Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Jim Kwik: How to Protect Your Brain Health, Memory, and Focus in the Age of AI | Mental Health | E414

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

Jim Kwik’s brain health challenges began at age five, after a childhood injury left him struggling to read, learn, and remember. Once labeled “the boy with the broken brain,” he spent years disc...overing how memory, focus, and learning can be trained. Now, AI, smartphones, and constant distraction are making these abilities easier to neglect, especially as entrepreneurs increasingly rely on technology to work faster and more efficiently. In this episode, Jim shares how to strengthen your memory, protect your attention, use AI more intentionally, and keep your mind sharp in an increasingly automated world.  In this episode, Hala and Jim will discuss:  (00:00) Introduction (00:00) Why Memory Matters for Entrepreneurs (09:37) How Remembering Names Builds Trust (13:45) Training Your Brain to Remember (18:11) The MOM Framework for Memory Recall (24:49) Jim’s Ten-Item Memory Test (38:51) Hacks to Strengthen Focus and Attention (48:35) Using AI Without Losing Human Intelligence (1:01:12) Why Women Should Embrace AI (1:08:11) Beating Brain Rot and Doomscrolling  Jim Kwik is the world’s leading brain performance coach, a New York Times bestselling author, and the founder of Kwik Brain. For over 30 years, he has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, athletes, and world leaders in speed learning, memory improvement, and mental performance. As the host of the top-ranked Kwik Brain podcast, Jim focuses on brain health, cognitive wellness, and unlocking human potential in a rapidly changing world.  Sponsored By: Indeed - Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at Indeed.com/profiting Shopify - Start your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/profiting. Northwest Registered Agent - Get a complete business identity with Northwest. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/YAPFree and start using free resources to build something amazing.  Mindstone - Master practical AI skills without the complexity with Mindstone’s AI Competency Programme. Head to experience.mindstone.com/yap and get 10% off.  AT&T Business - Stay connected with reliable, secure internet built for entrepreneurs. Switch to AT&T Business at business.att.com.  HoneyLove - Treat yourself to the most advanced bras and shapewear on the market. Save 20% off Honeylove by going to honeylove.com/PROFITING! #honeylovepod ElevenLabs - ElevenAgents by ElevenLabs helps businesses deliver better customer experiences. Start with a demo at ElevenLabs.io/profiting Quo - Bring your calls, texts, and contacts together in one place. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to quo.com/profiting.  Resources Mentioned: Jim's Website: jimkwik.com Jim's Book, Limitless: bit.ly/-Limitles  Jim's Book, Limitless Daily: bit.ly/LimitlessDaily  Jim's Podcast, Kwik Brain: bit.ly/KB-apple  Jim’s Instagram: instagram.com/jimkwik  Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals  Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap YouTube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Newsletter - youngandprofiting.co/newsletter  LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new  Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Podcast, Business, Business Podcast, Self Improvement, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Starting a Business, Strategy, Investing, Sales, Selling, Psychology, Productivity, Entrepreneurs, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Marketing, Negotiation, Money, Finance, Side Hustle, Startup, Mental Health, Career, Leadership, Mindset, Health, Growth Mindset, Biohacking, Motivation, Manifestation, Life Balance, Self-Healing, Positivity, Happiness, Sleep, Diet

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's episode is sponsored in part by Mindstone 11 Labs Honeylove and Quo. Mindstone helps ambitious professionals take the AI tools they already use and turn them into real workflows. Get 10% off their four-week AI competency program at experience.mindstone.com slash yap. 11 agents by 11 labs helps businesses deliver better customer experiences with voice AI agents that handle support, sales, and onboarding 24-7. Start with the demo at 11labs.io slash profiting. Honeylove makes the most advanced bras and shapewear designed for all-day comfort and support. Save 20% off Honeylove by going to honeylove.com slash profiting. Quo is an AI-powered phone system that brings your calls, texts, and contacts together in one place.
Starting point is 00:00:47 Try Quo for free plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash profiting. As always, you can find all of our incredible deals in the show notes or at young and profiting. slash deals. Most people do for something when they wake up, they grab their device, right? You wiring your brain for distraction, and then you wonder why you can't focus later that day. If you're spending eight hours, doom scrolling and rotting your brain and then have the audacity to complain, you can't be upset by the results you didn't get from the working into.
Starting point is 00:01:18 Jim Quick is the world's number one brain coach, a best-selling author. Today he's breaking down how to protect your focus, remember what matters, and why you're human intelligence is the one thing AI can never replace. So the idea here is your brain is like a muscle. It's an organ but acts like a muscle, you use it or lose it. But if you put your arm in a cast for a year, it wouldn't grow stronger.
Starting point is 00:01:39 It wouldn't even stay the same. Yeah. It would weaken and atrophy. That's digital dimension, digital deduction. I'd love to hear your opinion on collaborating with AI and how to make sure we're not outsourcing too much with AI. In a world of artificial intelligence, you don't want human intelligence to become artificial and not valuable.
Starting point is 00:01:56 AI is a tool that can magnify and multiply, but it only magnifies, multiplies, and amplifies what we... How can we retain our focus in this era of just so much distraction? I think we're going to lean into a number of things. Jim, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. So good to be here. This is the third time that Jim has been on, and every conversation has been absolutely incredible. You are a brain expert. You are a memory expert. a learning expert, and I'm just so excited to kind of dig into everything. And something that I'm not
Starting point is 00:02:32 going to do today is be so worried about repeating any sort of information that we've covered in the past because I was realizing that half the things that we talked about, I didn't even retain. So how could I have expected my listeners to retain? So I want to start there. Why is it that we can hear things more than once and still not remember them or recall them? It's so important for entrepreneurs to have a good memory. I think two of the most costly words in business are I forgot. I mean, just think about the consequence of saying, I forgot to do it, I forgot to bring it, I forgot to go to that meeting, I forgot what I was going to say to this person. I forgot that conversation, what was said to me. You know, I forgot how to do something. I forgot that person's name, you know, and so on the other side,
Starting point is 00:03:15 memory is a magnifier. It's a multiplier. It can make you money when you could easily remember client information, product information. You could do sales videos or pitches, remember sales scripts, give presentations without notes, and walk into a room of 20 strangers and leave saying goodbye to all 20 of them. They're all going to remember you. So memory makes things a lot easier, and it'll make you money for sure. It was interesting. I was just in Miami speaking at an event, doing brain training. We train a lot of Fortune 500 companies, and that commercial real estate guy came to me and he uh he's like jim i wish i would have gone through this before he said he he lost a 50 million dollar deal because he called the client uh the wrong name twice oh my gosh
Starting point is 00:04:02 could you imagine because what you know what does that make what's the message we send to somebody you know when we uh when we have those memory lapses so um yeah i mean the idea here is there's a forgetting curve when people hear something once on a podcast even previous episodes um within two days when you're exposed to information once from a presentation, a conversation, you read it, you listen to it on a podcast, 80% of it, it's gone unless you are doing something with that information. And I think part of it is just, I would say number one is, you know, part of it's just paying attention. Yeah. Sometimes when people are listening to something like this, they're multitasking, like they're cleaning or they're working or they're working out or they're driving
Starting point is 00:04:43 and their focus comes and goes, and the focus is, I mean, the art of memories, the art of attention. You could easily remember a name or something that you just read, but it's if her mind is wandering. That's a challenge. Also, we're not taught how to remember things.
Starting point is 00:05:00 Like, in school, you know, I know there were a lot of subjects for entrepreneurship that wasn't taught in school that would have been useful. You know, leadership, investing, negotiation skills, sales skills, you know, the legal parts to a business. But same thing with school teaches you what to learn, what to remember, what to think. But there's zero classes on how to learn, how to remember, you know, how to think.
Starting point is 00:05:23 And I think those are like the lead dominoes right now. They're their highest lever point for, I think the faster you learn an entrepreneur can learn, the faster they will earn. Knowledge to say it's not only power, it's profit. And, you know, there's this divide, not those just who have and those who don't have. There's a divide between those who know some things and those who don't know, even in age of AI. information is ubiquitous. We all have access to information, right? You know, I know we could talk about AI a little bit later,
Starting point is 00:05:49 but it's no longer a competitive advantage because everybody has it. It's what you bring to it, though, that makes the difference. But the reason why it's so important is you can only make your life as a sum total of all the choices you made up at this point, right, who to spend time with, you know, what to focus on, what you're going to eat, how you're going to move, what city you're going to live in. And it's interesting. You only make good choices based on the information you know.
Starting point is 00:06:11 And when you know more, you can do more. When you know better, you could also do better also as well. Yeah. You know, there's a reason why people have seen pictures of me with Elon or Oprah or these individuals, and people ask how we bonded, how we connected. We bonded over books, you know, because even Warren Buffett reads, you know, 500 pages a day. So he has more information so he can make better decisions. And so I love it.
Starting point is 00:06:35 But, yeah, one of the reasons, the reasons not paying attention, the forgetting curve, not having a system to remember things, you know, also as well. And also just asking the question, like, how can I use this? You know, I feel like you learn something once. And then if you don't use it, whatever you don't use, you lose, right? It's use it or lose it. So what happens in the brain is you start pruning this information so it's more efficient, right? And so you start pruning or deleting this information.
Starting point is 00:07:02 And that's why I'm a big, you know, advocate for, you know, application. Like, why learn a new idea if you're not going to implement it? So if people are listening to this podcast and let's say there's two different people, one person is multitasking. Yeah. And the other person is actually like, I really want to take advantage of this and I have like a pen and a paper or like I've got a computer or whatever it is. Sure, sure, sure.
Starting point is 00:07:24 How should they actually listen to this podcast episode to retain the most information? So the person is multitasking. So they've done, when people ask me all the time, you know, as an author, like, what's the best? Is it better to read something in a book? or to listen to it on an audiobook, for example. And people will test better when they read it in terms of comprehension and retention. And part of it is because usually when we're listening
Starting point is 00:07:48 to something, we are multitasking, right? So our focus is separate. So I would say the person who is trying to multitask and we could talk about the science of multitasking and how it's really task switching and how it's not very effective. Focus on, if you're driving, focus on driving. Like if you're operating heavy machinery,
Starting point is 00:08:03 you focus on that, right? Those are a priority there. And that person can listen and get a, Kind of just a good review and pits of it and then come back and really study it when they have a chance. I would highly recommend that. For the person who's taking notes, I don't know if they're watching it or listening it. Everybody has a preferred channel of learning. Not so much a learning style, but a channel they prefer to receive information in.
Starting point is 00:08:26 And I would say taking notes. If you're going to take notes, you know, you could either do it handwriting notes or digital note-taking. Handwriting will outperform digital note-taking. In terms of retention. Absolutely, and understanding. Digital is great for storing information. It's great for sharing it with your team. But in terms of understanding and retaining the information, handwriting notes will outperform. And everyone has a different process. People use it, and they'll handwrite on as on one of their tablets and then use AI to organize it or store it or Notion or summarize it. One of the really hidden talents that you have is remembering a lot of names. Yeah. And I have a story that I remembered when I was studying your stuff.
Starting point is 00:09:10 And it's one of my guy friends, we were trying to set him up with a girl that we know. And we brought him to, like, a party. And she's like a gorgeous girl, has lots of options. And he's a great guy. But he couldn't remember her name. And they kept talking. And she was like, what was your name? I'll say her name is Anna.
Starting point is 00:09:28 It's not Anna. And he'd be like, what's her name? We're like, Anna. And then he would, like, call her a different name and, like, couldn't remember her name all night. Wow. And then she was like, I don't want to see this guy. Like, sorry, like, I'm not going on a date with him. He couldn't even remember my name.
Starting point is 00:09:43 That's like a Seinfeld. There was a Seinfeld episode. I'm dating myself. I'm going to be 53. So where Jerry Seinfeld, it was a sitcom comedy where he was dating somebody and was intimate with her but didn't know her name. So every single time she went to the bathroom, he would try to go into her purse together, you know, look at her driver's license. Every time George or Kramer would come by, he would introduce them, hoping that she would, say their name. And the joke was a, it rhyme with a part of the female anatomy or something like that.
Starting point is 00:10:12 But Seinfeld talks about common things. You had an episode where they lost, where they parked the car. The whole episode was just trying to find the mall on the car. We've all been there. But yeah, I feel bad for your friend. That's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. And it made her feel like she wasn't important that he must be like talking to so many girls or that she wasn't a focus. Or he didn't care. Or he didn't care. Yeah. So I'd love to understand when we remember things, whether it's people's names or their kids' names or a story they told us in the past. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:44 How does that improve our networking and relationship? I think it's huge because it's, you know, they say success is what you know. So we teach people how to, you know, know that faster, right, and read it faster, learn it faster. It's who you know. So remembering them is very important. But it's also who knows you. And I feel like today, especially it's helped. so many people with their confidence,
Starting point is 00:11:07 like when you know you can walk into a room and retain a lot of information from conversations and people's names, you walk in different because in psychology, they have a confidence, confidence loop that the more competent you get, the more confident you are.
Starting point is 00:11:20 And I think being confident in your memory and your ability to recall information, especially in this expert economy, you know, where nobody listening to this as an entrepreneur, aspiring entrepreneurs paid, you know,
Starting point is 00:11:30 for their brute strength, right? It's your brain strength. It's not your muscle power, it's your mind power. It's not like we're working on fields and, you know, in the agriculture age or industrial age, moving things in factories. It's our ability to come up with new ideas. And a lot of creativity comes from memory also from remembering things, you know, being a generalist knowing, you know, good amount about a lot of things. But then connecting those dots, you know, to innovate, you know, like a phone, like what Steve Jobs did, right?
Starting point is 00:11:58 There's a camera and there's a calculator and there's a, there's a phone and all this other things. took, you know, different things, created something brand new. And entrepreneurs, that's what we're doing. We're innovating, you know, all the time. But I would say that remembering names is very important because you need to be able to stand out. And when you have, you have what I call quick recall, and you're able to call information well, people feel like that you were thinking about them, right? That you remember their conversations, that they were important.
Starting point is 00:12:27 You know, there's a, what's a quote? People don't care how much you know until they know much you care. Like, how you're going to show somebody as a, entrepreneur, you're going to care for their health, their family, their finances, you know, whatever you have to offer them if you don't care enough just to remember things about them. Totally. You know, so, you know, because even if you don't remember, like, that kind of thing, nothing you know past that would count.
Starting point is 00:12:47 And you just lose trust so much. Like, if you don't remember what you were supposed to do for your client or what you talked about on the last call and what you were supposed to implement, like, you could lose trust so fast if you can't retain. Absolutely. And people nowadays want to work with the best. And I think, you know, to be able to stand out before you sell anything, you sell yourself, right? But absolutely.
Starting point is 00:13:08 Like, if you remember people's conversations and what they said and their preferences and the problems that they're dealing with, the things that they value in life, the things that they're proud of, the things that keep them up at night, and then people feel like you're just thinking about them all the time. I can't see a situation where that wouldn't be helpful for an entrepreneur. Absolutely. Yeah, fam, I am a perfectionist. I always want to make sure that I'm putting out the best offer possible to the world. So when I launched my LinkedIn Masterclass and Mastermind, I poured my heart and soul into the content and I knew that this was going to be transformative for all of my students.
Starting point is 00:13:44 But I didn't know how to launch a website. I didn't know how to handle payments. I didn't know how to launch a payment plan, a subscription. I didn't know how to answer their questions in the middle of the night when they're trying to check out. But I left at all to Shopify. Shopify makes it so easy for us entrepreneurs to launch our e-commerce. storefront. They've got all these templates and AI tools. They make payment as easy as just
Starting point is 00:14:06 one click. Shopify has been the best business partner for me over the past five years because they're so innovative. They're always thinking of new features from how to make sure that your cart doesn't go abandoned to having things like chatbots and helping you implement chatbots on your store. So please stop reorganizing your business plan for the 17th time. Build a storefront. Put the offer out there. All you need is the idea and Shopify can handle the rest. If you're serious about hearing your Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash profiting today. You heard that right. Start your free trial at shopify.com slash profiting.
Starting point is 00:14:40 That's Shopify.com slash profiting. Young improfiters, a few weeks ago, my main video editor put in his notice due to health concerns. Now, because it was an emergency and I wish him well, I was in a pickle. He was gone and there was nothing I could do about it. And so I was in full panic mode. The podcast still goes on. I still need promotional clips. I still have sponsors.
Starting point is 00:15:02 I can't do this without a video editor. And so I was stressed, but I did what I always do. And we found an amazing replacement who's just as good as my previous editor, if not more talented. And I do what I always do. I want to Indeed sponsor jobs to find my candidate. Indeed, sponsor jobs makes finding qualified candidates so much easier because sponsored jobs boost your job posts in the search results, helping you reach candidates who match the skills, certifications, or location that you're looking for. And if you're hiring too, you can join the 3.3 million employees.
Starting point is 00:15:32 worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show, Young and Profiting, will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help give your job the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and support a show by saying you heard about Indeed on
Starting point is 00:16:02 this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for indeed sponsored jobs. Yeah, fam, I know we've all called customer support before where we're on hold forever. We're getting passed from person to person. We're repeating ourselves over and over. And then somehow, after all that time, we get nothing done. That is not a way to run a business. 11 agents by 11 Labs is a voice AI agent that can actually listen, understand what your customer needs, look up information, process requests, and escalates issues when necessary. It works 24-7, responds quickly, and supports more than 30 languages. What I love about 11 agents by 11 Labs is that it goes beyond the typical chat or phone tree experience. Instead of just bouncing your customers
Starting point is 00:16:48 around in circles, it actually helps them get real answers and move things forward. I use 11 Labs for my podcast, so I know firsthand how natural and human their voice technology sounds. In fact, when I'm sick, we often use 11 labs to replicate my voice and you guys can't even tell the difference. If you run a business with any kind of customer operations, support, sales, or onboarding, you can start with a demo at 11labs.io slash profiting. See what 11 agents can do for your specific workflows. Guided rollout capacity is limited each quarter. So if you want to be one of the first companies with a customer experience that people actually talk about in a good way, now is the time. Try 11 agents by 11 labs at 11labs.I.O. slash profiting.
Starting point is 00:17:28 That's E-L-E-V-E-N-L-A-B-S dot I-O-S-Profiting. 11-labs.I-O-S-Profiting. Okay, I want to do something really fun. So you are incredible at recalling anything, names, words, whatever it is. So I thought it would be fun to list off 10 random items. Okay. And then in, you know, 10 minutes or so, I'm going to ask you to recall those items. Yeah. Can people watching or listening try it also? Yeah. Because in the meanwhile, I'm going to ask
Starting point is 00:18:00 you how we can remember things better. Yeah, it would be great if people at home could also go through the list and then, you know, take their time and try to remember it. Don't write it down. I would challenge everyone not to write it down, you know. I believe there's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's a trained memory and untrained memory. So yes, listen to this, memorize it. Let's memorize it all together. Don't write it down. And maybe I could give some tips later on how people could remember that.
Starting point is 00:18:28 Yeah, and then you guys can rewind and go back and see if you can actually remember it after learning. Yeah. Oh, we'll go through the list later. That'd be fun. Okay. One, pink flamingo.
Starting point is 00:18:38 A pink flamingo. Two, Tesla Key. Tesla Key. Three, blueberry muffin. Blueberry muffin. You're making me. You're making me. Blueberries, by the way, are great brain.
Starting point is 00:18:50 food. Four, golden microphone. Golden microphone. Five, broken iPhone. Broken iPhone? Yep. You came up with these randomly? Yes.
Starting point is 00:19:02 Okay. I'm giving people a little bit of time to come up with theirs. Six, red high heel. Red high heel. Just one or two? Just one. Okay, red high heel. Seven, brain-shaped balloon.
Starting point is 00:19:17 Brain-shaped balloon. So it literally is random. Eight. $100 bill. $100 bill. A Benjamin, yes. Okay. Nine, mini treadmill.
Starting point is 00:19:31 A mini treadmill. Yes, for a mouse. For a mouse? Okay. Ten, diamond notebook. Ten is diamond notebook. How many do you think you could do? Well, I've taught people to how to memorize, like, pie to, like, thousands of digits.
Starting point is 00:19:47 but it's all, it's all the same thing. It's the same principle that I just, but yeah, so everybody who's listening, just do the best. And notice also not only just, you know, how many you remember when we come back to the list, also think about how you remembered it. Like, what was your strategy, you know, for that? What is that process? Like, how are you remembering things? I mean, even in high school we learned, like memory is just three stages.
Starting point is 00:20:13 You encode it, you store it, and then you retrieve it. And if there's a break in any one of those, you're not going to get the remembrance that you desire and that you really deserve. You know, I really, you know, for people that are connected to my work, they know that I had a brain injury when I was five years old. Because of it, I had learning disabilities. My mother became a special education teacher to help me with my challenges. I had migraines every day. It took me three years long and learned how to read. And so, you know.
Starting point is 00:20:44 You called you the boy with the broken brain. Yeah, that was my, that was my, and that was all through school. It wasn't just like elementary school. It was middle school, junior high, high school. I just, I worked hard. You know, I came, you know, from immigrant parents. You know, we live in the back of the laundry map that my mom worked at. You know, we worked hard, but I just didn't get the grades, you know, it's just, it's a challenge.
Starting point is 00:21:08 But I realized, you know, after this might have been doing this for 34 years, it's not how smart you are. It's how are you smart. It's not how smart you are. It's really how are you smart. And we all have different intelligence. And that intelligence, even in a world of AI, it's not fixed, you know, like your shoe size. It can be trained. But school, again, teaches you what to learn or what to remember what to think, but not how to.
Starting point is 00:21:29 So, you know, I focus on this thing called meta learning, which is a science and art of learning, how to learn, which I, again, think it's the best thing that all entrepreneurs could focus on. Because once you can learn how to learn faster, you could read three times faster, understand more from it, you know, remember something, in a fraction of time that normally takes people, you know, hours, then what can you apply it to? You can apply it towards money, right? You get, you know, that subject or skill, Mandarin, martial arts, music, management, you know, marketing. Everything gets so much easier when you can learn how to learn. Yeah. It's like the biggest advantage. So you've got this strategy, I think, related to memory specifically called Mom. Yes. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. So it's also interesting.
Starting point is 00:22:09 I wrote Limitless, you know, in like less than two months. Um, We donated proceeds to charity. We built schools in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya for girls who don't have access, girls and boys who don't have access to education. And then we provided health care because a lot of people were sick because they can go to school or clean water. Also, we donated to Alzheimer's research for women. Women are twice as like experienced Alzheimer's than men.
Starting point is 00:22:35 Wow. Twice as likely. I lost my, when I was going through my challenges, when I was seven, because my parents were always working. my grandmother raised me, and she passed when I was seven to Alzheimer's, so in memory of her. So I bring this up. I mean, everybody has kind of their origin story,
Starting point is 00:22:55 but my struggles became my strength, you know, that adversity can be an advantage, that what challenge comes change. Like, I don't know how one strong person that had an easy life. Exactly. You know, and entrepreneurship is not necessarily an easy path. I think it's extremely worthwhile. You do it right. And I'm a big fan of, I've been an entrepreneur my whole life.
Starting point is 00:23:15 I feel like, you know, be able to sell problems, be able to move the economy, be able to create jobs. And yeah, really, really, really good things. But when it comes to mom, I wrote it in Greece, most of it, that memory is the largest chapter in Limitless. Because I found out there was a goddess of memory, and she was the mom. A goddess of memory? There's a goddess of memory. And she's the mother, the mom, to the nine muses. of science, literature, and art.
Starting point is 00:23:43 So all of science, literature and art, their mother is the goddess of memory. So it's so fascinating. And then I got curious about, like, what did people, like I base our strategies based on the latest, you know, the neuroscience of how people learn and remember. And also I wanted to know, like, historically, what did ancient civilizations do?
Starting point is 00:24:02 Like, what did they do in ancient Greece to remember things before there was a printing press? Right? They had to remember things. Yeah. You know, and so, yeah, mom's very three principles to a quick recall, the M. Well, let's supply that towards names, right, in business. Let's say someone listening or watching, they have trouble remembering names, but we had a, like, a briefcase here or a suitcase of million dollars cash.
Starting point is 00:24:27 And I know you have an international audience, whatever, they quit, a lot of money, tax-free. If you just remember the name of the next stranger you meet, who's going to remember that person's name for a million dollars? Everyone. Everyone. Yeah. So as a memory coach, my job is to call people on their BS, their belief systems, right? It's not true. You can't remember a name.
Starting point is 00:24:48 It's the first M stands for motivation. Like a lot of people aren't feeling or presencing, like, how important it is to remember someone's name. So a simple hack is just like, you know, before you meet somebody, you even open up your mouth, you know you're going to talk to them soon. Just why do I want to remember this person's name? So it's like, why do I care? Yeah, it's like, and then come up with a couple of answers. Like maybe it's to show the person respect. Maybe it's to make a sale.
Starting point is 00:25:13 Maybe it's to get a referral. At the very least, maybe it's the thing that, you know, to practice what they learned on this podcast. You know, without a reason, you won't remember because reasons reap results. And so I just feel like if you don't feel it, you're not going to remember it, you know, because it's not relevant to you. Yeah. So that alone, I think is very important. The O and Mom is observation. A lot of people aren't forgetting the name.
Starting point is 00:25:36 They're just not even listening. You know what I mean? Like at events that you go to, sometimes you're with someone, but you know that? They're looking over your shoulder, you know, your shoulders to see who else is in the room. Or maybe we're guilty of talking to somebody. They're talking about what we're going to say. Or like for some reason, self-conscious about like your outfit or something. Something like that.
Starting point is 00:25:58 Yeah. Exactly. And so like, and so we're not even present. And so the art of memories, the art of attention, you know. And so I remember years ago, I remember years ago, I went to a charity event. It was like 2,000 people, and I get assigned to a table, so I go to my assigned table.
Starting point is 00:26:14 I'm the first one there. And then, you know, a few minutes later, Forrest Whitaker, the Oscar-winning actor sits next to me, and then Richard Branson sits down, and then Ashton Coutcher and his twin brother, which I didn't realize he had a twin brother. And then President Clinton sits right next to me. And I had met him a few years earlier,
Starting point is 00:26:34 and we had this brief conversation, but he sits down and he remember my name. Wow. But then I was like, I said the same thing. Wow. And then I was like, oh, of course he was told who he was sitting with, right? Sorry, he picks up the conversation that we started three years earlier. And nobody was privy to that conversation.
Starting point is 00:26:52 Wow. And I was like, you know, I'm the memory. I need to know how you're doing this. You know, I think genius leaves clues when somebody does something magical. There's a method behind the magic. And he's telling me this story about, you know, his grandfather in Arkansas in the living room telling stories to the kids. But after he would tell the stories,
Starting point is 00:27:10 he would do something very specific and different. He would go to each child and quiz them to see if they were paying attention. And it was more than that. But when he explained this to me, I felt this kind of ease and also unease where have you ever been with somebody and they're like talking,
Starting point is 00:27:29 you feel like you're the only person that exists? Yeah. They're like, they're so present. Yeah. And politics aside, you know, Most people would say Clinton, strong charisma, great communicator, you know, a great, you know, he's got an incredible memory. And I think this powerful presence that he has with people, his incredible memory, his powerful presence comes from being powerfully present. And it's not reserved, right, to just an elite few.
Starting point is 00:27:55 Anybody could train that. But we have to really just be with somebody, you know. And that makes you a good leader. Like, it's no wonder people want to follow him because he's. He built so much trust with the people around him by just recalling information about them. That's huge because it's also like, even if you do this mental experiment and write down, or if you can't write something down your notes, like picture the word listen in your mind. And if you do the little like brain scramble, like a little brain exercise and move the letters around,
Starting point is 00:28:25 it also spells another word perfectly. Silent. And I think that's the key. You know, a great book, Dr. Stephen. Covey, I mentioned a lot of books. Seven Habits Highly Effective People, you know, but one of the habits is seek first to understand then to be understood, but in order to understand, we have to be really present, you know, with the person. I love that. Yeah. I love that story about Bill Clinton. Okay, let's go back to that list. Let's see if you remembered that list, one through ten.
Starting point is 00:28:54 Yeah, and people could also check themselves also. Was it a pink flamingo? Yep. And then it was the Tesla key. Yep. Blueberry muffin. I call blueberries. This is insane. I call it brain berries, you know, without doubt. A golden microphone. Uh-huh. That's correct. And then you have your broken iPhone. And you have that big red, what do they call those, those women's shoe? The high heels. Yeah. Well, it was one high heel. Yeah. One, absolutely. There's one. And then there's a,
Starting point is 00:29:33 There was a big brain balloon. Was that brain balloon? Brain-shaped balloon, very close. Yeah. And the $100 bill. Correct. And then you have that really small little treadmill for the mouse. Yep.
Starting point is 00:29:50 And then you have your... Mini-treadmill, yeah. Yeah, and then you have your diamond notebook. Wow. Yeah. Wow. But this is the thing, and we could have done it for 20, 30, 300 words. Because once you know how to do something,
Starting point is 00:30:03 You can just do. It just takes more time, you know, in an episode. You know, just like if I pass a microphone in an audience and people share their names and memorizing their names, you know, 30, same thing you do for 10 names, you do for 100 names. It just takes more time because everyone has to introduce themselves and everything. What are you doing? Are you visualizing it? Yeah. And then like, once you understand your memory works, you could, you know, you can even, if, like, you know, we're here in Austin and I'm here pretty frequent, you know, if we see each other at a restaurant, of 30 days from now, let's say, you could say, Jim, do you still remember that list and also remember most of that list without even rehearsing it
Starting point is 00:30:39 once? Wow. You know, and then, or I'll do it backwards and go diamond notebook, mini, mini treadmill, you know, $100 bill, brain-shaped balloon, and, you know, the red high heel, that's really big in my mind.
Starting point is 00:30:55 But once you understand how it works, then you can work, and this is the kind of stuff, don't you wish this would have been so useful back in school? Yeah. You know, if you learn it in school, how easy it would remember the periodic table or whatever we had to remember history or anything. And, you know, but imagine applying something that for something that's random and not really that interesting to something that you are interested in. That's very relevant to your life.
Starting point is 00:31:17 You're going to remember it even easier because it, you know, has a point. Yeah, fam, I am a perfectionist. I always want to make sure that I'm putting out the best offer possible to the world. So when I launched my LinkedIn masterclass and mastermind, I poured my heart and soul into the content, and I knew that this was going to be transformative for all of my students. But I didn't know how to launch a website. I didn't know how to handle payments. I didn't know how to launch a payment plan, a subscription. I didn't know how to answer their questions in the middle of the night when they're trying to check out.
Starting point is 00:31:48 But I left at all to Shopify. Shopify makes it so easy for us entrepreneurs to launch our e-commerce storefront. They've got all these templates and AI tools. They make payment as easy as just one click. Shopify has been the best. business partner for me over the past five years because they're so innovative. They're always thinking of new features from how to make sure that your cart doesn't go abandoned to having things like chatbots and helping you implement chatbots on your store. So please stop reorganizing your
Starting point is 00:32:16 business plan for the 17th time. Build the storefront. Put the offer out there. All you need is the idea and Shopify can handle the rest. If you're serious about hearing your first start your free trial at Shopify.com slash profiting today. You heard that right? Start your free trial. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash profiting. That's Shopify.com slash profiting. Young improfitors, a few weeks ago, my main video editor put in his notice due to health concerns. Now, because it was
Starting point is 00:32:45 an emergency and I wish him well, I was in a pickle. He was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it. And so I was in full panic mode. The podcast still goes on. I still need promotional clips. I still have sponsors. I can't do this without a video editor. And so I was stressed, but I did what I always do. And we found
Starting point is 00:33:02 an amazing replacement who's just as good as my previous editor, if not more talented, and I do what I always do. I want to Indeed sponsor jobs to find my candidate. Indeed, sponsor jobs makes finding qualified candidates so much easier because sponsor jobs boost your job post in the search results, helping you reach candidates who match the skills, certifications, or location that you're looking for. And if you're hiring too, you can join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs.
Starting point is 00:33:30 Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all of your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show, Young and Profiting, will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help give your job the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and support a show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for indeed sponsored jobs.
Starting point is 00:34:07 Yeah, fam, I know we've all called customer support before, where we're on hold forever, we're getting passed from person to person, we're repeating ourselves over and over, and then somehow, after all that time, we get nothing done. That is not a way to run a business. 11 agents by 11 Labs is a voice AI agent that can actually listen, understand what your customer needs, look up information, process requests, and escalates issues when necessary. It works 24-7, responds quickly. and supports more than 30 languages.
Starting point is 00:34:34 What I love about 11 agents by 11 labs is that it goes beyond the typical chat or phone tree experience. Instead of just bouncing your customers around in circles, it actually helps them get real answers and move things forward. I use 11 labs for my podcast, so I know firsthand how natural and human their voice technology sounds. In fact, when I'm sick, we often use 11 labs to replicate my voice and you guys can't even tell the difference.
Starting point is 00:34:58 If you run a business with any kind of customer operations, support, sales, or onboarding, you can start with a demo at 11labs.I.O. slash profiting. See what 11 agents can do for your specific workflows. Guided rollout capacity is limited each quarter. So if you want to be one of the first companies with a customer experience that people actually talk about in a good way, now is the time. Try 11 agents by 11 labs at 11labs.i.o slash profiting. That's E-L-E-V-E-N-L-A-B-S dot I-O-S-Profiting. I remember in fourth grade, a Spanish teacher told us the countries and capitals of Central America and South America. Until this day, I can still say like Caracas, Venezuela, Bogota, Colombia,
Starting point is 00:35:42 Keitho, Ecuador, and I could just list them all off. But I couldn't tell you the capitals and states of America. Yeah, yeah. You know, because I didn't learn it in that way. So what are you exactly doing? Like, what are you doing to recall that? And I'm curious because I would love wherever you're consuming this, Maybe you could post a comments or something to see how well people did. Yeah. You know, like if people are willing to share, I could teach you 20 different ways to memorize that list. Okay. You know, and after a while, like, I can remember names without trying because once you know how to type, you know how to type, right?
Starting point is 00:36:17 Once you know how to drive a car, you know to drive a car, you know, maybe it takes a few weeks or 30 days. Once you know how to tire shoes, you know how to tire shoes, you know, memory is a skill, you know. And so once you know how to do it, you know, you could, you start to, and your confidence goes up and you can just do it more and more and you challenge yourself. But, you know, I could teach 20 different ways of remembering this list. One way that people wanted to is make a story out of it if they wanted to, right? Right. They could start with the pink flamingo, right? And then all of a sudden, pink flamingo is going into a Tesla car and forgot it.
Starting point is 00:36:50 They're key. So they can't be able to get through it. And out of the sunroof comes all these blueberry muffins. Like imagine putting all these blueberry muffins inside of a Tesla car, a car, which without a key, right? That would be kind of silly. And then all of a sudden, somebody in the shopping, in the parking lot is on a screaming on a golden microphone, right?
Starting point is 00:37:13 As an example. And then they realize that, you know, saying where's the key, whatever. And they realize like, here it is, but it's about a broken iPhone. right, really easy, like right in their back pocket on the thing. And even just doing that, and I'm just making this up, this is not what I did. But just as, and what it is, first of all, it's a great exercise in creativity. Yeah. Right. And entrepreneurs, I think need to be very creative because I think future belongs to creators. Second of all, when I mentioned there's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's a trained memory and untrained memory. This is training your memory, right? And so you tend, once you train your memory, you start remembering, you know, other things because you're training your routine. You're a your imagination, your storing information. And then you can work backwards from the story also as well. If you want to add, you know, the red high heel, you could put that into the story also as well.
Starting point is 00:38:03 And imagine that red high heel, you know, that's coming from the iPhone or whatever. Imagine on the broken iPhone, there's an image on there of that red high heel, but the screen is broken, right? And then imagine it comes out of the phone tied to, you know, a brain. shape balloon going up in this guy and you bribe somebody $100 to get that balloon for you. And so you're attaching $100 to it. And somebody wants to is going to go get that balloon. But maybe it's like a little mouse going on a little mini treadmill going towards it.
Starting point is 00:38:39 And I think if it makes you laugh, it makes it memorable, right? Because emotion helps, right? Yeah, emotion helps a lot. You know, and so that little mouse is on the treadmill. Now it obviously making a lot of attraction, you know, and then, you know, from there, he's taking some notes in his diamond notebook. And that's just one way, but there's certainly a lot of other ways.
Starting point is 00:39:02 And as I go through it and I just talking about it, some people will listen and not be able to do it because they just listen. But if they actually went through and imagined that little story and made up their own, which is even better if you make up your own, that would be something that's really simple to do. And then by the way, those 10 things
Starting point is 00:39:18 could have been cues or key words for a speech. you know as an example. Oh, that's really smart, like, so that you can remember your talking points. Yeah, like, imagine, like, you chose that pink flamingo because it represented a key idea. They say a picture's worth a thousand words in a talk or an art toast at a wedding or something like that. Yeah. You know, a certain feature. Then it gets, you know, or maybe you want to talk about, you know, something that embody around Tesla, around energy, you know, technology,
Starting point is 00:39:47 innovation, whatever it happens to be. and use that as your second point for your speech. Yeah. You know, and then maybe you're going there to, you know, a recipe or healthy eating or blue, you want to remember blueberries as a good brain food. Are you visualizing it in your brain? Or are you like, are you visualizing the words themselves
Starting point is 00:40:07 or like what the words represent? So people could do either one. Everybody's a little bit different. It's not how smart to ours. How are you smart? Everyone learns a little bit different. Some people can't visualize as well where they don't think they can.
Starting point is 00:40:18 And so those people could get more of a feeling for it and maybe hear the words or maybe in different tones or tonalities or voices. Same thing with remember someone's name. You want to meet somebody named Matt. You can imagine them using their tie. Imagine you're at a networking event or you're at a conference. You meet somebody. It's really fast. Someone says, hi, my name's Matt.
Starting point is 00:40:40 And you just imagine using their ties like a dormant. And it's so silly. You never do that. Yeah. But what it does is it over. comes what I call the six second syndrome. You know, somebody tells you their name, you have six seconds to do something with it. Otherwise, it's gone, right?
Starting point is 00:40:56 The handshake breaks. Name just falls right to the floor. This is giving you some mental glue to be able to store the information. And then, you know, later on, when you're saying goodbye, you see this person there, oh, I remember that tie, what was I doing? I was wiping my feet like a dormant. What's the person named Matt? And then this is a way, remember I said you, you encode, you store, you retrieve.
Starting point is 00:41:15 This is a way of encoding it in a way that's memorable. and it's stored right on the person because the tie is the reminder as an example. But once you know the person's name is Matt, then the picture disappears. It was a means to an end. Just to remember his name.
Starting point is 00:41:31 Because the opposite is what most people did to memorize those 10 words. They would go pink flamingo, Tesla key, blueberry muffin, golden microphone, and so on, repetition. The problem with repetition is it takes time. Like repeating someone's name 50 times
Starting point is 00:41:47 takes time. So are we just kind of creating a mini story around each word? Yeah, I mean, you think about how people remember things through history. Yeah. I mean, you think about the parables from the Bible. Like stories, you think about why we use stories in business, right? Because they're vivid, and people could see themselves inside this story. And we're, so they did, they did a study called the Baker Baker Paradox. You know, imagine we're in the studio and somebody walks in, did this with a focus group. Somebody walks in and say, hi, my name is Mr. Baker. And then someone that would leave,
Starting point is 00:42:23 somebody else would come in and say, hi, I am a baker. Right? Somebody else come in saying, hi, I'm Miss Taylor. Somebody else comes in, hi, my name is Miss Taylor. Right.
Starting point is 00:42:34 And so, and so, and then they did that repeatedly. And then all of a sudden, they said, okay, which ones do you remember more of the names? And do you think they remember the name or the occupier? occupation. Probably the occupation. Yeah. And part of it is because when somebody says they're a baker, you imagine them like cooking and stuff. There's a story. Yeah. Right. You probably know they wake up very early to be able to make, you know, make their bread. So there's a whole picture and image and it makes it more memorable than a word that's abstract. Does it help like if you're meeting somebody at a networking event like, okay, that's hollow the podcaster or that's, and like kind of just attaching something else to it? The more connections you make, like,
Starting point is 00:43:17 Some people will go instead of seeing Matt, you know, so like Mark, I use a marker, put a check mark right on their forehead, and I'll just always remember that. And it makes me laugh or smile, then, you know, people could say that's very, people could say it's very, you know, childlike, but, you know, who are the fastest learners? Like kids, they could learn musical instruments, languages, everything. And they make fun of names all the time. I mean, I know as a kid, my name was, you know, quick is my real name. It's not like a stage name.
Starting point is 00:43:43 I didn't change it. It's my father's name, my grandfather's name. But people made, you know, Nestle quick. they call me slow, but that's how kids learn, you naturally. So I'm not saying for David, I use a slingshot for David and Goliath, right, to the nose. Now, I'm not sharing this with David, right? Yeah, you don't want him to know. That's just what you're doing.
Starting point is 00:44:00 But some people could just, FDR would do this. He would walk around his office, President of FDR, and his strategy was he went picture, turning the name into a picture, like Carols, seeing Christmas Carols are married, getting married or something like that. And some names you come up something that sounds like, like have you ever forgot someone's name and you start going through the alphabet? Does it start with an A or B? And then you get it eventually, usually.
Starting point is 00:44:26 Or you get really nervous when you get to like W because there's not many letters after that. But imagine a letter could remind you of the name. Imagine something even that is like even stronger, you know, like Carol, Christmas Carol. Like that's going to have more retention for sure. But FDR would be very, very good with names. He could go around his office, remember everyone's name. And how he reportedly did it was instead of putting a picture like David, you know, like the statue or whatever, he would imagine them like the name right on their forehead.
Starting point is 00:44:59 You know, and you can almost, people could look at me right now at the camera and see Jim. Or they could say, wow, Jim has to go to the gym and lift weights or whatever happens to be. It just gives you more to remember than just, you know, a random word. Well, that was so impressive that you remembered that entire list. Like, I'm, like, shocked. I wasn't sure if you were going to be able to do it, but of course you are. But imagine to be able to do that for what you read. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:23 You know, like, this is, again, random words that don't mean anything, you know, important to me. But imagine it's something you're studying that you want to learn, that you are interested in. You know, then it's even more exciting because you could use that information or or names or anything else. I definitely want to get better at that. So what would be the best? best place, like we obviously can't go through every hack. Where can people learn from you,
Starting point is 00:45:46 like specifically about getting better at memory? Would it be limitless? Yeah, Limitless has the largest chapters, you know, in the books in 50 different languages. I'm sure people could find it somewhere or the audiobook. You know, we go in even deeper in it and like have a conversation at the end of every chapter, you know, in like podcast format. You know, and we have the largest online, we have the most popular memory program in the world. So people, it's not hard to find. You just search my name. You'll find it. And you have a new book, Limitless Daily, that's going to be out pretty soon.
Starting point is 00:46:16 I don't even have a copy. No, no. It is so amazing. I think here's like one of the most powerful, you know, brain hacks anybody could do. I love the science. So Limitless I wrote in a couple months, right? You know, it was my first book. I had 30 years of content.
Starting point is 00:46:33 It was just really easy. Limitless took me a full year. And I started writing as an entrepreneur, one of the things you need to do to be able to is to really manage your time, right? Manage your focus. And what uses up a lot of time and energy is switching from tasks, like multitasking.
Starting point is 00:46:54 Because we're not actually multitasking, we're task switching. And every time you think you're on Slack and then do social media, you jump to this and that, number one, we lose time. Because it could take anywhere five or ten minutes to regain your focus, you know, on the new task.
Starting point is 00:47:07 So we lose time. We're actually not gaining it. Second, we make more mistakes. I get to train some of the most amazing doctors worldwide. And do you know, like surgeons who try to multitask during operations will make more surgical errors, right? I mean, think about texting and driving, right? There's going to be more accidents. You can't do two cognitive activities well, you know, because you're switching tasks.
Starting point is 00:47:29 And then finally, you use a lot of energy, you know, when you're trying to multitask. You use a lot of blood glucose. So people struggle with brain fog or mental fatigue in the afternoon. check on that. But focus is your superpower. And the challenge is, is like, think about the words we use. Like, there's a financial part to focus. Like, you pay attention. Right. Like, what if tomorrow morning, all of you, entrepreneurs, every single time you put your focus to something, you had to take out your credit card or debit card or Apple Pay and you had to, you know, put it into Facebook every single time or Instagram or how, like, you would treat your focus different. Right. And so, you know, instead of like wasting that currency, that money, you know, you would invest it. And so how are you investing your focus? How are you saving and protecting your focus? You know, like you would do money. And so that that's one thing. But I think one of the biggest things people could do for an entrepreneur, it's not about time management because that's the only thing that's equal. Not everybody here. Everybody here watching, like we all have different incomes. We all have different networks and connections. We all have different levels of education. whatever, what's consistent, 24 hours in a day. It's not even about time management. It's about
Starting point is 00:48:44 mind management. It's about priority management. So the most important thing is to keep the most important thing, the most important thing. Everything I filter through, even in a world of AI, you know, as opportunities come or challenges or whatever, like for me, it's, this is my filter. If it's not a heck yes, then it's a heck no, right? So I'm like right now, there's nowhere else I'd rather be like because I'm right here because like it was a yes right and and so I could appreciate that so I'm fully present I'm not like or aren't somewhere else yeah the other thing is I filter like I think that if this isn't help me grow glow or flow I say no doesn't help me grow like grow my brand grow my business grow my personal development if it doesn't help me flow like be more effective
Starting point is 00:49:32 and if it does help me glow like maybe feel good then then I say no and I know like in the beginning, especially for entrepreneurs, right? You have to feed your business until it feeds you back. Yeah, you got to take, of course. Right. And if you want to, but I do really believe you want your business to grow or your banking to grow, then we need to grow, especially, you know, our learnings. And focus, focus to me is probably the number one underrated secret of being successful. And I meet a lot of younger people who are, or even older people who are struggling and like unable to kind of like take off on their career and like make something of themselves. And I actually believe it's because they never focused on one thing really hard for long enough.
Starting point is 00:50:14 And because also we live in a world of distractions. So people's focus, especially with short-form content and everything, and I'm not even judging that because we use that, right? And technology allows this to happen, all of this and be able to share our message and our impact at scale. it's so very important. But what I'm saying is like we could train our focus and you could train your focus like a muscle.
Starting point is 00:50:37 That's like you could train your memory to be present. And that shows up as an entrepreneur because the enemy there is a distraction. There's so many things, shiny objects for an entrepreneur. You know, it's a challenge. But here's the hack. If you want to win the day, you have to win the first few minutes a day. And what I mean by that and when we train your focus,
Starting point is 00:50:59 when you wake up, there's a process that you go through called sleep inertia. Sleep inertia is the transition between the sleeping state to the waking state. And there's certain things that come online. Your alertness comes online. Your conscious awareness, your attention comes online. And your working memory, which is like your short-term memory, is not even full yet because you haven't inputted anything in yet. That time is that short window for when you wake up, here's what you wake up.
Starting point is 00:51:28 here's what happens. The mental input that you bring in at that time has a disproportionate effect on the rest of the day. So what I mean by that is that first few handful of minutes, first thing in the morning, has a disproportionate effect on things like your mood for the day, what you're going to focus on the day. So the things that you look at first is going to determine like a large disproportionate influence on like what you're going to see and focus on. also how you frame situations. So we go through situations throughout the day, difficulties, demands, whatever,
Starting point is 00:52:04 and whether or not we're having more of an empowering framing on it, like this is a good thing or bad thing or a useful thing or look for an opportunity. A lot of it is preset first thing in that morning. Now, what do most people do first thing when they wake up? They grab their device. Yep, you're looking at their phone. And I just saw this Facebook reminder from over eight years ago.
Starting point is 00:52:24 Simon Seneca and I have a video as 30, 7 million views on Facebook. And it was just talking about the effect of our devices, especially first thing in the morning, if we're that impressionable. Because what happens that you pick up your phone and that window, which has a disproportionate effect on the rest of the day, what are you wiring your brain for?
Starting point is 00:52:44 Distraction, number one. Every light, share, comment, cat video, ring, ping, ding, app notification, whatever it is, is that dopamine flood, right, which you didn't have to earn, which is a whole conversation around motivation. and then you wonder why you can't focus later that day because the first thing you did was flexured distraction muscles.
Starting point is 00:53:01 But the second thing it wires your brain for, which is almost as dangerous to your productivity and your performance, peace of mind, even your profitability as a entrepreneur, you're training your brain not only to be distracted, but also be reactive. Like you ever pick up your phone first thing in the morning and you get a message and it hijack your mood?
Starting point is 00:53:18 Totally. Or it hijacks the hour. Yeah, exactly. And see, that's sleep inertia. they call it attentional, attentional priming, like your mood, that could last for you for hours. Like you have one voicemail message or an email from an angry client or a WhatsApp or Slack or whatever, and all of a sudden, that's your focus for the day.
Starting point is 00:53:37 And what is it doing? It's reactive. Like Brendan Burchard has this quote, you know, your inbox is nothing but a convenient organizational system for other people's agenda for your life. So you're fighting fires, right? All of a sudden. So how are you going to build an extraordinary day?
Starting point is 00:53:53 you know, which leads to weeks, months, years, you know, the life that you won. If you're on the defense. Yeah. Right, as opposed to proactively saying, these are the three things I need to win. So we, so the book you're mentioned is called Limitless Daily. I wrote one page a day, 366 entries.
Starting point is 00:54:13 And I wrote it for my two young kids for when they're adults. And it has one power idea, right, and the science behind it, because I like either the psychology or the neuroscience behind it. And it's written in a very inspiring, fun way. And then one implementation that they could do in less than one minute. And then it has a new identity statement of who you're becoming, right? All in one page.
Starting point is 00:54:37 And so the idea here is in that sleep inertia window, right, where you're intentional priming, you could read this book. And then all of a sudden you have a disproportionate advantage throughout the day. That's so good. And what I did was I would wake up and write. I would think about what am I facing today? And any of the themes that everyone could relate to, procrastination, maybe a lack of focus today, imposter syndrome, frustration, overload, too much opportunity,
Starting point is 00:55:05 whatever it happens to be. And I read on that and I researched the science behind it. I'd give them one tactic they could do. So in five minutes, first thing in the morning, it sets you up to win and be more limitless that day. So it's limitlessdaily.com is where people find out more information. So cool. I can't wait for that book. Oh, I can't. That's going to be so good. Attention is really the new IQ.
Starting point is 00:55:28 Attention is really what's going to differentiate people with all this technology and all this AI. It's really about focus and honing your focus. I was reflecting about that. Even with like, let's just take the example of me studying for a podcast and how that's evolved over the years, right? When I first started my podcast, I had more time. I didn't have two companies. And I would study 20 hours per guest. I would listen to. to all their books. I would listen to all their interviews. I would take a whole week and study them. There was no video. So it was audio only so I could have like lots of notes and like I'd prepare like crazy. Then like as I had a company like that had to change. And I had a team that would help me.
Starting point is 00:56:10 Now I use AI. And I upload transcripts. I upload PDF books. I have like an app that helps me. and I was going so crazy with the AI that like there was a period of time where like I'd come to the interview and I'd be like I just spent three hours using AI to prepare for this interview but I don't feel prepared. And it was just like really interesting and then I had to say, okay, what am I doing wrong? And now I've created a new process where I do this stuff with AI but then I put it in an app that I can listen to it. And I make sure that I'm, I do it before the interview so that in the morning of the interview for like, while I'm getting ready and stuff, I'm just listening to everything to actually absorb what I did.
Starting point is 00:56:57 Nice. You know? So that sort of helps, but I still feel like, how do I, like, I'd love to hear your opinion on collaborating with AI and how to make sure we're not outsourcing too much with AI. AI is interesting, right? AI scales and it amplifies, but it only scales and amplifies what we bring to it. Right. And so I feel like AI, there's a whole fear and concern around that AI will replace us. That's a different conversation. But if it's, I feel it will replace people who aren't using AI and also learning their own, you know, building our own human intelligence, right?
Starting point is 00:57:36 But I feel like it, the conversation is not so much will replace us, but I definitely will reveal us. Because if it's amplifying and scaling, what is it amplifying and scaling? If an entrepreneur brings chaos and confusion to AI, it's going to magnify and amplify chaos and confusion, right? As opposed to an entrepreneur is bringing clarity and discernment, it'll give them, it'll scale that also. Like, AI is no longer a competitive advantage because everybody has access to it. We all have access to it, right? Somebody could use AI to write a great social media post, wonderful. Somebody else could use AI to build the next billion dollar venture, you know.
Starting point is 00:58:10 And so it's the human intelligence that you're bringing to it that determines the performance and the ultimate result. It's like I get to work with a lot of athletes, the NFL, the NHL, the MLB, F1 drivers, right, with reaction time, thinking speed. Let's think about it, like a race car, a multi-million dollar piece of technology. It's a performance tool. That's AI. But it's the driver that determines its performance, right? Because everybody could have access. All of them have great cars. But it's a driver. It's there. So I feel like my work is, whether I teach focus, memory, flow, habit, brain optimization, sleep, whatever, accelerated learning, speed reading memory, all the stuff that we have on our online academy, it's meant to enhance human intelligence.
Starting point is 00:58:56 I really do believe human intelligence is more important than artificial intelligence, because, again, AI could do amazing computation, pattern recognition, right? But ultimately human beings, they decide what things mean out of data. they decide what to focus on on that data. They decide what to do with that data in terms of next steps. So it's the humans that are going to, like, it's like Iron Man's suit. It's like AI, but Tony Stark is just bringing a lot to it that he'll get bigger results. And so my focus, I feel like in a world of rapid change, accelerated technology and AI,
Starting point is 00:59:36 I just don't want the dependence, right? Everyone's heard about the MIT study where students who are writing, essays at college. They, you know, they broke them down to ABC groups. A, chat, GBT, they used, B, it was Google. They used Google and C, no technology. And when they tested them, and I'm summarizing this, you know, group A didn't remember anything. Just similar to the experience of podcasts, they didn't remember anything because they didn't have to work for it, right? And also, when they scan brains, like the ones that actually did the work, produced it, they remembered and also, not only that,
Starting point is 01:00:12 but more of their cognitive networks were just activated, right? And so I wrote about this in 2020 when the book came out, Limitless. I called it digital deduction. So digital dementia is a higher-relaunts and technology to remember things. Your to-do's, your calendar, your phone numbers. Like, nobody wants to remember 500 phone numbers. But it should be very concerning that we've lost a billion remember one phone number or a PIN number or passcode or something.
Starting point is 01:00:37 Have you ever read a page in a book at the end? Just forgot what you just read, right? That's the kind of things we want entrepreneurs to be better at. But digital deduction is the higher reliance technology to think for us. I mean, even think about GPS. Like there was a time when we need to use our visual spatial intelligence instead of using a piece of technology to tell us where and when to turn. Now we can't go anywhere without it.
Starting point is 01:00:58 Right. And so that's the dependence on it. So this is the thing. Your brain, like even my shirt says use it, right? Use it or lose it. So the idea here is your brain is like a muscle. It's an organ that acts like a muscle. You use it or lose it. But if you put your arm in a cast for a year, it wouldn't grow stronger.
Starting point is 01:01:13 It wouldn't even stay the same. Yeah. It would weaken and atrophy. Yeah. That's digital dimension, digital deduction. So the idea here is I'm all for using technology, you know, but if it's doing all the thinking, so, you know, let it think, but we should think too. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:01:28 Right? Let it help you to remember something, but you should still remember things also, you know. And so, you know, the problem is when we grab technology out of habit and without intention or without very, like, we give our minds prompts all the time. Like, I'm very efficient with AI because I've been giving my H.I. A lot of prompts, like, you know, with the training, you know, the questions that we ask. You know, like questions like, you know, I use this all the time. And AI is like, you know, explain this to me like I'm 10 years old, right?
Starting point is 01:01:58 That would be a way of summarizing difficult conversations with the podcast guest or summarize this book, certainly, right? Or also, you know, propose questions. Like, you know, give me five questions that this person's never been. asked for publicly, you know, about publicly, that my specific audience, you know, would really resonate with. Yeah. But it also could be something like, we could take all the principles and limitless, you know, memory palaces like and, you know, space review, you know, it could quiz you, right? It could every, you could schedule, it could go be linked to your calendar and just said, let's do space repetition. I want to really understand this master to this subject. So using AI to
Starting point is 01:02:34 actually make sure that you know the material, too. I do that too. Yeah. It's like, it's like, Literally, there's a chapter in limit list that says, you know, how to use AI to enhance your H-I, taking those principles and translating it to be able to, to be able to quiz you, to be able to get you to rapid review, to see what you know, to be able to, to say, like, hey, mind-map this subject for me, dot, dot, dot, take notes to be able to show this, you know. And then there's so many other things that you could do with it, and it's literally limitless. My thing is just in a world of artificial intelligence, you don't want human intelligence to become artificial and not valuable.
Starting point is 01:03:08 Right. And so I feel like there's certain human qualities that now more than ever, you know, like you can see like online with all the commencement speeches for graduation. Yep. And they mention AI and then like the people are really upset. And they're booing and like all of that. Yeah, there's a really big movement out there where people are really anti-AI. Yeah, it could be a scary because it's also people are losing their identity. Right. If if an AI could replace, I was just literally in a car where the the, the, the, the here in Austin, where the Uber driver was just complaining the entire time about these Waymos, they're going around, taking the jobs, and all this other stuff. But this is just the beginning of that. Yeah, it's going to happen.
Starting point is 01:03:50 And so I feel like AI is a tool that can magnify and multiply, but it only magnifies, multiplies, and amplifies what we bring to it. And so I feel like even more than ever is it important to work on our own intelligence and see what we bring to it. I totally agree. I mean, like, I feel like we've all. all been kind of like, like AI has just been sort of thrown at us and we've all had to experiment with it. I think it's good to kind of fail on your own with it like I did because you just like
Starting point is 01:04:17 learn the hard way. And then you're able to kind of guide also like your employees of how to use it better, something that I'm kind of going through right now. I've implemented AI. I have 60 people on my team. And so we did this whole AI training and everybody has this program that basically uses Claude and adjust their email and their Slack and everyone's like using AI really well. but at the same time, now everything I'm getting feels so AI generated. And I'm like, you guys need to still use your brains. Like, you know, this is not going to cut it. Like somebody of my team sent me a sales deck that I completely had to redo this weekend
Starting point is 01:04:54 because it just was so obvious. And like, she's so smart. And I'm like, this is not the advice that you would be giving. And like, this is way too AI. And she's like, well, it really wasn't. And I was like, it was like, because I can tell, right? So what kind of human intelligence, like, what are the characteristics that we should really focus on it? And we talked about attention and memory, which I think just being charismatic is going to help people in the future.
Starting point is 01:05:19 What else in terms of human intelligence, H.I. should we be concentrating on? So what makes us human in a world of AI? I think this is the conversation. I think we're living in the conversation of our time right now, is how do we become deeply human in a world of, in an, age of AI, right, where everything feels artificial or there's that AI slop that you're referencing, like this feels like AI, and people can detect it, right? I think where we can lean into a number of things. Curiosity, right? Curiosity sparks wonder. It asks better questions, not only of AI, but of ourselves also as well. I would say leadership is huge. Our ability to influence and impact people around us, to inspire them. I think that's critical.
Starting point is 01:06:08 That's a human quality. I would say, let's say, emotional intelligence, so very important because I think EQ is so important for interpersonal. Like EQ, leadership is maybe external. Emotional intelligence, self-reflection, right? Be able to look within, to be able to reflect instead of react and to have some kind of emotional regulation, you know, to be able to have, you know, that with others. adaptability, very, I think it's human beings, that's our superpower, ability to adapt. I think in a rapidly changing world, our ability to learn, unlearn, relearn, to be able to adapt, learn new skills, that everything is figureoutable is so very important, you know, also,
Starting point is 01:06:54 also as well. These are things that are, that I would love for people to lean into, into more. Yeah. You know, it's not always taught, you know, I mean, you could think about, you know, you can make, even make an acronym. You make a word like human, you know, H's heart for the emotional intelligence, you know, part. And you can kind of make like a whole thing. But it's just whether you use acronyms and mnemonics or like these stories, there are things that I feel that, again, that what's what we bring to the AI that would make. And just like it's always been like that with technology. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:07:26 Right. But my, my thing is not to be dependent on it, meaning that an elevator is a form of technology. If you, if your office is on the fourth floor, your apartment's on the fourth floor, yeah. elevator is very convenient, but then you don't get your steps in. Yeah. You know, if you take a lift to go to the bank eight blocks away, very convenient, it's form of technology, but then we don't get our steps in, right? And so I feel like every day we can make it, every moment we have a chance because we can make a new choice. And so I like the balance of using it, but don't let it use you and not let our own gifts kind of atrophy. I want to bring it back to something that you just
Starting point is 01:08:04 mentioned where you saw these commencement speeches and when people bringing up AI, they start to boo. I was actually pretty shocked because for the last like two years I've been talking about AI on the podcast and I'm kind of in this like entrepreneurship bubble where we embrace AI, we're excited about AI. We see the opportunity. And of course there's some bad things with the environment for sure that they need to figure out. But I saw so much social content where people were just like bad mouthing, Mal Robbins, who I love and Reese Withers, and all these folks for telling women to start using AI and kind of making people know that women are less likely to use AI and why women really need to lean into it so we don't get left
Starting point is 01:08:45 behind. And there were so much pushback from women who don't want to use AI and refuse to use it. And it just made me feel really sad because I just feel like all these people are going to be left behind because they think they're doing the righteous thing by not using AI. when in reality, I think that's going to really hurt them in the future. I personally feel that way. How do you feel about that? The environmental concerns are, you know, that is, I mean, that could be a whole podcast
Starting point is 01:09:14 on itself. So, you know, if we, to have the conversation, if we separated that, you know, or talk about it, technology has always been a tool like the internet, right? Like a smartphone. We can't put it back into the box, right? That genie is out of the bottle. So it's going to be here. It's a challenge.
Starting point is 01:09:34 like with anything that we use, you know, obviously it would be better if it was, you know, net, you know, net zero, you know, in terms of the impact that it, the imprinted as in the environment. So that, that aside, you know, I feel like, yeah, some people are, I mean, think about the unknown, right? The unknown in the mind, the nervous system wants to protect itself, right? and it doesn't want to waste a lot of energy. Anything that's new, like starting a business or talking to that person, you know, that fear that we have, that migdala kind of fight or flight response is to kind of protect us, right? It's to kind of keep things efficient, stable.
Starting point is 01:10:14 But people don't talk about in the entrepreneurial space is that change is scary, right? And it could be AI, right? It could be the environment. It could be politics, political change. You'd be market change in demand, supply, all these different things, you know, threats, competitive threats or whatever. Change can be scary. Growth can be hard.
Starting point is 01:10:35 It's hard to build two businesses, to do what you've done with the podcast for the last eight years. People don't see what goes on behind the scenes. But nothing is as scary and hard is being stuck somewhere you don't belong. And so I don't know who needs to hear this, but I think life is hard for one or two reasons. Either we leave our comfort zone.
Starting point is 01:10:54 We take our business next level. We ask for the investment, whatever happens to be, right? Or life's difficult because we stay in our comfort zone, then life gets very, very difficult. You know, an AI is very disruptive. You know, it changes people's, it's not even just a different of a workflow. It's also challenging and threatening people's identity,
Starting point is 01:11:15 like who they are, right? Like if somebody, as I'm using a random example, like if somebody's an artist, right, and AI's doing all this stuff, or someone's an attorney and you can have access to all the legal advice you need or a therapist or you name it. Like, it could be pretty threatening
Starting point is 01:11:32 when we spent our whole life preparing for, you know, to be this person. This is who we are. And if a machine could do that, you know, what does that make me? You know, much less our self-confidence and self-esteem or self-worth
Starting point is 01:11:45 in a world of being relevant. So that could be a friction for people adopting this. You know, also I also feel like, you know, I'm leaning into human intelligence, you know, regardless of what I've always done that, regardless of the technology, whether it's AI
Starting point is 01:11:59 or something else, you know, as it evolves, just because it's our agency. You know, like, I really do believe, even in the book, when people see it, it's purple. And by the way, I have 5,000 books and, like, there's no purple books. So from a mind standpoint, like, you know, I want to stand on shelves, but also when people, it would stand on people's minds. Also purple psychology, the words that always came up in color psychology, sovereignty, agency, like an entrepreneur. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:12:30 You're taking responsibility for the direction of their life and wisdom. So I think part of it is the unknown that people are threatened to. I think also not those unknown of what's happening outside, but their identity and self-perception is also trending. And certainly there are other concerns. You know, I go back to the environment for sure. So I think it's great that people get voiced their concerns, and we have dialogue about this, right, discourse about it.
Starting point is 01:12:59 This is what, and it's the challenging. Like, I also was surprised when people started sending me those commencement duties because the other thing is with this algorithm, I rarely see people that I follow on social media. I'm not on social media a whole lot. Yeah. But I rarely see the people I follow. I just see whatever I engage with. So we all are training that algorithm.
Starting point is 01:13:17 To show us what we want, yeah. Yeah, so there is an echo chamber there. So, like, in entrepreneurship, everyone's a pro-a-is, everyone's an AI expert and so on. And then, but, you know, a lot of people, that's not where most people are living, you know, certainly. But I'm sure people felt the same way about cars. They did. You know, and assembly lines, you know, and they will about, you know, self-driving cars and everything else. And we just got to adapt.
Starting point is 01:13:44 And that's the key. And that's the key. And that's what human beings, when they lean into it, that's why I think all learning is all adapt. your ability to adapt in new environments, to be able to learn, unlearn, relearn, new skills, new ideas, new systems makes us valuable today. And not everyone will do it, but that's the opportunity for people that do. So, you know, I look at AI like a lot of tools, you know, is using it.
Starting point is 01:14:13 I see it some more than artificial intelligence, augmented intelligence. It's a partner for us to use, and you can use it in, I mean, there are limitless ways to be able to use it. use it, you know, for, does. And it also levels the playing field. You know, I mean, I wish when I got started three or four years ago, there wasn't even the internet, you know, in mass. It's the easiest time to be an entrepreneur right now.
Starting point is 01:14:32 My goodness. Build your whole team with Claude. I remember building our first course program in 2006, 2007. Like, it was like, you know how much camera equipment and everything else I had to do? Oh, my goodness. A website was tens of thousands of dollars back then, you know. And so, yeah, it's exciting time. So I'm more of an optimist, you know, for things, but I'm also a realist.
Starting point is 01:14:55 You know, so we do the best we can with what we have, you know, and hopefully, you know, leave the world a better, brighter place. So I want to ask you one last question. This is around brain rot. So brain rot was the word of the year by Oxford in 2024. I was reading some stats. And millennials and Gen Z spend about five hours a day on their phone on average. just for entertainment purposes.
Starting point is 01:15:21 So not just screen time for school and work. For Gen Z, I think that's like eight hours, if it's just screen time. But five hours a day for entertainment. And that worries me because that's a lot of time. Like you can't focus or build something if you're spending five hours a day doom scrolling. And I just think it's a major problem.
Starting point is 01:15:44 I also think task switching is a major problem. I find myself even like, using two computers and like running an AI prompt and then doing something else, checking my AI prompt. And then I realized like this is probably not effective. Right. So just help us understand as we close out this interview, how can we retain our focus in this era of just so much distraction?
Starting point is 01:16:06 Yeah. What I'm going to say is going to be really simple. And I'm not even suggesting it's easy. But and take this with a grand of salt, whoever is listening to this. Like an entrepreneur or any individual, You can't be upset by the results you didn't get from the work you didn't do. And if you're spending eight hours, doom scrolling and rotting your brain and then have the
Starting point is 01:16:27 audacity to complain that, I went through this course or I listened to this, I have this mentor and a coach, and you're not doing it. Like, I think people need to work into the results speak for themselves. And I've gone through this path. We have a number of businesses, you know, and I advise some of the biggest ones. And I'm just saying every day we have a chance because we have a choice. It is still a choice. But if we repeatedly doomscrow
Starting point is 01:16:52 and we know we're doing it, then it is a choice. Right. And so I'm not saying, we've all watched Social Delimma and we know that there are billions of dollars being put into these platforms with the top neuroscientists, behavioral scientists that make this addictive.
Starting point is 01:17:08 Yeah. And we all have heard stories about a lot of these founders that they want to let their kids on these platforms. You know, and we know that if there's not a product there, then we are the product, that they're selling to advertisers. We all know this. And we advertise. So I probably stock a lot of you with our content and our courses. So it's a tool that could be used for, in our opinion, to be able to impact.
Starting point is 01:17:29 So brain rot's a real deal, right? If you're feeding, we just talked about your brain and how it's being wired by our devices. And you could scroll to infinity. And that's fine. Who am I to judge if somebody wants to do that and do that, that's your prerogative. But if there's a gap between where you are and where you want to be, you know, in your business or your bank account or the impact or income or influence, and we're spending a third of our day on those devices without any kind of results, then I would question how much you really want this.
Starting point is 01:17:59 And I feel I still go back to agency and responsibility. Years ago, I got to introduce two of my superheroes together. It was Richard Branson and Stanley, Stanley, like the late Stanley, who created all the Marvel characters. And they both mentioned each other. They wanted to meet each other. So we go to dinner, I'm in the car.
Starting point is 01:18:19 And I asked Stan, I was like, you created all these epic heroes. Who's your favorite? And he says, Jim, Iron Man. And then he said, Jim, who's your favorite? And he had, I posted this on social media. And in the back seat, he had a Spider-Man ties with a Spider-Man. And in his iconic voice, without a pause, he goes, with great power comes great responsibility, right?
Starting point is 01:18:37 And maybe because I hit my head too much, I tend to sometimes reverse what I read or see or hear. And I said, you're right. With great power comes with your responsibility, Stan. And the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great power. When we take responsibility for something, we have great power. So I don't think we have to be super hard on ourselves.
Starting point is 01:18:57 I think when we're compassionate, studies done in self-compassion, say, when you don't beat yourself up, when you're kind to yourself, you're more likely to make a positive change and follow through. So it's like you miss your workout. You don't beat yourself up. You say, hey, I'm human. I had a lot, kind of really hard day. And you're more likely to fall through as opposed to, like, you know,
Starting point is 01:19:13 be a critic for yourself. Same thing with doom scrolling, you know. And I would say, like, the first place to change is it has to start with awareness. You know, you look at your screen time on certain devices and you can't deny that. You know, and then you say, is this getting me the results that I want? Yeah. And if it's not, then you make a choice. And it's their choice, their responsibility.
Starting point is 01:19:36 They could either continue doing that. And that's fine. That's their choice. But if they're looking to create something that requires time, energy, talent, you know, I would think like, oh, how do I repurpose this into getting, what I want, and it's hard. I'm not saying it changes easy, but if it was easy, like, everyone would just have, like, these great businesses and everything. Part of it is changing your identity around it, correct? Because you are responsible to kind of... It is. It's a habit, right? And we don't rise to a
Starting point is 01:20:04 level of our goals. We fall to a level of our systems. I'll tell you, like, we don't rise to a level of our goals. We fall to a level of our standards that we have. Like, people said, like, I must make this amount of, like must, like, or loved ones, like, you know, in jeopardy if they don't, like, we will hit that standard. We fall to level our standards, our systems, and our self-image. Like, that's it. And we control all three of them, you know. And so I feel like I'd be working.
Starting point is 01:20:33 If it first you create your habits, then your habits create you. If you're spending eight hour, five to eight hours a day, habitually pick up your phone mindlessly, then you need to interrupt that. And the best way to do habit design, and we've had to have a habit design, and we've had James Clear and BJ Fogg and Charles Duhiggg, all the best on our podcast. Same. You know, like, it's environmental design. You can control your environment.
Starting point is 01:20:53 Like, and I'm not saying this is easy, but like, don't have your phone by your nightstand, put in your, in your bathroom. The first principle of environmental design is you want to make what's good for you easier and you want to make things that are not good for you harder. Like, you're not going to snack. If you don't have the junk food in your home, you're not going to, that you're changing your environment. It's not going to make it easy, right?
Starting point is 01:21:12 If you take the app and you're, to log in every single time into your, into your Zaps or reinstall it, it's not going to be easy, it's not going to be worth it. And that's how you change that. And then your identity changes once your behavior changes, because you create evidence that you are the person that you say you are. And I think that's so very important, you know, that you are, you don't see yourself as this a procrastinator or whatever it is. You see yourself as somebody who gets things done. And you create evidence, like real world evidence that, you know, validates that. But I would say, make a choice. Like there are only four choices you can make, right? Again, life is the letter
Starting point is 01:21:48 C between B and D. B is birth, he is death, life C choice. We always have that choice. That's a sum total of everything. And you're only four choices you can make to make your business better, your brain better, your body better, your life better. Stop something, start something, do less of something, do more of something. That's it. Because the fifth thing is do nothing, that's insane and expecting different results. So you stop, stop checking your phone first thing in the morning, start, a meditative process which trains your focus. So you're not going to be as addicted. You know, you can pull your focus back when you need to do less of something. Do less binge watching stuff or doom scrolling and do more movement, right? Like it's just, it's so simple. I'm not saying easy.
Starting point is 01:22:29 Yeah. But it is so simple. Like we know what to do. We're not doing what we know. And that common sense is not common practice. That's why these conversations are so important because who's talking about these kind of things, right? That gives people like some insights. and some inspiration to say, like, oh, I'm going to make a new choice today. And just if you're going this way, you take, like, every morning, for example, the reason why this book is so important, I think, in that special time was disproportionate time. That was one of my favorite things that we learned today. Yeah, like, because when you wake up, you're getting into an airplane, metaphorically,
Starting point is 01:22:58 and you're going through the day to a destination. Now, like, the first thing, like when you get in a plane, they set the course to go to the city. If you're off course just 1%, over time, over the length of that flood, or that 24 hours in that day, you could end up in a different city or a country, just a 1% shift. And sometimes when you get in that plane, maybe you're the passenger and there's turbulence.
Starting point is 01:23:22 What's the turbulence? It's distraction. It's your phone. It's energy vampires. It's other people's expectations, right, shakes it up. Or some people are allowing the plane to be hijacked and they're just taking that person
Starting point is 01:23:35 who's just directing your course to wherever they want it to go. You know, my work with this book is like, hey, let's walk to the cockpit together. You're sitting down. You are the pilot of your mind today, and we're going to set the course of where we're going to go. Like, for example, that window again,
Starting point is 01:23:52 that you get disproportionate amount of results for the rest of the day, but the mental input, same thing with physical input. If you woke up and the first thing you did was eat a bunch of junk food and donut and everything else, first thing you do. Glucose roller coaster. Yeah, and then that would disproportionately affect the rest of your day. Your focus, your mood, how you feel about situations,
Starting point is 01:24:10 because you're in that crummy mood. I mean, think about, like, the mental diet that you have first thing in the morning. You know, people wouldn't doubt it. So, like, why would you start your day with confusion and doom-scrolling and violence and leads at leads and, like, everything in comparison and all the other stuff? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:24:28 Right? But we choose to do that because we're letting the technology use us, and then we become the tool. And I don't know. And maybe I'm a little bit passionate about this because I see the effects on mental health, especially for younger generations. You know, they're scoring less an aptitude test academically also,
Starting point is 01:24:48 but mental health, you know, is surpassed, like, can't offer the biggest challenge that people are facing. I think a lot of people in, like, Gen Z, millennials, were, like, consumed with things like the wars going on, the Epstein files, the aliens now. that we're getting like bombarded with all this craziness that seems so important to know about that it's so hard to turn it off. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:25:16 And again, I'm not who, you know, I'm not any more important to people say that this is important or not. So people can decide what's important, you know, like for me, I think it's all that could be important and it is. But there's got to be some kind of stopgap in terms of where you can't possibly. Because you only have so much mental bandwidth. right? And then the result is this burnout, you know, this digital depression, this like all the brain rot and everything else like that. So it's interesting. There's this dichotomy
Starting point is 01:25:45 where, you know, sometimes you put limits to become more limitless. Just like as an entrepreneur, like or even writing this book, I had a deadline that I had to hit. So when there's a constraint of time or money or whatever, then you, what does it do? It forces human intelligence. It forces curiosity. It forces concentration. It forces commitment to be able to do that. So a limit makes you more limit less, go beyond what you normally do, because it's just going to fill the space. By two years to do it,
Starting point is 01:26:11 that would take two years, right? But I would say putting borders and boundaries around your mental health, your time, the things that you value, I think is, that would be my focus because I can't affect, if people choose to put their attention to things, I would just say as long as you're doing something about it.
Starting point is 01:26:29 Because otherwise, what are we doing? Then we're indulging and getting in the storyline, but if we're not doing something about it, then the net effect is nothing just because we could spend an anordinate amount of time spiraling in our own mental health and challenge. I'm not saying turn a blind eye,
Starting point is 01:26:44 but if you're going to do that, then you might as well get, do something with that energy and that knowledge. And it's challenging. For entrepreneurs, other people take approach, like I can't change the personal economy, but I can focus on my personal economy. I'm not going to change the healthcare system,
Starting point is 01:26:58 but I can focus on my family's health and wellness also and some people take that approach. But I think we make the choice, make the choices. And that's the, you know, it's the system of control because this technology could, it will eventually, you know, whether it controls us, but putting borders and boundaries and stop gaps, I think is important, especially around the things you value, your time, your energy, your emotions, you know, maybe there's some people in our lives that might not be nurturing to, you know, us and who we are at this point in time. But yeah, I think there's a lot of important
Starting point is 01:27:29 things that are going on. I'm not saying don't focus on them. I'm just saying, for what result But if you're going to do something with it, yeah, please. We need more people are going to do great things, you know, and help us in the situations that we're in. You know, but I know my energy, my time, for example, is funny. So I'm going to focus on what I could control and where I can impact the most, you know, for things. But it also doesn't mean, you know, I like to pay attention. I like to know what's going on. But also there's come a point where I can't pay attention to everything.
Starting point is 01:27:57 Yeah, you don't need to pay attention for five hours a day. Right. Yeah, I feel you. Yeah. Okay, so Jim, this was an awesome conversation. I feel like I could talk to you forever, but I'm going to end the show with two questions I ask all my guests. Okay.
Starting point is 01:28:11 The first one is doing something actionable today. So what is one actionable thing our young improfitors can do to be more profitable tomorrow? We did talk about first 15 minutes in the morning and like capitalizing on that. Is there anything else from this new Limitless Daily book? Okay, so let's go back to that. Even if you don't read Limitless Daily in that window first thing in the morning, which would be, which would be great, a gratitude practice would put you in that state, right?
Starting point is 01:28:37 People could list three things that they're most grateful for and come from that place because that'll set the tone for the rest of the day. They'll tend to see things that they're more grateful for, right? And which leads to more opportunities. I think if anyone wants to feel wealthy, just count all the things you have in your life that money can't buy, right? There's so many like things. Like we wouldn't trade, you know, maybe some of your senses
Starting point is 01:28:56 or whatever for amount of money. And that's a good place to come from, that we are already blessed if you're listening to this, and you're able to watch this. You're probably more abundant than 99% of the population. The other thing you could do
Starting point is 01:29:10 is like I do this thought experiment where I'll sit in bed and I'll imagine in those first few minutes, fast forward, I'll do this mental experiment where I'll travel through time and I'll imagine myself getting into bed that night and maybe somebody asked me or my wife asked me like,
Starting point is 01:29:24 how was your day? And I was like, today was amazing. Oh my God, da, da. And I asked myself, what had to happen in order for me? to feel that way. And I think of three things personally, three things professionally. And they don't have to be huge things. Three things personally, three things professionally. And those six things become my focus for the day. That becomes this, like, I'm getting on the plane. These are the
Starting point is 01:29:44 things I want to be able to hit. Because I'm not going to get through that 200 to do list, right? And none of them are relevant. So I think about things that are lead dominoes that if I did that, it makes everything else easier. You know, I think a lot of the treasure entrepreneurs seek is hidden in the work that they're avoiding. I don't know who needs to hear this, but that conversation you need to have or that step that you need to take, that commitment. But I would plan with the end in mind. So, you know, instead of being reactive and then touching your phone, do something with that for a few minutes. And as I mentioned the book, but do you, do a grad two process or think about your three most important things to achieve that day. And I wouldn't just be
Starting point is 01:30:26 thinking about the end result, I'd be thinking about, like, I don't even, when I do goal setting, I do something called future episodic remembering where my goal is so vivid. It's as if I'm remembering it happened, right? Like, I could imagine it as real as what I had for breakfast this morning, right? So there's, and that's one of the entries in the book, right? And so there's 366 of those in five minutes to just five extra day. But I would also, when you're thinking about that thing, like when you're thinking about goal setting, I would think about not so much, I think people make mistake of just obsessing about that goal and visualizing that goal that getting that award or having you seen that money in their bank out, whatever it is, I'd be obsessing and rehearsing
Starting point is 01:31:04 what it took to get you there. What are the habits where it's naturally going to happen? It's the daily differences that you make, not just the one thing. Because your mind, it's so crazy. Like so many people are rehearsing and reviewing through anxiety of the future or, you know, or worry of future or something that happened in the past, they're rehearsing failure in their mind. like what they're repeating over and over again what they don't want to happen. And regardless of the laws of attraction and quantum physics, forget about that.
Starting point is 01:31:33 We are literally wiring our minds to be able, whatever we do repetitively, we get better at. And so what I'd be thinking about, yes, you could acknowledge that this is the goal. I would be reviewing like the night before that morning of I'm writing, me going to my computer, opening it up and start typing. I would be repeating that.
Starting point is 01:31:52 So there's zero friction. for me to do it because I've just done it 100 times in my head. Right? Like I go on stages. I've been on 2,200 stages, quarter million people every single year as an introvert, but I practice in my mind like 200,000 times. Right.
Starting point is 01:32:12 And so I think we want to get really the other technique, the thing I would mention for people watching besides using that high leverage time window first thing in the morning to do something than touching your phone whatever, I would be doing mental rehearsal around the habits that will get you where it's going to happen naturally and effortlessly. It's like undeniable that this will happen if you did this, I'd be rehearsing that. Okay, my last question to you is, what is your secret to profiting in life? And because I've asked you this a few times, let's put it profiting in life this year.
Starting point is 01:32:45 When we talk about the treasures of our life, that some of them can be financial, you know, certainly. Not everyone measures it based on things and people sometimes get into depression of comparison online and, you know, I just want to remind people that the grass is greener where you water it. And online, there's a lot of, there's a lot of artificial turf. You know, there's a lot of filters being used. So it's not always what we see that we're comparing our lives, you know, to something, so or somebody else. In terms of profiting, in terms of my professional life, it's all about this book. You know, this book has the potential to reach a lot of people, even millions more.
Starting point is 01:33:27 This book, everyone was asking after a limitless, which is like dense, like how to learn. It's an Orders Manual for your brain, all the things that you'll learn how to remember things, that names and everything else like that, speed read everything in that book. People like, how do you break this down into something that's really simple? So that's why this limitless daily, right? I think books changed my life. When I was growing up, I couldn't read. I never finished a book cover to cover.
Starting point is 01:33:52 My teachers would have been surprised if I read a book, much less wrote books. But it's just a reminder that I don't know one strong person that had an easy life. A diversity can be an advantage for anyone struggling right now with business or something else. I would say that what lights me up, I can think of a lot of other ways of making money. I know enough people, but I choose this path because how I measure profit, But I was this whole idea as like a millionaire is help with someone who's helped a million people, you know, or billionaires, someone who'll be able to support a billion people, you know, and my goal for decades has been one billion brains, you know, no brain left behind. And I'm hoping this book is a big leverage point
Starting point is 01:34:33 for us to be able to call on, you know, quality media like this and share it with more people who are struggling right now. You know, whether it's in AI or their identity or imposter syndrome, I literally took the biggest issues that people face, and we polled our community also, which is sizable, and did an entry on each of these things, frustration, overload, procrastination, you know, why can't I get myself to do what I need to do? Focus overload, everything, and just did an entry. And it's fun. I think it's a wild ride.
Starting point is 01:35:04 Well, this was such a great way to end the interview, and I'm so excited for Limitless Daily. Like, I'm going to do it every day once I get a copy. We're going to do a whole 366 challenge, so it's great because everyone has a date and it has all this, so everyone's going to be on the same page. So we'll do lives around it. When does it come out? And it's coming out in September. Amazing. So we're so we're so pumped. So I appreciate the conversation. This was fun. It was. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. Oh, thank you everybody for watching. I challenge everybody to do one thing. Take a screenshot wherever you're consuming this right now. And tag us both so we get to see it. And share one thing that you're going to do based on this conversation. Just one thing. maybe you're going to stop something, start something, do less of something, or do more something. Because one of the best ways of learning anything, you can be public about it, certainly, it's for accountability, but it's to teach it to somebody else.
Starting point is 01:35:53 That way you put it out there, and then your fans, your followers, your family, your friends get to benefit also. So thanks for having me. Thank you, Jim. Thank you for joining us on Young Improfiting Podcast. Yeah, ma'am, I just loved having Jim Quick back on the show. And getting to sit down with him in person was truly the cherry on top. Jim has this rare ability to make you feel like your brain is capable of so much more than you've been asking of it.
Starting point is 01:36:19 And after this conversation, I genuinely believe that. What hit me the hardest today was something Jim said that I keep turning over in my mind. AI scales and amplifies, but only scales and amplifies what you bring to it. Think about that for a second. Every entrepreneur is racing to adapt AI, myself included. But what if we're bringing to it scattered thinking, poor focus, and a memory we've never trained? Then AI is just going to scale all of that chaos right back at us. The investment that actually matters the most is the one that you make in your own mind first.
Starting point is 01:36:53 And speaking of memory, Jim completely reframed how I think about it. Remembering somebody's name, recalling a detail from a past conversation, staying present when someone is speaking to you. These are not soft skills. These are trust-building tools. Jim told us about a commercial real estate deal worth $50 million that fell apart because somebody called a client by the wrong name twice. Twice!
Starting point is 01:37:16 That's the cost of untrained memory does in business. When you remember people, you make them feel valued, and people do business with those who make them feel that way. Finally, I loved Jim's point about the morning. That small window right after you wake up before you check your phone is when your brain is most open and impressionable. Jim calls it attentional priming. What you feed your mind in those first few minutes sets the tone for your mood,
Starting point is 01:37:39 your focus, and even how you handle challenges for the rest of the day. Most of us hand that window straight to our notifications, straight to the algorithm, without thinking twice. Reclaiming that time might be the simplest performance upgrade available to any entrepreneur right now. So what are you going to do in those first 15 minutes that you wake up? Your brain is not broken. It's just waiting for you to train it. Now, Jim has a new book coming out called Limitless Daily.
Starting point is 01:38:04 It comes out in September. You can pre-order it right now. It is built for exactly that morning. window that we talked about. The one powerful idea per day to train your focus, sharpen your memory, and set yourself up to win. Go pre-order it right now and start treating your mind like the asset it actually is. If you're watching on YouTube, we are pushing hard towards 100K subscribers. So please go subscribe to our YouTube channel right now. It's called Young Improfiting. Go to this video, drop a comment. Tell us one thing you're going to do differently for your
Starting point is 01:38:34 brain starting tomorrow. And if you want to take it to the next level, if you really love me and you support the show. You're going to go to that YouTube channel, take a screenshot of one part in this video that you love. Tell us what you learned. Share it in your story. Share it on Instagram, LinkedIn, wherever you want to post. And we will repost it. We'll share. We'll comment. And I'd love to hear from you. We're also on Spotify video. So check us out there. If you like watching your podcasts. And you can find us on all the major podcast platforms. Of course. As always, huge thank you to all of our listeners that tune in each and every week, the ones that drop those five-star reviews on Apple Podcasts and ratings on Spotify.
Starting point is 01:39:11 You can also find me on Instagram at Yap With Hala on LinkedIn. Search for my name. It's Hala Taha. This is your host, Halataha, aka the podcast Princess, signing off.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.