Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Jim Kwik: From Broken Brain To Kwik Brain - Learn Faster and Improve Your Memory | Mental Health | E190

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

The Digital Age has changed the way we exchange and retain information. Every day, 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data are created. We are publishing and exchanging more information than any other time in history.  So why do so many people lack the motivation to learn new things?  When it comes to brain health and strengthening the mind, there is no one better to talk to than Jim Kwik.  Jim suffered a traumatic brain injury at five years old. Throughout childhood, he was labeled the boy with a broken brain. However, once he learned that genius is built, not born, he began studying the way that the brain works and how we can consciously retrain it to weed out limiting beliefs and conditioning. Now, he is recognized as a leading brain expert who has helped hundreds of individuals and organizations to reach their full potential by optimizing their brain health.  In this episode of YAP, Hala and Jim talk about how to take hold of your brain health. Jim described how his childhood led him to learn about brain health and how his first mentor taught him the power of knowledge. They discuss the importance of remembering people’s names and some tricks that Jim uses to remember every person’s name in a crowd. They also talk about the four ways that the digital age is impacting our cognitive functioning.  Topics Include: - Jim’s traumatic brain injury  - What is a lie?  - Jim’s mentor  - How did Jim start learning about the brain?  - Jim’s motivation formula: P x E x S3  - Training your brain  - Do we only use 10% of our brains?  - Genius is built  - Getting better at remembering names  - The Four Horseman of the Mental Apocalypse - And other topics… Jim Kwik is one of the world’s top brain coaches. He started Kwik Learning in 2001, which features a myriad of online courses in memory recall, improved reading comprehension, study habits, and overthinking. It is used in more than 190 countries worldwide. He’s also the author of the New York Times bestseller Limitless and host of the Kwik Brain podcast. Through keynote speeches, he reaches in-person audiences totaling more than 200,000 every year, as well as online videos totaling hundreds of millions of views.  He has spent the past 30 years helping people upgrade their brains. He taught his learning techniques in top universities like NYU, Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, and Singularity. He has also worked with executives and employees from companies like Nike, GE, Zappos. SpaceX, and Virgin.    Resources Mentioned: Jim’s Book, Limitless: https://www.limitlessbook.com/  The Kwik Brain podcast: https://www.jimkwik.com/podcast  Kwik Learning: https://kwiklearning.com/  Jim’s Website: https://www.jimkwik.com/  Jim’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimkwik/  Jim’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jimkwikofficial  Jim’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jimkwik  Jim’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jimkwik/?hl=en  Sponsored By:  Shopify - Go to shopify.com/profiting, for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features Indeed - Visit Indeed.com/YAP to start hiring now. The Jordan Harbinger Show - Check out jordanharbinger.com/start for some episode recommendations More About Young and Profiting Download Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com   Get Sponsorship Deals - youngandprofiting.com/sponsorships Leave a Review - ratethispodcast.com/yap Watch Videos - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Follow Hala Taha LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ TikTok - tiktok.com/@yapwithhala Twitter - twitter.com/yapwithhala Learn more about YAP Media Agency Services - yapmedia.io/ Join Hala's LinkedIn Masterclass - yapmedia.io/course

There's no such thing as a good or bad brain. There's a trained brain and an untrained brain. That's the truth. If people truly understood how powerful their mind is, they wouldn't say or think something they didn't want to be true. So many people at events come to me and they talk to me about their lives. They say, I'm too old. I'm not smart enough.

And I say, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. These difficult times, they can diminish us or these difficult times, they actually can develop us. We ultimately decide, you know, every single day. I really do believe there's a version of every single person who's listening to this. There's a version of yourself that you haven't met yet. There's a version of your brain you haven't met yet.

And the goal is we show up every single day until we're introduced. What is up Young and Profiters? You're listening to Yap Young and Profiting podcast where we interview the brightest minds in the world and turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. I'm your host, Halitaha, aka the podcast princess. Thanks for listening and get ready to listen, learn, and profit. Hey, Jim, thanks so much for joining us on Young and Profiting Podcast. It's so good to be here.

Congratulations on your show. Thank you. I am super excited to have you. I've been wanting to have you on the show for like two years now. And for those who don't know, Jim has been spending the last three decades dissecting the science of learning and memory. He's now an internationally renowned expert in memory improvement, brain optimization, and accelerated learning. He's worked with huge names, politicians, celebrities, and his latest book, Limitless, has become an instant New York Times bestseller. And considering all that you've accomplished, I think a lot of our young improfitors would be surprised to hear that you actually had a traumatic brain injury.

It left you learning challenged. And when you were nine, one of your teachers came to your defense while others were teasing you and said, That's the boy with the broken brain, leave him alone. And that was a defining moment for you in that your brain was broken. It actually became your limit until the age of 18. Today, you're known for your incredible brain and your ability to do this seemingly impossible, like memorizing everyone's name in a room filled with hundreds of people. So let's begin here.

Talk to us about those early years when you were the boy with a broken brain. And tell us about this boy you were before you started your transformation. Wow. Okay. let's go back. You mentioned my traumatic brain injury when I was in kindergarten, and I was rushed to the emergency room, and where I really showed up, the effects was in school. I had trouble learning. I couldn't focus. I had a horrible memory. I couldn't process information like everybody else. Teachers would repeat themselves over and over again, and I learned to pretend to understand, but I really didn't

understand anything. It took me a few years longer just to learn how to read. And now those are really, there's a lot of anxiety and stress for a kid. You remember sitting in those reading circles, they would pass around a book, and you don't have to read out loud when you came to you, and I would look at the page and the words meant nothing. Yeah, I thought I had the broken brain, and every single time I did badly on a test

or wasn't picked for sports in school, which was very often, I would always say, oh, because I have the broken brain. And adults have to be very careful with their external words because they become a child's internal words. That became my self-talk, Even when at events, when people see me do these demonstrations, I never do it to impress them.

I really do them to just to express to them what's possible. Because the truth is, every single one of your listeners could do that and a whole lot more. We just weren't taught. If anything, we're taught a lie that somehow our potential, our intelligence is somehow fixed, like maybe our shoe size. And we've discovered more about the human brain. Here's the exciting news.

And we've been the past 10 years than the previous thousand years combined that we've found is we're grossly underestimating our own capabilities. That really is not even the sky's the limit. It's really our minds are the limit. And so my mission really is to build better, brighter brains. No brain left behind. I know what it's like to struggle, to be distracted, to not feel confident in your own mind. And I really feel that your brain is your number one wealth-building asset.

And the faster you can learn, the faster you can earn. Because today knowledge is not only power, knowledge is a lot of what your show is about. It's about profit. And I don't just mean financial profit. I mean, all the treasures of your life gets better. when you understand how your brain works, you can work your brain. And when you can learn and focus and remember and apply, you can apply that towards anything, money, management, martial arts, music, Mandarin, everything in your life gets so much easier. And so my message to everybody really is

that limits are learned and that it's just our school system that really teach us how our brain works. There's no class on focus or memory. And so when we beat ourselves up because we can't concentrate or we can't understand something. It's not, I realized after years of doing this, it's not how smart we are. It's really how are we smart. And we're all smart in different ways. And I think the most important skill for entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs or people who really want to get to the next level is learning how to learn. And that's really, really would focus on. Yeah. I really relate to you and I was so excited to bring you on because I think this is such an important topic. And I think a lot of people have been

through a similar struggle. I remember, like, I wasn't always good at math. It would always put me in the poor math class when I was younger. And then I had this stigma that I was like always terrible at math. Then I get to college and I'm great at math. And you just kind of have this transformation once you realize that these are actually just labels and limitations and you can get over it as an adult. But so many of us spend years believing this lie that adults told us when we were little or like one thing happened and we go on believing forever that that's just who we are. The word you use is absolutely, I use it in the book, Limitless, lie. You know, we believe these lies and a lie for me is everything's kind of turned into an acronym or some kind of demonic to make it easy to recall,

but lies for me stands for a limited idea entertained. It's not true that you're not smart enough. It's just a limited idea that we're entertaining. It's not true that you're not smart enough or that you're not, you don't have the resourcefulness. And so it's really about transcending. I think the nature of personal growth is about transcending. It's about ending the transcending this mass hypnosis, maybe through, we got in from our parents or marketing or media that somehow that we're broken, somehow that somehow we could only,

you know, have only a small amount or be a small amount or share, you know, a small amounts. And we found that it's, that we shouldn't be, I find, especially of recent that the big mistake people make is they, they shrink all that's possible to fit their minds when maybe we should explore expanding our minds to fit all that's really possible. I love that. So let's pass forward to your college years. So your label became your limit from your age of five to 18. You were sort of put in this box. You didn't believe you could be better necessarily or you didn't have the tools and you were a freshman in college, you still had a difficult time learning, like your peers, and you were actually ready to drop out of school. But you ended up meeting a mentor. It was your

friend's dad. He gave you a new direction. And it was a very pivotal point in your life. I'd love for you to share that story with us and why that moment in time was so eye-opening for you. So as you mentioned, I thought getting into school would give me a reset. Like, if I thought freshman meant fresh start, as I took all these classes. And, you know, I wanted to show the world and, you know, show myself really, made me make people around me proud. And I did worse. And it was so difficult for me. And I didn't have the money to be in school to begin with.

And so I was ready to quit. And when I had that thought, I was talking to friends and a friend said, hey, that's a big life decision. Why don't you get some perspective? And he invites me to visit his home over the weekend where he was going to just kind of get some time off. And I agree. And, you know, when I get to this person's home, it's beautiful. It's kind of down the water. And the father walks me around his property.

And before dinner and asked me a very innocent question. And the question is, how's school? And that is, I mean, I'm just getting choked up even, like, thinking about it right now. Because it's, I didn't, that was the worst question you could ask me. And I started bawling in front of this stranger because I have so much pressure that, you know, I haven't told anybody. and I told him my whole story about having my brain injury and not feeling enough and school's not for me and I'm ready to quit. I don't know how to tell my folks. And he said, Jim, and this question,

one question changes everything, right? He said, why are you in school? What do you want to be? What do you want to do? What do you want to have? What do you want to share? And completely, completely honest, I didn't have any answer because I didn't know why I was in school. I just thought that's what you do, right? Holla, it's like, you know, I was on that path. And when I was, I was, I was on that path. And when When I start thinking about it, I go to answer him and he says, stop. He reaches out in his back pocket. It takes out, no, I'm a notepad and he just asked me to write down. You know, tear it out a couple sheets, make me write down, you know, all the things I want.

You know, if anything is possible. And if you can't fail, what would you do? And I start running these things down. And I don't know how much time goes by. I kind of lose track of time. And when I'm done, though, I start folding in the sheets of paper to put in my pocket and he rips them out of my hands. And I'm freaking out because he starts reading him.

and I've never shared these things, my dreams or my desires, my goals with anybody. I didn't even realize some of these things I wanted until I went through this exercise. And I'm freaking out because I'm afraid of being judged, like anybody. You don't want to be judged. You don't want to feel like, you know, that, oh, that you're not good enough for all these things. And, you know, when he's done, he starts, he looks at me and he says, Jim, you are this close to everything on this list. And for those who I'm watching on video, he's spreading my index fingers about a foot apart. And I was like, no way.

I'm not that close. Give me 10 lifetimes. I'm not going to crack that list. And he takes his index fingers and he puts them to the side of my head, meaning what's in between is the key that would unlock those achievements and meaning my brain. And he walks me into his home, then into a room I've never seen before. It is wall-to-wall sealing the floor covered in books. And at this point, I've never read a book cover to cover.

I still have some reading issues, ability issues, and I'm freaking out. It's like being in roomful of snakes, you know, for people who are phobic of, you know, and I have anxiety around something. And what makes it worse is he starts going to the shelves and grabs these snakes, if you will, and starts handing them to me. And just book after book. And I started looking at the titles. And there are these biographies of some incredible women and men in history and some very

early personal growth books. I mean, the classics, Norman Vincent Peel, the power of positive thinking, thinking grow rich, Napoleon Hill. And he says, Jim, says leaders or readers, I want you to read one book a week. And my honest reaction was, have you not heard anything I've said to you this entire time? I have learning disabilities. I have challenges. I can't read very well. I have so much schoolwork. And when I said, I have so much school work, he said, Jim, don't let school get in the way of your education. And I didn't realize it was a Mark Twain quote at the time, but I was like, wow, it's really profound. And I can't promise to read a book a week. And then very smart man, he reaches into his pocket and he takes out my goals, like my bucket list. And he starts reading every single

one of my goals out loud. And something how about hearing like your goals and your deepest desires said by a stranger, like encanted out into the world and mess with my mind and my spirit, done. So something fierce. And a lot of things on that list were things I wanted to do for my parents, things that they could never, even if they could afford to, they wouldn't do for themselves. And with that motivation, you know, in those reasons, I promised to read one book a week. Well, fast forward, now I'm back at school and I have all these midterms. I'm sitting at my desk. I have a pile of books I have to read for school and a pile of books I promised to read. And I already couldn't get through pile A. So, you know, where do I find the time? So I don't eat,

I don't sleep, I don't socialize, I don't work out, I don't do anything. I just live in the library day and night for weeks and weeks. And one night I pass out at the library 2 a.m. I fall down a flight of stairs. I hit my head again, and I woke up two full days later in the hospital. And at this point, I was hooked up with all these IVs, these, you know, I was malnourge, dehydrated. I was down to 117 pounds.

I was wasted away because I haven't just taken care of myself. and it was the darkest point in my life. And at that point, when I woke up, something else woke up inside of me also. And, you know, I kind of renewed sense of like purpose. And I thought, and it's interesting because I just, I didn't know what to do. And the nurse came in with a mug of tea and had a picture of Albert Einstein and, you know, a genius. But the words, the quote was one you've heard before. It's at the same level of thinking that has created your problem won't solve your problem.

and it made me ask a new question, empower questions again, what's my real problem? My problem is I'm a slow learner. And I was like, how do I think differently about it? Maybe I can learn how to learn faster. So I put my schoolwork aside

and I just start studying the art and science around learning. I want to understand how my brain works so I can work my brain. How does my memory work so I can work my memory better? How's focus work? I started studying ancient methodologies of what did ancient civilizations do before there were printing presses?

how do they remember things and new brain science. And after a couple of months of studying this, a light switch just flipped on. And I started in school understanding things for the very first time in my life. I started to have this renewed focus and interest in learning. I started to be able to read, be able to retain, and do better.

My grades shot up. But not only that, but my life got better. And the reason why I'm still here 30 years later, plus years later is because I started, you know, it's funny. When you learn something, like you watch movies, like The Matrix or, you know, your favorite superhero, whatever, it's always you kind of go from this Joseph Campbell's work. You go from this ordinary world to this extraordinary world. And then you can't help it bring back, you know, things.

And I started sharing some of the things I was doing with friends. And I started tutoring. And one of my very first students, I was teaching her, I was speed reading. She read 30 books and 30 days. Can you imagine? It's a lot. So many people are really good at buying books, and that's a different skill set than reading those books.

People buy books, they sit on your shelf. It becomes shelf help, not self-help. And I wanted to know not how she did it, but why. And I found out that her motivation was her mom. Her mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Doctors gave her mom maybe two months to live. And the books she was reading were books on health and wellness, books to save her mom's life. And I find out six months later, she calls and she's crying and crying.

And when she stops crying, I find out their tears of joy that her mother not only survived, but it's getting better. Doctors don't know how or why. The doctors were calling it a miracle. But her mother attributed the great advice she got from her daughter who lindered from all these books. Wow. In that moment, I found my mission in life. Because I realized in that moment, if knowledge is power, we hear that a lot. Then reading and learning is our superpower.

And I realize it's the most important superpower, and it's a power we all have inside of us. Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that incredible story. So I'm going to take us down a rabbit hole. I wasn't originally planning this. But as you were telling your story, I couldn't help but start thinking about immigrant parents and sort of like the pros and the cons of immigrant parents. So I came from immigrant parents. I'm assuming you came from immigrant parents.

Am I correct? Yes. And I remember like all my friends, I actually had to sick. my dad was a doctor, but even though my dad was a doctor, nobody helped me with homework when I was a kid. Like, I remember like, it was kind of like on my own because my mom didn't speak that great of English. My dad was busy at work providing for the family. So I felt like I was always alone where I feel like other people, peers that might have had American parents probably got help with their homework and things like that or better guidance. Like you had that conversation with you when you were 18 and nobody ever told you to write your goals down before.

Because when you have immigrant parents, they're kind of figuring out how to navigate the world and provide. And they're kind of on this lower rung than everyone else trying to figure it out. I feel like sometimes you don't get the advice that you need when you're kids. Talk to us about that. Does that ring any bells for you? Or I'd love to hear your thoughts. Let's go there. My dad came to the United States when he was 13.

He lost both his parents. And so I didn't speak the language and have any money. came and lived with his aunt, who I knew as my grandmother and the mother grew up. They lived in the back of a laundry mat that my grandmother worked at. And so it was kind of that environment and speak the language. And, you know, it's interesting because sometimes we think about resources and growing up, you know, we didn't have any network or connections or money or education or those kind of things. But I feel like a lot of it comes to the resources we have inside. And I think, again, most important is the resource of our own mind. It's really truly

limitless. And so I think within every disadvantage, there's that word advantage. With challenge comes change. My two biggest challenges growing up were learning for long, for a decade and a half. And because of it, my other challenge was public speaking, because my superpower growing up was shrinking down. I didn't want to be seen because I never had the answer. Never. If I was ever called on in class, I would never know what the right, what the solution was. I never wanted the spotlight and my insecurities, my inadequacies, kind of like seen by everybody. And so my superpower was being invisible.

And the universe has a sense of humor because what do I do? For a living, all I do is public speak on this thing called learning. And so I really think that our disadvantages can be an advantage that through our struggles lead to strengths, that through challenge leads to change. My parents, they're remarkable. I attribute it in all fairness that anything that's good that's come out of me has come from them and anything that's fallen short is really on me. I take that responsibility because they're the reason why I learned to do what I say

that I'm going to do, discipline, kindness, working hard. And I really do think that if somebody is, they do the right things for the right reasons, they're kind, they're willing to learn and make mistakes. And then I feel like there are results will speak for themselves. My challenge is sometimes where we give up our power outside of us. We give up our agency by making an excuse or complaining. And the truth is we can't be upset by the results we didn't get from the work we didn't do. And so I feel like it's so important that especially if somebody's on the path,

building wealth or starting a business, in the beginning, it's really hard because you've never done this before. There's a learning curve. the results don't show up right away. It tests your persistence, your patience, your commitment also, and you have to feed your dreams. You have to feed your business until your business or your dreams feed you back. And then in the beginning, you're grossly underpaid, if anything. But if you're consistent and you work hard, you're always learning, then I feel like at some point it switches.

Oh, yeah. And you get overpaid for the things that you do because of all the work that you did before that. And so I feel like Jim Rohn has this quote that what you do, what you're rewarded in public, which, you know, for the work you do in private. And I feel like everybody right now that's struggling, that's putting in the hours and the early mornings or the late nights, you know, I just feel like part of it is just taking care of yourself and believing in yourself. And we hear this all the time. For me, believing myself is, I saw this bird the other day. And I realized, you know, while it's singing its song and it's calm and its confidence, it's calm and its confidence doesn't come. from putting its trust in the tree branch, the bird's calm and confidence comes to putting

its trust in its own wings. And I feel like that, you know, when we have to know ourselves and have the curiosity to know ourselves, but then also trust ourselves and then having the courage to be ourselves. It's different practice. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. At Yap, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call ourselves scrappy hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees. My team is growing every day. We're 60 people all over the world. And when it comes to hiring, I no longer feel overwhelmed by finding that perfect candidate, even though I'm so picky because when it comes to hiring,

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to unlimited ourselves, right? So I think that's really important being able to believe in yourself like you were just saying. And so I'd love to understand the importance of motivation related to believing in yourself. So motivation for me is not something that's abstract. It's something very, very tangible. This actually came from, I have a formula that I use to motivate myself and motivate clients that I get to work with. And it's very simple. And people, it turns a little master class. I encourage everyone to you. I encourage everyone to, take notes, it's P times E times S3, three factors for limitless motivation. So if you struggle with getting yourself to do what you know you should do, because knowledge by itself is not power,

only because power when we apply it, when we implement it, right? P times E times S3. And so, well, we could do a thought experiment. Everyone think about something that you're not motivated to do. You know, something that you know you should do, but you're not doing it. Maybe it's in meditation, or maybe it's working out, maybe it's reading each day, whatever it happens to be. So the P stands for purpose. And I don't mean our life's purpose. We could talk about that. But I mean the reasons.

Without reasons, you won't get the results. Even if you want to remember names, which I think is one of the most important skills, networking business skills, business etiquette skills, because how are you going to show somebody here and care for their future, their family, their health, their finances, whatever it is you sell them, if you don't care enough just to remember their name. a lot of people will remember names better if they just had a reason to remember their names. Ask yourself, why do I want to remember the person's name?

Maybe it's to show the person respect. Maybe it's to practice these things I learned from this podcast, right? And so it has to go from your head to your heart to your hands, meaning if you could have visualization, if you visualize in your head, you have goals in your head, a bucket list, uh, KPI's, whatever in your head. And you're not acting consistently with your head. Check in with your hands. Check in with the second age, which is our heart.

And the heart is a symbol of emotions because we are not logical. Even people don't buy logically. We know that. People buy emotionally, right? Because we are not logical. We are biological. You think we're not logical or biological. You think about dopamine and oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins.

We are this chemical-feeling soup. But we don't do things unless we feel it. And that's really the key to a long-term memory. We tend to remember things that are charged with emotions. There's a song you could hear that could take you back to when you're a teenager are a fragrance or food that could take you back into when you're a child, right? Because information by itself is very forgettable, when information when it's combined with emotions become unforgettable.

Because that part of your middle brain, that's your amygdala is processing all these emotions and it's connected to your hippocampus, which is your memory. And so we remember things that make us feel a certain way. And when it comes to motivation, we have to start with that feeling. So when I say purpose, it's not intellectual purpose. We all know we should do these things. but common sense is not common practice unless we feel it. And so allow yourself to feel the sensations of who's counting on you to play your A game.

What are the reward you're going to be able to enjoy if you're able to follow through? So purpose. Now, let's say it's to do something like reading each day. You know leaders or readers, if anyone see me on social media with Elon or Oprah or Bill Gates or whoever, we bonded over books because you read to succeed. If somebody has decades of experience and they put into a book and you can sit down in a few days and read that book, you can download decades in the days. That's the biggest advantage there is in the world. Yep. Best ROI on your time.

Yeah. Absolutely. And so people intellectually know that, but if they're not doing it, part of it is they might not feel the benefits of doing it. After that, though, somebody could have limitless purpose and still not read each day because they need the E and the P times E times S3. The E stands for energy. such an important component and element of sustained motivation is sustained energy. And here's the thing, here's a trick when it comes to energy. Energy is not something you have.

And people are listening, you're right, Jim, I have no energy. It's something you do. One of the principles I subscribe to for accelerated learning is getting the habit of taking your nouns and transferring them into verbs, transforming them into verbs, meaning we hypnotize ourselves with the language we're using on a regular basis, right? And your brain is this incredible supercomputer, and your self-talk is the program that will run. So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering people's names. You will not remember the name and the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to.

Same thing with saying, I don't have energy. Because you don't have energy, you do energy. Just like you don't have focus, you're like, Jim, yes, this is my problem. I have no focus. You don't have focus. You do focus. there's a process for focusing. There's a process for generating energy.

You don't have creativity. There's a process for being creative. You don't even have a memory. There's a three-step process for memorizing something. And the benefit of taking a noun and turning them into a verb is all of a sudden you turn into a process, right? It's a strategy now that you could execute on. And so that's really my goal is to take these processes and show people there's a method

behind what looks like magic. Like when I can memorize and in front of an audience 50 people's names or 100 people's names that pass around a microphone, 100 random words, under random numbers, or shuffle deck of cards or whatever, there's a time, obviously, I couldn't do that, right? I was worse off than most people who are listening, but there's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's a trained memory and untrained memory. Just like there's no such thing as a good or bad brain, there's a trained brain and an

untrained brain. So the second part for motivation is not just having purpose. Yes, you have purpose to read, to succeed, to make more money, to have greater impact, but if you're not doing it, maybe you lack energy. Maybe you ate a big processed meal and you're in a food coma. Maybe you're waiting to read when you're most tired in the day and you haven't slept. And so you're depleted and you can't get yourself to act, right, because you lack the energy. And so, you know, we talk about in our podcast, in the books, 10 different ways you could optimize. Like, what are the best brain foods?

What's the best way to reduce stress? because stress uses up a whole lot of energy. How do you optimize your sleep? Now, after purpose and energy, let's say you have a limitless purpose, you feel it, and you have lots of lots of energy, and you're still not following through, working out or reading or whatever,

making those sales calls, whatever. Then S3, the final part, three S's, small, simple steps. Here's the thing. So a lot of times people are not motivated because this thing is too abstract, and a confused mind doesn't do anything. Just like even if you're marketing to somebody, right?

And if you make it too intimidating, they're not going to do anything because you have to break it down in the small, simple steps that they could see themselves following through on. So maybe working out an hour a day is too hard for someone. That's not what they normally do. So maybe it's putting on their running shoes. Maybe it's getting them getting to the gym. That's a small, simple step.

Maybe if you can't get a kid to floss their teeth, maybe it's getting the floss one tooth. Or clean their room is too difficult. It's too intimidating. It's like climbing a mountain, but maybe putting one sock in the hamper. So inch by inch, it's a cinch. Yard by yard, it's way too hard. And my thing is, how do you find a small, simple step?

I ask myself simple question, what is the tiniest action? People can write this down. What is the tiniest action I could take right now that will give me progress towards this goal where I can't fail? What is the tiniest action I could take right now that will give me progress towards this goal so tiny that I can't fail? because you eliminate the friction. So then you can create that positive momentum.

So for me, you don't have motivation. You do it. And the process is purpose, energy, and small, simple steps. I love that because I feel like you're giving people ownership over their brain. A lot of people feel like they're born a genius, right? That you've got to like have these smarts and you're born with it or you're not. You know, they're living with these labels. So I think everything you're saying is really impactful and also really practical.

giving us steps that we can take to actually improve our brain. So let's talk about myths, because a lot of people think that we only use 10% of our brain. You say that's not true. I've heard that a thousand times. And I'd love to hear some of the myths that you've heard over the years about learning and our brain. Yeah, let's let's name a few of them. The lies or the BS. The BS stands for belief systems.

So the limited ideas entertain, one of them is exactly what you mentioned, that we use 10% of our brain. The truth is that we actually use 100% of our brain. And it's just, but here's the caveat. Some people use that 100% differently than other people. It's kind of like we use 100% of our body. Most people use 100% of their bodies throughout the day. But some people are just more physically fit. They have endurance. They have flexibility. They have a level of agility and strength. Because they've trained those muscles. Well, I think the most important muscle, which is an organ, but metaphorically it's more like a muscle is the mind. And it's use it or lose it.

But if I put my arm in a sling for a year, it wouldn't grow stronger, it wouldn't even stay the same. What would happen to muscle? It would just atrophy. It would care weaker. That's a lot of what happens with our mental muscles. We're not utilizing them. And so we actually use 100% of our brain,

just so we use 100% of our body. But if somebody needed to climb, go for a hike, and it's a pretty steep incline, some people are just going to navigate that easier than others. And same thing when people are reading. Some people will navigate through a book with greater speed, efficiency, focus, understanding, retention, enjoyment, because they're just mentally fit. And so, again, there's no such thing as a good or bad brain.

There's a trained brain and an untrained brain. That's the truth. Another myth is that genius is, as you mentioned, genius is born. You're either born with it or you're not born with it. And the truth is that it's not how smart you are, it's how are you smart. There's a story in Limitless, and I don't want to go and get all audible right now, but maybe I could read this anecdote. I talk about how genius is actually built.

So the story that I share in here says, The king was watching a great magician perform his act. The crowd was enthralled, and so was the king. At the end, the audience roared with approval, and the king said, what a gift this man has, a God-given talent. But a wise counselor said to the king, My lord, genius is built, not born. This magician's skill is the result of discipline and practice. These talents have been learned and honed over time with determination and discipline. The king was troubled by this message. The counselor's challenge and spoiled his pleasure in the magician's

arts. Limited and spiteful man, how dare you criticize a true genius. As I said, you either have it or you don't, and you most certainly don't. The king turned to his bodyguard and said, throw this man into the deepest dungeon, and he added for the counselor's benefits, so you won't be lonely. You can have two of your kind to keep you company. You shall have two piglets as cellmates. From the very first day of his imprisonment, the wise counselor practiced running up the stairs of his cell to the prison door carrying in each hand a piglet. As the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, the piglet steadily grew into sturdy boars, and with every day of practice, the wise counselor increased in power and strength. One day, the king remembered the wise counselor and was curious to

see how imprisonment has humbled him. He had the wise counselor summoned. When the prisoner appeared, he was a man of powerful physique, carrying a bore on each arm. The king exclaimed, what a gift this man has, a God-given talent. The wise counselor replied, my lord genius is built not born my skills the result of discipline and practice these talents have been learned and honed over time with determination and discipline i love that story it's one of those ideas that people don't see as we were talking about earlier the work that goes on behind the scenes in what you've done for to build your business to build your brand they don't see that and so it's the tip of the iceberg kind of theory but the idea here is that people aren't born

that they are actually with genius, it'd actually be built. And I believe genius leaves clues that when somebody's exceptional and you've had so many of these guests that are exceptional in certain areas, that you're helping them to deconstruct what they do and making it,

you know, the methods more clear, you know, conscious for people who are listening and helps them develop their fast track, their shortcuts, if you will. And so, yeah, I really do believe genius is something that's available to all of us. Yeah, 100%. And doing it.

So important, like you're saying, the reps, the repetition, the consistency. I feel like that's really the key to everything. I feel like, so I always talk about this on my podcast. Like get the skills, get the experiences, do the things. And like you said, it's not an overnight success ever. It's years and years. And then people just see the tip of that iceberg usually. So let's talk about memory. I love this. Memory is so foundational to everything that you say. You actually have said in the past that no learning is happening. without memory. So talk to us about how memory plays into everything that you teach. So I believe, two of the most costly words in life are, I forgot. Like, how often do we say these words? Like, I forgot to do it. I forgot to bring it. I forgot that meeting. I forgot what I was going to say. I forgot that conversation. I forgot that person's name. Every single time we have those thoughts, we could lose time. We could lose trust. We could lose, we could lose a sale even. And so I believe on the other side, that memory will actually make you money when you could easily remember facts and figures and talking points, product information, client information, right? And you have it at your

mental fingertips because everybody who's listening here, nobody, it's not like it was 100 years ago or generations ago. It's not like you're compensated for your brute strength. Today it's your brain strength. It's not like it was agricultural age where you're paid for your muscle power. Today, it's your mind power. And so memory is foundational. Socrates said learning is remembering. The challenge is memory wasn't a class back in school. I always thought it should have been the fourth hour, reading, writing, arithmetic, but what about retention? What about recall? What about remembering? And so there's certain things we could do to be able to improve our memory. And so a lot of times people come to me and say, Jim, I want to get better at my memory. And I say, that's like saying

I want to be better at sports. What area specifically with sports, specifically, So let's say, let's go back to remembering names. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, so I think there are three keys to remembering names. The first one I mentioned already, and I use the acronym Mom, M-O-M, and it's like the mother of all memory techniques. The M stands for motivation. So just a reminder, when we forget something, we usually aren't connected to the reason

why we want to remember it. And here's the thing, we don't remember all names, but nobody listening to this forgets all names either. And remember I said genius leaves clues. And you're probably motivated to remember those names that you did remember. Maybe you're attracted to that person. Maybe that person could be good for your business or something. Hiring manager or something, right?

Exactly. And you could ask yourself, you could connect with that again by asking yourself, why. Why do I want to remember this person's name and come up with just one reason? Because if you came home with one reason, you won't remember. The O and Mom stands for observation. And this is so simple, but it's usually the simple stuff that people forget to do. Do observation means your attention. A lot of people aren't forgetting a name.

They're just not paying attention. You could remember one or two words, right, a name. But most people, what are they doing? They're thinking about how they're going to reply or what they're going to say in response or waiting for their turn to speak. And so a lot of people, they're not forgetting. They're just not listening. And the art of memory is the art of attention.

So I would remind you, imagine, and if you're writing this down, write the word listen. and here's a brain exercise. It's kind of like wordal. Like change the letters around, scramble the letters, and what word does it spell perfectly? Also, like if you scramble the letters and listen, it spells another word. Silent.

Silent. And that's all I would ask people to do, if you want to improve their memory or remembering names, ask yourself why, come up with a couple of reasons, and then just be silent. One of my favorite books by my mentor, is Dr. Stephen Covey. He wrote Seven Habits,

of highly effective people. And one of the habits is seek first to understand than to be understood. Seek first to understand then to be understood that we don't have to be the most interesting person in the room, but I think to have greater impact, have greater income, certainly have greater influence. Instead of being the most interesting person in the room,

try to be the most interested person in the room, right? That curiosity and get to seek first to understand. And it starts with the person's name, right? Because how are you going to, again, show you're going to care if you don't care enough, just remember their name because people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And so that's so important. So just pay attention. And then the final I'm in mom are the methods, you know, the things that we have in our podcast and our book and we can talk about some of them

for remembering name. Something simple like be suave. So six steps on how to remember names and faces. If you see me do this and they had a live event or on video, be suave. Very, very simple. The be, believe. Because if you believe you can or believe you can, either way you're right. And you want to say you want to limit the negative self-talk. Because remember I said, your brain is like a supercomputer or your self-talk is the program we're on. So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering names, you won't remember the name of the next person you meet. So many people at events come to me and they talk to me about their lives. They say, I'm too old. I'm not smart enough. And I say, stop. If you fight for your limitations,

you get to keep them. That's so good. If people truly understood how powerful their mind is, they wouldn't say or think something they didn't want to be true. So you want to be able to keep it encouraging. And so the B and B-Swave believe. The E, exercise. And I don't mean physical exercise, although people who are more physically active, like if you're listening to this podcast right now and you're on an elliptical or you're going for a brisk walk, you'll probably learn it better. Because as your body moves, your brain grooves. When you move your body, create brain-derived, neurotropic factors, BDNF, which is like fertilizer for neuroplastasy, great for learning. But I don't mean exercise. I mean practice, because practice makes progress. Practice makes progress.

practice makes progress. And so I'm very good at remembering names. But after the first month or two of learning how to do it, I haven't improved a whole lot more. Because once you know how to do something, you know how to tie your shoes, then you just know how to tie your shoes, right? You know how to type, you know how to drive a car. And after 30 or 60 days, it's a skill. So I just want to just reaffirm that it's not a, you don't have a good or bad memory. There's a trained memory and untrained memory. And so I would say practice. You don't have to go out there and practice remembering 15 people's names, but just start with one. You know, and then one becomes two. And little by little, a little becomes a whole lot. And now a quick break from our sponsors. Happy New Year, Yap gang. I just love

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Services not available in all areas. I love that. Be suave. And there's one part that I want to stick on. And that's the fact that it's not about retention or it's not a retention problem. It's an observation problem, right? You need to actually pay attention and care. I'm actually really happy that you brought up the name recognition thing because I was at

podcast movement. You probably have heard of it. It's like a big conference, right? And I met some new friends. and like at the end of the night, and I'm like one of the bigger podcasters there, right? And at the end of the night, I said, bye, to this guy that we were hanging out with all night.

I'm like, bye, Ben. And he's like, holla, my name is Chase. And I was like, oh. And I was like, damn. And then I felt so silly. And then, you know, when I saw this, I was like, how important is it to remember names? Like, it is one of the key foundations of networking.

Because that guy is forever going to remember that I embarrassed him him in front of other people, calling him the wrong name. And like, and then it just seemed like I didn't pay. attention, right? Yeah, and it happens. So shout out to Chase. Then the second half of B-Swave will help you do that. The S and Swabs say the name.

So when somebody introduces themselves, say the name back to them and just literally just repeat it. Right, Chase, it's nice to meet you. And just by hearing it again, it won't boost your retention, right? Because you get to hear it from them. You get to hear it from yourself. You and Swav stands for Use It. Now you want to use it, you don't want to abuse it.

So three or four times in the context of the conversation, wonderful, but you don't go to somebody in, you know, and just meet them. Chase, it's nice to meet you, Chase, you want to grab a bite, Chase, you know, how's it where? You know, that would be an abuse. But using it, planting it three or four times, we'll help you retain it. The A in B-Swave, ask. And you could ask all kinds of things about a person's name. You know, who are you named after?

How do you, is that spelled with a Y or an I? Especially for names that are unusual that you haven't heard before, like your own. Where to come from? It's Arabic and it actually means welcome. Oh, that's beautiful. And then you can ask somebody how they spell it and the origin and what's it where it's it's from and all of a sudden asking about person's name, right? They say a name is a sweetest sound of person's ears.

The name will automatically trigger someone's reticular activating system. I know you've done shows on that also and had guests talk about the RAS and RAS, but that's one of the things that are programmed, it's a sweetest sound, right? So it gets your attention automatically. And so I'm calling people by name asking about their name. So that's the A. And finally, the V and the E in swab, the V is visualize. And here's a thing.

So many people are better with faces than they are with names because they could see it. You go to someone and say, I recognize your face, but I forgot your name. You never go to someone and say the opposite. You never go to someone say, I remember your name, but I forgot your face, right? So true. I wouldn't make a lot of sense. But we tend to remember what we see. And because more of our nervous system, our brain, is dedicated to real estate

towards visual processing. And so there's a proverb that says, what I hear, I forget, what I see, I remember, what I do I understand. What I hear, I forget, I heard the name, I forgot it. What I see, I remember.

I saw your face. I'll always remember your face. And going back to what I do, I understand, you know, through practice, makes progress. So I would say if you tend to remember what you see, visualize, then try seeing what you want to remember.

So if you meet somebody, name Chase, then all of a sudden you can imagine that for a split second, that they might be chasing you, right, or something like that. Or if someone named Ben, imagine, and maybe they have a great head of hair and you imagine that their head is somehow associated with Big Ben

or something like that. And then all of a sudden, and it sounds childish, but how fast are children in learning? They make these images. And then adds feeling to it too. We already said that information, when times emotion become a long-term memory. And so how can you visualize a person's name

to make it more memorable. A person's name is Mary. Imagine them carrying two lambs or getting married to them, right? And someone's name Mike, right? You just imagine them jumping on the table and singing karaoke on a microphone. And again, and these are temporary,

it's to overcome what I call the six-second syndrome. Somebody tells you their name. You have six seconds to do something with that. Otherwise, what happens? As soon as a handshake breaks, it like falls right through the floor. So it grabs it, it forces you to focus on,

the person and it forces you to focus on the name. And that focus will lead to remembrance. And so remember what you want to see by seeing what you want to remember. That's the B. And then finally, the E and B suave is end. When you leave somebody, you use their name saying goodbye using their name. Because if you could walk into a room of strangers and like 20 people and then leave saying goodbye to every single one of them by name, who are they all going to remember? They're all going to remember you, right? And that's a standout skill. a world where a lot of services are commoditized and you need to be able to stand out and become unforgettable. I think one of the easiest ways to stand out in a room is remembering people.

I 100% agree. Like, this is such a good hack. I feel like everyone should rewind, take some notes down and give yourself a homework assignment, start to practice be suave when you're at your next networking event or party or whatever it is and see if you can remember every single person's name and give it a try. I think it's really cool. And you know, based on your work, I found out that we're actually getting worse at stuff like this because of digital dementia and some issues like this. So I'd love to move on to that as we start to close out the interview. So you call these super villains and this is all related to our relationship with technology. You have four drivers of the digital age that reduce brain performance,

digital deluge, digital distraction, digital deduction, and digital dementia. So I'd love to learn a little bit about those areas. So these are the four horsemen of the mental apocalypse. And it's one of those things where, let's start with digital deluge. It's one of those things where it's overload, information overload. And how many people listening feel like there's too much information and not a lot of time, right, to go through it all that we're drowning in information, but we're starving for that practical wisdom, if you will, or the ability to learn how to swim, right? In a world flooded with information and data. So the amount of information is doubling at dizzying speeds. They say that, you know, that it's the amount information, when you graduate school, the half-life

information is getting shorter and shorter because it could be outdated. And it's insane because it's up deep. I was doing a program at Google, and I heard somebody say there that the chairman said that the amount information that's been created from the dawn of humanity to the year 2003, just a couple decades ago, that amount information, think about like the Library of Congress, that amount of information that was created every 48 hours online. Oh my God, that's crazy. Think about all the podcasts and all the social media and all blogs. That's insane to think about.

So the amount of information is doubling, but how we learn it and read it and retain it, that hasn't changed a whole lot. But that growing gap creates digital deluge, information anxiety. And that's an actual, like they call it information fatigue syndrome, higher blood pressure, compression of leisure time, more sleeplessness. I think we'd all identify. So the goal is you upgrade your learning skills to keep up with that overload. Then you have digital distraction.

And how do you maintain your concentration and a role full of rings and pings and dings and app notifications, social media alerts? And I think, again, I'm pro technology. It allows us to do this, right? It allows us to inspire, to empower, to entertain. And there's the other side of the coin or the sword where it's driving us to distraction. You know, with every like, share, comment, cat video, whatever, we're going to just dopamine flood.

And we wonder why we can't concentrate when we're on doing our screen time with work or just having a conversation with somebody and our mind wanders. And part of it is I feel like it's, our brain has been just distracted and overloaded and it's going all different ways. So that's why we train in limitless chapters on focus and flow. And then besides digital deluge and digital distraction, we have digital deduction. And that's the term I just coined. Basically, I read the study where children, when they're tested, this generation,

they're not showing the scores and the same kind of results as previous generations. In fact, it's lower in their ability to deduce and to rationalize to apply logic. And the study suggests is because of the technology is doing the thinking for us. Remember even like GPS? How would we know to get from here to there? we'd have to use some kind of visual spatial intelligence, but here we're just kind of on autopilot, and technology with algorithms,

like it'll teach you not how to think, but teach you what to think based on things. And so that's digital deduction. And I feel like it's so important for school, not only to teach us what to learn, but how to learn, not what to think, but how to think ourselves. And then finally, the last one, as you mentioned, is this one called digital dementia,

and that's the equivalent of us physically, if we just took Uber and lift just to go five blocks and we didn't walk it, then there's a physical, it's convenient, but it could be crippling to our body. If we rely on taking an elevator just to go to our apartment on the third floor every day, then we lose an opportunity to exercise, you know, our muscles. And this thing about something simple like, I don't know, phone numbers. Like how many phone numbers did you used to know growing up? Yeah, so many. Now I don't even know my best friend's phone number by heart, her cell phone. I couldn't tell you my best friend's phone number by heart hurt, her cell phone. And you're communicating with that person every single day. Yeah. And so then that's

digital dementia. And I have to say, again, I don't want to memorize 500 phone numbers, but it should be concerning we've lost the ability to remember one phone number or a passcode or a pin number or a seed phrase or, you know, like our hotel room or whatever it happens to be. And so your memory is a muscle. It's use it or lose it, just like the rest of our mind. And again, technology is not good or bad. It's just like fire. Fire is a technology. It could cook your food or it could burn down your home. It's just how it's applied. And I would just say, just like with anything, there's a quote in Limitless that says, life is the C between B and D. Life is C between B and D. B stands for birth, D stands for death, life C, choice. That our life is a sum total of all the choices we made up to this point.

And these difficult times, they can define us. These difficult times can distract us. These difficult times can diminish us, or these difficult times they actually can develop us. We ultimately decide, you know, every single day. And I want to remind people that we always have that ability to decide to just to show up for ourselves, right? Because I think we're all on this journey to reveal

and realize our fullest potential. I really do believe there's a version of every single person who's listening to this. There's a version of yourself that you haven't made. yet. There's a version of your brain you haven't met yet. There's a version of your business that you haven't met yet. And the goal is we show up every single day until we're introduced. Yeah. And like you said, technology is not good or bad. We just need to evolve with that technology and learn how to learn better. And what a great conversation we had today about building a better brain. So Jim, the way that we

close out our show is I give two questions that I ask all my guests at the end of the show. We do something fun at the end of the year with them. So the first one is what is one actionable thing our young improfitors can do today to become more profiting tomorrow? So I would say one of the most important things you do is to love your brain. And what do I mean by that? Let's say when you reach the age of driving, you were given a car, but this was just like the one car that you had for the rest of your life, how well would you take care of that car? Keep it spotless. I would take it to service. I would do everything right. And we have this vehicle that we're going through life. and which is our body and part of our body is our brain. So I would ask everybody the one thing

that you could do to be able to do that, have more purpose and profitability is to love your brain. And then just a simple thing you could do is ask yourself, is this good for my brain or is this bad for my brain? Is watching this good for my brain or eating this good for my brain or it's bad for my brain? And not that you have to be absolutely perfect, but the goal is progress. And so love your brain because your brain controls everything. It's your number one wealth building asset. I think that's super smart. A lot of people concentrate on their bodies and they forget about their brain. So I think that's great. All right. What is your secret to profiting in life? And profiting does not have to mean money. So I think if you want your business to grow, your brand to grow,

your book sales to grow, your bank account to grow, then your brain has to grow. And I say this because I always wear a brain on my shirt. I'm always seen on social media pointing to my brain. And I see, I think what you see, you take care of it. You see your hair. You take care of it. You see your hair. you take care of it, your clothes you take care of, but we don't see the thing that controls everything, which is the human brain. And so I would say that you want to be able to, just like with technology, we hear about, you know, you upgrade your apps, you upgrade your phone, you get to upgrade your software, your computers, but when's last time we upgraded the most important technology, that has created all that other technology, which is the human mind. And so I would say the fastest way to grow,

to get that area is you reach and then you rest and then you repeat. You stretch, you stabilize, right? You climb an amount. You stretch yourself, and then you stabilize, and then you stretch some more, and then you stabilize. And so I think that would be it, that you learn to earn to return. You learn, because the more you learn, the more you earn, and the more you earn, the more you have the ability to return. And I think that return is really important because that sense of contribution, you train

your nervous system, your brain, that there's more than enough. We gave away 100% of the proceeds to limitless, to charity, to build school. is everywhere from Ghana to Guatemala, for teachers, to school buildings, to health care, clean water for the children, and also Alzheimer's research for women. As women are twice as likely to experience Alzheimer's than men. And I lost my care care care, my grandmother to Alzheimer's. So we do it in her memory.

But I would say one of the best things you could do, chronic stress shrinks your brain. And one of the best ways to get out of stress is to contribute, you know, is focus on somebody else. And so how can you invest some of your time, your talent, your treasure to making a difference because it's nice to make a dollar. And I think it's better to make a difference. And so, you know, when you could do both, I think it's remarkable. Be, do, have, and then share. What a great way to end the interview. That was so powerful, Jim. Thank you so

much. Where can our listeners learn about you and everything that you do? Yeah, if you like this conversation, we have a podcast that's 20 minutes long and links are in my Instagram profiles, so it's hard not to find us. And then our book, limitless, limitless book.com. You can find it anywhere you buy books and, you know, I'm really passionate. And I just want to thank you so much. I'm glad we can make this happen after the past couple years. Yeah, I'm so happy. I really respect how much energy and effort you put into preparation. I respect expertise. Oh, thank you so much. And I've listened to your show. Remarkable that you could have, you know, that you have these conversations with these experts and pull out the information you do, but also make it so much fun,

you know, and memorable for people. So congratulations. Oh, thank you so much. I would challenge everyone to actually take a screenshot of this episode in whatever form you're consuming it, you know, whether it's, you know, an iTunes, spot, whatever, YouTube, and tag us both there. And I would love as you post that and share it, because I think the fastest way to learn something is to share it with somebody else. You teach it, because when you teach it, you get to, learn it twice and post it so we get to see it because if you tag us, we'll see it. And then share one thing you're going to do for a better brain. What's one thing you're going to do for a better brain?

And I'll actually repost some of my favorites when it goes live and I'll actually gift a few copies of limit lists to some random people. Oh, perfect. I would love to do a book giveaway. We could definitely do that. And I'm going to stick all of your links in my show notes. So don't worry. We're going to make it super easy for everyone to follow you on social media to get your

book. Jim, this was honestly such a great conversation. Thank you so much for the lovely compliment. It makes my job very easy when I have an expert like you on the show. So thank you so much for your wisdom and your time. You are the ideal young and profiting guests and just so happy we could make this happen as well. Amazing. Be limitless, everybody. All right, young and profitors. We just heard from the boy with the broken brain who has turned into one of the leading brain experts in the entire world. Jim Quick was somebody that I've been trying to interview for years now. And so I was so excited that I landed this interview and felt like this conversation was so useful for everyone. And there's so many takeaways to go over. So let's start with something

we talked about early in the interview. For any of my listeners out there who are feeling a little lost, who are feeling like they are not operating at their full potential, who may feel untalented or not as smart as they want to be, I want to be the mentor that was Jim's mentor for him. I want to be that mentor for you. A lot of people don't have a mentor. A lot of people don't have access to people who are very successful who will help guide them the way that Jim, you know, by chance got to have. And so I'm going to be that mentor for you and ask you to do the same activity that that mentor had gym do. So first of all, I want you to take out a sheet of paper and I want you to think, if you could accomplish anything in life without the risk of failure,

understanding that anything is possible, if you could achieve anything in life and it would be possible for you to do so, what would you want to do with your life? What are the things that you would want to accomplish? What are the milestones you want to achieve? Write down that list of everything that you want to achieve in your life. And you can share with me and DM me this list on Instagram at Yap with Hala. And then I'm going to make a recording and send it back to you. All right? So you can share it with me.

I can be the only person you share it with or you can share it with your friends and family. But then I want you to go a step further and I want you to read that list of things that you want to achieve every night to yourself before you sleep and every single morning when you wake up. You can always change and refine this list as time goes on. Now, the key to achieving these milestones, Yap, fam, is to level up your mind. Okay? You need to improve what's in between those two ears of yours. And so I want you to read one book a week for the next six months. A lot of you are probably thinking one book a week.

I don't have time for that. I don't have school. I have, you know, family things to do. I have obligations. I don't want to hear it. I want you to read one book a week for the next six months. Even if you absolutely can't stand to read, you can listen to a podcast every day instead. You can also listen to an audio book every week instead.

And if you don't have spare money, get used to your local library. It's there for a reason or ask your friends and family if you can borrow their favorite nonfiction books. Okay. So this isn't about reading fantasy books, guys. This is about reading business, human behavioral. entrepreneurial thinking type books, okay? And I promise you it will change your life. I remember in the years before I started Yap, if you guys know my story, I was in a rut, okay? I was doing great. I was actually like working a corporate job, but I wasn't following my dreams. I was working

corporate marketing at Hewlett Packard. I was really thriving in my career, but I really wasn't following my dreams. And I felt very empty and like I wasn't fulfilling my life. And I was like pretty lost in terms of what I wanted to do with my life. And I remember during that time, a year before I decided to launch Young and Profiting, I was obsessed with self-improvement books. And I listened to an audio book on self-improvement every single week. And many of the people that I listen to, I've interviewed on my podcast, like, how full circle is that, right? Like, for example, Charles Doohig was like a book that I listened to over and over again, the power of habit, the like switch by Dr. Jack Schiefer. I interviewed him. Never Spill the Difference, Chris Voss. I interviewed him.

So many of the books that I read, I ended up interviewing on my podcast. And the only reason why I decided to start my podcast is because reading gave me my mojo back. It made me believe again that life is limitless. It gave me new skills, new perspective. And it gave me the confidence to go on and launch Young and Profiting podcast, which has turned into media, which has also turned into Yap Media Network, my podcast network, which is now also turned into Yap Academy, which is some new courses that I'm about to launch, very excited about that. So essentially, reading books has kicked off my lifelong legacy at Yap Media, and it's been very successful. So I want you guys to take a page from Jim's book, take a page from my book and read one book a day for the next six

months if you're in a rut. I promise it will help you get out of it. And again, write down a list of all the things that you want to achieve in life. Read them out loud. Send share them with me. You can DM me on Instagram at Yap with Hala. And I want you to read them to yourself twice a day in the morning and at night. I guarantee you that things will change if you do that. Okay. So we talk about retraining your brain a lot here on Young and Profiting Podcasts because understanding that you have control over your brain is crucial to unlocking your full potential. If Jim had that limiting belief of having a broken brain, he would have never become one of the world's top brain coaches who has rubbed shoulders with the likes of Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, and Bill Clinton. Okay? He is so successful now,

and it's only because he decided to believe he didn't have a broken brain anymore. Your limitations are learned, young improfitors. Geniuses are not born. Genuices are created, and you can create your own genius. We all have genius inside of us. Intelligence is learned. It's not inherited. You can learn how to learn. I want you all to realize that you are all so smart.

You are not broken. Your brain is limitless. You just need to understand how to better use it. Because everything is a process, okay? It's not something you have or you don't have. People say, I have bad focus. I have bad memory. No, okay?

Focus is a process. Memory is a process. Being creative is a process. These are all processes that you can learn, right? And there's lots of material out there. There's lots of books about this type of stuff. There's no such thing as a good or a bad brain. There's only a trained and an untrained brain. You can train your brain on the things you feel weak on. Okay. Another way to improve your brain health is to address the effects of technology. We talked about this in the interview, digital dementia, okay? It's a real thing. We are letting technology do so much of our critical thinking and reasoning for us. And if you're struggling to learn new things and remember things and you can't focus and the information doesn't stick, consider changing your relationship with technology and social media. Maybe try to get to that place that you want to get to in your car using a map instead

of GPS, right? Maybe it's about learning phone numbers and memorizing phone numbers instead of being so dependent on your contact list in your phone, right? So just use your brain in a different way. Don't just rely on technology to think for you. And finally, the last takeaway from me is to love your brain. Okay, your brain is a muscle and an organ that we often ignore. How often are you thinking about improving your brain?

Whereas a lot of you guys out there are really focused on, you know, getting a super toned bum, for example, right? Building your biceps, whatever it is, you need to treat your brain. brain in the same priority. Okay. Eat well, move and exercise and choose to think well. Okay? Like Jim said, we hypnotize ourselves with the language that we use on a regular basis. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them.

Okay? If people truly understood how powerful their mind is, they wouldn't say or think something that they don't want to be true. Like Marisapier says, I've said this a million times on the podcast, tell your a better lie. Whatever you tell your brain is what's going to happen. So tell yourself a better lie. Don't say something that you don't want to be true. Otherwise, it's going to come true. All right? Well, I feel super motivated. I feel that life is limitless. Like I have the power to become a genius and untapped the full potential of my brain. Thank you guys so much for tuning

into another incredible episode of Young and Profiting podcast. This time, it was featured. featuring Jim Quick. If you guys enjoyed the show, be sure to drop us an Apple podcast review. Let us know. Or Spotify rating or review. Those two are really important to me. And you guys can also find me on social media. I'm on Instagram and TikTok at Yap with Hala. I'm also on LinkedIn. You can search for my name. It's Halataha. And if you guys like to watch this type of content, we're also on YouTube. So I actually record all of these podcasts as a video podcast for over two years now. So we've got two years of video content on YouTube, and our YouTube channel is skyrocketing right now.

And speaking of skyrocketing, I am the number one entrepreneurship podcast on Apple in the U.S. I am the number two business podcast on Apple, which is a main category in the U.S. And last week, I broke the top 200 podcast on Apple. I was all the way up to number 76 in the world. Oh my God. The people I'm next to is like,

Gary V. Alex Ramosy, Patrick Beck, David, Ed Milette. Sheesh. I feel blessed, young improfitters. Oh, my God. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Thank you guys so much for all those Apple podcast reviews. It's definitely helping. We're getting so much visibility on Apple.

Like many of you guys know, I'm really popular on a lot of non-traditional apps like CastBox Player FM. And now I'm getting really popular on Apple. And I'm so excited when you have good intentions and you put the out to the world, yeah, bam. Things come back. 10X. Well, without further ado, this is your host, feeling very happy today. This is your host. Halataha signing off.