, or maybe it's on their, it's at their tip of their tongue, right, and they can't get it out. Yeah. So I would say that a lot of it is this context learning where things get mapped over and it's all practice, right? It's all rehearsal. So for example, let's say the power of the pause. We had you on our podcast. You're talking about the power of the pause, so you're not reacting. You're, you're thoughtfully responding to somebody, right? Let maybe that people know that because they read it and they heard it and they saw the video. But in the moment, when we're in a spirit of debate,

that doesn't even register in the moment. So I would say the practice is what happens. Because all athletes do mental rehearsal, right? They pilots have a checklist that they go through. You know, musicians still, you know, practice their scales because they wanted to come. So not because, I mean, they're successful, but they still practice that because they wanted to come without thinking about it. So it's automatic. Like it's an unconscious habit. So I would say, for example, with the power of the pause, I would practice pausing. Like so it's all about triggers, right? You know, something reminds you to something else.

So even something silly, a mental exercise, every time you reach for a door handle, just pause, right? every single time your phone rings, train yourself to pause. So how you do that, when you do those things repeatedly, you get better at it. Just like with a meditation, I don't meditate to become enlightened. I meditate because when I'm quiet and my thoughts go somewhere else, I don't want it to go, I could pull it back to a mantra. I could pull it back to my breath and I build a mechanism and I've trained myself.

So when I'm stressed or somewhere else, my mind gets distracted when I'm on Zoom or I'm with my kids, I have a mechanism and train, rehearse, you know, to be able to do that activity and get that result. So, for example, you train it, that's one thing. Or even something silly. Like, when I train people, I'm one of those guys that in all audience and memorize 100 people's names. And it wasn't always that way because I had a traumatic brain injury and had very severe learning difficulties, very poor memory. But I would say that you could use your imagination. Like imagine you're with somebody that starts getting heated up.

This is kind of silly. But this will work, I promise you. People are getting heated up and you want a reminder to pause. Just imagine when that person is getting heated that all of a sudden there's a big, that heat is turning all red and it's creating a red pause button on their forehead. And here's the thing. When you see that, it'll make you laugh. It'll break your state, right? Which is very useful between stimulus and response.

There's that space, you know, as Victor Frankel talks about. But I would say when that button appears, you can't respond until you hit that button, mental. And then you hit that button in your imagination. And then it reminds you to take a pause and then you could speak. So it's all about, and that's important in neuroscience because it's how habits are formed. You know, there's always a trigger that creates some kind of behavior. Yeah. It's nice when you could choose those triggers.

And whether it's a trigger of training, like touching the door, and remind yourself to pause, the phone rings, pause, or visualizing a pause button on your person, on that person's, forehead and to kind of interrupt the pattern the state, but also to remind you you can't speak until you pit the button and take your own pause. What I hear you saying is if you plan to only say it or do it for the conversation, most likely you're going to have a far less chance of actually remembering to do it unless you apply these skills outside of the conversation. I do believe it maps over how you do.

a lot of how you do something is how you do a lot of things right you know even even the meditation example I use it helps me to focus but it maps over into other areas when I'm reading I don't you never read a read a page in a book and forgot what you just read because your focus is not there right but I think focus is a muscle you know I also feel like memory is a muscle too that just no such thing as a good or bad memory it's been my experience after 35 years that there's a trained memory and there's an untrained memory A trained and an untrained memory. Absolutely, because it's not taught in school, right?

School teaches you what to learn, what to remember, what to think. But they're not a lot of classes on how to learn or how to remember. I didn't take that course or how to think. How to study. All right. Yeah, how to listen to the teacher. Yeah, how to actually do school. Yeah, like going to a student or even, you know, an adult and saying focus or

remember this is like going to someone saying play the didgeridoo or the ukulele who's never taken any kind of class on how. how to do that. And, you know, and that's the challenge is that is more of a, that 20th century education where he taught the what math, history, science, Spanish, but not the how. And I think it's very important skill to have today because the world is, the what's always going to change. It's always going to be updated, you know, outdated also as well. So our ability to learn, to unlearn, to be able to relearn, I think is one of those valuable skills today, especially in an age of AI. For the person listening and they say, okay,

I resonate with Jim on, yeah, when I go into that conversation, I have everything prepared in my mind and that I'm in that moment and I know I read it in a book somewhere. I saw it on something and all of a sudden it's just gone. I first want to know why does that happen? Why do we lose our train of thought? And is there a reason why some people lose their train of thought easier than others? Yeah, absolutely. Well, the goal is to be more mentally fit just like, like people are physically fit, they exercise and they eat, right, and they sleep, right? And they could get for better performance at work, we're at play. We don't exercise our minds the same way, or at least as structured, because we don't see it. Like in photos on social media, I always point it to my brain or I always have a brain on my shirt to remind people, because what you see you take care of is in your awareness, you see your clothes, your car, your air, you tend to take better care of it. But we don't see the thing that takes care of us, right?

Right. So I think, say number one, a good habit is to love your brain. Just fall in love with your brain. Start loving your brain. But the other thing is I feel like it's lost because all learning and performance is state dependent, meaning that especially under stress, like one of the challenges a lot of people come to us up for coaching. I help a lot of TED speakers memorize their speech because a lot of it has to be verbatim. Actors memorize, you know, 30 pages of scripts on can set. A lot of people can remember things, but under the challenges is why people forget. Part of the reason is, is this, is just, I would say, pressure, like it would be stress.

Yes. Right? Because chronic stress will put you in that middle brain, like your amygdala is firing off. And if you're in fight or flight, you're not in flow, right? You're not accessing your executive functioning. Like when you're in fighter flight, it's like you're held hostage and you're just a survival mode and it holds and keeps you away and holds you hot from executive function, good decision making, good

problem solving, being present, be able to focus, be able to even be compassionate also as well. So it's the stress that's keeping- I would say that would be one thing, absolutely. I think another one could also be their beliefs around their memory. Like some people believe and they've rehearsed forgetting. Like the fear of public speaking, which we know is one of the

preeminent fears people have, right, being seen in front of an audience. But I think underlining that is they they wouldn't have that same intensity of fear. If they were confident, they would remember what they need to do and say. And I feel like a lot of people mentally rehearse failure unconsciously. So it's like they visualize it where they are failing and they are forgetting. And, you know, it's interesting. You know, when the brain is mapped, you know, underscans that the mind doesn't know the difference between something that's vividly imagined something that's real, right? People do, there's a study at university as you where they took three groups of people, A, B, and C, and had them do free throws, basketball.

And, you know, they measured how well they did. And then they said, okay, great. For 30 days, group A, we want you to practice for an hour a day. Go out on the court, you know, shoot your shots. Group B, we want you to just practice mentally. So don't go out on the court, don't touch a ball, but just rehearse that you're successful for an hour a day making these shots. And then Group C, they took and they said, don't practice. at all, right? They followed up 30 days later. Group A improved 26 percent, right? Which is obvious being a

practice makes progress. Group C, who didn't practice made no progress, same exact scores, right? Group B, who just practiced in their mind, never touched the ball physically, improved 24 percent. Oh, wow. Just a 2 percent difference. And this has been repeated. And so the idea here is mental rehearsal plays a bigger role than most people think. Obviously, they use it in a athletics, but sometimes we use it against us because sometimes we're rehearsing our fears of forgetting. And so I think, number one, people are forgetting when they need it because they're stressed. Number two, sometimes they've rehearsed failure unconsciously or consciously, like, especially at things that have bigger stakes, like something at work or some guy, toast out a wedding or whatever happens to be. A third one is interference.

Sometimes we're just distracted, you know, like even when people forget people's names, which I think is one of the most important business etiquette, you know, networking skills there is, right? How are you going to show someone you're going to care about their business, their future, their finances, what their family, if you don't care enough, just remember them. But a lot of times, they aren't even present to remember a name. What are they doing? They're thinking about how they're going to respond or looking around the room, seeing who else is important and all that. And the art of memory is the art of attention. The art of memories, the art of attention. And a lot of people are just starting to observing. And so they're not even forgetting it. They're just never even,

hearing the thing to begin with. Yeah. So what I'm what I'm distilling and what we like to do a lot on yeah, this show is to be able to kind of collaborate collaborative. I need my brain. Yeah, yeah, opened to collaborate. Yeah. On how the advice we're going to give on especially this big question I have is how do we stop our brain from forgetting what we want to say in the moment? What I hear you saying is one, It's a stress issue, the people feeling the stress and the key being not to avoid the stress. Because the stress is going to happen. Sure. Because a lot of people say, well, how do I just not be stressed in the moment?

And that's the wrong question I ask. I think people could mitigate it to an extent, certainly. But certainly there are external things that we can't control. Like the feeling of pressure, that feeling of, you know, all of a sudden you get butterflies or that lump in your throat. like that's that's going to happen because there's bad stress and good stress. And so what I hear you saying is to actually also practice, let's say, rehearse that stress in any way you can replicate it to where like I think of like Olympic skiers. You know, if you if you've seen them before they go down. They're like practicing all their stuff because they have it already.

They're already going down the slope in their right. Right. And so if we kind of do that in our mind before we're about to have a hard conversation and not seeing it as we're failing in all the ways we're going to fail. Yeah. But keeping our mind on how we're going to get down the slope no matter the pressure. Is that resonating? And I like it because like when I'm when I'm even sending my own goals or working with clients through achieve their goals, I'm sending less time visualizing like the goal itself. like the book written. Right. Right. What I'm visualizing are the habits and the activities that will make that book inevitable. So it's kind of like a lot of people that say they have struggle with creativity or they can't get themselves to just start something, right?

Like for me, you could visualize if they wanted to be an author, for example, they can imagine themselves. And what I would rehearse, it was not just visualizing the best-selling book. I would be visualizing opening up my laptop at a certain time in the morning. Oh, okay. Because what it does, most people have heard of a neuroplasticity, right? Neuroplasticity is our brain's ability to make new connections through stimulus, through novelty and proper nutrition. It's just like a muscle.

You give it novelty to grow it. You give it an exercise and then you give it nutrition to be able to nourish it. Same thing with your mental muscles, right? And so Hebs law is basically neurons that fire together, they're wired together. So imagine going through a forest and you and you kind of pave a trail after doing it repeatedly every single day, it becomes almost like a, like a highway. Yeah. And it's kind of like our brain works, right? Through repetition.

Creating a new neural path. Yeah, which could be a new thought, a new belief. It can be a new identity. It can be new habit or behavior. Like brushing your teeth at the other hand. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. It's interesting.

I started talking about this like over 30 years ago as for, we do a speed. reading program, but just to engage a different part of your brain. But I also do it because of, and these viral videos about eating with the opposite hand and stuff like that. But what it does is, you know what it does besides potentially stimulating a different part of your brain, it forces you to be present because you're probably not great at brushing your teeth with the opposite hand. Functionally present. Yeah, as opposed to your mind wandering. And again, that's the other thing. Like when you could train yourself to be focused when you need it most, you're going to retain more because you're going to be paying attention as opposed to being driven to distraction.

Yeah. Like you wake up in the morning and the first thing we do is flex our distraction muscles, right? We grab our device. Yeah. We get that free dopamine that we didn't have to earn, which you know, and then it just trains us to be more, more distracted. Every like, share, comment, cat video. Yeah, yeah. At notification social media alert all that. But I would say, I would say it with this neuroplasticity that we could rewire our brains and this is exciting. because a lot of this is changeable because we're adaptable. Everything is figure outable because human being our superpowers are ability to adapt.

And also the other part of it is our identity because some people have this self-talk. Like let's say they want to be present, but they're saying themselves, oh, I'm going to forget this. Right. Or I'm like at events. I speak at people come to me always in the hallway and say, I'm so glad you're here. I have a horrible memory. I'm just too old. I'm not that smart.

And I would say the same thing. I always say, stop. If you fight for limitations, you have to keep them, right? They're yours. Your brain is this incredible supercomputer and your self-talk is a program will run. So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering people's names, you won't remember the name of the next person you meet.

Because you program your computer not to, right? Yeah, you ran that, you run, you're running that program in your brain. Yeah, and I think this is like one of the most important conversations you have is a conversation you have with yourself. Before, because before talking to your spouse or your kids or your coworkers or your clients. Like, we've been talking to ourselves all day.

You know, and the challenge is it's hard to create a positive life with the negative mind. You know, that Henry Ford quote, if you believe you can or can't, either way, you're right. Yeah, yeah. I honestly believe if people truly understood how powerful their mind is, they wouldn't say something or think something. They didn't want to be true. That's not to say, like, you have a negative thought of ruins your life.

Right. Any more than eating one donut will ruin your life. But we have to admit that if someone ate that donut 50 times a day, every single day, there would be a consequence. And I think sometimes these thoughts could be the same way. Is there a reason that our inner self-talk is usually harsher than what we'd ever say to people that we actually love and care about? Your brain evolved not for our happiness, but for our survival, right? So it forced us to have a negative bias because those things could be danger, right? So we're always hyper-vigilant for the things that could cause us pain, you know,

because the brain was rewarded to be able to stay alive and stay safe. It needed to see what could go wrong because a mistake could be very costly. So I think most people have a bias towards negativity, and especially when we say it to ourselves, And of course, we would never say those things to someone we love. So the filter that I would suggest if you say to yourself, because I think part of self-care Jefferson is not just, I don't know, exercising or going to the spa. I think part of self-care is looking in the mirror

and loving that reflection that's looking back, who's been through so much, but it's still standing. Right? There's a lot of research on, like, when we're more hard on ourself, here's a reason to redo this less. When we're harder on ourselves, let's say, I'm such an idiot, I'm not worth anything. I said I would work out, but I didn't work out.

But people think that by doing that, they would more likely follow through the next day, right? But studies done on self-compassion say, actually, when you're kind to yourself, you're more likely to give yourself some grace, you're more likely to follow through. And so the filter is like when you say, oh, I'm too old, I'm an idiot, you know, I just, I, why is it? If you wouldn't say it to like someone you love deeply, then I think that's the filter.

You know, it's like if I wouldn't say it to my kids. Right. Why would I ever? And so what I would my suggestion would be you know like less less critic more coaching. So you know, we could criticize ourselves all all the time, right? But what I would say is I would go into self coaching mode and self coaching is honest, but it there's a there's a compassion and kindness to it. and there's something that's moving forward, you know, right? Like, if a good coach who will be honest with you, they'll tell you what's wrong, but they'll say it in a way that they care, you know,

and then it's forward moving, meaning there's some advance. There's some progress there. And so I would use that critical. I would use those two filters. If you find yourself being negative yourself, have the filter, just like you said, would you talk to your kids this way? And the second thing I would say is less critic,

more coaching, you know, kind of good coach. should be honest, they'd be kind, they'd be compassionate, and forward moving. Before we keep going, I want to take a moment to tell you about our place. There has been a change of cookware in our house now for several months. I know over six months at least, probably close to a year now, of using our place for both our pans and our pots, because not only do they look great, you can pick some really, really good colors. We had the neutral stone tan ones, the earth stone ones that we really really.

like. They also are totally non-stick. They have this always pan. That's what they call it. And then they also have a perfect pot. And it's rightly named because they are perfect for what we need them for. I can cook an egg and it slides and it's perfect. I like it. I'm the breakfast guy of the family on Saturday mornings. What do I use every morning? I use Our Place. Quality products. They don't have these forever chemicals. They're ceramic inside. They're awesome. So if you care like me about what you cook with, you need to go to Ourplace.com slash Jefferson and right now you can get 10% off sitewide, which is great. From our place.com slash Jefferson.

And with a 100-date risk-free trial, can't beat that. Now, let's keep going. Is the reliance on AI, like when we go, when somebody says, okay, I'm going to talk to chat, GBT, or Claude or whatever, and they find that that's what they're going towards every time. They have a random thought in their head. They're like, I want to see what AI has to say about that. Is it making our brain weak or?

or stronger? Yeah. So it's called cognitive offloading. And it's been throughout time, technology has changed the way our brain thinks and works. I mean, you think about from, I don't know, 300,000 BC to 3,000 BC, there was no written word. So people would have to be able to, they would have to be able to communicate everything through stories and everything. I mean, even, even early times, like before there was like writing, they would pass like, whether it's the Iliad or the Odyssey, we passed through just through human memory, right? And then when writing came, it changed the way people think, right?

They would be putting things out for other people to be able to see kind of like a second brain. And then when the printing press came and it could be actually shared more, it changed things also as well. And but even even to modern times, I mean, calculators, you know, remember that? Like you have to use a calculator

and you can't use the mental math. And I think it there's a challenge because, I think math is important in that it builds logic and for people have an understanding of it. You know, I was, this is sad. I was without a client thing and the bill came was 10 of us. And I swear, when the bill came, four people, Jefferson took out their phones to divide by the bill by 10. You know, and so that's a challenge. I know there's someone who get the calculator out of like, what's the tip and how we're going to split everything?

Yeah, but cognitive offloading. So cognitive offloading is basically your brain grows through. through stressors, just like your muscles. You have to give it some kind of stimulus. But what happens when AI removes all the friction, right? And I talk about in limitless, actually, in 2020, when the book came out, I talked about the four villains of the mental apocalypse, the horseman. Number one, digital distraction.

That's kind of obvious. That's why we train people how to focus. Digital deluge, which I termed is the information overwhelm. There's actually a term information fatigue syndrome, higher blood pressure and compression of leisure time, more sleeplessness, because we're drowning in information. That's why we teach, you know, the speed reading, the accelerated learning. Digital dementia is a term in healthcare where the high reliance on technology to remember things for us. Your to-do is your grocery list, your schedule, your phone, how many phone numbers did you know growing up?

Right. Like quite a bit. Oh, yeah, like most people, like all of them. But how many phone numbers you know currently? Yeah, four. Right. And so everyone could count on one hand. And so not that I want to memorize 500 phone numbers, but it should be very concerning.

we've lost a billion member one phone number or a pin number or passcode right or what hotel room we're staying in it's like brain atrophy it is that's digital dementia it's the high reliance and then then you'll see this in tests because it's like if people ever read a pageant book forgot but i think i forgot are two the most costly words in life sometimes i mean think about the consequence yeah there's two simple words but when you say these words for yourself or someone else like like you lose like like it's very defeating like think about the consequence of saying I forgot what I just read I forgot what I was I just heard I forgot what I was going to say like a sentence I just read now I got to go back up right again or I forgot what's

gonna do I forgot to go to that meeting I forgot that person's name you know every time on the other side memory could is an amplifier in business certainly can make you money when you can easily remember client information having at your mental fingertips you know what they're proud of the important important date whatever happens to be facts figures so speeches names and faces life gets easier. What is the cost of relying too much on AI to communicate for you? So the last one, so besides so digital deduction, digital distraction, digital dementia is digital deduction. And I termed that, I coined that phrase in Limulus, and that's where technology is

thinking for us. And it's also communicating a lot, right? Like they're there, I know too many people who are just going to respond to their spouse even, right, for things. And here's a challenge. So our brain grows through effort, but if AI removes all the friction, now it's interesting because people feel like AI will replace, you know, humans. Whether that happens or not, and certainly will to a certain degree, especially right now, there's like a barbell economy, right? You have like leadership here. You have like people who have skill-based things like that are very more physical. Like AI is probably like a HVAC or massage therapists and and plumbers and so on. In the middle though, copyrighters like, you know, visual designers, coders, all that.

That's a challenge. But that's why communication, I think, is one of the pillars for human intelligence, meaning I would lean into becoming a better communicator, just like I would learn lean into the work we do in terms of be able to adapt faster. So it's leaning on cognitive flexibility. So in communication, So basically, AI will scale and amplify, but what is it going to scale and amplify? Only what human beings bring to it.

So if somebody is unclear in their communication or confused, it's just amplify that or in their creation. If somebody is very clear and competent, then it can amplify that. And I don't see that someone's artificial intelligence. I think more practical, functional, empowering approach would be like it's augmented intelligence. It's like a partner for you.

It could be a creative partner for you to bounce ideas off to see where you're at the holes are, are blown blind spots, you know, risk factors, is distressed has ideas that we want to put out, you know, and communicate to the world. But it's like a, I work with a lot of athletes, right? An F1 driver, they have this multi-million dollar piece of technology.

Think about that like AI, that's race car, but it's the driver that determines that performance. And so, you know, I'm a big advocate for human intelligence. And I ask, I'm actually very hopeful. Like, it's gonna go one or two ways. And I'm hoping instead of it just the bad things that you see online in movies, I feel like it could force us to become more human. Because I think one of the most important talk about conversations,

I think one of the most important conversations to we have right now is a story we're living in, the conversation we're leaning in, which is how do you remain deeply human in an age of AI? I'm with you. Right? With AI doing these things, especially for identity, where like if somebody was a coder or a creator, whatever it is, and AI could do the job, faster and better than who are you, right? Sure. You know, in terms of.

I want to make sure that I find that we provide yeah, some really concrete pieces for the listeners. If somebody listening finds themselves in the habit of every time they want to write an email. Yeah. Or send a text. They go to AI first and say, how should I say and what should I say. Um, I want to make sure that as long as they're doing it as a partnership and out of four, replacement. Yeah. That's what sounds like the safest thing. Because I can say personally, I'm a proponent of using AI absolutely as a collaborative partner. I have an AI. A lot of people have an AI that says, hey, here's a lot of my advice and here's how you can use this to help improve. But when you are

replacing all of the, what you said, you're using that as cognitive offload. That's where it can go south. So we don't want to do that. The question I have is what is the number one thing that somebody can do right now that's going to start improving their brain the most return that they can have. Absolutely. Yeah, I know exactly. I've never talked about this, but this is what I do personally. Before I go to AI for anything, for any, like maybe I would help with my communications or market, whatever happens to be, five things. Because the danger is not of a cognitive offloading. It's the trend towards cognitive surrender. Like if we don't, if we're, if it's thinking for us, then what happens to a society that can't critically think or can have strong judgment or anything else? That's a challenge. And we don't want those things to atrophy. Just like we could take an elevator to the fifth floor for an office or an apartment, but then we don't take the stairs. The elevator is a form of technology. It makes our life convenient. But we

don't want to cripple us when we take an Uber to go eight blocks to the bank when we could have got our steps in. So it's always a balance. So five things you can think about. And I'll use an acronym. And this is what I use personally and we use it with our team and clients. but I've never talked about it on a podcast. I'm interested in building, right? I want to build before I borrow from an AI, right? I want to build my brain. And I don't want to go slack by not using those thinking muscles.

So the B stands for a brainstorm. So before I post a prompt about a communication set or something else, I'd want to do the little bit of work myself. I want to be able to brainstorm some answers myself, right? I'm going to be able to engage one of the eyes, the imagination. The U is I want to understand. Because I often think, especially when we're dealing with problems or difficulty, what was the Einstein quote?

Like if I have an hour to solve a problem, I'll spend most of it focusing on defining the problem. And so understanding really what the situation is, I think is very important before we go to AI to tell us something it thinks, right? The eye is imagination, and this is very tactic. I would be thinking about if I'm solving a problem using AI before I even talk to AI. I'm using my own imagination thinking, asking questions like, how would a five-year-old look at this problem?

How would someone 10 times smarter than me look at this problem, right? Or even the special position of like, what would Leonardo da Vinci do in this situation, right? It gives me a different point of view. Of the problem. Of the problem and potential solutions sets if I didn't ask that question. Like, you know, like asking a new question, like, like in zero to one, how do I hit my 10-year goal, but do it in six months, right? It forces me to not just work hard, but think about it differently.

So I is imagine, then the L in build is leverage AI. Then you could go to AI. But I would use AI to actually ask you more questions personally, you know, and because AI, and this is the other thing about artificial intelligence is whether or not it's becoming more human, I don't want humans become more artificial, right? I don't want our natural and touch to become artificial by relying on it too much. Because AI could feign empathy, but it doesn't know how to communicate with a grieving child. It doesn't know a breakup.

It does not have to forgive somebody and all the other things. But then I would leverage AI and how I would use it is to stress test my ideas that I just imagine or brainstormed or my understanding of it, is if it's clear. You know, I'd ask it to be able to, you know, ask me questions that would challenge my current assumptions or attitudes about something. And if I'm using it to learn something, great. I could ask it to summarize something, certainly, or pose certain questions that I can improve on also as well. And then I would say the D and build is then you decide.

Because while AI could process and compute faster than any human, ultimately human beings, our skill set is determining what all that information, what it means, what's important. Right. Right. Because AI is going to tell you that. And also, make your decide what to do with that information. Before we keep going, I want to take a moment to

tell you about David. When it comes to fitness goals, convenience only works if it's actually going to help you reach your goal. That's especially true for protein bars. That's why I like David. Most of protein bars that are out there, right, are let's say 20 grams of protein. They're 350 calories and also 300 grams of sugar. It tastes great. That's why it tastes far like candy, but it's not helping you reach your goal. David is 28 grams of protein, 350 calories, and zero sugar. Little bitty thing that makes a very big difference. David is easy to put in my pocket, put in a backpack, and eat it on the go. They taste good. And I know that what I'm eating when I'm putting in my body is good quality stuff. I think they're the gold standard when it comes to

protein bars. Right now, head on over to davidprotein.com slash jefferson. When you buy four cartons, you will get your fifth free. And also you can go online to davidprotein.com and find a store that sells them near you. That's pretty awesome. Now, let's keep going. I want to drill down on this cognitive offload. How much are we relying on other things to be thinking, communicating for us, and cost to that? You were telling me earlier before we started about this an MIT study. Yeah, there was a recent MIT study and they had their right, the students had their right communication essays, right? And the first group A, B, C, group A used chat GPT to do it. Group B use Google and Group C, neither, right? They had to use their own technology that they were born

with, you know, between their ears. And they scanned the brains and they tested, you know, afterwards. And out of Group A, B, and C, which one had the most cognitive engagement? It was the one that did the work themselves, not relying on technology on the brain scans. What's more interesting for me was when they were tested on their recall of what was created in turn to the final product, right, these essays, out of group A, B and C, which one recalled by far the least was the one that used ChachyPT because it did the work for them. Because they didn't do the effort, they didn't get the reward, right? It's the equivalent of like going to the gym and asking a friend of yours at the gym to lift

the weights for you. Right. You're not going to get any of the benefit because you have to earn it. And that's a thing with our brains, you know, doing a little bit more, you know, because I'm hoping that AI could help on. to automate things and make a life easier for lower mental tasks, but it frees up the bandwidth to create. I mean, I think communication, I think communication is one of the pillars.

I call them human, that if everyone, you know, when in our age of AI, it's going to force us, because we're not going to out-process or computer, you know, computer, but it'll force us to be valuable in the workforce. H is hard, which is, for me, the symbol of emotion. That's emotional. I'd be leaning into right now if someone listening, anything for your EQ, empathy, compassion,

because AI is not going to be able to duplicate that. The U is understanding. And I think it's important to be able to be curious today more than ever. You know, I think what's one of the through lines with high performers is they're insanely curious and that's why they progress. You know, that your mind only, it's like a parachute only works when it's opened. So to understand deeply, the M and human stands for meaning. I think we're purpose-driven creatures and I think it's going to force people to

to go deeper into what lights them up and lights other people up. Yeah. Meaning passion and purpose are often interchange as words. For me, they're very, very specific. Passion for me is defined by anything that lights you up. And you can have lots of passions, right? It could be pickleball, it could be nature, it could be your kids. Yeah. So things that light you up. Purpose for me is how you use the passions to light somebody else up. Like I had these learning disabilities and I couldn't learn really well. But learning eventually became my passion. And so passion, my passion of learning

lights me up. Teaching people how to learn lights them up. And that's my purpose. So passion lights me up. How I use my passion light someone else up is my purpose. And that's what makes it human. Yeah. And I feel like that's important. So that's meaning. And then finally, the A and the end, the A I would lean into is adaptation. I think our ability to adapt quickly in today's age of AI is very important because the change is the one thing that will be constant. And so our ability to learn, to unlearn, to be able to relearn, I think is paramount. And then the N in humans stands for Nexus. And I would put Nexus as, I'm using that word as communication, meaning it's not just your

neurological networks, it's your social networks, you know, our ability to communicate. Because I feel like even, you know, people are still coming to us, even they could go into an AI and say, how would Jim quick speed read this? or remember this language or whatever it is. But also, you know, the community that we've built, you know, and the trust that we've built in the, you know, because I still think people are gonna want life experience from a real human

that could really empathize in a real way. That's not synthetic or artificial. But nexus is maintaining, it's your communication skills, your ability is leadership. I would put everything there. But I feel like, and then if people, imagine people putting their energy and their effort, their resources, their time and attention towards those five things,

I feel like, you know, in an AI revolution, I feel like there could be a human evolution or a renaissance in a new times where AI could actually, you know, drive more creativity and more, more purpose. I want to do a lightning round with you. Yeah. Cool. So I have about five or six questions that we're going to, let's try and get them in like 30 second. Okay. Blitch. You cool? Yeah, quick. It's going to be keep it quick. It's going to be easy. This is going to be easy. How do we remember somebody's name rather than forgetting at the moment that we met them? Yeah, I use suave. S is you say the name. You repeated right away. Grant, it's nice to meet you. Use it a lot. Use their name. I would say say it

first to make sure you heard it correctly. You don't want to have a 20 minute conversation with Ted and say goodbye, Ed. Yeah. So I immediately when they introduce themselves, I'll say it back. Grand, nice to meet you. Yeah, repeat it. You is use the name. But I would only use it three or four times in the conversation. Don't abuse it. Right. Jefferson. Yeah, like Jefferson is great to you. You're great. We have Jefferson. Yeah, that would be an abuse.

But use it three or four times. The A is ask. When you meet somebody and their name is a little unusual, the name you haven't heard before, then everyone's favorite subject is themselves. Ask, what can you ask? Well, who are you named after? You know, how do you spell it?

You know, what does it mean? You know, where's it from? You know, and people I feel like it's the sweetest sound of person's ears. And then the V is visualized. You meet somebody and if you can be playful as a kid, because kids learn pretty fast. have great memories, take their name and turn into something

like Jeff or chef and put a chef's hat on the person, right? Make a creative. As someone's named Grant, you imagine them, you know, hitting on granite, right? Yeah, something like that. Mary, carrying two lambs, or Marylone, David, a slingshot like David and Goliath, you know, and a gym or someone living barbell.

It's something silly, but it's something to get over what I call a six second rule. Somebody tells you their name, you have six sections to do something with it, otherwise it's just gone. It's just gone in the ether. And it's a means to an end. Once you know the person's name, then the picture this disappears but it's create some mental glue right and then

finally the E is end and use and saying goodbye using their name because if you go into a room of 10 strangers and leave saying goodbye to every single one by name yeah who are they all gonna remember right right they're all gonna remember you so suave for me I like it suave I like it that's aptly name for me it's if I go in with the intention of actually wanting to remember their name yeah if you just you know cursory I'm not gonna do it but if I go in with the intention of I want to remember this person's name that increases that likelihood and then also I will say I've just had it to where I go

hey I want to make sure I don't forget your name can you tell it to me again and they they're like oh yeah yeah because you told me you want to remember my name yeah and being that open with them can do it yeah I like the I always tell people remember mom mom the M-O-M is motivation going back to wanting it needs to have to go from your head to your heart your hands right even when you visualize your goals in your head or not acting with your hands you have to check in with the second with your heart. But emotion and memory, go hand in hand, without a doubt. I mean, everyone knows there's a fragrance. I could take you back to when you're a teenager or a food or a song. Like, I can smell my mom's perfume. Right. Just like that. And so that emotion brings back the

memory. Your amygdala is connected to your hippocampus. It's emotion and memory. So mom stands for motivations. Like, just like you said, I'll go in front of an audience of 2,000 people. I just did this two days ago. And I said, okay, who's bad at me remember names? Everyone raised their hand. Okay, so let's say the host has a suitcase. here, a million dollars cash. You could take home with you, tax free, give it your favorite charity or whatever. If you just remember the name of the next person

you'd be in the room, who's gonna remember the name? Same hands go up. And then I said, okay, as a memory, coach, I have to call you on your BS, your belief systems. Yeah. Like it has nothing to do with whether you could remember a name and it has everything to if you wanted to. So even ask yourself, why don't wanna remember the person's name?

Like you did. Maybe it's just show the person respect. Maybe to practice these things on this podcast, right? Reasons, reap results. And the O is observation. A lot of people, they're not forgetting the name. They're just not even hearing the name to begin with. And the last time I'm in mom are the methods.

And one of them is a suave. Sure. You're an acronym guy. I like it because a lot of people, because my name's quick and our podcast is only 20 minutes long, but I have to keep it short and memorable if someone's working out or they're driving and they can't write it down. It's acronym.

You remember, you know, things back in high school like that. I love that. Before we keep going, I want to take a moment to tell you about cozy earth. I have been proud to have cozy Earth as a sponsor for so long. Why? Because everything they do is top-notch. The other weekend, my family and I, we were in the airport, sat down, you know, while you're waiting there for your flight.

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Because I was wearing a very comfortable cozy Earth sweater. And I got to say, why, yes, it is. So it's not just something that I talk about here. It's something I actually like to wear. In fact, everybody I give them to goes nuts about them. They're like, what brand is this? It's cozy earth. Everything they make is soft, comfortable, cozy.

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Sometimes the software we're using to remember things that are to focus hasn't been updated. Like repetition to remember something is so antiquated. Like you have to study something and repeat it 50 times in your head. Or people are reading slow and they haven't taken in another class since they're six years old. So the reading ability is just that of a six year old. So part of it is a software programming. But the other part is the hardware. You know, I always tell people, you want another acronym?

Meds. Take your meds. You want a good brain? M is meditate. You have to disconnect to reconnect. I also think there is power and a pause also, meaning that sometimes when you pause a camera or you pause your computer or your TV, it stops working. I feel like sometimes when we pause ourself, we start working. We start recalibrating. We start recovering. We start rethinking, right? So I would say the M is meditation. The E and meds is exercise. And I don't just mean going to the gym, although when you exercise, you create BDNF, which is brain derived neurotrophic factors, which is like fertilizer for neuroplasticity, very essential.

You also create natural dopamine, serotonin, dors, and I also create natural dopamine, which is good. But I mean moving throughout the day. They say sitting is the next, you know, is the new smoking and everything, moving throughout the day, taking a brain break. The D is diet. I also remind everybody, sometimes our brain underperforms because of the food we eat. You're in a food coma. High inflammation, processed food, high sugar, glucose spikes could affect your, your cognitive ability and overall cognitive health. And I always talk about some of my favorite. It's the whole area of science I read about called neuro and nutrition, that your brain, that what you eat matters, especially for your gray matter. Some of my favorite foods are, like,

like avocados, blueberries. I call them brain berries, walnuts, very neuroprotective, eggs, the coline in eggs, ethylinocholine, olive oil, dark chocolate. And then the S in meds is sleep. For sure. Sometimes people, brain and memory is not where it needs to be because of poor sleep hygiene. Yeah. So I would say software, yes, do you find it?

We have all the stuff out there, but I would say the hardware, you take care of the brain, the three-pound matter between yours too. How do you train yourself to think faster on your feet? Yeah, reaction time, thinking speed. Yes. Yeah. I just had a neuroscientist nutrition on our podcast, and Dr. Lisa Mascone, she was saying that just staying hydrated,

your brain is mostly water, just staying hydrated, could boost your reaction time, your thinking speed upwards of 30%. So I just want to remind people to drink your water, and especially when you wake up. Really? We can lose up to a pound of water when we sleep through urination, through perspiration, through respiration, and, you know, everything is, our body is in brain, which is hydrated.

I would say the one thing you could do for faster thinking speed, reaction time. But reaction time and thinking speed can be up, like, we teach people out to read three times faster on average in 21 days. Reaction time and thinking speed, that means they're thinking three times faster also, right? They're taking in. And I imagine a lot of people are training themselves even with, like, Audible and podcast, listening it at one and a half speed or two times speed. You can understand that fast.

You can't speak that fast. So there are all kinds of mechanisms to be able to improve your. And I think, honestly, reading is one of the best exercises to keep your thinking sharp. The challenge is only 16% of people. This was, it just came out in the Atlantic, 16% of people read daily. Like a book or magazine, something other than like social media or something like that. 51% of the populace across gender, ethnicity, and age, 51% don't won't read one book a year. Not even one, not even one book.

That's why I have to be. You know, and so reading is to your mind. People ask all the time what's the best exercise for the brain. They're physical exercises. Racquet sports has been shown to increase your lifespan upwards of nine years. Yeah. You know, more than jogging or swimming also as well. Right.

Dancing, incredible for the brain also because you're putting your mind and your muscle. But I would say in terms of cognitive activities, the app, people ask for apps and everything else, reading. Reading. And think about it also. Someone has decades experience like you do. You put it into a book and then somebody sit down and read that book in a few days and they could download decades of wisdom and experience and research in a few days. I mean, there's no greater advantage than that. It's making me think that my grandfather, who I don't think has ever missed a day of doing the daily crossword for the New York Times. I think he's got to figure it out because his brain is super sharp. There's a study on these nuns. I call them super nuns. It was a cover of Time magazine. Some people might have seen it. But they were living 80, 90 and above. And they want to figure out what was their key to the their long life and also just their sharpness, because they had life in their years also. And they said half it was their faith and the level

gratitude, emotions. The other half, though, they were lifelong learners. They would have spirit of debate, discourse, reading, you know, these common kind of conversations and writing. And because at years of life and life through years, the study is called aging with grace. So I would rather go a day without eating, honestly,

than a day without reading. Like, because I would skip a meal before I would skip, like, reading something. And maybe that's my preference, but I feel that it's weird, you know, because you and I go to these author events, that people could go, like, no one would go a few days and be like, oh, I forgot to eat the past few days. Because they would have a natural hunger. Right. I would just feel like that, you know, books are like the best. And not just nonfiction books, obviously I love nonfiction books, but at nighttime, I read fiction.

I won't read a nonfiction books. I don't want to read a book on science or business or psychology because I'll give me my executive brain when I want to sleep. But fiction reading has been shown just like 20 minutes of fiction reading has been shown to reduce stress like 40 something percent and it help you sleep better also at night. And fiction reading also will improve the H and the human acronym, which is your emotional heart, which is emotional quotient. Empathy, storytelling, right, seeing things from other people's point of view. I love big advocate for fiction reading. This I want to, this next question, I want to pull in some of your tips and training. on how to improve memory.

Yeah. Okay. So how can we improve our memory to remember what we want to say in a conversation while we're actually in the conversation? Yeah. So I would say, number one, mental rehearsal, which is what you practice, right, in private,

you're awarded for in public. So I feel like you get those reps in. So mental rehearsal where you could see it and you're actually, even if you can't imagine, you can imagine that you're imagining it. Like visualizing it. Visualizing it. Like I've given 20,

200 keynotes at companies corporation and conferences but I probably rehearsed like tens of thousands of them just in my mind right and I'll even rehearse failure points like what if this happens or what if this tech breaks or what if this like the fire I was speaking from 10,000 kids and the fire alarm went off in this armory and I had no because I didn't prepare for it but when you do the preparation I think that's that's important so mentors I would say number one there are memory techniques right so in limulus and our on our courses we we we We talk about simple things like a memory palace. Like what did the ancient Greeks do before there were printing presses

and teleprompters or everything else? And they would use areas that they were very familiar with. Like the story goes, Simonides is a poet and orator. And he, 2,500 years ago in Greece, he was giving a reading. And then when he left, the building collapsed and killed everybody. He was the lone survivor. And because he was a lone survivor, he had to help family members identify their loved ones.

And he was able to do it because he remember where there were all sitting because we, as hunter-gatherers, we needed to remember where things were. Where's the clean water? Where's a fertile soil? Where's the food, everything? So we store information in location. And so a technique you could use is take a place

you're familiar with. Let's say you need to have talking points in a conversation or on stage or something like that or on camera. You take your living room or like, let's say you take your kitchen or your body or a briefcase. And you can put like even this whole sales tips like about product or service on one on the lock, one on this class, one on the rear of the pocket, everything. So let's say, let's say, for example, you go in your kitchen, the first place is your microwave. The second place is your stove top.

Your third is your refrigerator. Fourth is dishwasher. Fifth is a sink. And you had five talking points. Let's say it happens to be what are like five things you could do for a better brain. And you say, okay, the first one that you need to do is have a good brain diet. Imagine the microwave full with all those brain foods, right? Cooking though, which you would never do.

The two is their stove top and it's killing ants, automatic negative thoughts from Dr. Daniel Ayman. So imagine you're killing ants on your stove top. And the third thing is the refrigerator. And the third thing you remember is your exercise. So you open up it and they're doing yoga inside your refrigerator. Right. And if it makes you laugh, that emotion is very important to memory.

And then let's say the fourth thing is, you know, brain nutrients. And then so you go into the dishwasher and all these ginko biloba and omega-3 and everything else like that. Yeah. So there's another thing. So besides mental rehearsal, you could also be practicing using some kind of mnemonic device that has been tried and true that people have been using to be able to do everything from speeches to poetry.

And also, the other thing is, I'll give you one final one that I use with actors I don't talk about, is if it's something you have to remember verbatim, you could change the, first of all, if it was like a script that you wanted to be just like this is something, you say on a regular basis, you can listen to certain music, not heavy metal or rap, but certain classical music will help you remember things faster and encode it better, especially from the Baroque era, Bivaldi, Bach, because it's like 60 beats per minute,

which harmonizes with that resting hard rate. And then you could also be having, like reading it or writing it to help you while the music is on there. Some people will rehearse things in different voices, like Mickey Mouse voice or something else in their head because it'll give them more stimulus more novelty to recall it later. It's working with the material in different ways.

Yeah, actors will do that a lot. Oh, cool. Especially because they'll step into it, because it gives them more novelty and more sticking points to make it stand out from other things. And other people, I'll give you one tip. This is, I don't talk about this, study skills when I do it at Ivy League schools.

Like the most powerful sense you have for memory is your old factory, your sense of smell, right? And so there's certain smells that have been shown to help you focus your memory, rosemary and so on, citrus. But if you take a smell that you put on like a lip balm or cologne or essential oil while you're studying that thing you need to communicate, and then you wear that same scent when you need to be able to perform it, it'll come back faster. Yeah. I mean, it is wild.

Like, I have a swimming pool and I used to train. Remember, like we were saying, like, you want to train under also ideal conditions but also harsh conditions. So I would train like memorizing numbers and words and cards. merged using like and then it's funny like I would test myself back like after I studied it underwater right I would I would test myself coming out of the water and I go back underwater and then see which how much I remember and in which situation or environment would I remember more where I learned it oh wow yeah that's why students that study in the classroom or you know people preparing their their performance on stage on that

stage will have more natural recall because the environment will trigger a lot of the memories often like we do even without knowing. Well, I can tell you, when your book came out in 2020, Limitless, it blew me away because it really goes into just how much more I find that my brain can do. I have just sometimes thinking small on the capacity of what is capable of our brains. And I know you have Limitless Daily. Yeah. And that new book, I want you to tell us my listeners real quick, how is limitless? daily different from limitless and how it's how it's going to help our brains.

I feel the same way about your book, the same exact way. I was like, why was it as taught back in school? This is like an owner's manual for communication. And I want to do the owner's manual for learning in the brain. A limitless daily came because a lot of people are asking, this is so much information on speed reading and memory enhancement and how to have your best brain of your life. But where do I start daily?

Because I notice that the big things don't come from the big things. they come from the small things that we do consistently. Because consistency compounds, you know, and this limitless, I haven't talked about this, but I wrote it less than two months when it came out because I had 30 years. It was my first book and I had 30 years of curriculum and content to put in there. So I just like, I was a maniac. Limeless Day, it took over a year. And that's a long time for me at this pace of that.

And it happened because it wasn't going to be a book. I started, like a emotional thing about this. I have a three and a half and a one year old, one and a half year old. And it's been the biggest learning experience of my life. Yeah. I was in the hospital and I saw my wife holding her and her at the time, you know, like a little bit older brother. And, you know, I'm 53. And so I had some severe learning challenges after my traumatic brain injury at five.

You know, I was called Broken by a teacher and from the whole class when I was nine. I was called The Boy with the Broken Brain. And even though that took only five seconds for to say, that conversation that followed? Stayed forever. For a decade. For a decade I had after that, that label became my limit. So the story I was telling myself,

with the brain injury was one limitation. Was far greater limitation was the conversation I was having inside my own head about that injury. Every time I did badly in sports or it wasn't picked for sports or did belly in school, I would say, I was boy with the broken brain. You know, so that I'm on a mission. And at the same time around seven, I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer's,

and she was my hero. And so we donated proceeds from limitless for built schools in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, healthcare, clean water for all the kids and villages that don't have access to any of that. And Alzheimer's research for women, because women are twice a experience Alzheimer's than men in memory of my grandmother. So I'm very purpose-driven.

When I was writing limitless, though, I mean, Limitless Daily, I didn't know I was writing it, because being 53 and starting my family when I was 50, I was different phase of life. phase of life. Like my father was, you know, on his my age, I was like 30. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was different. So I started feeling my mortality, you know, in a way. So I started, I write every morning for as long as I can remember gratitude or what my goals are the day. But I started writing a letter to my kids that, God forbid, you know, when they're adults 20 years from now, like, if I wasn't there,

yeah, what would I say to them on a hard day? Right. You know, if they didn't want to get out of bed or if there's something that they're challenged with. And I started writing to them. And I kept that ritual every single morning for 366 days. And that's how long it took me to write the book. And instead, though, I put the science in there for each entry. So I give them new idea to overcome distraction or overload or imposter syndrome or burnout or fear of failure

or negative thinking, all the things I talk about these in your conversations with them on. And it's basically a one, every single page is dated. You read that date first thing in the morning during a time called sleep inertia. And this might be the biggest tip people could get whether they buy the book or not. Jefferson, when you wake up, there's something called sleep inertia. You transition from a sleep state to a waking state. And certain cognitive things come online, your attention, your awareness, your alertness,

and your working memory is empty, right? That window, whatever you mentally input has a disproportionate effect on the rest of your day. So I'm all about leverage, right? Because time is the only thing that everybody has constants. You want to maximize that. Specifically, what you feed your minds, called attentional priming, will influence disproportionately three things. Would you focus on later that day throughout the day,

what you feel throughout the day, and how you frame the day, even conversations. And what do most people input that precious window with their phone? Yeah. So comparison. News, war. Social media. the conflict, whatever it is.

And that will disproportionately affect what they focus on. They'll see that more throughout the day. They'll frame situations and even conversations later that day. And it'll affect their mood and their feelings. You know, like you pick up your phone and you get a message on social media or a comment or a voicemail message or an email. And it affects your mood for hours, right? And so I always tell people media, you know, like media is one thing, right?

But mine before media. No one would wake up first thing in the morning and invite 200 strangers into their bedroom and to talk about whatever they want to talk about. That would be ludicrous, right? But that's kind of like what we're doing. Plus, we're training our brain to be reactive because then we're fighting fires, dealing with other people's problems and, you know. And so what I would say is the goal here is that's why prayer works really well in the window.

Gratitude works really well. Send your goals for saying, you know, or reading something like Limitless Daily. I always say mind before media, right? intention before interruption, direction before distraction. And so limitless daily is my way of simplifying the tools and limitless in something that's digestible. Plus, it gets more people reading every single day, first thing in the morning before the world tells you who you are,

you get to have a conversation. It's like me coaching them for five minutes first thing. And everything has an identity statement and it has an implementation that you can do in two minutes. So it's like, you want to win the day? You have to win that first window, that first, part of that morning and that that's what the book has decided to do and who doesn't want to be limitless every day yeah so it's at uh limitlessdaily.com yeah yeah and then we have some bonuses for

people and it's just it's uh it's i think you change your brain you change your life you you you change your brain you could change the world absolutely and if it if anybody is interested in increasing their capacity for their mind me being somebody i'm telling you all i'm thinking about now is i need to go by a crossword and grandfather would But every time he'd, even when he'd come out of town, he'd go in the morning, go get some donuts, come back with a Coke and it's crossword. And every morning he does a crossword. And now I'm just going, man, I need to increase my crossword intake. Jim, thank you so much for coming off.

Awesome stuff, man. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Thank you everyone for joining us. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer.

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