The One You Feed - The Three Levers of Change: How to Shift Your Mindset, Motivation, and Methods for Success with Jim Kwik

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

In this episode, Jim Kwik explores the three levers of change and how to shift your mindset, motivation, and methods for success. Jim shares his journey overcoming a childhood brain injury and how he discovered practical methods to drive change. He also introduces his “brain animal” framework for understanding how we learn and discusses the importance of self-awareness, living by core values, and making intentional choices. Listeners are encouraged to reflect on their own growth, embrace self-compassion, and take practical steps toward a more limitless life. Exciting News!!!Coming in March 2026, my new book, ⁠⁠⁠How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life is now available for pre-orders!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠We need your help!⁠⁠ We all know ads are part of the podcast world, and we want to improve this experience for you. Please take 2 minutes and ⁠⁠complete this survey⁠⁠. It’s a quick and easy way to support this podcast. Thank You! Key Takeaways: Personal growth and self-improvement Overcoming adversity and challenges The importance of mindset and motivation The concept of "feeding the good wolf" within oneself The role of choices in shaping one's life and identity Strategies for navigating grief and personal loss The significance of core values in decision-making and behavior Understanding different cognitive brain types and their impact on learning and communication The power of self-awareness and introspection Practical methods for enhancing brain function and overall well-being For full show notes,⁠⁠⁠ click here⁠⁠!⁠ Connect with the show: ⁠⁠⁠Follow us on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@TheOneYouFeedPod⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe on ⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠ Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠ By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you! This episode is sponsored by: ⁠⁠⁠Uncommon Goods ⁠⁠⁠has something for everyone – you’ll find thousands of new gift ideas that you won’t find anywhere else, and you’ll be supporting artists and small, independent businesses. To get 15% off your next gift, go to ⁠⁠⁠UNCOMMONGOODS.com/FEED⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠: Post your job for free at linkedin.com/oneyoufeed. Terms and conditions apply. ⁠⁠⁠Persona Nutrition ⁠⁠⁠delivers science-backed, personalized vitamin packs that make daily wellness simple and convenient. In just minutes, you get a plan tailored to your health goals. No clutter, no guesswork. Just grab-and-go packs designed by experts. Go to ⁠⁠⁠PersonaNutrition.com/FEED⁠⁠⁠ today to take the free assessment and get your personalized daily vitamin packs for an exclusive offer — get 40% off your first order. ⁠⁠⁠Grow Therapy ⁠⁠⁠– Whatever challenges you’re facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0, depending on their plan. (Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plans. Visit ⁠⁠⁠growtherapy.com/feed ⁠⁠⁠today! ⁠⁠⁠AGZ⁠⁠⁠ – Start taking your sleep seriously with AGZ. Head to ⁠⁠⁠drinkag1.com/feed⁠⁠⁠ to get a FREE Welcome Kit with the flavor of your choice that includes a 30 day supply of AGZ and a FREE frother. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If we were to fast forward five years and everything in your life was exactly the same, would you be happy? And I think most people would say no, right? So change is inevitable, but growth is not. Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you will. are what you think, ring true, and yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead

of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction how they feed their good wolf you know that moment when we swear everything will change and then nothing does i sure do jim quick who's a brain coach learning expert and author of limitless has spent his life studying why that happens we talk about why insight means nothing until it finds its way into behavior and he breaks it down into three levers we can all work with what we think what we feel and what we do or the head the heart and the hands and i love that because change isn't a

lightning strike it's a practice a thousand small choices that introduce us day by day to who we're becoming i'm eric zimmer and this is the one you feed hi jim welcome to the show it's good to be here eric thanks for having me i'm excited to have you on we're going to be discussing your book limitless upgrade your brain learn anything faster and unlock your exception life and it will actually be the expanded edition because you've added to it recently and we'll be talking about that. But before we do, let's start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild. They say in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and they think about it for a second. They look up. with their grandparent. They say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. I like that a lot. I just got goosebumps. I haven't heard the parable for a little while,

but the way you expressed it, I call them truth bumps. So thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great phrase. I like the one you feed because I'm a brain guy, helping people improve their brain. And I believe what you nourish, flourishes, and we always have a choice. There's a quote in my book, Limitless Expanded, from a French philosopher that would be relevant to this. He says, life is a letter C between the letters B and D, where B stands for birth, D stands for death, life C, choice. That we always have a choice, including what we're going to do, who we're going to spend time with, where our focus is, what things mean. And we always have a choice of which one we're going to feed. And Yeah, whatever you nourish is going to flourish for sure, including it, especially now,

because I believe if you perceive these as difficult times, and certainly history has had had difficult times, but without even comparison, these difficult times they can diminish you, these difficult times can distract you, or these difficult times they could develop you, and we decide. And we always have agency because we always have a choice. Yeah, I love that parable. So interestingly, what you just said there was where I was going to start the interview It was a recent quote that you posted on Twitter. Difficult times can define you, diminish you, or develop you. I love that idea.

Talk to me a little bit about how to use difficult times for our growth. So let's just pick a difficult time. I mean, the world is challenging. I tend to agree with you. I think the world has always been challenging. I mean, history is brutal. But let's look more internally. Let's talk about somebody who has, let's say, lost,

someone really precious to them. You know, maybe someone died or a breakup happened or any sort of great loss in which there is real grief and sadness. And there's also a recognition in it that there's a way to grow from it. Talk to me about what's the right way to orient towards that in a way that's human, right, that doesn't deny the feelings and things that are happening, but also doesn't allow us to get stuck in them and allows us to use that energy for positive growth. Sure. I will offer just one perspective. And so I think everybody's a little bit different. Everyone's been through, let's say the content is different of our past and script and stories. The three areas that I focus on for change, which I assume somebody is looking for some kind of change in terms of results or how they feel or behavior, we control what we can control. And I'm not an expert on grief.

Yeah. Obviously, everyone has experienced their own share of it, you know, in different forms. So there's maybe some context for listeners who aren't familiar with my work. Yeah, please. As a brain coach, I never knew what a brain coach was growing up as a kid, right? I wanted to be like Batman or Spider-Man. I grew up with learning difficulties. I had a pretty traumatic brain injury when I was five.

And we hear a lot about post-traumatic stress. We don't hear a lot about post-traumatic growth. people who come through difficult times, times that you wouldn't wish upon anybody. And some people come out of it feeling that they wouldn't change what they went through, even though it was the hardest time, most difficult, in their darkest time in their life. And again, who am I to say? Like, everybody has their own path. And I feel like sometimes some things we can only learn in a storm or in a difficult situation.

So because of my accident, I had learning difficulties severe. I couldn't focus, remember. I had processing issues. Teachers would repeat themselves five, six, ten times, and I would pretend to understand, but I didn't understand anything. It took me years longer to learn how to read than the other kids. When I was nine, I was slowing down to class. I was being teased pretty harshly that day because I was bullied all the time.

But that day, the teacher came to my defense and pointed to me and said, leave that kid alone, that's the boy with the broken brain. That label, then all the kids started calling me broken, right? That was kind of like the thing. So I struggled with all through school, elementary school, middle school, junior high, high school, you know, just, it was unfair because I felt like I worked three times harder. My parents had immigrated to the United States. My dad was 13. He had lost both his parents. And I don't want to turn to say sob story, because everybody has their story, right? They couldn't afford to feed him. So he came here to live with his aunts and we live in the back of a laundromat that my mom worked at and everybody has their

own thing and i realized that you know growing up we didn't have a lot of resources as people would define them we had no money uh no education no contacts or whatever but you know i realize coaching the people i've had the honor to be able to work with that it's not just about resources it's about our internal resource fullness and that three things we could always control as you control what you can control who you control the controllables if people feel like that they're in a box because limitless is not about being perfect limitless is about progressing like we want to mature and we want to progress and get wisdom and feel good and you know be do have share whatever but if you feel like you're not progressing you feel like you're in a box emotionally like you feel

stuck or financially or happiness or learning whatever you're not making progress right so that box is find by the three dimensions that contain it, right? It's three dimensional. And these are the same three forces that will liberate you out of those states or those situations, the feelings that you're feeling. And the three things I feel like are the big levers for people that's practical is our mindset, our motivation, and the methods. It's our head, our heart, and our hands, right? It's what we think, what we feel, and what we do. And those are three things we could always control. And so we can't control our past, right? And it's interesting because my two biggest challenges growing up were learning because

I was the worst in the school. And second was public speaking because my superpower, and I talk about superpowers because I eventually taught myself how to read by reading comic books and those stories really kind of brought it to life, the words, was learning and public speaking because I never knew the answer. And so my superpower was like shrinking. I mean, I was really good as a kid taking up a little space. Like even my physiology, I was just like always like slouching and didn't want to be seen sitting behind the tall kid in class was being invisible, right?

And life has a sense of humor because what do I do for a living? I public speak on this thing called learning every single day for 30 years. But this is just an example of how a challenge led to change. A struggle became a strength, right? And I really do believe post-traumatic growth talks about they wouldn't wish it upon anyone. And yet they wouldn't maybe even change it for themselves because going through it, they found and discovered something. Some people would call it a gift. Some people would say, I found a strength, I found a trait, I found a mission, I got clarity on a purpose, I found out more about who I am or whatever that is.

And so I just feel like adversities in some cases, not all cases, but it's really what we choose to believe is our truth. Adversity can be an advantage. If we're going to really raw, I don't know one strong person, Eric, that has. an easy life. I just don't because it requires muscles and it requires effort. And I don't know anyone who's given everything that I would really find that interesting. I want to spend time with because they never had to go through the things. That's a great answer to kind of get into those three areas. And I want to go into those three areas in a second. But what do you feel as you look back, were there any sort of pivotal moments that launched you in a different direction? Now,

I'm not a believer that like a single moment changes our life because if it's not followed by a whole lot of continued behaviors, it doesn't really mean anything and epiphany is no good if it doesn't lead to action. But I'm curious, how did things start to change for you? When did you start to say, oh, wait a minute, I'm not a broken brain person. I can learn. Tell me a little bit about some of those experiences. Probably the one that had the most impact on me and really created an inflection in terms of why I'm doing this now. When I was 18, I was lucky enough to get into a local state college. I purposely picked a place that I didn't know anyone was going there because I knew that I was affected by how people saw me. And it's really hard to change when

people see you a certain way, if that makes sense. You know, they're used to you and they reinforce that identity. I was perceived as not so smart and broken. And I want to get away from people who thought I was like that so I could try to recreate myself. And I thought freshman meant I could make a fresh start. So I took all these classes and I was like, okay, I'm going to finally do this and I want to make my parents proud. I want to show the world, show myself that I could be successful, be smart, you name it, right, be better. And I took all these classes and I did worse because, you know, it's just so much more difficult. And I was ready to quit because I didn't have the money even to go to college. And I have a younger brother, younger sister. I'd rather have them have the money. And yet I'm

also torn because I want to be in a good example. And my parents work really hard, many jobs, and I just want to make their sacrifice just mean something. So I had all that angst, right? And I layer that over, like my belief about myself and how I think I'm broken and I really wasn't doing very well at all, even though I was working three times harder and putting in the effort and the discipline. It was not because I was lazy, but I just didn't still into as well as people that worked a fraction of the effort. So anyway, a friend says, hey, before you quit school, that's a big deal. And you tell your parents, why don't you come home with me this weekend? I'm going to see my family. Get some perspective. So I think one of the things that helped me was when you change

the place you're in or the people you're with, it gives you another point. of you, right? And so I agree to do that. And the family is pretty well off, have a nice home on the water and different than I grew up, but the father's walking me around his property before dinner, and he asked me a very simple question, but innocent question, but the worst question you could ask me at the time. He says, Jim, so how's cool? And I am, again, introverted, very shy, insecure and I have all this pressure and I start bawling in front of this complete stranger like crying because I can't even contain it like this is the first person that I just feel like I had so much angst and I just tell my whole story about my traumatic brain injury and school's not for me I'm not smart

don't know how to tell my parents I'm to quit school and I have all this pressure and he's like Jim well he asked me a question he's like well why you're in school and honestly I didn't have any answer Eric because nobody's ever asked me that question before like I just you know you go to school that's what you're supposed to do right you could go school get a job whatever right and I was like I don't know I well he's like well Jim what do you want to be what do you want to do when you want to have when you want to contribute to the world and I didn't have answers for any of that either because nobody's ever asked me those questions and I realized besides perspective going the new place people that asking a new question will give you a new answer in life a new focus or focal point and it'll

draw your spotlight of attention somewhere that it maybe wasn't at before. And I was like, I don't know what I want to be and do have. He makes me write down a list, like a dream list or a bucket list, things I want to accomplish before I kick the bucket, right? And when I'm done with this exercise, a few sheets of paper, I start folding it to put in my pocket, and he rips it out of my hands, and he starts to read my dream list, right? And again, I'm a very insecure kid, and there's this person who's obviously pretty successful. And of course, I have the normal reaction. It's like, I don't want to be judged and what is he thinking and all that stuff.

And he looks up and he says, Jim, you are this close to everything on this list. And if you're not watching this on video, I'm just spreading my index fingers like a foot apart. And I'm like, are you insane? Give me 10 lifetimes. I'm not going to crack that list. He takes his fingers and he puts them to the side of my head,

meaning what's in between is the key. And he takes me into his room of his home. I've never seen before. It is wall-to-wall, ceiling the floor, covered in books. Like, it's a library in somebody's house. And remember, I've never read a book. book, right? And so now it's like being roomful of snakes. So I have a lot of anxiety. I'm very

intimidated. But what makes it worse is he starts going to shelves and grabbing snakes and handing them to me. And I look at these books and there are these biographies of some incredible men and women in history, some very early personal growth, mind books like Norman Vincent Peel, the power of positive thinking, thinking grow rich, and Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, all these books, right? And he's like, Jim, he's like, you have to read to succeed. and I want you to read one book a week. And I can't commit because that's my word. You know, my parents raised me a certain way.

I'm like, I can't do that. I have all the schoolwork? And when I said schoolwork, because I was like, have you heard anything I'm saying? Like, I have a broken brain. I'm a very slow reader. When I said schoolwork, he pulled out this Mark Twain quote. Like he says something like,

don't let school get in the way of your education, right? I was like, that's very insightful. And I'm still not going to read all these books. And then very smart man, he pulls out my dream list, my bucket list that he still has, and he starts reading every single one of my dreams out loud. And I don't know, Eric, it's just hearing your dreams in another man's voice out in the ether, you know, just mess with my mind and my spirit, something fierce. And honestly, a lot of things on that list were things I wanted to do for my family,

things they could never afford, or even if they had money, they wouldn't do it for themselves. And so with that leverage, and that's another key, so you have perspective, you have different questions, And also, what drives you? Like, these are things that gave me purpose. So I agree to read one book a week, right? I tell people, if you don't have any reasons, you won't get results, right? That pretty much sums up motivation. If you don't have a reason to remember someone's name, you're not going to remember that person's

name. You're going to have a reason, a real reason that you're feeling, that to remember what you read, you're not going to remember it, right? And so with those reasons, I go back to school and I'm sitting at my desk and I have a pile of books I have to read for midterms or whatever, and a pile of books I promise to read. And I already couldn't get through Pile A. So what do I do? I don't eat.

I don't sleep. I don't work out. I don't socialize. I just live in the library for weeks and weeks and weeks. And one night in the library, I pass out at 2 a.m., fell down a flight of stairs. I hit my head again. And I woke up in the hospital like two days later. And at this point, I'm down to 117 pounds.

I mean, like, I lost like 40, whatever pounds, malnourished, hooked up to all these IVs. And it was the darkest time in my life. I thought I died. And part of me made me wish I did because I just felt like I was nothing. And, you know, I couldn't do anything. It was just a waste. And when I was having those thoughts, a nurse came in and kind of interrupted me with a mug. And I drink tea.

And I had a picture of Albert Einstein, which is a pretty smart person, in a quote that said the same level of thinking that has created your problem, it won't solve your problem. And it made me think, you know, a new question. I was like, well, what's my problem? My problem is I have a broken brain, and I'm a very slow learner. It takes me eight times longer to learn something than everybody else. Well, then according to Einstein, how do I think differently about it? Well, maybe I could, I don't know, learn to fix my brain, learn how to learn better.

I was like, okay, where do I do that? School, you know, so that's the only place I know where to learn, right? So I asked for the nurse for the course bulletin for next semester, and I started looking at all these classes, you know, hundreds of classes, turn the pages and all classes on what to learn. math history science spanish but zero classes on how to learn those things and then i got really frustrated and i said i'm going to put my studies aside because it's literally not making any difference in my grades studying or not and so i started studying these books you know that really tapped into

more of what our potential is right and then i started getting very curious when i started seeing what the mind could really do and i started studying like things like speed reading ancient mnemonics. I wanted to know what cultures do before. There were printing presses, how they remember things, right? And I learned all these techniques, and I was consuming it because I was like obsessed with it for like two months. And a light switch flipped on. And I started to really understand things for the first time. And I can't explain it to somebody. It's like trying to explain to somebody what a flower smells like that's never really smelled a flower before or taste something that's just it was just different and my grades obviously improved my confidence my life got better now

the reason i'm here today with you in my 50s is because all the suffering i went through i could detect suffering it's hard because all i did as a kid was just watch people and i would know what it felt like to be bullied or struggled or whatever and i could see it in other people and so i wanted to help other people that were having trouble with their learning and i started to tutor and one of my very first students. She was a college freshman. She read 30 books and 30 days. And I wanted to find out not how. I taught her how to speed read. I want to find out her purpose, going back to motivation, her reasons. And I found out her mother was dying of terminal cancer. Doctors gave her mom just two months, like 60 days to live. And the book she was reading were books to save her mom's life. And six months

later, I get a call from this young lady and she's crying profusely. And when she stops, I find out their tears of joy that her mother not only survived, but is getting really better. Doctors know how or why. They called it a miracle. But her mother attribute 100% to the great advice she got from her daughter who learned from all these books. So long story short, I realized in that moment that if knowledge is power, then learning is our superpower and it's a superpower we all have. It's just we aren't taught how to be able to do these things, you know. And so I use this, you know, for our podcast, our books, we have the large online platform for accelerated learning. And we have students in every country in the

world and we have a lot of data and I could tell people regardless of your age your background your career educational financial situation gender history IQ everyone could improve that there's no such thing as a good or bad brain there's a trained brain and an untrained brain and with a little bit of effort you know and a little bit of mentoring everybody could just have an easier life because there's enough stress and struggle in the world and yeah I just wanted to tell people that we've discovered more about the human brain in the past 20 years than the previous 2,000 years and we found as a grossly underestimated our own capabilities and all of this is possible. Countdown is on. Holiday shopping is here. And if it stresses you out, Uncommon Goods makes it easy

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slash feed. That's uncommon goods.com slash feed for 15% off. Uncommon goods. We're all out of the ordinary. Hey friend, before we dive back in, I want you to take a second and think about what you've been listening to. What's one thing that really landed? And what's one tiny action you could take today to live it out? Those little moments of reflection, that's exactly why I started Good Wolf Reminders. Short, free text messages that land in your phone. once or twice a week. Nearly 5,000 people already get them and say the quick bursts of insight

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Thank you for sharing all that, especially those difficult moments. And what a gift that man gave you, you know, what a gift that man gave you to see you and take the time and believe in you. Thanks for sharing all that. I want to move to the title of the book for a second. I'm not trying to make an argument here, actually. But when I hear the word limitless, my brain goes, that's no, we're not limitless. Like, I can't play in the NBA.

Like, that's not going to happen. So it's not like I can do anything. and I don't think that's what you mean by limitless. Tell me a little bit about what you do mean by limitless to open that up a little bit. So limitless is, again, it's not about being perfect. It's about advancing and progressing beyond what you are currently demonstrating or maybe even believe is possible. Yep.

And so I believe that we're all in this path to reveal and realize more of our potential. That's my personal belief. Because if everyone wanted just everything to stay the same, My question would be, if we're to fast forward five years and everything in your life was exactly the same, would you be happy? And I think most people would say no, right? So change is inevitable, but growth is not, right? And so I would say that limitless is about redrawing the borders and boundaries, the limits of what's possible for us to be, do, have, feel in our lives. And so I feel like a lot of this lies in the power of our brain.

I'm always wearing a brain on my shirt or pointing to my brain in pictures because I feel like what you see, we take care of. You may see your hair, your skin, your car, your clothes. It's in our constant awareness. So, of course, we're going to more likely take better care of it, as opposed to our brain, which we never see. We never see a thing that takes care of us. And so I always just kind of put it on my clothes or wear it on my sleeves,

point to it because that's when we remind people. It's an incredible gift that we have that we're born with, right, between our ears, this three-pound manner. And every creature in nature, even if you model nature, has some kind of superpower. Some could breathe underwater. Some are super fast or super strong. And we're not any of those things. But because of the power of our mind, we can fly.

Because of our power of our mind, we can go underwater, right? Or we can be super fast. It's a form of technology. A lot of people went out to buy the new iPhone this year. they went out and they upgrade their apps or their whatever their other technologies but when's the last time we took time to upgrade the technology that has created all other technology and so I'm a big advocate for greater mental health a big part of that is greater brain health and when you have less stress and you're sleeping better and you're eating foods that don't make you more

anxious and stressed and can actually be protective to your brain and when you're moving you just feel better. There's all, all these things that are common sense, but not common practice. I feel like, again, going back to the choices, that life is the C between B and D and choices, how important it is, you know, the choices we make every single day. You know, what are we going to start believing? What are we going to think that day? What are we going to feed our minds, feed our bodies, who we're going to spend time with? All of this makes a difference. Everyone wants to know, like, what's the magic pill? I haven't found that. I don't think there's a magic pill, but I think there's a process that we all have to go through. Yeah, I like that. And, you know, to sort of reframe limitless

for me in a way that was helpful, instead of pulling out scenarios that are unlikely to happen in my case, right, like playing in the NBA, what I can totally get on board with, and I would say underlies a lot of my overall life philosophy is that there's always a positive step, a positive direction. We're never done. You know, so we may not know our limits, right? But when we set them obviously incorrectly they do become our limits and there's always a way in which we are able to keep moving keep growing and in that way we are limitless right like if we don't apply it to outside standards right if we're not applying am i able to do x y or z but am i able to according to my own potential keep moving forward in a positive direction that is being limitless

right and you know mentioned and not comparing yourself to external things in your environment or people or what you see on social media because there's a form of digital depression that comes from just seeing the highlight reel of everybody else, you know, as opposed to, and comparing, you know, our chapter three against somebody's chapter 20 in terms of some area of development.

And I just feel like if we make a comparison, maybe we compare ourselves to who we were yesterday. I mean, if you're going to make any kind of comparison rather than to another person, the truth is the grass is greener where we water it. And online, it's greener because there's a lot of filters that people are using or artificial turfs, you know, that they have. Yep.

I think kindness is important because we never know the battles that other people are having because we only get to see a lot of the kind of the highlights and the good stuff. So, you know, I appreciate the real and the raw conversations that you have in your show because I feel like people don't feel like they're alone. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And that kindness obviously needs directed back to ourselves because we know.

our own battles, but we often don't really give ourselves credit for how difficult they might be. I guess would be the way to say it, you know? Yeah, I think part of self-care, you know, besides everything we put in the book, we talk about the best brain foods, how to have better night's sleep, how to be able to learn fast, all this stuff. So we know self-care is not selfish, right? And part of self-care is looking in the mirror and just like loving the person that's looking back at you, who's been through so much, but is still standing, right? Like, if you're watching and listening to this right now, like, if I was asked everyone, do you remember that time where you couldn't survive? You know, I think maybe some of your community could relate to that,

a time when they didn't think they could survive. Well, if they're listening to this, then they certainly did, you know, and my perspective is they will again, right? But self-love is so important, in this process, you know, I think sometimes we have to kind of love ourselves like we would love somebody else by giving us them attention and being kind to them. You know, sometimes we feel like we beat ourselves up because at some secondary level, we're going to fall more likely, like, follow through the next day. But studies on compassion, self-compassion show that when we're kind to ourselves, we're more likely to follow through, you know, on the things that are important to us.

Yeah. So, I mean, life is messy. So let's just get that clear, right? It's not, isn't success, happiness is probably not a straight line. I don't know. Many people have had that kind of experience. Certainly I didn't. There are a lot of hills and peaks and valleys without a doubt.

And we do the best we can with what we can. And I think the most important thing is to keep the most important thing, the most important thing. Yeah. Meaning that it's not so much about time management as it is mind management. And for me, the most important thing is, like, everyone has a to-do list, right, to get through the day, a lot of people do. But I think it's important to have things, like, to feel list.

Like, when you're facing a difficulty or demand or maybe you're having a spirited debate with a family member, you don't ask yourself, what do I need to do. Most people ask what people do. But maybe we say, like, who do I need to be at this moment? My favorite question. Yeah, a new question. You get a new answer. And if you choose, like, hey, I want to be compassionate.

it, then the doing takes care of itself, right? It's organic. It's very natural. But having it to be list, I think it's important, and it sounds like kind of like maybe hokey for some people. But they say two most powerful words in the English language are the smallest, I am, because whatever you put after that is, you know, determines your identity and your life direction. So I feel like I thought my aim was I am broken. And over time, I started changing those questions where I, It was like, okay, it was like, I'm broken, so how do I not be seen? There's this Japanese art form called Kinsugi, where an emperor in Japan had this treasured like teapot and one day broke it and sent it back to China to have it fixed.

And when it came back, it was just all they did was like put these staples to hold the pieces back together and it was very unsightly. So he goes to his craftsman locally and says, you got to fix this. And when craftsman really does something different, takes out the staples, and actually uses this gold kind of embalming kind of fluid. So it really highlighted those places where it was broken and made it beautiful. And the idea behind this philosophy is in life sometimes we feel like we want to hide and we have shame around the things where we have wounds or cuts.

or we were suffocated and it really depends on the meaning we put to it right some people look at it like i have this and i'm some kind of shame or deformity around this and i'm talking about like a metaphor like can be emotional it could be whatever they went through and other people say like hey that this is you know my scars i wear proud because i was stronger than what i was facing you know and i survived and i think whoever's going through difficult times right now i feel like that we inspire people with our grit and our grace that even if they won't acknowledge it that people see that you know so I definitely wish people the best on that path and I think that the goal here is we show up that there's a version of ourself that I feel like deep down we know is patiently waiting

and the goal is we show up for ourselves every single day until we're introduced and part of that showing up for ourselves is just realizing that we're human that we make mistakes you know I think self-love and self-care is not selfish, but, you know, part of self-care is forgiving ourselves, you know, for things that we did the best we could at that moment of time and we can't change the past. We can make a mistake and we all make mistakes, right? But mistakes don't have to make us, right? I feel like if we learn from it, then we can grow from these things, that they become stepping stones to the person that we know we are. You introduced one of my all the all-time favorite questions,

which is essentially who do I want to be in situation. Whatever situation I find myself in, who do I want to be? Long time ago, my son's 25 now. He was two and a half three at the time. His mom left me for another man very suddenly. And I was really hurt and angry and, you know, it was a very difficult time. But that question, who do I want to be through this was really a beacon to me of here's who I want to be. I want to be. I want to be someone who isn't bitter, who isn't hateful, who is forgiving. And I'm not saying I did all that perfectly. I didn't, of course, but it gave me a direction. And I can look back on that time now, and I can look back on that time with my ex. And we would both say, yeah, bravo, right? Like you

really handled that in a way that I can feel very proud of all these years later. And so I just think that question, who do I want to be, can be used on really big situations. It can be used on who we are as a person, but it can be used on really little situations like you talked about, too. It's a discussion with a family member. Who do I want to be? I'm sitting down to dinner with my family. Who's the person I want to be? Do I want to be connected and paying attention or do I want to be distracted by work? Yeah. So I love that. I'd like to pivot to something you say, which is I am, and then whatever you put after that is really important. And we've talked about limiting beliefs very little bit here. We talked about if I put after I am broken, then I'm going to be

consider myself broken. And you also talk about identity, right? Our identity is very important in our ability to change who we are, right? I think probably James Clear put it in his book, maybe. I don't remember the first time I heard it, but was the idea of, it's very different to say, if you're trying to quit smoking and somebody offers you a cigarette to say, I'm not a smoker, versus I'm trying not to smoke right now, right? There's an identity change there, but the thing that I always find really tricky about this is that we don't tend to be able to lie to ourselves.

So, for example, if I want to be a physically fit person, someone who takes very good care of myself, right, I could say I am physically fit. I am whatever word you want to use there. But if my behaviors aren't there, how do I hold that identity enough that my behaviors will eventually catch up and be able to use that identity. Because identity, I think, can be used in negative and positive ways.

But I'm often not sure how to handle the gap between the identity I want to have and the actual behaviors that are happening. All right. So let's unpack that. So if people want to change, imagine a building that's made up of different floors. So most people, let's go to the second floor, want to create some. kind of behavioral change. They want to stop smoking. They want to start eating these brain foods. They want to read every day or they want to meditate, whatever the behavior is, right?

They want to change that. And they try to put energy and effort towards that behavioral change and not usually that's successful. And if it doesn't stick, there are reasons because there are other floors in that building. If you go one floor up on the third floor, I want you to imagine that if the second floor is behavior, the third floor is capability. So let's say somebody wants to read more, right? I always talk about leaders or readers because of my mentor. People have seen photos with me with Elon or Oprah, whoever. People ask how we bonded.

We bonded over books, right? Because you read to succeed. And here's the thing. If you're not reading the behavior like 30 minutes a day, because reading is to your mind, what exercises to your body, maybe you don't have the capability, the third floor. Capability is how you read, right? And so maybe you're reading like you were last taught,

which for most of us was when we're six years old, and that's the last time we took a class called reading, and the difficulty in demand has increased a lot, but how we read is the same, so we have a lot of stress around that, right? So maybe we have to address the capability, or somebody wants to play a musical instrument, but learning how to play that musical instrument, right?

Above capability, though, is another floor, which people can imagine is the fourth floor, and that would be the beliefs and the values, right? So if somebody could want a behavior of remembering names, right, what we teach, they can even learn how because they went through one of our programs or read the book, but maybe they don't value remembering people's names, and that's going to affect the change, right, or lack thereof

because they don't value it, beliefs and values, or they don't believe it's even possible for them to remember names because it's a belief issue. So belief and values in the fourth floor. And on the fifth floor, you have identity. Because the identity, again, is your I am. Because somebody, you're right, that behavior won't shift. Let's say they want to do this, you know, make 10 sales calls a day.

That's the behavior, right? And their identity is, I am a procrastinator. And so that's going to be really hard to maintain that change. just like if somebody is smoking the example you use that's a behavior on the second floor but their identity on the top floor is i am a smoker that's not going to change right and then the first floor is also important because that's your environment and the environment plays a big role in our habits and who we are right and so like maybe somebody wants to change the behavior of whatever eating night at the nighttime but their environment

is they have a lot of snacks by their bedside, right? That's going to be really hard to reconcile. So I just want to show people that they're very logical levels that we need to be able to address to be able to affect change. And notice, like, we talked about the power of questions in this conversation, that questions are the answer, that if you ask a new question, you're going to automatically get a new answer. And there's six questions that were taught in school, right?

Five Ws and an H. So six questions. So the identity is answering the question of who, the top level, right? When you go down one level, beliefs and values are your why. It's the answer to the question of why. You go down a level of the capabilities, that's the how. You go down to a level of the second floor behavior, and that's the what. And if you go in the environment, the environment is the when and the where.

so it's just in order to create consistent change or let's say let's call it a transformation we have to address all those different floors because then you're in integrity right you're in some kind of alignment everything is integrated and you're not battling floor to floor yeah because you're out of alignment if that makes sense yeah that is a stunningly good analogy actually i've done a lot of studies of behavior change and i know all these different pieces but putting it in the analogy of a building is really, really helpful. That's Bravo. That's really good. That's really good. Every once in a while you see a model and you're like, that really makes a lot of sense. And this one makes a lot of sense. It reminds me a little, and I know you are familiar with this.

We've had them on a couple times, BJ Fogg, the Fogg behavioral model is really helpful. But this is right up there. Nice work. So we don't have a ton of time. And there's a bunch of things I would love to get to. but what I'd like to talk about right now is the fourth floor values, right? Because we often have a lot of values or a lot of things we're trying to value. So let's just take your example of learning people's names. I may value it, but I may not value it as much as, I don't know. My point is we have competing values often, right? We have competing values.

I want to meditate in the morning, but I also want to work out in the morning. and I also want to do X, Y, and Z in the morning. And there's only so much time in my morning, right? If I've got kids, then I've got to get to work. So we've got these competing values, which in my experience, it's very problematic. It causes us to jump around a lot. It causes us to do this. And then a couple days later, we're like, wait, I'm going to value that.

And that doesn't seem to be doing what I want three days later, so I'm going to value this. Talk to me about sorting all that out, or as psychologists would call it, these competing commitments is another word for it. So a value for me is something that you treasure, right? Yeah. One of the things you could do is first, you need to know what you value and probably a tool you could use to be able to decide on your values or uncover those values is asking the question. And not necessarily what do I value, but maybe putting it a different way. Like what's most important to me in whatever context? What's most important to me? What's most important to me in a career. What's most important to me with family? What's most important to me in a

relationship? Because what's most important to you in a relationship might be different than what's most important to your partners with a value in a relationship, right? And so everyone's different because we all had different environments, different experiences, and we learned to associate, you know, positive things to different values and more than others, right, and pain towards other things. And so what I would say is ask yourself this question, and everyone could do this now, what's most important to me in life? And you're going to get a bunch of answers. And when you have those answers, then you put it into some kind of hierarchy, right? Because you might come up with a lot of answers. So, Erica, what's most important to you in life? What's one of the

things that you value? What's most important to you in life? Being kind. Kindness. Yeah. Yeah. So what else is really important to you in life besides kindness? Growth. Growth. And then maybe one more. What's one more value you have in terms of what else is besides of kindness and growth, what else is important to you in life? This is where values always trip me up because about 15 different things come to mind. Yeah, yeah. Right? Pick one that's just something you value.

I mean, there's no right or wrong. Loyalty. Loyalty. And then so if you're looking at these, then when you're looking at things like kindness, growth, and loyalty, what's more important in the context of, let's say, a relationship, kindness or loyalty or growth? Kindness. Kindness.

So people could go through this and have different answers. Yeah. And it gives you an idea, you know, in the Matrix where Neo goes to see the Oracle for the first time, and I don't know, like someone saw the Matrix, it's in the kitchen, there's a sign up on top of the kitchen in the doorway, it says, know thyself. And I think a big part of our happiness or fulfillment is having the curiosity to know ourselves, right? And then the other part is having the courage to be ourselves because that's a different game. Yeah.

Right. You get to know yourself because you do assessments. You go to therapy. You journal. You meditate. You go through, you reflect, right, introspection. You get to know yourself. And then a different game is being that person, having the courage to do that in spite of other

people's opinions and their expectations and everything else. So I think that, like, you ask somebody they could value love. They can value freedom. They can love you safety. They can value all these things. And the values are going to determine how they behave in the building, right? Because if somebody values safety and not some of the other people value riveting adventure, they're going to make very different decisions in their life.

Yep. They're going to invest differently. They're going to travel differently. You know, they're going to spend time with different people, right? But then imagine those two people are married, right? And so you have these value conflicts, and we also have the conflicts within ourselves, certainly. and to our ability to reconcile that. I'm not saying suggesting any of this is easy,

but anything starts with awareness, right? Any kind of change we need to realize what the situation is and have some self-awareness to know where we are because you need some kind of baseline, right? You can't manage something unless you could kind of know what the situation is. For me, I would be thinking about get clear on your values.

Like my values are love, growth, contribution, adventure. And adventure, interesting. It's only something I added the past few years. Me too. Yeah. So I was just like, well, if I'm going to do this, I want to have fun, too. And so I make my decisions based on family and friends and my relationships, based on will this help me to evolve and what do I want to grow? So my third value is so I have more to contribute. And I want to have some fun in the process because having had a couple of near-death experiences, it just makes me think

about, you know, the kind of things that would regret. And so I try to bring more joy to what I do, find that joy and look for it, even though when it's hard to find. So I don't have an easy answer on how you could just be in total integrity all the time. I just don't know. I wish I maybe you could ask AI how to be able to be able to do that all the time, but that's my superpower. But I do believe that our values shape our behaviors and how it also provides the behaviors, the evidence that we are, the person we say we are, and we always have a choice. We can look at the things that we're doing wrong and some people are really good at beating themselves up when they don't follow through or they do a bad behavior they know they shouldn't do and then it imposes on their identity

saying i'm not this person or they could also look for evidence and shine a spotlight on the things that they're doing well as evidence that they are the person that they want to be yep right and big part of that is asking questions because primarily your brain will delete most everything and the things that it would pay attention to are the things that you ask questions about because then you put a spotlight there so if your dominant question is why does this always happen to me that's not a very empowering question because you're going to come up with answers because you ask and you'll receive for all the reasons why this is happening to you as opposed to saying where's the gift in this what's the best use of this moment who should I decide to be you know right right now just put

a different focus and flare on the things that are ready around us and then our focus becomes our reality, right? And what we focus on, we feel, and however we feel determines what we're going to think and what we're going to do, and ultimately the results we're going to have in our life or lack thereof. Yeah, thank you for that. I recognize I've taken you into a whole

bunch of questions that aren't necessarily your brain coaching stuff, right? So I want to put a plug in for, you know, like if you want to learn how to learn and learn how to take care of your brain and all these different things, you've got tons of great resources on that. I'd like to talk about, though,

brain type. I think that's what you call it, right? Yeah. Talk to me about brain type because you told me before we started, you think this is one of the most important and practical pieces. And I know we don't have a ton of time. Yeah, this is very practical and a great way to kind of put an exclamation point on this conversation. And it's extremely useful. So I help people with their focus, their memory, their ability to read faster, but also their mindset, all the stuff that we're talking about, their belief systems, their personal motivation to overcome self-sabotage and procrastination. that's what I mean that could keep you limited as opposed to more limitless. I realize, though, everyone thinks differently, and everybody leads differently.

They hire differently, they buy differently, they learn differently. So we've identified four buckets where our brains got cognitive types. And I'm going to make this really simple. We made an assessment in the book. People could also get it online for free. It's at mybrainanimal.com, my brain animal. And we made them fun animals. And it's kind of like you take a test on this like a quiz online and what Game of Thrones character are you like or something like that.

And when you do, you find out how you really learn, lead, and live and communicate the best that you do. Because you understand, and you also understand the people around you. So it's a brain code, C-O-D-E, and I'll go through really fast. If you're a C, you're a cheetah. The cheetah is fast-acting. They really implement. Some of you may be cheetahs. You have strong intuition, and you apply things, and you adapt very quickly in fast-based environments.

If you're an O in the code, you're an owl, and owls love logic. They love data. They love facts and figures. And interesting, right, a cheetah and an owl would act differently. They buy differently, right? They communicate differently also. Then they learn differently also. They read differently and remember differently also.

The D encode are your dolphins, and your dolphins are your creative visionaries. These are individuals that are great at problem solving, pattern recognition. They often can see a future that other people can't yet perceive. And finally, the E encode are your elephants, and their defining trait is their empathy. They could feel what other people are feeling. Because of it, they have strong bonds in the really good community builders and collaborators also as well. so once you take the quiz at mybrainanimal.com or the quiz is in the new book and plus we pull from personality types left brain right brain dominance learning styles multiple intelligence they're like we built

this once you do you get a report and based on your animal this is how you could perform better this i could read better improve your memory remember names learn languages also communicate better because everybody they communicate different right a cheetah is just direct to the point right owl are looking for the facts, right? They ask questions. They do take more time because they do research, right? They're trying to organize everything. Dolphins, you know, speak in very vivid terms and creative terms because a picture is worth a thousand words. And, you know, obviously elephants have high levels of empathy. So they're amazing listeners. They're really good at conflict resolution. That's an example of how it could play out in communication. But it

plays out in hiring, in management, in parenting, in teaching, and so much more. So, yeah, people can take the quiz. There's nothing to buy. It takes about four minutes. And not only you take it, but have your friends and family members take it because it will give them the gift of knowing more of themselves also as well. Wonderful. Well, Jim, thank you so much for taking the time to come on. I've really enjoyed this conversation. And we'll have links in the show notes to my brainanimal.com and other things you've done. The book is just limitless book.com. We're donating all the proceeds to charity, children's charity and Alzheimer's research. And if anyone gets any kind of value, when you go there you also get some free brain training on speed reading and memory as my gift to kind of celebrate

the launch of the book but area i want to thank you for for having me and thank you everyone took the time to listen to this conversation maybe screenshot it and post it online and share like just kind of one takeaway maybe of your values maybe your dominant question or maybe something that you're going to put into action tag us both so we get to see it and i'll actually repost a couple because you'll tag us so i get to see it and then i'll gift out a couple copies of the book to your community. There's just some random people just as a thank you for having me on your show. As we wrap up, take one thing from today and ask yourself, how will I practice this before the end of the day? For another gentle nudge, join Goodwolf Reminders text list.

It's a short message or two each week, packed with guest wisdom and a soft push towards action. Nearly 5,000 listeners are already loving it. Sign up free at one you feed.net slash SMS. No spam. Just steady encouragement to feed your good wolf. Wonderful. Thanks so much, Jim. And I hope our paths cross again soon. Absolutely. Thanks, Eric. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought-provoking, I'd love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don't have a big budget, and I'm certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better, and that's you. Just at the share button on your podcast app or send a quick text with the episode link to someone

who might enjoy it. Your support means the world and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the one you feed community.