Jim Kwik - Speed Reading, Memory Improvement, and Optimal Brain Performance

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What's going on, everyone? Kasey Adams here. Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast. On today's episode, we have Mr. Jim Quick. Before we get into the episode, I'd love to give some background on who this is. So here we go. Jim Kwik is an American entrepreneur and business coach. He is the founder and CEO of Kwik Learning, an online training and learning firm based in Los Angeles, California. Kwik grew up in Westchester, New York. He suffered a brain injury at the age of five, which led to his slow brain performance. He spent years training his brain for speed reading and memory improvement. He is also the host of the Quick Brain podcast. He has trained companies such as Nike, Fox Studios, Virgin Airlines, and many more high level universities such as Harvard University for brain development performance. And before we get into the episode, I'd like to notify you that this interview was done on Zoom and that the audio quality does go in and out during this episode maybe three times. So hang in there. Stay with me. You know, there's a lot going on right now in the world with coronavirus, but I'm making sure that I'm taking the time to record these podcasts for you guys. So that being said, thank you so much for tuning in today. Make sure you subscribe, make sure you leave an honest rating and review, and I will talk to you guys soon.

I remember I was giving a talk in Silicon Valley, and afterwards Bill Gates comes up to me. He was in the audience and I asked him, if you can have anyone's superpower, what would it be? And he's like, Jim, just exactly what you teach. You know, reading faster. Warren Buffett reads about like 500 pages a day. Leaders are readers, right? And, well, the most wealthiest individuals, like Elon, the people you mentioned, Elon, Oprah, you know, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, they all read extensively, right? Because if somebody has decades of experience and they put it into a book and you can read that book in a few days, you could download decades in the days.

All right, what's going on?

What's going on, everyone?

Casey Adams here.

Welcome back to the Rise of the Young podcast.

Today we have someone that is going.

To truly help you optimize your brain. This is someone that I've been following for quite some time now, and we have the one and only Mr. Jim Quick on the show today. Thanks so much for coming on.

Thanks for having me on. Thank you. Everyone who's joining us today, upgrade some brains and some businesses, some brands.

So, I mean, first things first. I want to start off by saying, when did you start learning about the brain and falling in love with optimizing your brain?

Yeah, I mean, the quick of it was my. My inspiration was my desperation. I had a brain injury when I was 5 years old in school. I had some learning challenges that came out of that. I had very bad focus, bad memory. Took me an extra three years to learn how to read, and I just struggled. When I was nine years old, the teacher was frustrated. I was hold the class back, not understanding the lesson, pointed to me, and she said, that's the boy with the broken brain. And that became my label, and that label became my limit. So I'm very passionate about showing people how to unlimit themselves. And so I know what we're going to talk about. Like, my new book, limitless, is all about redrawing the borders and boundaries around what's possible. And so I really became fascinated with the brain early on, but I still couldn't fix my brain. I ended up fixing my brain when I was about 18 years old, and. And I got really interested in personal development because I got into college and I had struggled all through school, and I thought freshman meant I could make a fresh start. And I took all these classes, and I started to do worse. And I didn't have the money. I didn't come from money. I didn't have the money to even be in school. So I was ready to quit because I couldn't afford to be there. And a friend was like, hey, why don't you get some perspective? And I think perspective is so important, Casey, like, in our lives get a different point of view. And he was like, I'm going to visit my folks this weekend. Why don't you come with before you tell your folks, your parents you're going to quit school? And I was like, I decided to go, and the family's very well off. And the father walks me around his property before dinner and asked me a simple question. He's like, how's school. And I was like, the worst question you could ask me. And I just start, I was telling my whole story, broken brain, I'm ready to quit, don't know how to tell my parents. And then you beat big, big disappointment. And he's like, why are you in school? What do you want to be? What do you want to do? What do you want to have? What do you want to share? And I don't know if people really thought about that. Like, I know your community, they're really like, they're future leaders, they want to build businesses. But I didn't know at that time what I wanted, you know, be, do, have, share. And when I go to answer him, he says, stop. And he takes out a journal. He makes me write down the answers and, and I think writing things down is so important for an entrepreneur or someone who wants to level up. And I fold up the sheets of paper, put it in my pocket, he grabs it and he starts looking at my dreams. And I'm freaking out. Like I have all my dreams I've never shared with anybody. And he's like staring at them and he's like, jim, you're this close to everything on that list. And he spreads his index fingers about a foot apart. And I'm like, no way. Give me 10 lifetimes, I'm not going to crack that list. And he goes like this puts his fingers to the side of my head, meaning my brain was the key. And he ended up taking me into a room of his home like a library, and starts handing me books. And he says, I want to read one book a week. And I'm like, I've never read one book ever in my life, cover to cover, you know, And I give him all these excuses, but I ended up doing so. And I started learning about my own brain. I transformed my life. And then I, at the age of 18, I turned into a business.

I'm curious because going from, and we'll get into the story, but going from 18 years old to now, you've been able to work with people like Elon Musk and Richard Branson and Oprah and all of these prestigious individuals. And going from 18 and just getting started, lost and confused, what was the shift that happened in your life that allowed me to start working with these top notch people when it comes to optimizing their brain?

Yeah, I mean, so the context is when I fixed my brain and I started going from kind of like the zero to hero. I went from below normal to normal to way above. If people see me on stage, I do these demonstrations will have like a hundred people stand up and I'll memorize all their names in an audience, or they're gonna be a hundred words or 100 numbers, and I'll memorize them forwards and backwards. But I wasn't born with this ability. I believe that genius is not born, but it's genius is built. And I'm a big advocate for mental fitness. And so when I learned these skills, and I'll explain how I got to like these, you know, really high level people, when I got these skills, I couldn't help but help other people. Because my passion, I think the definition I use for passion is passion is what lights you up, and purpose is what lights other people up. So I found my passion in learning, and my purpose is teaching people how to learn. I think if there's one skill for your listeners right now to master today, especially in today's environment, it's your ability to learn faster. It's the ultimate superpower. Because the faster you can learn, the faster you could earn. You can apply that. Because if you can learn how to learn, you can apply it towards money, marketing, management, Mandarin, music, martial arts. Everything gets easier, everything in your life. And I believe that your brain is the number one wealth building asset you have. But more people upgrade their apps and their phone, then they upgrade their mind, right? So I started to teach and tutor. And that's a story into itself. I turn into a business. But one of my very first students, she was a freshman, she read 30 books in 30 days. And the books were on health and wellness. And her mother, she ended up saving her mom's life from terminal cancer. And that's what put me on my path. And, you know, over almost three decades later, I'm still teaching it. Now, eventually these kids, they started going, you know, getting straight A's, and their parents started taking note. And, you know, they work at law firms and big companies. So I got invited to speak there. And I taught this everywhere from Caltech to USC to Harvard University, teaching people how to get pay grades in less time. And then, you know, the people who are really successful, like the people you mentioned, you know, we have, you know, I was grateful that Will Smith did the COVID blurb for the book, like right on the COVID and he says, jim Kwik knows how to get the maximum out of me as a human being. And now he's a higher achiever. But those people, the reason why they are where they are is because they subscribe to lifetime lifelong learning. You know, the faster you can learn, the faster you can earn. So, you know, people find just like how these people, great singers have voice coaches, athletes have personal trainers, business, you know, individuals have business mentors, marketing mentors. You know, I'm a brain coach of sorts. So I help you to get the most out of your brain. And so how it happened is just organically, you know, before it was just word of mouth. You help one person, they tell another person another person, and, you know, the rest is history.

I'm super curious because I was at an event recently in January in San Diego, and one of the speakers, he. He did something where there was this private dinner at the end of the day, and there was like probably 60 people in the room and he stood up and listed everybody's name. My buddy Kieran and I were there and you know, we probably said our.

Names once or twice, right.

And I know that I've seen demonstrations of you doing this. What goes on in your mind and how do you build up the brain capacity to meet 100 people and remember their names? Because I personally haven't grasp that yet. And I'd love to hear your.

Let's do this. I think one of the most important skills in business and in life is our ability to remember things. You know, that memory can make you money. Because the two most costly words sometimes in life and business are, I forgot, I forgot to do it, I forgot to bring it, I forgot what this is going to say. I forgot what I just read, I forgot that conversation, I forgot that meeting, I forgot that person's name. And remembering people's names, probably number one business etiquette, networking skill there is, because ultimately, how are you going to show somebody you're going to care for their future, their family, their health, their wealth, their finance, anything if you don't care enough just to remember them, right? And so the message we send to somebody when we forget their name is they're not important or you don't care. And here's the thing. There's a quote from Maya Angelou. She says people forget what you say, they'll forget what you did, they'll always remember how you made the feel. And when you remember someone's name, they just feel like lit up because they say a name is the sweetest sound a person's ear. So that's the context of it, right? So I think it's very important because I can't tell you how many clients I have that have lost, you know, million dollar deals because they call someone by the wrong name or they just person didn't feel respected or felt important, right? So here are a few things that anybody could do to remember people's names. And I go through like a whole. The biggest chapter in the whole book is on memory. So framework mom. First of all, mom, just remember these three parts. If you ever forget something or you want to remember something, better remember Mom. Now, let's say somebody has trouble remembering names. That's 95% of the population. But there was a suitcase of a million dollars cash, and it's all yours tax free if you just remember the name of the next stranger you meet. Who's going to remember that person's name for a million dollars?

Everybody.

Everybody. So here's my point is that when people say they're horrible at remembering names or they don't have a good memory, that's not really true. So I call people on their lies, and the lie it stands for me, a lie. Limited idea entertained. So in this book, I introduce a framework for accelerated learning. It's a three part framework that I believe is not only is the secret for learning anything faster, it's also formula for unlocking human potential. And the truth is there's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's just a trained memory and an untrained memory. But you know, a lot of people's memory, they're. They're not as strong because they never exercise their memory. So it's a muscle. And the first thing you need to be able to tap into is your motivation. So the first M in MOM stands for motivation. And I do. The whole section of this book is based on human motivation. I remember I was giving a talk in Silicon Valley, and afterwards, Bill Gates comes up to me. He was in the audience and I asked him, if you can have any one superpower, what would it be? I like asking this question on my podcast a lot. And he's like, jim, just exactly what you teach. Reading faster. Warren Buffett has said, I probably wasted 10 years of my life reading slowly. Warren Buffett reads about like 500 pages a day. Leaders are readers, right? And the most wealthiest individuals, like Elon, the people you mentioned, Elon, Oprah, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, they all read extensively, right? Because if somebody has decades of. Of experience and they put it into a book and you can read that book in a few days, you could download decades in the days. Biggest advantage you could have in business and also in life. So we started talking about. I was like, I could totally help you with that reading thing. And then we start talking about the future of education. And I'm talking about it from accelerated learning, and he's talking about it from all the technology that's available today. And then a huge crowd, I posted this on Instagram, started gathering around us, following us around, and somebody asked, is this, is there anything missing? If you know, accelerated learning and you have the technology, you know, can you fix education? And we talked about it, we're like, no, there's one more thing missing. A third part, human motivation. A lot of people know what to do, but they don't do what they know because common sense is not common practice. And so in the book, I highlight a three part formula for sustainable motivation. Because the book is called Limitless. Right? And I don't know if you saw the movie with Bradley Cooper, De Niro. Yeah, the one where he takes a pill and all of a sudden he has this perfect memory. He learns languages, he could write his book in a few days. He gets completely focused. He also has a surge of motivation, but when the pill wears off, 24 hours later, he goes back down to like zero. And a very notable doctor, Dr. Mark Hyman, he's the head of strategy and innovation and functional medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, he wrote Our Forward. And he says in it, he's like, there is no genius pill. But Jim shows you the process for building your best and brightest brain because there's a process to motivation. So I talk about the human motivation, but one of the things you could do to remember names, ask yourself the question why? One of the other people that endorsed the book is Simon Sinek, who wrote Start with why. You know, I mention a lot of books because I feel like everyone reading is to your mind, what exercise is to your body, and everyone should be reading more books. But you know, Simon, for the, for the book, you know, he writes this amazing testimonial basically saying, jim Kwik makes us smarter. And he teaches specifically around remembering names. And. But what had to change was his belief that he couldn't. And I think it's so important. Now. A lot of people have this belief in their mind that they say, you know, Jim, I'm horrible remembering names. I'm not that smart. And I would say, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. And I would just like, let that set a settle in. A lot of us fight for, oh, I can't, I'm not. I don't have the connections, I don't have the education, I don't have the money. Whatever you do, I was like, stop. If you fight for your Limits, you get to keep them. So your brain is like a supercomputer and your self talk is a program that will run. So if you tell yourself you're not good at remembering names, you will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to. So monitor your self talk and instead ask yourself, why do I want to remember the person's name? Maybe it's to show the person respect. Maybe it's to make some business, maybe a new connection, maybe get a referral. Maybe it's to do a deal. Maybe it's to practice these things I learned from Jim, right? Jim Rohn said, what you practice in private, you're rewarded for in public. So do that work. You know, it's below the iceberg. It's not very sexy. But when you do the work, it shows up in public, right? And so tap into your motivation. Ask yourself why. Because reasons reap results, reasons reap rewards. And so that, that's the M. The O really quickly is observation. And a lot of people, they blame their retention when they have a memory lapse and they forget a name. But it's not your retention, it's you paying attention. It's not your retention, it's you paying attention. So the O is observation. I remember I was at a fundraiser with President Clinton and we were sitting at the same table and I literally had to put this on social media. I sit at the table on the first one and Forest Whitaker sits right next to me. He's an Oscar winning actor. And then Richard Branson sits next to him. Ashton Kutcher sits next to him. Ashton's twin brother sits. I didn't know he had a twin brother. And then President Clinton sits right next to me and he remembered my name. And like we met once before, a couple years before, for only a couple minutes, I was like, how do you remember my name? And I was like, oh, he knew he was sitting at this table. But then I was like. Then he picked up the conversation we were having from a couple years ago. And I was like, there's no way somebody told him that. But when he's telling me all this, I noticed something really kind of almost uncomfortable. Like he was like solely focused on me. Like, it was weird. Casey. It was like, have you ever met somebody and they're just like not paying attention to anybody but you? And it was, you know, not many people do that. But I think his charisma, his ability to connect, you know, his great memory comes from being powerfully present. You Know that, that his powerful presence and his incredible memory comes from being powerfully present with people. And anybody could do that. And so to remember someone's name, just listen. Even if you write the word listen and scramble the letters like a brain teaser, it spells another word perfectly. You know what word it spells if you just kind of switch the letters around the word listen. And I encourage everyone to take some notes on this because I'm going to give a lot of tactics here. It spells the word silent. The letters in listen also spell the word silent. And I'm saying you can remember someone's name. Just quiet your mind and just listen. And finally, the last M and mom are the mechanics. Those are the tools, the techniques, all the strategies I teach for memory names. And one of them, very, very simple technique is I call it PI, P, I, E. Remembering names is as easy as piece P is. You find a place. So when you look at somebody, something usually stands out. You know, maybe their eyes, their hair, their ears, they're wearing something. That's your place. The I in pie stands for imagine. You want to imagine the person's name turned into a picture. So here's the thing. People are better at faces than they are with names, right? You ever notice that you go to somebody say, you know, I remember your face, but I forgot your name. You never go to someone. Say the opposite. You never go to someone, say, I remember your name, but I forgot your face. That would make a lot of sense. But we remember what we see better than what we hear. And so if that's the case, then try picturing what you want to remember. So if a person's name is Mike, just imagine a microphone, right? If the person's name is Mary, imagine they're getting married, right? Person's name is carol, singing, Christmas carols, whatever, right? David. I use a slingshot, you know, for David and Goliath, right? And the E in pie, P is place, I is imagine the name E is entwine. And what are you entwining? You're putting together the place and the image. So if a person's name is their place is their nose, let's say it just stands out. Their name is David. The image I use for David is slingshot. I would imagine myself entwining this, hitting them in the nose with a slingshot, right? And it sounds silly in third grade, but children, they learn so fast because they're playful. They use their imagination. And even when it doesn't work, it still works because it gets you to focus on the place. The person, it gets you focus on the name, so it allows you to pay attention. So that's really the key. The key is to overcome what I call the six second syndrome. That when somebody tells you their name, you have six seconds to do something with it. Otherwise the name just. You shake hands and then the name just falls right to the ground. So it works. Even when it doesn't work.

I'm curious, when it comes to your new book, Limitless, what inspired you to start writing this book to then publish it? Because you've been teaching this for, you know, decades. Your new book, Limitless.

You know what, all right, so a few years ago I was in an accident where I almost died. And I don't know if anyone who's listening or watching this has ever had like a near death experience. But it puts certain things in perspective. Every opportunity to really scale media franchising, you know, like PBS specials, you know, whatever. Online. I always said book deals, I would say no because I didn't. I'm introverted personally. It's one of those things where I don't really desire the spotlight. If somebody else would do this, I would support them if they could do it, what I think I could do. So getting on stage, even though I'm in front of quarter million people live a year and even though if you search my name on Facebook and YouTube, probably see a good 300 million views, it's not, it's not my nature, you know what I mean? But when I almost died, it made me think like about legacy and why I leave behind. And so that's why I wanted to put a book out there. Because I was like, I have to take this knowledge and put it into something physical. And I think, you know, books change my life for my story. Remember all those books like just changed my life. And I'd be, I feel a more obligation, like shame on me if, if I know something that could help somebody that's struggling with information overload, distraction, memory loss, not being their best. And I didn't help them like I was looking for help. So that's why I wrote the book. And Limitless is not about being perfect. Limitless is about progressing and advancing beyond what you believe is possible. This three step formula to become limitless in any area of your life, it's just, it's an explanatory schema why you feel somebody feels held back in some area. So if they feel, if somebody is listening or watching and they feel like they're in a box, they're not growing, they're not progressing. Maybe it could be in their. Their income, maybe it could be in their schooling, and maybe in the relationship, maybe in their career, whatever. There are three forces that keep you in that box, and that's what the book talks about. And I created this process called unlimiting. Unlimiting is removing, actively removing the limits in our life. So that way it's just, you know, it becomes a lot less effort when you're not dealing with limits in our mindset, in our motivation, and in our methodology.

You said you're introverted, and obviously I've been following your social media presence for quite some time now. What inspired you to start putting out content in the first place to tell your story? If you consider yourself a natural introvert?

Yeah, so somebody on my team started my Facebook account like, you know, first. Like, you know, early on, it's not my nature to put, like, that stuff out there. So then once it was out there, they started posting pictures of me and the people we work with. And then it kind of, you know, snowballed into that. But it's interesting, you know, I work with a lot of actors, teaching them how to speed read scripts and memorize their lines. I remember with Will Smith when he. I was with him a few weeks after he started his Instagram, and it was. I asked him in the trailer, it was just he and I having lunch in his trailer, and I was like, why'd you, you know, he launched it like on Ellen recently. Just recently, you know, at that time, I was like, why did you start. Why'd you get on social media after all this time? And he was like, jim, because, you know, one of the reasons is because, as you know, you know, most of my life is scripted. When people see me on television or movies, somebody. I'm speaking somebody else's words and their lines, you know, and I, you know, that I'm, you know, I have a voice and what inspires me and things that, you know, gets me juiced. And so that was the trigger. And I feel like it was important to document everything in my life to put out there just so people have, you know, just another example of what's possible.

Very cool. When you're coaching someone and sitting down with someone and they may have stress and anxiety and they, you know, they're giving themselves these limitations of, oh, I can't remember names. I can't do this. What is your first. First step when dealing with someone that is setting limitations on their mind?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the. This is a great question, and I love your Thought process. Because having done this for so long. This book is based on the latest neuroscience applied towards not only accelerated learning, but peak performance cognitive performance. But it's also 28 years of field testing, working with kids with learning challenges to seniors who are early stage dementia. I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer's, so it's something I'm very passionate about, brain health. The first thing I do is I do assessments, right? And so whether we teach, we have like the largest accelerated learning platform out there called quick learning. So we teach 30 day programs on speed reading, on memory enhancement, critical thinking skills, focus, concentration, student success programs on how to get better grades, less time. So we have a lot of data. And what I would say is, where I start is with assessment. Because the good thing about what we do is everything is measurable. I could test your reading speed, I could test your reading comprehension, I could test your memory. Like I can give you a bunch of names and see how well you do and then teach you something and then test you afterwards. And I can do that. You know, I train a lot of the TED speakers on how to memorize their 18 minute talks. You know, everything, facts, formulas for all that stuff is, that's how, that's what the book is. But going deeper into it, this framework, if everyone can imagine this, because not many people have heard this conversation, because this is, you know, this is, I feel like it's just the latest, proven, easy ways to overcome limits. Limits come in one of three areas. And so if everybody can imagine three circles that intersect like, like a Venn diagram, kind of looks like Mickey Mouse. Two ears and a face, three circles. What keeps you in this box? When somebody comes to me and they feel like they can't learn or earn or do anything, right? That three dimensional box, the three dimensions that keep us in that box are three M's. So the first circle is your mindset. And your mindset is what you believe is possible. Your mindset would fall in that circle is what you believe you're capable of. What would fall under there is what you believe you deserve, right? That would all fall under your mindset. So another M is the methods. But I could teach somebody how to read three times faster in this book, how to be able to remember names really. But their mindset is I'm not smart enough. They're not going to get the result because all behavior is belief driven. So we got to address mindset first. So I take people through, I tell them, I show them the seven lies to your potential and learning. And like these lies that people accept that genius is born, that intelligence is fixed, and I tell them the truth and we install a new belief. Because all behavior is belief driven. Right? And so it's like kind of like Roger Bannister in 1954, he broke the four minute mile. But what was interesting, and nobody could do it for, you know, human history, one person does it. What happens after that? Exactly. And so there was not a big shift in training or, you know, nutrition supplementation or shoe technology, but it was a shift in mindset. The second m after mindset is the limits of their motivation. Right. Somebody could have the mindset, everything is possible and they're capable of it, but they're not motivated. And that'll keep them in that box. And so there's a formula to motivation, like a real three step formula for sustainable motivation. So if anybody struggles with procrastination, if anyone struggles with putting things off, because here's the lie, the lie is again lie. Limited idea entertained is that knowledge is power. It's not power at best, it's potential power. Because all the books and podcasts and online coaching programs, none of it works unless you work right. So my whole thing is writing a book. This book used to be all on methods. It used to be a hundred pages. Yeah, like all these step by step. But I realized if someone just found the book, my question is, would they get the results? In my mind I was like, no, because a lot of people know what to do, but they don't do what they know. Why? Because they're missing the mindset or the motivation. And now the final part is the methods. Because somebody could have unlimited mindset, like a limitless mindset. Everything is possible and they can be motivated, but they're using old methods, old methods of marketing, old methods of team building and training, old methods of learning. Like we picked up some really bad habits back in school, like rote memorization, repeating things over and over and over again, or sub vocalization. What will keep everybody reading slow is have you ever noticed when you're reading something, you hear that inner voice inside your head reading along with you? You hear that voice inside your head, hopefully it's your own voice. It's not like somebody else's voice in there. The reason why it's a challenge, it's a limit, is if you have to say all the words inside your head to understand them, you can only read as fast as you could talk. That means your reading speed is limited to your speaking speed, not your thinking speed. And so it's not necessary to Say most of the words any more than it is when you see a stop sign to say stop. And so in the book, I show you tactics on how to reduce subvocalization so you can read faster because you can listen to a podcast or an audiobook at 2x or 3x, you can understand that fast, but nobody could speak that fast. So I teach people how to learn and read with better comprehension by seeing the words as opposed to saying the words. But that would be an example of a limited method. Now, when people draw this out, here's the aha. You cannot get out of that box, that next level of your business or your income or your influence or your impact if you have a limit in one of these three areas. Now, where mindset crosses over with motivation, that little crossover, that's inspiration, right? Where mindset crosses over with methods. People have a mindset in their head and they have the methods in their head. So that's ideation. So you have inspiration and you have ideation. They're just an idea. And honestly, ideas are a dime a dozen, right? They're not worth a whole lot. But where motivation crosses over with methods, you're motivated, you know what to do. That's implementation. That's the third I inspiration, ideation, implementation. Now, the problem is you're still stuck in that box because you're motivated, you know what to do. But you're only going to be able to achieve what your mindset believes is possible and what you personally believe you deserve. So if you feel like you only deserve a $50,000 a year income, then that's the thermostat that you're setting it at. And your behavior will always reflect that $50,000 mindset will be what's coming to you. And now where all three of them come together, you have the fourth I, which is integration. Integration. And that's the limitless state. That's just who you are. And that's the promise of the book. The promise of the book, when you come out of it, is you will unlimit all those negative beliefs that hold you back and you will unlimit your motivation. So you'll never deal, have to deal with procrastination. You always have this unlimited surge of drive and energy. And then you'll know exactly how to read faster, to focus, to concentrate, to use your memory to learn and earn and also return to be able to give back. That's the model.

I love it. I love that model a lot. I'm intrigued because as of right now, as you know, especially in A town like this where so many people are staying at their homes and they have to work from home. People have time now that they didn't have maybe a couple weeks ago or a couple months ago. And I want to ask you, with people listening to this podcast today or during these next two weeks, what would you recommend people to do with this new free time that they have in their lives to then move forward into, you know, in the workplace, with their family? What can they do on a daily basis? Just for starters, to start enhancing and optimizing their brain?

Perfect. Perfect. Let me give you five things, all right? I'll make them five Cs. And I like to obviously alliterate everything because it makes it memorable and easy for people to teach other people. And as I'm going through this, I would take notes. And some of it's common sense, but common sense is not common practice where I believe and I, you know, I'm fortunate because I'm connected to such high achievers. I know what they're struggling with right now. And, you know, right now, the metaphor I would use is we're in a cocoon, as you mentioned. We're physically distancing ourselves from people. And I say physically distancing instead of socially distancing because you and I are being social right now, right? So we're not limited, you know, we need to be six feet away, physically distancing ourselves, but we can still be social, right? And so here, when we're in a cocoon, the metaphor is really powerful because we are isolating ourselves in a cocoon. And, you know, in that cocoon, sometimes our thoughts go wild, right? Our fears, our doubts, our loneliness, right? And that's what limits us. And it's holding us back from change and growth because we know that a caterpillar, you know, when it thinks its life is ending, it's only the ending of that cycle that it's going through. A transformation of a butterfly that gets sort of new levels. I open. But the challenge is a lot of people cling to the what was, you know, but now the man. There is a new normal today, right? The future of work, the future of learning. Everything is disrupted, but people are clinging to what was rather than progressing through and continuing the cycle. I start the book with a quote from a French philosopher. It says, life is the C between the B and the D. Life is the C between the B and the D. And people listening like that guy speaks in code and tongue. The B stands for birth. So what does D stand for? Death. Death And The C, Life C stands for choice. That's what's always in our power. And what we always have a choice on is choices around our mindset, our motivation, and the methods we choose to employ. Choice is the ultimate thing because difficult times right now, they could diminish us. Difficult times can define us or difficult times can develop us. We decide that comes back to choice, right? So here I believe that the goal is not to downgrade our dreams to today's current situation. Don't downgrade your dreams, today's current situation. Expand your mindset, your motivation and your methods to be able to meet your destiny, right? So while we're cocooning, five things you could do, five Cs, number one, self care, right? Right now, it's not just physical hygiene. We know we should wash our hands and sanitize everything. I'm talking about our mental hygiene. You know what I mean? Get your mind straight, because a lot of people are just glued to all the negativity. And I'm not saying we should know what's going on, but you want to be a thermostat, not a thermometer. A thermometer just reacts to the environment. They're the victim. A thermostat sets a goal, a vision, a temperature, and makes the environment you know what's in their mind. So what can you do? The problem is the brain has an algorithm, much like social media. The mind does that. If you just like certain kinds of content on social media, let's say they're cats you like and share and comment every cat thing, you're gonna see cats all through your feed, right? Your life is the same way. If you just look at the news and all the fear, you're just going to focus on that and life is going to show you more of that. But you're going to delete opportunity. You're going to delete what you could be grateful for, right? All this other stuff. So care for your brain, right? Eat the best. My podcast is only 15 minutes and it's just like, here's the best brain foods. Here's how to optimize your sleep. Here's the best nutrition for your brain, right? Here's how to get rid of negative thoughts, right? That's what the book is all about. Self care is not selfish. Second C. Besides, care is clarity, dude. Use this time to clarify your goals. To clarify self awareness, like who you are, ask yourself this magic question. What's most important to me in my life? What's most important to me in a career? What's Most important to me in my health, in my relationships, what's most important to me in my mission, what's most important to me in my legacy, you know, and then make sure when the self reflection that your actions are aligned with those values. Wonderful time to clarify because solitude is like. You get a gift of clarity, you know, without distraction. So care, clarity. The third thing I would say contribute. You know, I think, you know, how can you contribute in a unique way right now with your time or your talent or your treasure, you know, with some of your money or first things that are going on in the world or just, you know, how can you like online, we're doing on Instagram and Facebook, I'm doing these lives on how to recession proof your brain and just making it completely free, right? And so like how can you uniquely contribute? Because I believe the formula as I mentioned, learn, earn, return. You learn so you can earn and you earn so you could be able to give also as well. So how can you contribute? Last two Cs I would say number, number, number four is create. Use this time to be creative. Man, when are you gonna have these days or weeks or however long this is gonna last to make videos? You always say like, oh, when I have time I'll make those videos or blog posts or whatever it is, whatever your expression is. People don't know this but Shakespeare during that time of the great plague, that's when he came out with like Macbeth. That's, you know, that's when he came out with Anthony and Cleopatra when he was like socially distancing himself, right? You know, like Sir Isaac Newton. That's when the great plague and they closed down the university in London. He had to go home and that's when the apple fell on his head and he came up with his theorems of gravity and motion. You know, I think this time right now, somebody look, looking and watching this or listening to this, this could be some of your most productive time of your life. Like you'll look back and ask yourself what's the story you want to tell of what happened during this time to, you know, to your kids, you know, your future kids and everything.

And lastly breaking up a little bit. One second. Oh, sorry about that. Alright, we're good to go. Can you just repeat the last thing you just said?

Absolutely. So when I'm talking about being creative, this could be the most productive period of your life. Maybe somebody listening or watching this is this. They're going to come up with ideas that are going to change the world, right? Or create brand New markets or you know, disrupt current markets and everything because there's a huge wealth distribution going on right now. And this is wonderful time to clarify and contribute, care and create. And then finally what I would say is the last C, the last C, if you will, stands for capabilities, dude. Like this is the perfect time to level up, level up your learning. You know, it's not, you know, I had this conversation recently with Tom Bilyeu and you know, he's just about skill acquisition and how the best of the best are always acquiring skills. And I would say the number one skill to master is your ability to learn faster. Number one skill to master is your ability to learn faster. Because then you can apply that towards everything. You could grant all your wishes, right? Because we live in this knowledge economy, this expert economy, where nobody, where jobs are going to AI, artificial intelligence, they're going to machines and automation. But what makes us human is the power of the mind. And your brain is your number one wealth building asset. But we don't upgrade it like we upgrade our phones. So Limitless is all about upgrading your the first. Actually the subtitle for Limitless is upgrade your brain, learn anything faster and unlock your exceptional life, whatever the exceptional life you have. So what's you have your to do list, but what's on your to learn list? Like what are you reading right now, what courses are you going through and doubling down on? But the truth is we're going to come out of this whenever we come out of it. And we could either come out smarter and stronger or we could adjust a junk food and binge watch stuff on Netflix every single day thinking about like all the horrible stuff that's going on. Or we could have got our agency back, our power back. And that's what I would focus on, the five Cs level up your ability to create, your capabilities, your care, you know, your clarity, your contribution. I mean, you'll be unstoppable. This looked at the right way, you know, this is the silver lining. You know, this is the ultimate reset right now for everybody and this is a great opportunity for people to grow.

I appreciate you sharing that last question before we wrap it up. Just on a daily basis during this, like you said, cocoon. What is Jim Kwik doing on a daily basis to level up his learning? And what does that look like in your life when it comes to this daily learning?

Yeah, here we go. So I believe that we're here to grow. Like I really believe that every single day. You have 24 hours in a day and that's the only thing that's equal. We don't have the same network, we all have the same income, we don't have the same, you know, connections and education. But we all have 24 hours in a day, 86,400 seconds. And it's how we invest it or don't invest it that we, that we, you know, are. That's the results that we have. And so what I would be, my advice for people is set aside the excuses you can't be upset for the, for the, for the results you didn't get from the work you didn't do, all right? And so put in the effort, all right? And so for me, I have my daily routine. There are 10 things I do every morning to jumpstart my brain. People can find that on my show or on my YouTube channel. Like the 10 things, you know, Tony has his, Tim has his, Oprah has hers. Mine all has to do with jump starting my brain. So that's how I get my brain right? And then I spend two hours creating every single day, creating podcasts, creating video content, writing. Because I feel like especially in the morning, that's when I'm most creative. And I can show you from a brain based reasons why that happens, but there's a creative process and then learning. My to learn list is huge because I feel like your brain, no matter what your age, is just like building muscles. How do you build a muscle? Two things. You give it novelty and you give it nutrition and then you give it sleep, rest, right? Same thing with your mental muscles, you know, and so what do you do? You give it novelty and you give it nutrition and you give it rest. But the novelty, you got to be learning every single day. So what's on your to learn list? And I read for four years, I read a book a day. Four years. Four years. Now I do probably about three books, four books a week, you know, But I make sure that I read up a good 45 minutes a day. And that's a big part of it, right. Right now, you know, and things that can help us to be able to help more people. Because me growing up with the boy with a broken brain, I wanted. My mission is build better, brighter brains that nobody watching. This is paid for their muscle power. You're paid for your mind power. It's not your brute strength, it's your brain strength. So really, this book is an owner's manual for your brain. So I would say is to schedule your learning. If you don't schedule it, it's not going to happen. Just like if you don't schedule your workouts, you don't schedule your meditation, it always comes last. You won't do it.

I love it. Well, Jim, you were talking a lot about your new book Limitless in this episode. So to really wrap it up, where can people get your new book Limitless?

Yeah. So we did something very special. We are going to make this the most read book of 2020. And I think it's the most important book because we could have moved this launch into the fall when all this was over. But this book gives you your power back. It shows how to manage your mind to access flow states and focus and productivity from home. I mean it is the ultimate guide. Here's what we did. I'm saying it's going to be the most read book, not necessarily the most bought book, but the most read book is a lot of people buy books and it sits on their shelf and it becomes shelf help, not self help. So in order to help people to read the book better, when people go to limitlessbook.com and pre order the book and submit the receipt number, we give them a 10 day program immediately. And this 10 day program I call Quick Start and I teach you the fundamentals of being limitless. How to unravel limiting beliefs right away. How to enhance your motivation and speed reading and memory techniques to prime you. So when the book arrives then you're just going to go through it. You're unstoppable. And then on top of that I also after you get the book, we are going to do there's four sections to the book. We are going to do a four week book club to make sure you finish this book where you go through it in a week. And then I show you, you know, on zoom in the whole group literally how to memorize everything in that area that you just read and more importantly how to apply it. So we do that for mindset motivation and all the methods in the book. And then as a gift also we do one for businesses. We give you a bonus chapter when you pre order it on Limitless towards businesses like how do you make your team limitless? And it's extraordinary. So limitlessbook.com is where all the information is. You can watch, you know, some, some, some of the, some of the information on the book there's and it'll turn you into that metaphorical butterfly if you want to soar to new heights. This is the book.

I love it. Well, Jim and everyone listening, I'll make sure to link that down Below so people can go pre order that. And then just to wrap it up, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show, Jim. I know that I've been following you for a while and it's been a while to make this happen and I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to do it. And I want to make sure everyone that's listening spends the time and goes and pre orders the book because I know I'm excited to read it. And I just want to say thank you so much for coming on today.

I appreciate it. Casey, can I give everyone a challenge, a quick challenge?

Absolutely.

I challenge everybody who's watching this because if you're serious about your self growth, I believe you have to take action immediately about something. But I mentioned in order to learn something faster, learn with the intention of teaching somebody else. Right. Like I know, like with you, you've absorbed so much information because you not only are you learning and having these conversations and reading and all these things, but you're also teaching people at the same time. So you're learning it better. I would challenge everybody to teach this, meaning one way you could do it. Take a screenshot of this episode or this video and post on social media. Tag Casey tagged myself. So I. So we get to see it. M. Quick Kwik, if you could follow me there, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever and share your big aha. Remember, you get to. When you teach something, you get to learn twice. Put one thing in there that you learned out of it and you tag me so I can see it and I'll repost some of my favorites and I'll actually send a copy of the book to one person. I love it. I'll send a signed galley to one of your tribe members just for going out there and sharing it out.

I appreciate that a lot. So everyone that's listening, make sure you go do that screenshot this episode. Make sure you follow Jim on social media and let us know what was your biggest takeaway today because I know I'm going to re listen to this and take notes myself. So I definitely appreciate all the knowledge today.

Jim, Amazing. Casey, I would leave you with this is that your life is like that cocoon that if a cocoon is broken by an outside force, life ends. But if it's broken by an inside force, life begins. Great things begin on the inside. And everybody who's here with us, if they got to the end of this conversation, they're already great. And we're not going for perfection. We're going for progress. Little by little, a little becomes a lot. You guys got.

Thanks so much, Jim.

All right, guys.

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