The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett: E259: The Brain Coach To The World's Top Leaders & Billionaires! 10 Steps To Never Forget Anything Ever Again!: Jim Kwik

I've just gone through life telling myself that I just have a bad memory.

We could turn this into a little master class.

Go ahead.

So the three keys to a better memory are

Jim Quick in the house.

They globally recognize leader and memory improvement.

Training your brain to work better.

If you want to learn faster, you want to retain that information,

you are in for an absolute treat.

Google, Virgin, Nike.

Why are they coming to you?

They're struggling with distraction, memory loss.

It's affecting their performance, their productivity.

Our mind controls all the treasures of our life.

Yet it's not user-friendly.

The reason I'm so passionate about it is because

I grew up with a broken brain.

I was five years old and I had a traumatic brain injury.

I didn't understand things like everybody else.

I was being teased pretty bad.

A teacher pointed to me and said,

leave this kid alone.

That's the boy with the broken brain.

That was the darkest time of my life.

And in that moment, I learned my mission

to build better, brighter brains.

Memory retention is getting worse and worse.

We live in an age where the amount of information is doubling at dizzying speed.

The higher reliance of technology to store information

that you would normally have to store in your brain

means that not everybody is exercising those parts, keep our memory sharp.

The other dip in cognitive performance,

often when people retire, they mentally retire.

The body is not too far behind.

There's a study done on these nuns.

They're living 90 and above.

And because they were learning all the time,

it added years to their life.

It surprises a lot of people because they have this thinking

that their intelligence is fixed.

The truth is, there's no such thing as a good or bad memory.

There's a train memory and there's an untrained memory.

I'm going to give everybody right now the 10 keys,

and this is how real transformation happens.

The boy with the broken brain.

That's what his teachers called him,

after Jim had a tragic accident at a young age

that left him with a permanent brain injury.

And he believed it.

He lived it.

He embodied that identity.

He believed he was broken.

And then, because of a chance experience

which we can all choose to have right now,

that limiting belief was unlocked.

And he realized that the stories we tell ourselves

about ourselves, about who we are

and what we're capable of achieving

and what we're capable of doing

are exactly that.

Stories.

I've spent decades telling myself that I have a bad memory.

So much so that at 30 years old,

it's just part of my identity.

And after this conversation, I realized that I'm wrong.

If a man like Jim, the boy with the broken brain,

can go from that,

poor memory, low potential, self-doubt,

to being a memory expert and becoming limitless,

then that says something about who any of us can become.

If you want to learn faster,

if you want to become more persuasive,

better in business, work, creativity, podcasting,

whatever it is you do,

then knowing how to retain important information

might just be the key to becoming limitless

that you've been looking for.

Google, Nike, SpaceX,

they all use Jim to improve their team's memory

and brain power.

And today, he'll be coaching you for free.

Jim, before we started recording,

you used a curious word.

You said mission.

Yeah.

What is your mission?

What is the mission you're on?

And why is that mission important to you,

but also to the world?

Our team is small in people,

but we're big in purpose.

Our mission is to build better, brighter brains.

No brain left behind.

I feel like we live in the millennium of the mind

where our mind controls so much

in our lives, our relationships, our health,

our careers, our schooling.

And yet our mind,

it doesn't come with an owner's manual,

and it's not user-friendly.

Yet it's our number one wealth-building asset,

like nobody listening is paid.

It's not like it was 100 years ago

where it's your brute strength.

Today, it's your brain strength.

It's not like it's your muscle power.

Today, it's your mind power.

And I do believe the faster you learn,

the faster you can earn.

Because knowledge today is not only power,

knowledge is profit.

And I don't just mean financial.

That's kind of obvious.

But it's all the treasures of our life.

And the reason I'm so passionate about it

is I grew up with a traumatic brain injury

when I was a child.

And just things didn't work for me

like everybody else.

And through those struggles,

I developed some strengths over the years.

And I always thought it was interesting

that there's no class on focus,

on concentration,

on recall.

And so I put the schoolwork aside

because I wasn't getting any gains there anyway.

And I started really focusing on this

learning how to learn.

And so I put my focus in those areas,

started studying a little bit about adult learning theory.

I got introduced to mnemonics,

which is memory techniques,

speed reading, the art and science of reading

for better comprehension and understanding.

And about two months into it,

a light switch flipped on.

And I just started to understand things in school

for the first time.

And it was so pronounced that

I felt two emotions.

I felt like this is awesome.

Because with my grades improving,

my life improved.

And it started to affect my identity

and how I saw myself and how other people saw me.

But the other emotion I felt, if I'm honest,

was anger.

I was so upset

that I spent my entire childhood

struggling every single day,

unsure about myself,

doubting myself.

And there were simple things that

I could have learned that would have made my life

a lot easier.

And I realized then in school

that it's not how smart you are,

it's how are you smart.

It's not how smart you are,

how smart your significant other is,

your kids are, your teammates.

It's how are they smart.

And I do believe that

we have this, if knowledge is power,

then learning is our superpower.

It's the superpower we all have.

And so from there,

I couldn't help but help other people.

And I'm kind of agnostic how it happens,

whether it's our books or podcasts

or YouTube or courses.

But I wouldn't have a positive impact

as it relates to memory.

I think I've just gone through life

telling myself that I just have a bad memory.

I'm the type of person that forgets names

instantaneously.

And I've just come to believe

that that's just me.

And I've almost resigned

to that.

I'll be honest, I don't think I really try that hard anymore.

Because I just think my type of brain

is the type of brain

that can't retain

most information,

if I don't consider it to be important information.

Am I bullshitting myself?

You are. It's complete BS.

Belief systems.

If you want to give it a label.

BS, belief systems.

I believe our brains are this incredible supercomputer

and our self-talk, our thoughts, our beliefs

are the program that will run.

So if you tell yourself I'm not good at

remembering people's name,

you will not remember the name the next person you meet

because you programmed your supercomputer not to.

And it's more than anecdotal.

I believe people at events

will see me do these demonstrations.

They're surprised to hear that I grew up with learning difficulties

and put in special education.

But before I go on stage,

people invariably in the lobby

pull me aside and they whisper to me

when no one's listening.

Jim, I'm so glad you're here. I have a horrible memory.

I'm getting way too old.

I'm not smart enough.

And I always say stop. If you fight for your limitations

you get to keep them.

If you fight for your limits, they're yours.

If people truly understood how powerful their mind is,

they wouldn't say or think something

they didn't want to be true.

And that's not to say you have

one negative thought that ruins your life

any more than eating that one donut

will ruin your life. But if you ate those donuts

every single day, consistency

will compound.

And it will change the direction

or the destination.

I have to zoom in there.

So four years old.

Were you four years old when you had a brain injury?

Yeah, I was five years old in public school.

Elementary school.

I was a kindergarten here in the States.

Had an accident where I lost my balance

and I went head first into the radiator

separating the window and me.

There's a lot of blood

and I was rushed to the hospital

where it really showed up though

whereas my parents said

where I was very, as a child

very energized, like most kids

very playful, very curious, very excited.

I became very shut down.

I had processing issues, they said.

I didn't understand things like everybody else.

Teachers would repeat themselves over and over again.

And later on

when I was nine years old

I remember I was being teased pretty bad

for slowing down the class.

And

a teacher came to my defense

but she pointed to me from the whole class

and said leave this kid alone.

That's the boy with the broken brain.

And that really became my identity.

You know, she was sincere

like she was trying to help

but that's all I remembered

was like oh I didn't know

I had the broken brain.

And so that became my explanatory schema

for everything.

Every single time I did badly in school

which was daily.

I did badly on a test or a report

or I would say I have the broken brain

or if I wasn't picked for sports

which was all the time I was this little kid

I would say oh because I have the broken brain

and that label became my limit.

I do believe

that we have to be solely responsible

for our lives

so I don't want to

say that I was a victim

but we are shaped by our environment

by our experiences

by our external

and that was something

that I really struggled with.

You started the

quick learning

in 2001 when you were 28 years old

and if you think about the clients you have there

from Google, Virgin, Nike

etc. they clients of yours

at the very heart of it

the core of it

why? Why are they coming to you?

What is the benefit? The why as you call it

that people are seeking.

I think people tend to come

to us because

they are they're struggling

with distraction

with memory loss

with overload

right and anxiety

from information anxiety

they're drowning information

I think people who come to me realize

that their ability to learn

and translate that learning into action

is

an incredible competitive advantage

in a world where

there's lots of distraction

there's lots of overload

there's lots of technology that would make our life

easier but it also

in some ways while it's convenient

could also cripple

us in a way that we're not using

our mental faculties

just like

my shirt here says use it

it's like our body

if I put my arm in a sling for a year

it wouldn't grow stronger

it wouldn't even say the same, it would atrophy

and the high reliance on technology

like using your phone

as an external memory storage

they call it digital dementia

it's a new term in healthcare

digital dementia is the high reliance of technology

it's information that you would normally have to store

in your brain

but now that you don't have to do it

not everybody is exercising those parts

of our brain to keep our memory sharp

is there science that shows

we have to exercise our brain?

you know the two biggest

two dips, cognitively

in terms of cognitive performance in people's life cycle

usually happens when

people graduate school

because somehow they associate education

along with learning

the traditional education is over

so they're learning, they're not learning

and that can be an unconscious belief

but the other dip in cognitive performance

is usually when people retire

often when people retire

out of their career, their job

sometimes they mentally retire

and it's interesting that once

the mind kind of retires

the body is not too far behind

there is a study done

on these nuns

it was a longevity study

engaging with grace

great title

they were living 80, 90 and above

and they wanted to find out

what was the cause of their longevity

and they said half of it was their emotional faith

or gratitude, the other half

they were lifelong learners

and because they were learning all the time

on the daily

it added years to their life

but also life to their years

it made the cover of a time magazine

but I do really do believe

we have to keep our minds active

as much as we have to keep our bodies active

there's a lot of talk

and there is a narrative

that says when people

retire

they die

there's like a long held thing

where there seems to be a startling correlation

between when someone retires

and then passing away soon after

there's also quite an interesting correlation

between elderly couples

and when one of them passes away

often passes away suspiciously

soon after

do you think that's linked to what you're saying

that cognitive stimulation

is central to our

physiological longevity

yeah, I mean this study

aging with grace

would be evidence that you want to keep your mind

active

till the day you die

at every age or stage

that you could actually stave off brain aging challenges

much like

the biography of the mind if you will

just like you would keep your body active

I think most people would have the same understanding

if they stop moving their body

over at the retirement years

then it would lead to

probably unfavorable

results

what's the evolutionary reason for that

could you have a hypothesis as to why

from an evolutionary perspective

the body would decide to

everyone, we talk about a mind-body connection

we hear that a lot

so the primary reason

you have a brain

is to control your movement

that's the number one reason mammals have brains

is to control movement

and it's not just a one-way connection

that it's

that as

yes, your brain controls your movement

but actually moving actually stimulates

different parts of your brain

I know that one very well

before I do this podcast I do exercise

yes, very much so

and even development

we had our first born

recently a few months ago

so crawling as you look at the study

of brain development

that cross-lateral is very important

even we do that in our

events when we do our

our brain conferences and such

we get everybody standing up and doing these

this area

is called educational kinesiology

popularized by brain gym

where you take one

knee as you're standing and lift it

and touch it with the opposite hand

and you go back and forth

things that are crossing the midline

forces left and right brain communication

so you have a left brain and your right brain

and separated by that

is a bridging station called the corpus callosum

and by doing these exercises

it increases communication

between left and right brain

and this is an over simplification

left brain is

if someone's left brain they're said to

be more logical

how do we know if someone's left brain

left brain or right brain

we have a couple of assessments

in limitless but you can find it online

free assessments for brain dominance

left and right brain

in there we have multiple intelligence

theory a study out of

research out of harvard university

by howard gardener

says that there's not

in the US

in a lot of westernized societies

they tend to emphasize

two kinds of intelligences

verbal linguistic

and mathematical

here in the states we have the SATs

it's just verbal

reading comprehension and mathematical

harvard gardener says

they're actually not limited to two intelligences

and so they're more

and each one can be developed

and so for example

kinesthetic intelligence

great choreographers

dancers athletes

interpersonal intelligence

people who have this innate

talent that could relate

to people and connect

visual spatial intelligence

people who are incredible graphic artists

architects right

musical intelligence it just goes on

so there are these other assessments

and I really the reason why we put

so many of this in limitless and in our podcast

and we created our own assessment

recently this year we haven't talked

about it we're just launching it now

called cognitive types

and these are I use animals as a

metaphor because I think so much

of us for happiness for me

has always been

having the curiosity to know yourself

right that's why you go to

therapy or you turn or you meditate

or you you know you read about

that inter interpersonal intelligence

self to self as opposed to

interpersonal self to others

but once you have the curiosity to know yourself

having the courage

to be yourself is a different game too

because so many people have mitigated

you know like their expression of who they are

because of looking bad

or how people would perceive them and so on

but this cognitive type

I don't go back to the answer to your question

we found in delineated

I pulled from you know Myers Briggs

and multiple intelligence theory

introvert extrovert ambivert

lateral thinking styles

to realize there are about four buckets

of cognitive types and I

used animals to as a metaphor

to represent them so there's four

cognitive types

and it what's the acronym

sorry code C O D

C O D so what does the C stand for

so very briefly the C

and as you're listening this you could

see which one kind of hand raised for yourself

even take a snapshot of this

and post you know which one you think you are

or we have an assessment online also as well

that's free the C is cheetah

and these are your intuitives

and you might know

you might have someone on your team or a family member

they're cheetahs they're fast acting

they're just always moving

they thrive

in fast paced environments

Sophie I reckon that's my assistant Sophie

maybe me as well Jack what do you think

do you think I'm a cheetah

fast acting thrive in fast paced environments

does that sound like me

you think so okay

and the O is the owl

and you might know people the owl

is often linked to logic

critical thinking

they love data

facts formulas figures

right they lean into that information

sounds like Grace Miller on our team

Charles we have a data

scientist in our team as well

very nice yeah Michael as well

yeah okay lean into information so that's the owl

okay the D

is are your dolphins

and your dolphins are your creative visionaries

these people

love problem solving

they love to be creative expression

great at pattern recognition

right they see

patterns that maybe other people don't see

as easily or naturally

dolphins are they the creatives amongst us

yes and I think a lot of

the future belongs to the creatives

you know the creators if you will

you're thinking about AI aren't you

yeah that's an interesting conversation also as well

and finally the E

are your elephants and your elephants

I chose them because

I use them as a representative

symbol for like

empathy

they love collaboration

tribes right working

team environment so we created

these models because you know

yourself right even even in the matrix

when when he's going to see the oracle

and the sign right above in the kitchen

was and you know thyself

and then we could be ourselves but the more

you know about yourself and then you have

a way of filtering the world and then

not being judgmental of yourself

or even others it's just how people are

organized you know some people are just right handed

or they're left handed right they have certain preferences

and so these are it

could help you inform you based on

like yourself

if you're if you know

like you thrive in certain environments

and then we give you know in the report

careers that you excel in

and this is kind of obvious right if somebody

is creative certain career paths

what if you're a couple of these things yeah

so we have when you go through it there's a

primary and there's a secondary

you know and so these are usually

very very few people because we have all the

back end stats we've you know is

is completely even 25

percent and so on but we usually

have a place where if I ask everybody

to write their name on a piece of paper

you could do that but if I ask you to switch

hands and

below it write your first and last name

below that that second

time is going to feel

is going to take longer it's

going to feel awkward and

the quality is probably not going to be

as good as the first one

and have you ever been in a situation

where you're learning something and it's a subject

you're you're interested in but for some

reason you're just not getting it

because you're just not connecting

with the instructor

it's kind of like the way that they prefer

to teach is different than the way

you prefer to learn and it's like your two

ships in a night and you're passing each other

and there's no there's no connection

that's there and so it feels like

you're learning with the opposite hand so what happens

it takes longer the quality

is not as good and it feels a little weird

and uncomfortable so I feel like

it when you know what your strengths are

you could lean into it and then further

further refine it and we get people

suggestions if they want to improve

areas that they're not as strong and

to be able to boost that but this is

weighted right because you named a couple of those

there and I thought you know I'm probably a cheetah

I've got a little bit of an elephant

in me as well no pun intended

and you know I like to think

I can be a dolphin once in a while so

yeah we can express each other

in different contexts as well

you know and it's nice to

have a level of cognitive

flexibility you know

and because that increases your learning agility

it's one of the things that we teach

in limitless is

a six thinking hats

it's created by Edward de Bono

and it's this idea that if

you are facing a decision

or a difficulty or a dilemma

in your life one of the reasons

why we can't always

think our way out of something is because

we see something from a set

point of view

and what six thinking hats does

it gives you permission to step

out of yourself and try on another lens

meaning imagine this table here has

six color hats

right and I want everybody to think

about who's listening or watching this right now

a decision you need to make or difficulty

doesn't have to be like life and death

but it's just something that

where to live I'm thinking about that

perfect where to live and then you have these hats

so the first hat is

the white hat I'm in no specific order

so imagine you're reaching out

and you're putting on the white hat

right and the white hat

and I'll give you a mnemonic because I'm the memory guy

to help you remember what each one symbolizes

the white hat imagine a white

scientist lab coat like a white lab coat

that's data

that's information

that's facts right so now you can only look

at the situation or this

decision tree through the act through the eyes

of logic okay so

right I'm doing that now so me and my partner

actually looking for someone to live at the moment and we're

we've been looking it was really about which area

to live in in London or maybe we'll live

in Portugal or maybe Dubai so we're kind of trying to figure that out

okay so I've got my white

hat on and my lab coat

and I can only think about logic

so price

I'm thinking about is it a good time

to buy what's the graph

saying I'm thinking

about renting versus buying

commute and travel and amenities that are

that would be all the factual

and then so you could take off

the white hat and now

look for the red hat

so you grab the red hat you put it on

and the red hat

symbolize heart is emotions

so this is where you're

going more with your gut your feeling

you're putting logic aside

and just like what what feels right for you

her family lives in Portugal so

that's the first thing that came to mind when you said about feelings

being close to family

yeah absolutely and this is good I hope everyone's

doing this also so you take off the red hat

and you could put on let's say

the black hat

and the black hat think about

judges robe

and the judges robe this is where

you get a little bit you could be judgmental

you could look at the

the risk or the

the devil's advocate you could look at the

the other side

in terms of what could go wrong

living there

the places we're considering we've never lived

in before so what if we buy a place

and then we immediately don't like it

maybe we should stay where we are and not buy anywhere

maybe the housing market will collapse

and there'll be such a bad

investment that we'll regret it

so you're shining a spotlight so the

idea here is that the information is out there

but where are we choosing to put a spotlight

and acknowledge and be aware of

so you could take off the black hat and we're doing this

abbreviated right and then

look for let the yellow hat

you put on the yellow hat and the yellow is like the sun

and that's like optimism

and this is like all the things

opposite of the black hat

what could go wrong what could go right

like the upside

and even all those things are just named

we'll figure it out

if we live there we can always move somewhere else

and we'll make it work

and

it buys lovely it's hot

so is Portugal

nice and those are four hats

and the last two

take off the yellow hat and find the green hat

and so you put on the green hat

and the green is possibility

it's like new growth if you look at

plants that are green imagine new

foliage new growth and these are

like maybe thinking outside the box

like maybe it's not I go to

you know I go to this job

or this job maybe it's I go back to school

or maybe it's something I'm not entertaining

so that's possibility

so that would be

in the context of me moving house what is that

that's the possibility of

so if it was like between this

and this it could be like

choice three or choice four

a third option so maybe we'll try America

or we'll try another place to live in the world

or

maybe we'll just Airbnb

in all these places and we can live in all of them

yeah okay so that would be green

and then finally the last hat

so it could be done in any order

but the blue hat is always you end with

so put on the blue hat and the blue

imagine this guy overlooking

everything it's kind of like

the manager hat it listens

to all the conversations

with all the other color hats

and then it helps you make a decision

because it informs

because here's the thing you can only make decisions based on

what's in your conscious awareness

and so many people live with a certain hat on

like 24 seven

they are just that logical

facts prove it to me

and they see through a certain lens

but if they're not you know looking at the emotional

context or other possibilities

or with the downside of

you know

Branson's very good at that right

he's very good at looking at

everyone looks at him as very very risk you know

like do all these crazy things

but he's you know you have conversations with him

he looks at like from the black hat

look in terms of risk management

right and mitigating the downside

and so like but if you just looked at everything

through the yellow hat investing

optimistic you think everything's gonna

Bitcoin everything's gonna be good

and you go on that and you're ignoring

the view and so this allows you to have more

information

so hopefully with that more information

you can make a more

a wiser choice with something and that's kind of

you know literally recommend people

in chapter 15 of this book to

buy multi-colored hats

if you wanted to be able to do that

we could do this we do this with our team

where we'll go through with our team

and say either one of two things

as a team building exercise or like we're facing

this you know initiative

we're launching a new book or we're doing this whatever

like a social media challenge

or whatever and we'll have people

like everyone put on the same color hat

metaphorically like literally

physically go like this and put it in as

if you know so you get your body into it also

and we're all looking at it through the same point of view

or we'll assign

different hats for different people and we'll have

this big kind of you know

court case and conversation

and that the rule is you have to talk

as if you're from that you know point

of view and that allows us to get outside of ourselves

it's similar to

innovation where there's a

there's a book called the structure of scientific

revolution not not really

fun read but the essence

of it is a lot of innovation

and progress

comes from people outside

of that industry because it takes somebody

from the outside to have a different lens

or hat that didn't

have the same learned helplessness and taught

the same limitations of how things should

have been done so maybe an elon outside

saying well if we're going to make a car today

with today's technology

how would we go about doing that

instead of doing just incremental improvements

on you know what they have existing

right and I think you ask a new

question and you get a new answer

and part of these

you know 60,000 thoughts we have a lot of them are in form of

questions but are those questions getting us

shining a light we have something called a

reticular activating system

which we talk about a lot that the brain primarily

is a deletion device deletion

deletion we're trying to keep information

out yeah like because if we let everything

in of course

that would be stressed right and

so we're primarily but what we let

in we have part of our nervous system

called the RAS that determines

this is important to us so

if you're going around in the city

and somebody shouts out your name

you're going to turn around even if you know

logically you don't know that person but your

wired your RAS is wired

for your name right

because and think about how it got there is probably one of the

first words you learned how to be able to write

and say and how much praise

you mean how much love is associated

to be able to your identity around a name

but also what also helps

us to channel our RAS

in terms of our focus are the questions

we ask so a part of the

book I talk about a dominant question

that I believe that everybody

has a question

that they ask more than any other

question and that question

you determine a lot of your focus

and because your focus determines

how you feel what you do

and what you're experiencing life and the results

so for example

a friend of mine

you know we talked about this dominant

question we found out her dominant question

the ones he's thinking about consciously or even

unconsciously throughout the day

is how do I get people to like me

and now you don't know

her career what she looks like

you know what you don't know anything about her

but you probably

could guess a lot of things about her

if somebody is obsessed with answering the question

how do I get people to like me

what would you say her personality is like

insecure Mary

she's a martyr a lot of people

take advantage of her

some people call it a sycophant

or a people pleaser maybe her personality

and I've seen this dynamic changes depending

on who she's spending time with

you know because she likes whatever they like

and does whatever they do

so you don't know anything about her but you know a lot

about her and you only know one question

she asks herself

I'd use this story with Will Smith

in the book

I help a lot of actors to

remember their lines

or be focused on set

or speed read their scripts or whatever

we're in Toronto

and they're shooting

during the day doing some brain training

and at night they're shooting 6pm to 6am

and it's very cold

it's February, winter, Toronto

at night and a lot of people

think it's very glamorous Hollywood but a lot of it

as you know it's very hurry up and just wait

and just waiting all the time

and it's an outdoor shoot

and his family happens to be visiting

and they're all just watching the monitors

and there's a big break

and during that

he makes hot chocolate

to all of us

even though there's a crew that would do that

he's there

cracking jokes and telling stories

because we realize that his

dominant question earlier that day is

how do I make this moment even more

magical

he asked that unconsciously wherever it came from

how do I make this moment magical

and I realize

that he was living that question

his dominant question which determines the

dominant thoughts and actions

and for me

I grew up with the broken brain

so I didn't have answers

I was like how do I be invisible

and for years I would just shrink down

and get sick psychologically

before I had to take a test

so I get to go to the nurse instead of having to perform

but later I switched it to

how do I fix this

and then my dominant question ended up being

how do I make this better

and I'm obsessed when I was talking before we started recording

this idea of being the best version of yourself

and at some level you must have thoughts

or a defining question

that says how do I make this better

I think it's probably

how do I convince the world that I'm enough

I think that's probably

that's definitely what the dominant question started

within my life

now

it's not that as much

and I look at my behavior as evidence

so I don't look at my words because I think my words

and my thoughts have often deceived me going back

but I look at my behavior and the choices I make

and they seem to be more

intrinsically motivated

than extrinsically motivated

so they seem to be more about

doing things for me

not for

the approval of someone outside of me

is that something that's more recent

or was there some

inciting something that

kind of put you on that

where you went for how do I prove

to the world that I'm enough

I did the things that I thought would prove it

oh yeah

and

you know it's interesting because I

I've never really talked about this before

but I know a lot of people close to me

that grew up with that feeling of

like they didn't feel like they were enough

and so they committed the next sort of decade of their life

to proving that they were in some way

whether it's business, sports, athletics

often to their parents, whatever

and

this might be wrong

but my observation is

they had to do that

and then have the evidence let them down

or they had to do that

in order to kind of

change the question

so it's funny because I you'd hate to say to someone

listen the only way you're gonna

believe that you are actually enough

is if you go and become really really successful

and then you can stop

buying all that stuff you don't actually

like and stop showing off or whatever

that's the only way you're gonna be able to do it

but that seems to be the case for a lot of my friends

I've got one friend that's the son of a billionaire

he went and built a billion

dollar business himself and until he did

he was one of the most insecure

materialistic superficial people I've ever met

and then once he had built that tremendous business

and established his own identity

kind of got out of his father's shadow

then he sold all the shit

he sold everything, he sold the nine sports cars

he sold the house, just wears all black

now doesn't seem to give a fuck anymore

and I can kind of relate

without making a billion

I can kind of relate to what he's saying

or that experience, I think

my question changed to

what is my potential

hmm

that seems to be my dominant question

yeah and I would invite everybody

everybody has a question and not only for yourself

because you just

sometimes when we're silent or under stress

we realize that those questions come out

of us, we start asking questions

especially if we're faced

difficulty and we go

mind is like how do I fix this

or how do I make it better

because some people ask questions like

why can't I do this

why can't I ever have this whatever it is

and they're getting answers that aren't very supportive

it's this equivalent when people read

and they want to understand more of what they read

a lot of people read a page in a book

get to the end and just forget what they just read

or not even understand it because they didn't have

any questions to begin with

and so I think that a lot of times

we get used to just listening to a podcast

on YouTube or reading a book

and then we feel like our lives are different

because of just that process

and I just want to remind everybody

for every hour you spend listening to a podcast

I would challenge everybody to spend an equal

hour putting that into play

and one of the ways you could do that

as you're listening to something is ask yourself

three dominant questions for me here is

how can I use this

so I'm obsessed with this question

how can I use this you know because then I start saying

there's an answer, there's an answer, there's an answer

one question why must I use this

because common sense is not common practice

your listeners have probably

forgotten more about

life changing, transformation

health, wellness, business

that most people in their lives

come across that's just the truth

right they're probably like why are you always

watching you know these

podcasts and videos and all this

stuff you know because sometimes family

and friends don't want to lose you and they want to kind of keep

you in a certain place

and but if you ask yourself

why must I use this

and you get into head, heart and then hands

then you have this incredible

purpose and drive and then another question

I ask besides how can I use this

why must I use this is when will I use this

I think one of the most important

productivity performance tools

we have is our calendar

but you'll see people will schedule

investor meetings, they'll schedule

team calls, sales meetings

whatever doctors appointments

they're not always scheduling their

execution of things that they read

from that business book or

something that they watched and so I just want

to encourage everybody that you know

it's better

it's better well done than well said

you know and the practice what we

post and the way we do it is I think

the life we live are the lessons

we teach others, the life

we live are the lessons we teach

because you're absolutely right that people could say

something but that is better to show it

you know it's not one thing to promise it

it's better to prove it

right you know especially

in the world that we are today

quick one before we get back to this episode

just give me 30 seconds of your time

two things I wanted to say

the first thing is a huge thank you

for listening and tuning into the show

week after week means the world to all of us

and this really is a dream that we absolutely never had

and couldn't have imagined getting to this place

but secondly it's a dream

where we feel like we're only just getting started

and if you enjoy what we do here

please join the 24% of people

that listen to this podcast regularly

and follow us on this app

here's a promise I'm going to make to you

I'm going to do everything in my power

to make this show as good as I can

now and into the future

we're going to deliver the guests that you want me to speak to

and we're going to continue to keep doing

all of the things you love about this show

thank you, thank you so much

back to the episode

I've been thinking a lot about this in

writing coming out soon called

The Diary of a C.O. 33 Laws

for Business

and Life and in chapter one

which is law one of the book

I was playing around with this idea of

knowledge and skills and all of these things

and the relationship they have

between them and really

was trying to find advice for young people that want

to get to a point where they have

reputation and a big network

and lots of resources right

and I was trying to figure out the order so I almost visualized it

like five buckets and the first bucket

I wrote down is knowledge

that's the first one right and these are

sequential buckets so they go from

you know this is bucket one

and then once you fill that bucket

when you apply knowledge

it turns into a skill

and then once you have

knowledge and applied knowledge which I call skill

then you'll get these other things

then you'll get

resources

you'll get a network and you'll get a reputation

but it's those first two buckets

you can't have skills without knowledge

really and knowledge is certainly

the first one but just having

knowledge alone without that applied skill

without that applied knowledge which we call a skill

you'll never get the reputation

the resources and

the network and the only two buckets that no one

ever can take from you

the only two buckets that anyone can

never unfill

is the knowledge bucket and also the skill

bucket people can take away your reputation

they can take away your resources

they can take away your network

but they can never unfill these two buckets

and these two buckets are the first two buckets

which go on to fill the other three

and that's why I think more recently in my life

I've become obsessed with

learning am I a great learner

no

I don't think I am

because I sit here with the greatest minds

in the world and I remember very little of it

and it's funny as you were saying I was like

I've been thinking this over the last couple of weeks

but I thought gosh you're in such a privileged

position to get to meet all these incredible people

I should be

like a

human encyclopedia

of information and wisdom and I don't think I

I don't think I am

I meet people that are I sit here with them

I think you're one of them I give this guy this everything and he's remembered everything

and he knows the names of studies and he can recall

I can barely recall names of people

so I'm like where

where do I start because

I'm in a privileged position meeting all these wonderful people

and our listeners are too if anyone's

loyal to this podcast

you're like me I actually wrote something down as you're speaking

I was thinking

what we need to do here at the Diary of a CEO

after the episode ends is we need to

set the audience some homework

and what I mean by that is say

okay

Jim said these three core ideas

after the episode

I want you to go and implement them

and then I want you to like

tag me on social media

implementing them the action after the episode

and share it with me

and that's what I think we should all do because then

not only are we going to listen

we're going to learn and those are two very different things

yeah and I feel also

when we teach something we get to learn it twice

meaning you share that with

your friends your family

your followers your fans

it takes advantage of something called the explanation effect

the explanation effect

says that when you learn something

with the intention of explaining it to somebody else

you're going to learn it much better

and that's kind of obvious right

if you you know if we talked about

speed reading or the best brain foods

or changing your habits

optimizing your sleep the kind of things that we specialize in

and somebody listening had to give a

TEDx talk about it

the following week would they focus better

they would have a better concentration

would they take more notes

would they ask more post more questions online

right they would own that information

and so I think

that learning with the intention of teaching

helps you to be able to certainly learn it better

I mean that's even how you could even

use

you could explain it to somebody I mean the whole Richard Feynman method

was

take this difficult subject

neuroscience whatever happens to be

like social media marketing, AI

and explain it to

me as if I am a six year old

you know right

and I can open up a whole thing

with this conversation

of artificial intelligence

and creatives but I really feel like

all these tools are there to augment

I don't even think it's artificial intelligence

for me it's obviously machine learning

but it's augmented intelligence

and I'm thinking like how do I use

this tool like I would use a book or computer

or the internet or whatever

to AI to enhance HI

like human intelligence

I'm very interested in that

people I think

mean you know the Feynman technique well

but when I came across it

it really was a game changer for me

because it explained

why I have good comprehension

on a certain subject matter and then I'm quite loose on others

could you explain it

in a simple way I know you have

you speak to it in a version of it in the book but

for anybody that isn't aware of that technique

so the idea here is

anyone can make things more complex

but the idea is

when you really understand something

you could simplify it in a way

that makes it usable for the end result

right and not only

the end result but the process of learning it

so meaning

I love reading the neuroscience papers

and having deep conversations

and I think where

where if we had

any level of success is translating that

in a way to people

where it's conversational

where they see the relevance in their daily lives

in the application

and as results oriented

and how does that impact

our ability to learn the subject

this Freiman Technique

because stage one is of the Freiman Technique

from what I remember is you learn something

and then stage two is

I believe you

simplify it

and then you share it and then if you

can't share it to the six year old

you go back to learning it

and that's a great synapses of it

and I would say that so how

how it builds

so every single time you have a new

there's an Oliver Wendell Holmes quote

that says a person's mind once stretched

by a new idea

never regains its original dimensions

and so when we have

so neuroplasticity happens

when we experience novelty

so we learn

a new idea or something happens in our environment

it's neuroplasticity

allows learning, it allows adaptation

it even allows recovery from

traumatic brain injury

right

I had these deficiencies

if we call them that

and I was able to compensate

by creating workarounds

like somebody would do in some kind of program

and then you start building paths

another way of neuroplasticity it's kind of like

if I walked through a field

and there are lots of bushes

I walked through it once

not much changes but if you take that path

and you reinforce it through repetition

or space repetition

then all of a sudden it becomes more of a path

and eventually it becomes a road and it becomes

a highway and we've made that connection

so I like pulling

on things that are natural as metaphors

but we learn through metaphors

because all of learning is taking

something you don't know

and connecting it to something you do know

people say learning is repetition

they just say it loads

does that work? it does

but when we're looking at methodology

repetition, the problem with repetition

and certainly

it leads, it gets a result

it's rote learning

it's like when the

churches started universities

and how people would teach would be

the teacher or professor would say a fact

and to the class

and the class would repeat it

and then the teacher would say it again

and the class would repeat it

and so I'm making on video

if you're watching this circular motion

like rote, like rotary, like a rotary club

it's as simple as a wheel

the first half of the wheel is the teacher saying the fact

the second half of the wheel

is the class repeating the fact

and you do that 50 times

and then you build that pathway

and you have quote unquote learning

the problem with that

is it takes so much time

and now we live in an age where the amount of

information is like doubling at dizzying speed

there's more information

today in the newspaper than somebody

in the 17th century

and it's just like

it's overwhelming

so we can't be learning the same ways

okay so I've got a book coming out

as I said and there's 33 laws

and I've been saying to myself

listen you're going to at some point start

really promoting this book

so you need to memorize all 33 laws

like I actually don't need to

I mean so I need to

what am I doing with my life

these 33 laws

I need to remember basically what the law is

and then the gist of it

how would you help me

do that?

let's turn this into coaching

and we could use

just content that everyone could relate to

because I don't know how much of the laws you want to share

or how much you have on tap

okay so the method I'm going to share with you

I call it PI

P-I-E

that three ingredients for a better memory

P stands for place we remember things

based on where we put it

like you put your keys in a certain spot

each time you're in it

you're always going to find it because it's organized

you forget someone's name, you ask yourself

where do I know the person

sometimes the context gives you the content

so that's a place to store the information

the I is imagine

we remember things better

that we could see and imagine

meaning

I bet

as difficult as names are to remember

you remember faces

so many people remember faces

because more of your visual

more of your brain is dedicated

towards your visual cortex

it takes up more real estate

so we tend to remember things we see better than what we hear

so you see the face

and you just go to someone

I remember your face but I forgot your name

that's me every day of my life

never go to somebody say the opposite

you never go say I remember your name but I forgot your face

I roll up to people and say hi nice to see you

and then I realize I didn't remember their name

so here we go

the I is imagine

there's a proverb that says

what you hear you forget

what you see you remember

what you hear you forget

what you see you remember

and we think in pictures

when you get on an airplane

it doesn't say no smoking

fasten your seat belts

there's just pictures

so you want to imagine those pictures

and the E and Pi

in twine is where

you're connecting

in twine means to associate or to connect

and what are you connecting the P and the I

the place in the image

so let me give you an example

five buckets

law number one

we could do the five buckets also

I was going to teach people

quickly ten things that they could do to upgrade their brain

let's do your ten things

but certainly we could apply this towards buckets too

alright so

so we're blessed

that the book was heavily endorsed by

the Cleveland Clinic Center for Brain Health

the founding director there

one of the top Alzheimer's research out of Harvard

Dr. Rudy Tanze

and when I speak at these organizations

we know that about one third of your brain performance

your memory

is predetermined by genetics

two thirds is in your control

they say the metaphor is

that for example Alzheimer's

and this is like we donated a lot of proceeds

to Alzheimer's research for our book

is in memory of my grandmother

they say that your genetics

will load the gun but your lifestyle

will fire it

right kind of kind of makes sense

and it's not like all metaphors they're not absolute

they're not absolutes but this is an idea

to connect something you don't know to something you know

so going to this

two thirds

I'm going to give everybody right now the ten keys

as you know it in the book

but I'm going to show you how to memorize them

but what I liked it to do whether or not people memorize them

or not and I find that people

will be able to do it pretty easily and effortlessly

is at least rate yourself

zero to ten how much energy and effort

and attention are you putting towards this area

because everyone wants to know the one thing

they could do for an incredible memory

there's just not there's not a magic pill

but there is a process right

so we'll go through them fast

number one good brain diet

so everyone on a scale of zero to ten ten being the best

how much energy attention

how much time are you putting towards

a good brain diet

so there's certain foods that are very neuro protective

and I would also say

I'm not a doctor or nutritionist

everyone's bio individual

so do allergy testing

do functional medicine testing in terms of

microbiome test

nutrient profile food sensitivity

so everyone's a little different

in general some of my favorite brain foods

avocados the monounsaturated fat is good for the brain

blueberries I like to call them brain berries

neuro protective broccoli

good for your brain olive oil

good for the brain

if your diet allows eggs

the choline in eggs is good for your cognitive health

green leafy vegetables

like kale and spinach

and now again some people are allergic to kale

so that wouldn't be for you

another one I would say

wild sardines

or like wild

salmon or sardines

like your brain is mostly fat so those fish oils

turmeric

is a great brain food

meaning it helps to lower inflammation

you can use that while you're cooking

walnuts everybody's just waiting for you to say chocolate

yeah there you go

walnuts and dark chocolate dark chocolate

non milk chocolate so those are some of the brain foods

so 0 to 10 on the other side

that's not so good processed

foods high sugar

what does it do to the brain

so sugar is

highly addictive right you've had guests on here

talking about how it's more addictive than a lot

of drugs right

there's certain things that are

not good for the brain and I don't know

again people like we've had on our podcast

or we've interviewed for the book like people like

Dr. Mark Hyman

Dr. Daniel Aiman

sugar alcohol

marijuana

certain things are just

certain things like alcohol could

some people say they use it to help them sleep

there's a difference between getting knocked out

and actually getting good deep sleep

getting good REM sleep

sleep is just a personal focus of mine

but sugar is highly addictive

not good a lot of people are also hyper

you know the ADHD

the hyper behavior a lot of times

you could eliminate sugar

but in the US schools it's tough

you know they would have vending machines there

with all the pop and the

sodas and the

you know just yeah

but to get through the list 0 to 10

how good is your diet number 2

and I'll go through this fast killing ants

ants

killing ants is actually proving to be good for your brain

ants I get this from Dr. Daniel Aiman

automatic negative thoughts

remember we talked about the power of

your thoughts and just keeping it

even if you say you don't have a great memory

just add a little word like yet at the end it just

changes you know the potentiality

of that statement

so in 0 to 10 how encouraging

optimistic

are your thoughts and beliefs

number 3 in no specific order again

is exercise

there's so much research talking about the power of movement

and the brain when you move by the way

the studies show that when you

listen to your podcast

when people are listening to this podcast

and they happen to be doing something rhythmic

going for a nice walk with the dogs or on an elliptical

they'll actually understand the information

and retain it better

when your body moves your brain grooves

just remember that when your body moves your brain grooves

when you move your body you create

brain derived neurotropic factors

B, D and F

which is like fertilizer for the brain

it's like fertilizer

promoting neuroplasticity

number 4 brain nutrients

and this is I always prefer people get it

from their own foods

but

you know

you could get so much data nowadays

you could do a nutrient profile because if you're lacking

your vitamin D levels are low

you're not going to perform

your brain's not going to perform at its best

you know if you're not getting your omega 3's

your brain is mostly made out of fat

your DHA's, your vitamin C

your vitamin B's

everyone comes here and talks to me about bloody vitamin D

and omega 3

everybody says the same two things

supplements work for that right?

do supplements work for vitamin D?

quality supplements

I would again prefer people get it from sunlight

and prefer people get it from natural sources

like whether they can fish or whatever

I don't want to go out in the sunlight enough

I need to fix that

yeah you've had guests talking about the power

of sunlight first thing in the morning

to reset their circadian rhythm to help them sleep

you know for me in the morning I try to do

I try to get the elements in my life

so I think about thousands of years ago

they thought the four elements made up

made everything up that you see

so it's like you know

Babylonian times and Greek

times you know four elements of air

water, fire and earth

and so like I don't know

I take this approach in the morning

you don't have to biohack everything

you can do it for free

go out there outside and get some earth

get your feet on the ground

really simple to do

to feel more grounded and more connected

and I think in energetic

people talk about pulse electromagnetic fields

and everything but I don't know

I feel more grounded when I just walk in the grass

simple thing people could do

my deep breathing

or some people do fire breathing, alpha breathing

Wim Hof breathing

first thing in the morning clear the cobwebs of the night

and then some water drink some water

or take your cold shower you get to integrate it

whatever your morning routine is

and then fire is the sunlight

for me you know first thing

in the morning but I just find that

any of the biohacking stuff

and people follow me on Instagram

I have my toys and everything else

they're just a mimic nature

you know the red lights

and the

the cold plunges and all that stuff

nature

point number five is a clean environment

yeah so after brain nutrients zero to ten

rating yourself five is a clean environment

and this is for everything

and including

the quality of the air that you're breathing

you know like I had somebody on our podcast

talking about the neurotoxins

and brand new carpets or furniture

you know in terms of what they're sprayed with

and the off-gassing that comes from it

and how it can have a toxic effect

you know on your brain

you wrote air pollution is a massive

and underrated health risk

they cause up to 30%

of all strokes

life expectancy

is appreciably lower in cities than in the countryside

even accounting for differences in wealth and lifestyle

yeah I mean we sorted

through a number of research

talking about air pollution

water pollution also as well

you know in terms of

the certain residues

that happens to be in whether it's in tap water

or what have you or some people are concerned

about plastics that come

from bottles also as well

and other people are concerned about we've had

a couple episodes talking about

EMFs you know just the

how does that impact my brain though

I don't think we know

you know all I know is that the brain hasn't changed

a lot in the past hundred thousand years

but technology certainly has

and you know and

we talk about you know these videos

that we make about morning routine

and evening routines and millions of views

just simple things like don't touch your phone

the first 30 minutes of the day

or the last 30 minutes of the day

something so simple

and then 7's brain protection

brain protection so clean environment

even just cleaning your desktop

your external world's reflection of your internal world

or making your bed just helps you get

how you do anything is how you do everything

number number sorry that was number 6

yeah number 7 is

sleep so

very concerning with sleep and brain performance

we know when you don't sleep how's your thinking

the next day you know how's your ability to

solve problems how's your ability to focus remember things

when you sleep if you have long-term memory

issues get a sleep study done

that's where you consolidate short to long-term memory

is during sleep when you sleep

the sewage system in your brain

kicks in because

you know energy to do so also as well

and your brain doesn't

it's not doesn't stop at night

if anything it's sometimes

in ways more active it's consolidating short to long-term

memory it's cleaning out beta amyloid plaque

that could lead to brain aging challenges

often a lot of the studies show

that with a lot of disease there's a kind

of a sleep deficiency component also as well

sometimes I wear a device

to monitor it because it's not that people

ask the quantity of sleep what's the perfect

Mount 7, 8, 9 hours it's

absolutely not the quantity it's the quality

of your deep sleep and your REM sleep

your deep sleep you can imagine is where

you're recovering your body

your REM sleep is where you're restoring

your your mind so seven

seven is sleep zero to ten

you know how much focus energy attention

are you putting towards it we've done stress management

which is we talked about how stress

impacts the brain

we talked about sleep

there we've talked about yeah

so the last three really quickly are

protect your brain yeah wear a helmet

zero to you know your brain is very resilient

but it's very fragile so I get to work with

a lot of sports figures that have

post concussions or TBI's

yep you know and so we have protocols

for that and obviously see a doctor

zero to ten rate yourself

new learnings is big we talked

about the power of learning that's novelty

and for me reading

reading is to your mind what exercises your body

I think it's the best people out you get

all fancy apps and everything else I think

look someone who has decades

of experience like yourself or your guests

and they put into a book and you can sit down

and read that book in a few days you can

download decades into days that's the biggest

advantage right and reading is incredible

exercise for your mind especially the way we

teach it and then finally stress

management which you mentioned you know

zero to ten how well are you

mitigating stress and coping with stress

what mechanisms and tools

rituals or practices do you

have you know my go-to is meditation

a quick word on you as you know

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how is our gut linked

to our brain you know people often

on this podcast have said to me that

there's a really

significant link between the two

they call your gut your second brain

right and

so there's a lot of neurotransmitters

there you create a lot of

your serotonin there also as

well what you eat matters especially

for your gray matter

what you eat matters especially for your gray matter

there's a lot of microbiome tests also

that you could test for food sensitivity

that exists in the market

you know we had Navin Jain

on our podcast and he has a company called

Viome and they do that test

you know also as well but it shows you

green, yellow, red

you know green you could eat

pretty much as much as you want of it yellow

eat it sparingly and mild

red ideally avoid

but imagine your gut

is kind of like the roots of a plant

that's feeding this

stem and the stalk and the flowers

of your brain so what you

eat it should nourish you

because you are what you not only you are

what you eat you are what you absorb

frankly and so gut health

is extremely important that's why

you know we talk about the power of

probiotics for people

you know that take in on maybe

they do it first thing in the morning but good bacteria

my friend turned around to me this weekend

asked on this tag do I have that and he said

he was talking about a book we had read

and he said to me does it matter that I don't read

he doesn't read

he is dyslexic

I think he struggles with reading a little bit

and he asked me does it matter that I don't read

it's just not interested in it

so we could consume information however

we could consume it some people prefer

to read it some people prefer to watch it

some people prefer to listen to it

and so we all have different styles

because in your book chapter 14 it says

there is a direct relationship between our ability to read

and life readers enjoy better jobs

higher incomes and greater opportunities

yeah I do believe

so if people have seen photos of me with

Oprah or Elon or these individuals

you know people invariably ask

you know how did you connect how did you build

we bonded over books

you know Elon and I were geeking out over

some of our favorite sci-fi books

right and then you know he brought me into

the SpaceX I did training for their

rocket scientists but it was

leaders or readers you know

you read to succeed you know I talked about earlier

that someone's decades experience and they read it

you can read it in a few days you can download decades

in the days it's a huge advantage

right and they say Warren Buffett reads

500 pages a day

so you want to read to succeed because

you know you learn from other people's experiences

you know what to spend the same time

money, trouble, stress

from somebody else

now my reading has changed

for four years I read a book a day

because I was just so most people don't read

because they're not good at it so if I'm not very good

at golf see so like

you don't find me on the courses on the link

stupid very much because I'm not very good at it

so I don't really want to do it and most people don't

read because they're not good at it because

reading is a skill

and like all skills they can be developed

through training but when's the last time

you took a class called reading how old

were you when you took a class called not a college

literature club but a reading class

yeah so most people are still reading like they're seven

or six so the difficulty and demand

has increased a whole lot but how people

read it is from the last time they

learned it and people think just because they've been

doing something for so long they're better at it

that's not absolutely not true right somebody

even somebody the other day said I have 30

years of experience in sales

but you talk to them they're like not really

with the results he has like one year

of experience as he's repeated 30 times

there's a difference between growth and somebody

who's just kind of stalled right and same

thing with reading if you're just doing the same thing

just because you're doing the same it's like typing

if I'm typing with two fingers there's

a cap in terms of how far and if you do this

for 30 years or three years it doesn't matter

you're only going to reach a certain point

as opposed to people using more of their faculties

now I know people

who are listening and masks could

triple their reading speed right not of

everything like I can't how do I

triple my reading speed so

okay so

what I teach is not

traditional speed reading traditional speed

reading is more associated with skimming

skipping words getting the gist of what you

read you know we train a lot of

wealth managers

and doctors

you don't want your doctor to get the gist of what she reads

right so you want to be able to retain it

so there's smart reading so most of the time

when we have students in every

country in the world online through our

academy we kind of built like a con academy

but instead of for math it's for accelerated learning

reading memory and so on so

on average people with triple their reading speed

how do you do it well I'll give you a couple

tips because there's different training is different

than a tip right like we have time for

a couple of quick tips doing a training

would be skill acquisition and

and but um

if you allow like there's a link in my instagram

I put in for this publication and

there's a free one hour master class people

could double their reading speed and bring whatever

book they want and go for it and it's

there did you say most of your your clients

triple their reading speed on average

about triple yeah

reading speed so so reading

is very it's very measurable

um now there's an upward cap

like some people like think you could read

20,000 words a minute the average person

reads about 200 words a minute

on average you know and so

um now by the way

when you read it doesn't make if you

can't understand a subject reading it faster

is not going to help right if you

if you don't if you don't

understand Arabic

speed reading it's not going to if you don't

understand nuclear physics and reading it faster is not going to help

right so there's there you need to you

you're not going to read any faster than you can understand

but um I'll give you everyone

a couple quick tips um

number one

when you're reading

most people lose focus

right and that slows them down

their eyes go in different places and so

if you use a visual pacer when you read

you'll read faster what do I mean by visual

pacer if you're watching on video I'm using

my finger to underline or a pen

or a highlighter a mouse on a computer

will help you to read faster and

and don't believe everything I'm saying

test this so

what I would do is after this conversation

grab a book that you're reading

put a mark in the margin where you start

and just read how you would normally read

and time yourself on your phone for 60 seconds

and then

pick up where you left off

give yourself another 60 seconds

but this time just underline the words don't touch

the screen if you're reading online

or don't touch the book but just just

go back and forth

and a rhythm that's comfortable for you

and then count the number of lines you read the second time

that second time

on average will be 25 to 50% faster

and most people will say

after they practice a little bit

you know like practice for a few days

that their understanding is actually better

people feel more in touch with their reading

I'll tell you why number one

as hunter-gatherers we are visual creatures

that's our survival right

if you are you have to look

at what moves so if your finger is moving

you're going to follow the visual pacer because it's your survival

like if something ran

across this room you wouldn't look at me

you would look at what moves because that's your survival

right because if you're hunter-gatherer

in a bush and you're hunting

that rabbit

or whatever your diet is right

and that bush next to you moves

you have to look at what moves

because number one it could be lunch

or number two you could be lunch

so either way you have to look at what moves

so if your finger is going across the page

your attention is being pulled through the information

as opposed to your attention being pulled apart

right the other reason why

and I'll tell you neurologically

certain senses work very closely together

meaning

you have your taste at a great piece of fruit

like fresh from the farmers market

like a great tasting peach

you're not actually tasting the peach

you're smelling the peach

but your sense of smell and taste are so closely linked

that your mind can't tell the difference

it can tell the difference if you're sick

if you can't breathe out of your nose

and you're congested what does food taste like

nothing it tastes bland right

and so just as your sense of smell

and taste are closely linked

so is your sense of sight and your sense of touch

that people literally using their finger

while they read will say

they feel more in touch with their reading

in fact when people lose their sense of sight

how do they read touch

right when you train people

so that's the first one is

visual pacer

oh yeah there are many

I mean that will boost your reading speed

in focus 25-50% across the board

and then you'll learn

so there's something called fixations

and fixation is where your eyes

will stop

and how many stops you make across the page

determines how fast you're going to read

so it's like in traffic

most people are stopping at every single word

so they're taking 10 stops

faster train readers will actually

use their peripheral vision to pull in

more than one word so if you look at a word

on that page on your screen

you could probably see the word

to your left and to your right

and so that's a trained skill

so a person seeing three or four words

doesn't have to make 10 stops

they can make two or three stops

so it's less taxing and you can go faster

because it's not a start-stop

so there are all these different tips

and the master class will walk people through

so you actually get training on it

95% of what we publish is absolutely free

because we want to democratize this to the world

but for your comprehension

the key to comprehension

though is asking more questions

what we talked about most people

aren't looking for the pug dogs

so even when you're taking a test

usually the questions are at the end

in my books I put the questions

in the beginning so it charges

your particular activity systems

when you read they're like oh there's an answer

there's an answer there's an answer

the culprit to reading faster

is something called sub vocalization

do you ever notice when you're reading something

you hear that inner voice inside your head

reading along with you

yes that's what was just happening

hopefully it's your own voice

it's not somebody else's voice

the reason why it is an obstacle to effective reading

is if you have to say all the words

in order to understand them

you can only read as fast as you could speak

that means your reading speed is limited

to your talking speed

so what we do is we train individuals

to reduce the sub vocalization

because the truth is

do you have to say all the words

do you have to say New York City

to understand what New York City is

do you have to say the word computer

to understand what a computer is

the truth is you don't

because 95% of words are what they call sight words

they're words you've seen tens of thousands of times

like a stop sign

you don't have to say stop every single time

but you understand what it means

in your book

that you're reading online

emails are words you've seen before

you don't have to say it in order to understand those words

so we train people to reduce the sub vocalization

lastly

on concentration and flow

and these kinds of topics

what advice would you give me if I'm trying to

get into what they call the flow state more often

and I'm trying to do deeper work and be less distracted

I mean there's all these techniques

what's it the pomodo technique

there's all these different techniques

that seem to be most effective

for those people who are struggling with concentration

and focus and getting in the zone

we've done a number of podcasts

this whole chapter dedicated to flow

the art and science

of getting in the zone

flow is a state where you feel your best

and you perform your best

that's those flow states

the markers of it are usually three things

number one you lose your sense of self

the second thing

you lose it's effortless

it almost feels like you're in that zone

you don't have to exert a lot of effort

and the third thing is you lose your sense of time

you don't know if five minutes went by

or five hours because you're in the moment

you're present so you could actually

here's the here's you like first principles

one of my first principles

is taking nouns and turning them into verbs

I get in the habit every day of hearing a noun

and turning into a verb meaning I think a lot of people

hypnotize themselves

by the words that they use

they say I don't have motivation today

I don't have focus today

I don't have energy

you do not have those things you do them

so you don't have motivation

there's a process for motivating yourself

you don't have energy there's a process

for generating energy you don't even have a memory

you do a memory

there's a three-step process for memorizing

encoding storing and retrieving right

and so I think a lot of what our podcast

your mind and our work is

is about transcending

trans and it's about

ending the trans

ending this massive gnosis through marketing

or media that were broken

like I felt for so long that I felt like I wasn't enough

like you did

or transcending our own thoughts

meaning like I am a procrastinator

right how do you change that

that's your identity right

and so going back to the power of words

and Turk taking nouns and turning them into verbs

focus you don't have focus

you do it there's a process for focusing

right and so

what I would do if I want to get into flow state

the trigger for

flow getting in the zone

is when competence

and challenge connect

meaning that

imagine a diagram right

and on one axis is challenge

and one axis is competence and skill

if something is too challenging

and you have low competence

that's just stressful right

it's a bigger challenge and you're capable of handling

if the

capability is too high you're highly skilled

and the challenge is too low

then you're bored right you're too skilled

and this challenge doesn't even

it's not even a challenge so you're not going to get

in that flow state flow happens

when you're at that edge

where it's just challenging

enough to keep you engaged and it's

stretching you also as well

so it's a state of mind that you could create

and what I would recommend

doing it with everything is a small

simple step right and

when you're in flow

the world kind of disappears

so you have this natural focus

is there anything that you have an activity

like writing

where you lose sense of time and it's kind of endless

so people can create that

in their job and their relationship

on the field also as well

so obviously

up level your capabilities

right and then have an acceptable

amount of challenge there

also as well also

a lot of that comes through finding

passion and focus so

flow

starts with focus and I would say

is focused activities

of work

eliminating distraction to the best

your ability you know let's say you need to focus

on this activity your phone is not there

people your family knows

that not to be bothered right

and then you're engaging somewhere somewhere

meaning

there's something called the Zygarnik effect

in the book and this is

doctor

she was a psychologist in Europe

and she noticed that when she's

having coffee out at the cafe outside

that all the wait staff

would easily memorize all the orders

without writing them down

until they were delivered

and once the wait staff delivered

that order they would forget right

and she called it the Zygarnik effect

after her last name

that our

our ability when we start

something there's a high

propensity for us to want to finish it

right to have closure

to have to close that loop

that's how people keep people coming back

to every Netflix show or whatever

because there's an open loop

some kind of suspense that they want to get closure on

so you have to behave and follow through

the Zygarnik effect if you start somewhere

anywhere because you procrastinate

you're more likely to finish that

activity because it's an open loop

and that open loop will engage somebody

to get into flow

what's the most important thing

we haven't talked about

in your view based on all of the

the mission that you

articulated so well at the start of this conversation

what's the most important thing

okay so

I love this discussion about

disrupting education

in terms of the power of

meta-learning and learning how to learn

if there was a genie right now that could grant you anyone wish

but only one wish

everyone who's watching and listening would ask for more wishes

right

because then they get money, they get everything else they want

if I was a learning genie

and I could help you become a master

an expert in any one subject or skill

by the way everyone that thought food

or something before he said

one more wish, you're not the only one

so if I was a learning genie

and I could grant you one wish

but if I was a learning genie

and I could learn to become an expert

in any subject or skill

people could think oh I want to be a great dancer

I want to understand money or investing whatever it is

the equivalent of asking for limitless wishes

is learning what

learning how to learn

because being able to focus and concentrate

and read, understand

remember

what can you apply that to

everything

money, mandarin, martial arts

everything after that

it's a lead domino

so I think that limitless is a treatise

on an owner's manual for a brain

the best diet, sleep, everything else

and the processes for focusing, remembering

learning how to learn

I would say the thing that I would want

on my

professional tombstone

would be a Venn diagram with three things

and this is the core to my work

I realize Steve that a lot of people know what to do

but they don't do what they know

that most people have forgotten more about personal development

and growth and transformation and money and wellness

whatever they're hearing

than most of the people that they know

because common sense is not common practice

how do you get yourself to overcome

self sabotage

procrastination and actually get something done

and so

I would end with this

limitless is not about being perfect

it's about progress

but in what area of your life if you're still listening to this

do you feel like you're stuck

in your progress

think you don't have to share this

but I know you're very vulnerable

but is there an area of your life you feel like you're in a box

and it could be you're learning

you might be feel like I wish I could

learn faster, remember better, read faster

I wish I was more organized

if you could see what my suitcase looks like right now

my cameraman walked into my room

it's like a hurricane had hit the room

that's embarrassing

and the organization also will help with

your focus and everything else

what's your practical, where are you stuck

I'm going to admit something I've never admitted

when I connect my Airpods

to my iPhone

it says

Apple Airpods

Brackets

23

because that is my 23rd pair

of Apple Airpods

so that's how

unorganized I am

for me to keep hold of those little things

it's impossibility so anyway sorry

that also because

well the thing when I teach

meditation or I do mindfulness

it's not just about that 20 minutes

you're in silence externally

and internally whatever is going on

you could bring mindfulness into your eating

you know I show people

just challenge them to brush their teeth with the opposite hand

maybe it engages a different part of your brain

right the opposite side

but it forces people to be present

you know and I think

flexing that presence muscles

and the mindfulness muscles first thing in the morning

is just very important especially when you can

tag it to a habit that you're already doing

and so eating so it's not just

what you eat ask the other questions

right it's why you eat it's where you

eat it's when you eat it's how you eat also

as well some people are so stressed out

about their diet you know measuring

every micronutrient and everything

and so stressed out about some ideology

that it negates

any health benefit they're getting from it because

they have so much anxiety around eating

right but it's also

not only why you eat but how you eat

some people as they're eating they're working at the same time

and you've heard about the sympathetic

parasympathetic right

in terms of our nervous

system the sympathetic is kind

of like your beta

your fight or flight but your sympathetic

is rest and digest but some people

when they're working they're not even that parasympathetic

place where they can rest and digest

their food because

they're also while they're doing this

working and stressed out or on conversations

or anything so you know

going back to this

I want everyone just to imagine an area of their life

this is what I would teach

on my professional tombstone

is the limitless model it's a

Venn diagram three intersecting circles

and I want everyone to imagine

an area of your life where you feel stuck in a box

your income your impact

your learning your

whatever it happens to be your relationships

where do you feel like you're not making progress

and by definition that box

it's a cube right and that cube is

three-dimensional right so the

three forces that contain that box

keeping you in there it's the same three forces

that will liberate you out

now the three forces that I'm talking

about are the limitless model

and

if you're watching this on video I'm going to make

three intersecting circles on a pad of paper

so

three intersecting circles

most people know this as a Venn diagram

it kind of looks like Mickey Mouse

two ears and a head

and so these are the three forces that will

liberate you to help you become limitless

in any area of your life and this works for

a person a family a team

a nation a world

okay so it could be a micro macro

and this is how real transformation happens

so here's the thing

you're taking something specific maybe your income

or your reading speed

or your memory let's say your memory you feel like you're in a box

you can't get out of it right the first

circle the top left

I'm going to give you three M's is your mindset

right so your first circle is your

mindset and yours mindset I

am going to define as your set of assumptions

and attitudes you have about something

your attitudes assumptions about

being unorganized yeah exactly

and that's going to contain you in that box

right because it's defining the borders

and boundaries of what's possible so

somebody could also who's finances

their mindset and assumptions

and attitudes about money

if people think money is the root of all

evil or money doesn't go on trees whatever their mindset

is it could contain them in that box

if their memory if they feel like they're

limited in a box you know it could be

I'm getting too old I'm not smart enough

right that's mindset attitudes

and assumptions about something especially

attitudes assumptions besides

your attitude assumption about a relationship

what does that mean I mean I lost my freedom doesn't

mean whatever it is that's going to affect your

your quality of box but the other part

of it is your mindset and attitudes

assumptions about yourself so three

things I would put in mindset what I

believe is possible so you could believe

it's possible for you know Steve

have like millions of followers and make

all this money or whatever but you might not believe

it's possible for you so what I believe is possible

what I believe I'm capable of

that somebody could those could be different

and the third thing is what I believe I

deserve like people don't feel like they

deserve to have this body or this business

or they have imposter syndrome

or they don't think they deserve

to be happy in a relationship that's

going to affect all behaviors belief driven

right in order to get a result

new result you have to do a new behavior

in order to do that new behavior you need a

belief that allows that to be possible

so that's mindset so that's Mickey mouse

is left here right now

Mickey's right ear is going

to be the second hand which is motivation

okay huge because

you could have a limitless mindset about

money about politics

about change about

your health your memory

and you're not motivated

to get out of that box so you're not getting out of that

box so motivation

people talk about it like a warm bath

for me motivation is very

structured it's only three factors

that you have to unlimited

the formula for limitless motivation

to motivate yourself to work out

to read to meditate or

to motivate someone to buy or

your kids to clean their room three things

p times

e times s3

the letter p times the letter e

times

s3 and what does this mean

and now take now see yourself

in that box if you're not motivated

you're procrastinating the p

is purpose start with why

Simon talks about but if you don't feel it

like I had I saw somebody

on the street the other day and he was

I didn't even recognize him because

when I knew him years ago he was

so unhealthy I mean like

the worst extreme and all friends

would do an intervention say give him suggestions

he would ignore all of it he would take

pride in being unhealthy right

I see him on the street he lost

all his weight he looks younger and I didn't even recognize him

and I'm just like what do you been doing

tells me all this stuff I'm like we've been

telling you for like 20 to do this

stuff why are you all of a sudden and

he's like I came home

tell me about this work trip he came home

and his daughters like

crying hysterically

and he had a dream that he died

right and wasn't there for him and I was

and that's that was purpose

right so that's the thing we are not

logical we are biological

dopamine oxytocin serotonin

we could get that through life circumstances or to focus on

something that drives us so I would

sometimes we need a rock bottom moment

to get a new purpose

in life that kind of explains why that is the case

so many of my guests here when I hear about their life

stories say this particular thing

happened and then my life changed

what you're saying there is it was an increase

in their purpose

I would say there's some things in my experience

that you could only learn through a storm

like some some storms

come to teach us things

you know or to clear a path for us

but certainly rock bottom is an interesting

perspective we talked about the six thinking

hats to be able to look at something

from a different point of view

you know so the purpose so feel the

purpose and so just like

people don't biologically they buy emotionally

get them emotional right but then

if you don't have an emotional reason to read that book

emotional reason to remember that name

emotional reason to do that

no the e p is the purpose which is emotion

the e is energy

so some people are motivated because

they're exhausted

like so like the idea here is like

I mentioned newborn baby

if you haven't slept for three nights in a row

you're not going to be very motivated to work out

if you had a big process meal and you're a food coma

you're not going to be very motivated to study or read that

okay so like physiological energy

perfect so and remember you don't have energy

you do it so the things we talked about

reducing stress getting good night's sleep

eating the best brain foods

now s3 somebody could have limitless purpose

they know why they do it

they're doing the right things for the right reasons

and they could have an unlimited energy and still

not be motivated because they're overwhelmed

or because they're confused

maybe that goal is too big they want to meet their soul mate

and live happily ever after that's way too big

right they want to make the next unicorn

that's way too big right on on dragons den whatever

s3

stands for small simple steps

because often what stalls us

is we're intimidated or we're confused

and a confused mind doesn't do anything

right even if you're marketing to somebody

give them purpose have them energy

meaning having resources capital

but are you making it so simple they can't

fail small simple steps

right because if you make that too confusing

they won't go do anything

so a small simple step this is how you find it

with a question

I ask myself this question every day

when I get confused or I get overwhelmed

I say what is the tiniest action

I could take right now

that will give me progress towards this goal

right can't fail

what's the tiniest action I could take right now

that will give me progress towards this goal

right can't fail so let's say somebody doesn't work out

right because this is beyond

that's too big of a jump

small simple step put on their running shoes

maybe somebody leaders or readers

they're inspired now to

say that they're going to read every day

for an hour

that's too big maybe small simple step

opening up the book reading one line

can't get your kids to floss their teeth

get them to floss one tooth

right nobody's or put one sock

in the hamper you know to get clean

because nobody remember this iconic effect

nobody's going to stop one tooth

they're going to go to completion

so I believe little by little a little

becomes a lot and that's the key for motivation

mindset motivation and then the last

things the head there

is the methods

and I put that last because

a lot of people know the methods

but they are not doing it because they either have

them don't have the right mindset or they don't

have the right motivation now here's the reason why I share

this and I'll put this on my professional tombstone

is because this is the gap between

what keeps people limited to limit

less meaning any area of your

life you control the controllables

right and what you could always

control is your mindset

your motivation and the methods

you're using to reach that goal

so what I would do with this is I would put

like goal on top and then

I could even use this as a role modeling

I can listen to all your podcasts and discern

and elicit what is their

mindset what is their beliefs and attitudes

assumptions about that topic money

Ray Dalio whoever you're talking to right

then I would say what's their motivation what's the

purpose you know how are there small simple

steps and then the methods that they're using

because the methods that work today

you know are they want the methods

that work 10 years ago in marketing

aren't necessarily the same methods that work

for today right or investing

or in wellness because there's a big

information upgrade

so my message for everybody

is the past few years been very frightening

for a lot of people and out of

that fear I feel like

they've downgraded their dreams to meet

this current situation and I think

that's the wrong approach you shouldn't be downgrading

your dreams to meet the current situation

you should be thinking how do I upgrade

my mindset how do I upgrade my motivation

how do I upgrade the methods I'm using

to be able to meet those both audacious

goals right

we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last

guest leaves a question for the next guest not

knowing who they're leaving it for okay the question

that's been left for you is

ooh wow

good question

what is the last thing you did

that you deeply

regret

okay I

I'll say this

I without giving names

I

I committed to an event to speak out

out of this country

in your neck of the woods and it's an event

I really want to go to

and I put it off for years

I do regret

because I'm going to be missing father's day

here in the United States

and this boy I've learned so much from

he's only a few months old

but and I it's funny going into

fatherhood the three growth areas

I've had in my life were entrepreneurship

and you could identify with that right like

what it's all lies on you and

if dozens of people that rely on you to

for their livelihood and the impact

it's it's a lot of responsibility

my personal relationship

you know where you're intimate with somebody and you're that vulnerable and

but the third thing

is his fatherhood

and I went into this thinking

I'm going to upgrade this kid's brain

and biohack the heck out of this kid

I've noticed over the past few months

that I've taken a different approach

I'm just like

loving this kid so much but just

observing and

I don't remember the times a lot of my childhood

because of what I went through but just watching

these revelations that he has

hands and that he can manipulate the

world and I realized that my perspective

has changed instead of me teaching him stuff

you know I want to protect him and provide

but I feel like he's reminding me

of these

these important core memories that I

had forgotten Jim thank you so much

Jim quick knows how to get the

maximum out of me as a

human being a wonderful quote that

Will Smith has put on the front of his book and that's exactly

what you're doing for so many people

that's the mission you're on and that's certainly what you've done for me

I've been a fan of yours for some time now

having struggled

with a lot of the things you talk about in this book

even the process of meeting you and getting to do the research

has advanced so many of those

critical areas of my life

really I think the key thing is it's let down a series

of limiting beliefs that have

held me prison

prisoner and hostage you know the first

the left ear on that Mickey Mouse thing was

mindset that's probably where I'm

struggling the most and from reading your book limitless

that's certainly the wall that has been left

that has been

torn down so thank you

for that and thank you for the mission you're on because I can feel in

everything you say and all the stories you tell

how internally motivated

and how authentic you are about what you're doing

and that's a service to the world that I

think is incredibly necessary so thank

you so much Jim thank you for your time

thank you for your vulnerability and thank you for your wisdom

Can I challenge everyone to do something Steve?

I would love everybody

knowing that knowledge by itself is not power

that the small simple step could lead to something

big is to take a screen shot

of wherever they're consuming this

on social media and Spotify

and iTunes wherever and

and tag you and I so we get to see it

and I have a

question for everybody because this will be

my question for your next guest is

my normal question is what are you going to do

for your brain today and I would love to hear that also

but over the past

12 months

what is a new behavior or a belief

or a habit and understanding

that you've adopted

that has served you

this past year a new behavior or a belief

that has been supportive

of you

and I would love for you to post that

tag us so we see it I'll repost some of my favorites

and I'll actually gift a few copies randomly

for the book

out to people and yeah

signed copies or?

we can do that also as well

books

books are

everything for me and then I encourage

people to connect and again I put that link

if that's okay to mention in our Instagram

for the quiz

for the brain animal mybrainanimal.com

and to our podcast and everything

but I appreciate Steve

I'm being a big fan and follower of your work

impeccable

the amount of so many shows

you're on like somebody will

say something so deep and then

and I'll be so upset because the interviewer

will go on well my next question is this

whoa whoa you're so good

at being present

you know and I since you create

space for so many people

to just be vulnerable and

you know it's it's real it's raw and it's

extremely rewarding so thank you thank you

so so unbelievably kind of you

to say that means the world to me Jim thank you so much

pleasure to meet you and become friends thank you

quick one some of you will know that this podcast is now

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.