Jim Kwik | The Growth Mindset That Changes Everything

Welcome to the Radical responsibility podcast. I'm Dr. Fleet Mahl and I'm excited to guide you on a journey of authentic transformation. In each episode, I'll bring you insights from leading experts to explore trauma recovery, mindfulness practices, positive psychology, and innovative breakthroughs in health, wellness and life optimization. This is a space for real conversations that inspire meaningful change, helping you find alignment with the person you were always meant to be. Let's get started. Foreign. What if transformation isn't just about thinking differently, but feeling differently? Science shows us that true change happens when we align not just our minds, but also the neural networks in our hearts and guts. This Heart Mind connection is the key to deeper healing, resilience and expanded awareness. That's why I created the Heart Mind All Access, Membership and Community, a space designed to help you rewire your nervous system, cultivate heart intelligence, and live with greater clarity and purpose. With over 1000 hours of transformational teachings specifically curated to meet your needs, you'll learn from world renowned meditation teachers, neuroscientists and experts in neuroplasticity, all sharing powerful tools to help you shift your mindset to and heart set, regulate your emotions and unlock your full potential. You'll also gain unlimited access to every summit and course we've ever produced, a treasure trove of Wisdom worth over $10,000 and growing, plus live gatherings and an inspiring global community to support your journey. If you're ready to step into a more heart centered, connected and conscious life, I invite you to join us. Click the link to learn more and and start your journey today. What if the limits you believe about your mind and memory aren't real at all? What if they're simply stories and you have the power to rewrite them? My guest, Jim Quick, has lived with this truth Once labeled as having a broken brain after a childhood injury, Jim discovered the incredible power of neuroplasticity and turned his greatest struggle into his life's mission. Today, he's a world renowned memory and accelerated learning expert, training leaders at Harvard, Google, Nike and beyond. In this conversation, Jim shares how to break free from limiting beliefs, build habits and routines that unlock your brain's full potential and reclaim your focus in a distracted world. If you've ever doubted your capacity to learn or grow, this episode will show you just how limitless you really are. So whether you've ever felt stuck, struggled with self doubt, or wondered if your brain was holding you back, this episode will give you the tools and inspiration to step into your true potential. Let's dive in. My name is Fleet Mahl your co host for this session. And I'm thrilled to be here today with none other than Jim Kwik. Welcome, Jim.

So good to be here, Fleet. Thank you everybody who's tuning in?

You know, I know that our audience, very busy entrepreneurs are going to want to get right to it. We are going to get right to the stuff that that's gonna help you succeed in your business. But I'd like to just get a little bit of origin story here, very brief and I know it's tough to encapsulate your story, but you know just a little bit about, you know, how your journey, because it's an amazing journey of what you overcame and that led you into becoming this world renowned expert in memory enhancement and so forth. So if you could just give us a snippet of that and then we'll go into the how we can deliver value for the entrepreneurs in our audience.

Yeah, I love sharing the practical, pragmatic, proven ways to uplevel not only your learning, but your earning. Well, hello to all my fellow entrepreneurs. I've been an entrepreneur my entire adult life. I've never gotten a paycheck from a job. My inspiration was my desperation. When people see me at events at Inc. 5000 or all the big entrepreneur events where I'm speaking, I'll often, if there's time, do these demonstrations where I'll have the audience stand up, we'll pass around a microphone and maybe 50, 60, 100 people introduce themselves and I'll memorize all their names. But I always tell people, I don't do this to impress you. I do this to express to you what's possible. Because the truth is every single one of you listening and watching, you could do this too. We just weren't taught. And remembering AIM is such an important business etiquette networking skill. Because how are you going to show somebody as an entrepreneur you're going to care for their future, their finances, their wellness, their family, their wealth, whatever you have to offer them. If you don't care enough just to remember them, I think memory will actually make you money. I think two of the most costly words in business are I forgot. You know, think about the consequences. I forgot to do it. I forgot to bring it. I forgot what I just listened to. I forgot what I just read. I forgot to go to that meeting. I forgot person's name. You know, we lose trust, we kill our credibility, we lose time. But when people. I know it's possible because I grew up with very severe, as you know, fleet learning difficulties. When I was 5 years old in kindergarten class, I had an unfortunate accident, or some people would say fortunate, depending on their point of view. I had a traumatic brain injury. I was rushed to the hospital, I was knocked unconscious. And where it really showed up was in school. I would have these migraines every day. When I was five, they said I was very slow. I had processing issues. So teachers would repeat themselves over and over again. And I would pretend to understand, but I didn't really understand. I had poor focus and thinking about what that does to an entrepreneur. Having poor focus. I had a poor memory. It took me three years, Fleet, just to learn how to read. And that was just very embarrassing, right? I mean, imagine you're 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and you just can't do what the other kids could do. So really affected my self esteem. Some people call it imposter syndrome. I would have this social anxiety, lack of self confidence, self worth. Those are all issues around mindset. That was my mindset when I was nine years old. I was slowing down a class because I didn't understand and I was being teased by the other kids. That's what kids do. And a teacher came to my defense. I remember she pointed to me, fleet in front of the whole class and said, leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain. And I was like, wow. And she had good intentions, right? She wanted to protect me. But talk about mindset. My mindset became, oh, I'm broken. You know, every time I did badly in school, which was every day, every time I was in pick for sports, which was every week, I'd always my self talk was, oh, it's because I have the broken brain. And adults have to be very careful of their external words because they often become a child's internal words. You know, and I love this topic of mindset and that you start with mindset. Limitless actually has three sections, and it's. The first section is mindset. Because, you know, one of those things is, you know, your assumptions and attitudes about money, your attitudes, assumptions about service. And so I struggled all through school till I was 18. I eventually found a mentor and resources, and I realized it's not how smart you are, it's how are you smart? It's not how smart your kids are, it's how are they smart? And we all express genius in different ways. And when I was 18, once I learned these skills, I couldn't help but help other people. And I felt a moral obligation to do it. I took my mess and turned it into my message and I'm sure a lot of people listening, they could relate. You know, your struggles can be strengths over time because with challenge comes change. I started to help other individuals. I started to tutor. And I remember I was tutoring a college freshman and she read 30 books in 30 days. Imagine that fleet or everyone listening. Imagine going to Amazon, picking up 30 books and reading all that in a month. And I wanted to find out not how she did it. I taught her how to speed read and remember what she read and understand what she read. I want to know why. And just like I'll mention a lot of books like very iconic book like Simon Sinek. We've had him on the podcast three or four times. His great book star with why if people have seen photos of me, if we're connecting on social media, if you see photos with me with Elon or Oprah or whoever, people ask how we bonded. And I tell you we connected over books. Right? Leaders are readers. You're an avid reader. I'm an avid reader. Warren Buffett reads 500 pages a day. You know, because our lives. There's a quote in Limitless and I encourage everyone to write this down. You can post on social if you want to share with your fans, your followers. Life is a letter C between B and D. Life is C between B and D. What does that mean? B is birth and D is death. Life, C. Choice.

Right?

Our lives are the sum total of the choices we've made up to this point in time. And I truly believe these difficult times, as a lot of people view it as economic times or whatever, it could distract you. These difficult times can diminish you. Or these difficult times, they could develop you. You decide. And that's part of mindset. But this young lady, I found out when I asked her why she read the books, I found out her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, was only given two months, 60 days to live. And the book she was reading, Fleet, were books that save her mom's life. And I wish her luck. Prayers. Six months goes by, I don't hear from her. And one day I get a call and it's this young lady and she's crying profusely, just nonstop. And I find out when she stops that they're tears of joy, that her mother not only survived, but is really getting better. Doctors don't know how, they don't know why. All the doctors were calling it a miracle, but her mother attributed a hundred percent to her daughter, who learned it from this advice, from all these books. And in that moment, I realized Two things, Fleet. Number one, if knowledge is power, then learning is our superpower, right? The faster you learn, the faster you could earn. Because you can only make going back to choice, good choices and decisions based on. On the knowledge that you have, right? Because knowledge today is not only power, it's profit. But the other thing I realized in that moment was my mission, my dharma in life, which is helping people to learn faster, to learn better. And I think if there's one skill for entrepreneurs to get good at, it's your ability to learn rapidly, your ability to learn, to unlearn, to relearn and apply that learning. It's the ultimate competitive advantage. And so, you know, I'm just very fortunate, being in my 50s. I've done this for 34 plus years, you know, having had this slow brain, the broken brain, I want to build better, brighter brains. No brain left behind.

So it's such an amazing story as you're talking about learning and self education and learning is so important to our success as entrepreneurs. And also, you know, getting the right mentors and getting mentors. So you described, you know, you had this very difficult school experience as a result of that brain injury, and then all the messaging you were getting from people, well intended or not, that you internalize. So how did you make that leap from deciding no, you could change your situation, you could learn, you found a mentor, you started learning, and then your gift was teaching that to others. But how did you make that leap? How did you go find that mentor and get into that process of self education and learning?

So when I was 18, I was lucky enough to get into a university, you know, local state school. And I thought freshman meant I can make a fresh start. So I took all these classes, Fleet. And, you know, I wanted to show the world that, show myself that I could do this. And I did worse. Much, much worse, because it was much more difficult and I was ready to quit school. I'm the oldest of three siblings. And, you know, my parents immigrated to the U.S. my dad was 13. He had lost both his parents. You know, we live in the back of a laundromat that my mom worked at. Come from humble beginnings, you know, but just, I mean, everybody has their own stories, right? We'd had no network, no education, no money at all. We all know that. It's not the resources, it's resourcefulness, right? And so. But I really wanted to make my parents proud. And we didn't have the money to be. For me to be in school as it was. But I was so pressured. I Didn't know how to tell my parents I was going to quit school, right? I'd be the first one in school. And a friend of mine in school said, hey, I'm going to see my family this weekend. Why don't you come with me and just get some space, some perspective. And I just want to say to the aspiring entrepreneurs, to the established entrepreneurs, that sometimes a different point of view, changing the people you're around or the place that you're in can dramatically change your mindset. And so I visit the family, and the family's pretty well off, beautiful home on the water. The father walks me around his property before dinner and asked me a very innocent question. But honestly, it was the worst question you could ask me. He said, house, school and Fleet. I just, because I have so much pressure and emotional distress, I just start crying and bawling in front of this complete stranger and I tell my whole story about the broken brain and I'm ready to quit school, don't know how to tell my parents. And a very smart man who was really my first mentor, he says he asked a new question. And I really do believe questions are the answers for entrepreneurs and everybody, he says, jim, why are you in school? And Fleet, Honestly, I didn't have an answer for it because nobody's ever asked me that. I just thought, this is what you do, you go to school, get a good job and so on. But I didn't have an answer. And then he said he followed up. He was persistent. He was like, well, what do you want to be? What do you want to do? What do you want to have? What do you want to contribute? And didn't have any answers for that, but he really forced me to sit down with this. And he reached out in his pocket, pulled out a few sheets of paper on his journal, tore him out and said, write it down. Which is another critical ingredient to changing our life. When you take your ideas and you could put them on paper, I feel like it's the first step of manifesting something. You're taking something invisible in your mind and you made it visible outside of yourself. And I start writing down all the things I want to be, do, have, share in the world. And it became a bucket list. When I'm done, I start folding up the sheets because the exercise is over to put in my pocket. And he startles me because he grabs them right out of my hand and he starts reading my dreams into himself. And I'm freaking out because I'm like an 18 year old insecure kid and don't want to be judged like most people. A lot of people don't scale a business or start a business because they're afraid of what everyone would think or what if they failed and look bad. But he says, jim, you are this close to everything on that list. I'm just spreading my index fingers like a foot apart. I'm like, no way. Give me 10 lifetimes. I'm not going to crack this list. And very smart man, he takes his index fingers and he puts them to the side of my head, meaning what was on the inside. My brain was my bridge or my key to my success. And he takes me into a room of his home that I'd never seen before. You'd love it. It's wall to wall, ceiling to floor, covered in books. Now, I've never read a book up to this point, and I have a lot of anxiety around books at that time. So it's like being in a room full of snakes. But what makes it worse is he starts going to the shelves and pulling snakes off the. And handing them to me. And when I look at the titles, they are these biographies of some incredible women and men in history and some very early personal growth books. I mean, Norman Vincent Peale, the Power of Positive Thinking, Think and Grow Rich, right? Dale Carnegie. And he says, jim, you have to read to succeed. I want you to read one book a week. And I'm just like, hey, have you not heard my story? I'm fighting for my limitations. Because at these events, people invariably at conferences, business conferences, they'll put me aside and say, I know you're a memory coach. I'm very embarrassed, but I have a horrible memory. That's their mindset. They say things like, I'm too old. I'm just not smart enough. And I always say the same thing. And I'll say this to everyone listening, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. They're yours. Your brain is this incredible supercomputer. And your self talk is a program that will run. So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering names, you won't remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your super computer not to. And so that was my mindset. I was fighting for my limitations. And I say, I, I can't do it. I can't read this. And I'm telling about all the schoolwork. I have midterms. And he's like, jim, don't let school get in the way of your education. And I mean, this was over 30 years ago, so I didn't realize it was a Mark Twain quote, but I was like, you're right, but I still won't do it. I can't commit to doing this. And smart man, he reaches into his pocket, pulls out my dream list, and he starts reading every single one of my dreams and goals out loud. And I don't know, Fleet. Something about, there's a complete stranger who's obviously very successful, and you're hearing your dreams and his voice incanted out into the universe. And it messed with my mind and my spirit something fierce. And a lot of the things on that list were things I wanted to do for my parents, things that they could never afford, or even if they could afford, they wouldn't do for themselves. So when we talk about mindset, it's. Mindset is definitely an issue, but it's also our motivation, like the purpose behind something. And so now I found purpose because I wanted to take care of my family. So I agree to do that. And so I end up going back to school. I'm sitting at my desk or at pile A. I have a pile of books for my midterms, a pile of books I promised to read. And I couldn't get through pile A. So what do I do? I don't eat, I don't sleep, I don't exercise, I don't socialize. I just live in the library for weeks. And one night, I pass out. 2 o' clock in the morning at the library, fall down a flight of stairs. I hit my head again. And I woke up in the hospital and I was out for two days. I was hooked up to all these IVs. At this point, I was down to 117 pounds. So I was like, I thought I died. And it was the darkest time in my life. But at that moment, I thought there had to be a better way. And to all the entrepreneurs listening, here's a lesson. A nurse came in with a mug of tea, and on it was a picture of a genius. Einstein, right? The opposite of what I felt I was. But there was a quote that said, the same level of thinking that has created your problem won't solve your problem, and made me ask a new question. It's like, what's my problem? Well, I have a broken brain. I'm very slow learner. I was like, well, how do I think differently about it? Well, maybe I could fix my brain. Maybe I could learn how to learn faster. And I made that my focus. Brain health Learning how to learn. And I put all that stuff and I really studied it, and my life transformed. And then I started to go that tutor it and eventually do it at various universities. And then I open up a learning center and start writing books and podcasts. And we are online courses. We have students in every country in the world. But it all started from challenge. And so I want to just remind everyone that building a business is hard. Change can be hard. Growth could be scary. But nothing is as hard and scary as being stuck somewhere you don't belong. And I have so much respect for everyone listening because you're showing up for yourself, and sometimes you have to feed your business until your business feeds you. Right? But I love education and I love entrepreneurship. It's kind of my happy place.

Wow. There's so much in what you shared, Jim, that really reflects the entrepreneurial journey. And I'm sure a lot of people, even though they may have very different circumstances from you, what you went through, maybe they weren't dealing with a traumatic head injury, but they're dealing with similar. The story, the narrative, the hero's journey is very much the same in the challenges we face. And I love that you brought up the motivation as well as mindset motivation, because we can get, you know, really clear about what we want. We can get clear, but we got to get a big purpose, a big why. And so you made it about your parents. You know, you really wanted to be able to offer them opportunities that they didn't have or that they might not even have created for themselves. And you. That gave you a huge purpose, a huge, big why to keep going. So there's just so many important different things in there. So you're kind of, you know, pointing at this already, but in terms of, you know, entrepreneurs just create limitless challenges, unending challenges, and you think you solve one and there's the next one, right? And, you know, we're all kind of crazy to take this on, but we're all. It's a good kind of crazy, and we're all inspired. We all have some mindset of possibility, which obviously you always had. So we're pulled in this direction to be entrepreneurs, and we're looking for the freedom and the possibility. But then sometimes we find ourselves really stuck in the trenches of these challenges, and we see no way out. So in order to really not get stuck in these places and not get into any kind of victim mindset around all this, but really thrive in the faces of the. In the face, as you said, it's really tough to start and grow a business. So in order to thrive in the midst of all those challenges, what do you think is one of the. One of the really key mindset shifts that entrepreneurs need to make that's going to get them in the right posture? So in the face of all these challenges, they can be thriving instead of getting pushed back into just surviving and feeling kind of victimized by their choice to be an entrepreneur.

I would say if I could install a belief in my younger self, or maybe even two, the first one would be, I am 100% responsible for my life. That's a big one. It's a heavy one. And the second one would be, everything is figureoutable. So I remember years ago, I got to introduce two of my favorite entrepreneurs together. It was Richard Branson and Stan Lee, the creator of all these Marvel superheroes. Now, I talk a lot about superheroes only because when I couldn't read, I taught myself how to read by reading comic books. Books. Something about the hero's journey and the illustrations brought the words to life. But they wanted to meet each other. So I. We set up a dinner, and in the car, I remember sitting there with Stan Lee, and I have to ask him this question, and I say, stan, you've created all the most amazing superheroes. Who's your favorite? And he looks at me without a pause and says, jim, it's Iron Man. And then he says, jim, who's your favorite superhero? And if we're connected on social media, I posted the picture of us in the car. He had a Spider man tie. So I say, spider Man. And without a pause, he says in his iconic voice, with great power comes great responsibility. And truth be told, sometimes fleet, because of my head injury, I reverse things that I hear or read. So I heard something different. I was like, you're right. With great power comes great responsibility. And the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great power. When we take responsibility for something, we have great power to make it better. And I feel like entrepreneurs, they are a thermostat. They're not a thermometer. And that's part of my mindset, that a thermometer, its only function, it reacts to the environment, to whatever the temperature is. It just reacts. That's all it does. A thermostat doesn't do that. And as human beings, sometimes we do react, right? We react to the politics or the economy or how people treat us, the weather. But the most happy and certainly most successful individuals, entrepreneurs included, they don't react as much. They're a. Thermostat Because a thermostat doesn't react to the environment. A thermostat gauges, it knows what's going on in the market, it knows what's going on outside of themselves, that situational awareness. But it also sets temperature. And then what happens? The environment, the environment reacts to you. And every day and every moment we're setting a temperature, a standard, a dream, goals, KPIs. And I feel like entrepreneurs are responsible for taking the invisible in their mind and making it visible outside. Right? Your brain's your number one wealth building asset. It's not like thousands of years ago, agricultural age or even industrial age, where it's just, it was our value in society, was our muscle power. Today it's our mind power. It's not our brute strength. Today it's our brain strength. And so I would start in the mindset is like, I am responsible for my life. I have agency. Because all the stories that we say, and we all have these stories to as excuses to not level up and they could be completely true and valid, but nothing changes, right? So I think one of the most critical mindset shifts for an entrepreneur we must make to thrive in both business and personal is moving from this fixed mindset to growth mindset, right? Many of your listeners are familiar with Dr. Carol Dweck's work out of Stanford, which involves believing that one's abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication and work. You know, and so this mindset embraces challenges, it helps you persist in the face of setbacks, that values effort as a pathway to the next level, to mastery, learning from mistakes, learning from criticism. So I would say for entrepreneurs adopting a growth mindset, it influences everything, your daily decision making, it encourages innovation, creativity, it enables an individual to see opportunities where others might see obstacles. You know, that's part of the mindset. And this shift is crucial to embrace risk, right? It allows entrepreneurs to step out of their comfort zones and experiment with new ideas without being paralyzed. Fear of failure, right? I sort of remind people, comfort zone, it's a nice place to visit, but nothing grows there, right? Life is difficult for one of two reasons. Either you're leaving your comfort zone, you're starting that business, you're building a new market or a new product, whatever, or life is difficult because you're staying in your comfort zone. And you know, so you just have to choose your hard, you know, every, every day. And I just think entrepreneurs, some people say they're born, other people think they're built if it's a nature or Nurture. You know, I think there's definitely a combination of both with individuals, But I do believe everybody is, as my book is titled, is can be more limitless.

Absolutely. And I love that you're starting there, because for me, this is so critical. And you spoke about it before with the. Between the B and the D is the C. Right. Focus on choice. Right. And I love this name of my book is Radical Responsibility. That's what everything I've been teaching for years, Growth mindset, is really my sweet spot. And my next book is called Radical Self Mastery. So I want to lead into that and talk about self mastery from a neurobiological perspective, because you've learned so much about the brain. And if you could talk a little bit about. I think it can really open up possibilities for people, because some of us and some of our audience may be more familiar with current neuroscience than others, and some may be even more or less familiar with the whole idea of neuroplasticity altogether, which opens up limitless possibilities. And it's only been a couple decades that we really realized that our brains are neuroplastic. We used to think that the brain you had by the time you're adult was the brain you were stuck with, and if anything, it diminished in its capacity over the years. We now know that's radically not true. So could you talk about the pathway to self mastery, to mastering the mindset and the skills of an entrepreneur from the perspective of how we're actually really reshaping our neural architecture and creating a new brain?

My favorite. So we have 86 billion brain cells, neurons, and each of those brain cells has about 10 could have upwards of 10,000 synaptic connections. And if you were to extrapolate that, that's more connections than there are stars in the known universe. We've discovered more about your brain in the past 20 years than the previous 2,000 years combined. And what we found is we're grossly underestimating our own capabilities in a large part because of neuroplasticity. So neuroplasticity is your brain's ability to reorganize itself, forming new neural connections throughout your life so you could grow older, but in a lot of ways, we could level up and grow wiser. So it's all about adaptability. You know, I really feel like what genius is, it's awareness and adaptability. You know, awareness of the market. And also, knowledge by itself is not power. It has the potential to be power when we activate it. And so we have to be able to Adapt in an ever changing world of technology and data. So this adaptability can be a very powerful tool for my fellow entrepreneurs. You know, you could apply this neuroplasticity towards overcoming limiting beliefs, right? Enhancing problem solving skills, reading faster, improving your memory, it's continuously refining your mental frameworks for success. So as an example where neuroplasticity, we use it in our courses, challenging limiting beliefs, right? There's a whole process for even something simple. Like if you find yourself saying, I don't have a great memory, that awareness is important and then you adapt. I don't have great memory, just add a little word like yet at the end it just feels different. If people truly understood how powerful their mind is, they wouldn't say something or think something they didn't want to be true. That's not to say you have one negative thought and it ruins your life or your business any more than eating a donut will ruin your life. But if you ate that donut 30 times a day, every single day, there will be a consequence. It's hard to produce a positive life with a negative mind. So neuroplasticity, this is the formation of, you know, our neural networks to have beliefs. And knowing that, you know, I'm sure everyone here has a belief that they have now that, you know, previously they were embarrassed that they believe the opposite. Said, you know, at some time earlier, neuroplasticity comes into play with focused learning and practice to develop stronger problem solving skills. Which I think that's what an entrepreneur is, is a professional problem solver, right? They solve problems, they create jobs, they move the economy. Entrepreneurs can engage in deliberate practice and targeted learning. Because the way neuroplasticity is enhanced is three things. Novelty, nutrition and sleep. Just like building physical muscles, if you want to go to, you go to the gym, you give your muscles novelty, some kind of stimulus, some kind of challenge. Then you have to give it nutrition, right? You give it the right, you know, amino acids to be able to grow, and then you sleep. Because you don't build muscles in the gym. You build muscles when you sleep. Same thing. Neuroplasticity takes place mostly when you're sleeping. So you stimulate it during the day, you give it proper nutrition, and we could talk about all the best brain foods and brain supplements, and then you sleep. And that's how it happens. But focused learning is a way of providing novelty. And then I'll also say with neuroplasticity, very important tools. Mindfulness meditation. I know we hear that a lot. For me, it's not about being enlightened, you know, taking 10 minutes a day, maybe even once or twice a day. It's about training my focus. Because every single time my thoughts go to something else and I bring it back to my breath or bring it back to a mantra, I am strengthening those neural connections, neuroplasticity. So when I'm distracted later in the day at work, I have a tool and a pathway, a web that I've trained to be able to come back to being present on what's most important. So mindfulness helps maintain brain health, improves cognitive flexibility. It allows entrepreneurs to better adapt to challenging circumstances and think quicker on their feet. And so all of these things are, you know, but also could help in neuroplasticity, physical exercise. When you exercise, you create something called bdnf, brain derived neurotropic factors, which is like fertilizer for neuroplasticity, you know, plus it increases blood flow to the brain. So we've talked about the learning, the physical exercise, nutrition, sleep, and then the last thing I'll mention, just, it's not just your neurological network, it's your social networks. And you know a lot about this. You know, when we go to meetings like at TLC Transformational Leadership Council or you know, business event, people might go to business conferences. Exposing yourself to different perspectives and ideas through networking could also stimulate neuroplasticity. Engaging with a diverse group and participating in collaborative discussions and projects. When you get that novelty of new concepts, new approaches, it challenges your brain to rethink existing testing strategies and adapt. And so, yeah, neuroplasticity is really the key, that your brain is not fixed like your shoe size. It can get better over time.

And you pointed to how we can actually increase neuroplasticity. Exercise increases BNF and increases neuroplasticity. Mindfulness not only helps develop all the capacities, cognitive flexibility, emotional balance, all these things, focus, but it also increases neuroplasticity. So you talked about a lot of things we can do there. I love that you talked about beliefs and the power of beliefs. And I think one of the most debilitating, limiting beliefs is just, I am the way I am. I've kind of always been this way. I don't believe I can be different. And you know, we have a strong need for identity as human beings and we'll build our identity around a lot of negative stuff. But it's scary to let go of that because if that isn't who I am, then who would I be? Well, I have to step into the unknown. And that's kind of scary, right? You know, unlimiting beliefs. It's so important to understand that we do have all this conditioning already that we understand we got all this download from our parents, well intended or not, but we got that download. We got it from our culture, the authority figures in school and so forth. We got this whole download that we had nothing to say about. We had no input into it. And it will drive our lives until it doesn't. Unless we look at it and see most of the limiting beliefs do with the idea of I'm not enough in all the different ways to succeed or be this way or that way and there's not enough to go around scarcity mentality. Right. So how do we get out of those kind of belief structures both in terms of the psychology of it, but also developing the brain of having the mindset of success. A brain, a success oriented brain. The belief structures that I can succeed because. And you mentioned a thermostat before. Most of us have some kind of sort of financial or money or success blueprint that acts like a thermostat. And you know, I can only go that far. Maybe it's a little better than our parents did or it's this or that. And if we start hitting the ceiling, we'll start self sabotaging to get back in that zone. And we're doing that unconsciously because we're in, you know, that's where our thermostat is set. It's set at 72 degrees. I mean it's not going to go up to 74. Right. So I wonder if you could talk about how we create the mindset of success, the mindset of abundance. That's going to start to loosen up those self imposed limitations.

Let's do it. I'm going to show a visual if that's okay because I'm like in coaching mode. I encourage everyone to take some notes here because we're turning is clean and I into like a masterclass on mindset. So this is one of the ways of learning faster is to be active. Right. Learning is not a spectator sport. The brain doesn't learn through consumption as well, it does creation. So I want you to take a sheet of paper and or in your mind, but ideally write it down and draw a little box like a cube. Like this, like a little cube. And you know, entrepreneurs value their freedom almost above all else. They want to do what they want, when they want, with who they want for as long as they want. And a lot of people pursue that path. For that reason, help is who they want, work with who they want. But sometimes the opposite of freedom, right, is limitation. And so where do you feel like you're stuck? In that box? So as an entrepreneur or as an individual, I want you to think about, draw a box and imagine an area of your life where you feel stuck. Because limitless is not about being perfect. Limitless is about advancing and progressing beyond what you're currently demonstrating or what you believe is possible, but where the opposite of it is, you're stuck. So where do you feel like you're in a stuck? You're stuck in your reading speed, in your memory, maybe your income, you know, or your belief in yourself. Where do you feel stuck? You're not making progress. You're in a box. Now, this box, by definition, is three dimensional. So there are three forces that keep you stuck in this box. And these are the same three forces that will liberate you and unlock this box. And I represent those three forces with a Venn diagram. So just draw a Venn diagram, which is just three intersecting circles, like Mickey Mouse, two ears and a face. And these are the three keys to becoming limitless. And you'll see everyone's teachings fall into this framework. All right, so there are three M's. The last M, by the way, which I'll say is the face, are methods. Right? The last one, the circle, are methodology. Because everybody wants to know what to do. What do they do to raise capital, what do they do to market their product, how do they master social media? You know, the methods for financial independence and investing. Right. Or what? Maybe methods for reading faster or improving your memory or losing weight. Right? Everybody wants to know the methodology. Now, when I wrote Limitless, the book was 100% methodology. And I was ready to send it to my publisher and I asked myself this question. Remember, questions are the answer. I said, said, will 100% of the people who read this book get the results they're hoping for? And my honest answer was no, because it was all methodology. And you know, this fleet, like a lot of people know what to do, but they're not doing what they know because it's not a knowledge by itself is not power. It has the potential power when we apply it. So I had to add two M's to unlock to set up an environment where people would do the methods naturally. And the first M you is mindset. And that's why I love starting the week with Mindset. Mindset. I'm going to define as the set, it's mindset. Right. The set of assumptions or attitudes you have about something. Mindset. Or the set of assumptions or attitudes you have about something. So let's say in the box, you feel like you're stuck with your income, money, right? And. But because your mindset is your assumptions and attitudes about money. Money doesn't grow on trees. Money is the root of all evil, money. And to make money, you have to hurt people, right? That abundance, that scarcity, magnitude, if you have it, then somebody else is not going to have it. Right? So no matter what, you could have learned great methods for marketing or fundraising or, you know, building your wealth, but if your mindset is that I don't deserve it, like three things I would say in mindset that's very raw for everybody. Number one, what I believe is possible. Number two, what I believe I'm capable of. You could believe Fleet could do it or somebody else could do it, but you believe you could do it. So three keys to mindset that would fall underneath are what I believe is possible, what I believe I'm capable of, because you might believe it's possible, but you're not capable of it. And number three, what I believe I deserve. Right? If you don't believe you could deserve to be healthy or deserve to be smart or deserve to make money or deserve to be happy, that's your mindset, then you're still going to be stuck in this box. All right? And so mindset, if you believe you can, I believe you can. Either way, you're right. Right. Henry Ford said that. So awareness as entrepreneurs. I think that's why people go to therapy or they journal or they meditate to get better understanding of who they are. But the second and final M, you could have a limitless mindset and limitless methods, meaning the best methods to get you to your goal. But you could still be stuck in that box if you don't have the second M, which we talked about motivation, right? Because if you're not motivated to get out of that box, you're not going to get out of that box. And here's a simple formula to motivate yourself and to motivate other people to your kids to clean their room or somebody to invest in your company or somebody to buy your product. Three keys. The formula is P times E times S3. And I'm drinking lots of water because one of the most important things for your brain is staying hydrated. Just being dehydrated 2% could affect your cognitive health and performance. And staying hydrated, everyone could boost your reaction time. Your thinking speed upwards of 30%. This motivation. P times E times S3. So let's say you want to read more, right? You know, I feel like, you know, reading if somebody has decades of experience like you do and you put into a book, which you've done, and somebody could sit down in a few days and read that book and they could download decades of wisdom and insights in days, there's no bigger advantage for an entrepreneur, period. Right? There's reasons why all these individuals read and are really like self taught. And so I would say, and also by the way, everyone always asks me on social media and different places on stage, what's the best brain exercise, what's the best app, what's the best whatever. Reading by far. Reading is to your mind, what exercise is to your body.

Everybody's interested in hacks these days. It could be that reading is the ultimate hack.

It really is. Like I have a video with, I was on set, I helped a lot of actors speed, read scripts, memorize lines, be focused on camera. And I remember I was working with Will Smith with and we did a quick video. I sat and asked him like, what's the key to, you know, being sharp and everything. He said, I have to do two things every single day. I read and I run. I have to do something activity, mental and physical. So very important. So the P, let's say we're to apply this towards reading, right? You want to read an hour a day or 30 minutes a day, but you're not doing it. You're stuck in that box. You know what to do, but you're not doing what you know. Common sense is not common practice. The P stands for purpose. And this is a word that's often used the way I use purpose is a feeling. I believe the success formula is H cubed. It has to go from your head to your heart, then it'll go to your hands, meaning you could set goals in your head. Dreams, visions, KPIs in your head. But if you're not acting consistently, keyword consistently with your hands, check in with the second H which is your heart. Now what does the heart symbolize? Emotions. Because we are not logical, right? People don't buy logically, they buy emotionally. Right. And they justify logically. We are not logical, but we are biological. You think about dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, we are this chemical feeling soup. But if we don't feel something, we're not going to do it. And so the P stands for purpose. And so a lot of people know the reasons. I would say reasons reap results. Reasons reap results, meaning. I remember a few years ago, I saw someone in my neighborhood, and I didn't recognize them, but they came up to me, and I was like, have you ever seen somebody kind of know who it is, but you don't really know, like, where you know the person from? And that's tough for me because I'm like, a memory expert. But he says hello. And once I heard his voice, I knew exactly who he was, but he looked completely different. That's why I didn't. Didn't recognize him. And the backstory, this person is very unhealthy. In the past, when I've known him my whole life, like, they're like the time I've known him, very overweight, very bad vices. But when I saw him that day, he was like. He looked younger. He had this glow, right? He just. He lost all his weight. He was just, like, fit. And I was like, I believe genius leaves clues, right? Someone's doing something, you could find out. There's clues there. And I say, what are you doing? You look amazing. And he tells me everything he's doing, and I'm like, well, I. And our friends have been telling you to do that for years, you know, and you never did it. He was. He actually is. Talk about identity, which is. You talk a lot about. He took pride in being unhealthy, in smoking and doing the things, right? He's like, yeah, but, you know, a few years ago, I was on a business trip, and I came home and my daughter was crying hysterically, like, uncontrollably. And I find out she had a nightmare that I died, that her father died and wasn't there to be with her. And I'd even thinking about just. I just remember that conversation. It became purpose. It wasn't just intellectually. He knew intellectually he should stop smoking and lose the weight and eat better and so on, but he wasn't doing it until he felt. And he had a reason. So P is purpose. So you need to make it not cognitive, but more emotional. But then that E, somebody could have purpose and still not be motivated to work out or to read or start that business, because you need E, which is energy. I realize that sometimes when you're exhausted, you're not motivated, right? And so here's the key. Like, if you ate a big processed meal, you're not going to be very motivated and you're in a food coma to be able to study that day. Or if you didn't like we have a newborn and sleep has been a challenge. If you're not sleeping well, you're not gonna be very motivated to work out, right? And so the E is energy. And the principle here is I wanna remind everyone, you don't have energy. You generate energy, you don't have it. A big part of our work. And I would challenge the entrepreneurs listening to do this. Train yourself to take the nouns in your life and turn them into verbs. What does that mean? A lot of our limitations come from we're hypnotized, right? Through marketing or media. We're hypnotized that we're not enough, that we need to be fixed, that we're broken, whatever, right? Or it's not coming from the external world, it's coming from the internal world where self is self hypnosis, right? By the words we're saying to ourself, you know, and so when you say you don't have a good memory and that becomes a belief, you know, I think a lot of these are lies. And I want to call people on their bs, their belief systems. It's not true. You can't remember someone's name. It's a lie. It's a limited idea. Entertain, I use a lot of acronyms. Lie, limited idea that we're entertaining. And a limited idea entertaining is that we have energy. We don't have energy. We create energy. And so when you take that noun and turn to verb, like you don't have focus, you do focus. You don't have a memory. There's a three step process for memorizing something. You encode it, you store it, you retrieve it, it, you don't even have motivation. There's a process for motivating yourself. And so sometimes I think the nature of your work and my work and many of our collective work, it's about transcending. I mean, look at the word transcend. You're ending the trance. This hypnosis that we have either externally or internally. And so you take the noun, you turn it to a verb, and you say, I don't, you know, for energy, I don't have energy. It's I do it, I generate it through my sleep, through my diet, through my stress management, through my meditation, you generate energy. Now finally, though, somebody could have the purpose to work out and exercise, they could have the energy to do so. But sometimes they don't do it because they need S3, which is the final part of the formula. S3 stands for small simple steps. And I realized that sometimes people don't do something. You're not motivated either because you don't have purpose, or you're connected to purpose, or you don't have the energy or exhausted, or that thing is too intimidating, or that thing is too big. Some of us, like, like maybe going to the gym, you know, for an hour or reading a book for 30 minutes is too big of a step. If that's not part of your natural routine. So small, simple steps for reading, maybe it's opening up the book. Maybe going to the gym is too big of a step and maybe are working out. Maybe putting on your running shoes is a small, simple step. And I want to remind everyone, inch by inch, it's a cinch. Yard by yard, it's just too hard. You know, on our podcast, you know, we have. We've done over 400 episodes. We recently interviewed one of the top biological dentists in the world, and we're talking about oral hygiene and brain health, and we're talking about things beyond brushing your teeth. Things like oil pulling, tongue scraping. It's everything. And we talk about flossing. And I was like, well, how do we get our kids to floss? And because that might be a big new habit, you break it down, get them to floss one tooth, because nobody's going to stop with one tooth. And so how do you break something down? So simple for not only yourself, but other people. You want to motivate that people aren't buying from you or generate, maybe have these micro commitments. Maybe you're making it too big or they're too intimidated to buy your product. How do you. How can you break it down into small, simple steps? Because little by little, a little becomes a lot. And so that's the formula for limitless motivation. You have purpose, you have energy, and you have small, clear, simple steps. And you can motivate yourself, you can motivate somebody else.

That is so clear and helpful. And I hope audience is really hearing all these really pithy acronyms and steps and phrases. I hope people are going to write down a lot of these and post them around where you can remind yourself of these.

Because if you post it, please tag like Fleet and the team and myself so we get to see it. I think one of the best ways to learn something faster is to teach it to somebody else. Because when you teach it, it's called the explanation effect. When you learn something with the intention of explaining to somebody else, you're going to learn it so much better.

We're just about out of time here, and I want to Give you a minute to talk about a wonderful free offer you're going to offer to our audience where they can be introduced to your work. But just the one last thing you mentioned meditation, and you're talking about a lot of other self education disciplines, self mastery disciplines. This is something we need to do on a daily basis. If meditation is going to be powerful, you need to do it every day. Right. So the idea of practice, because with neuroplasticity, it's the idea that neurons that fire together, wire together, wouldn't cultivate states of mind. They're very temporary. But if you cultivate again and again, they become traits. Right. Because we've literally changed the brain. So I wonder if you could just say something quickly about the importance of daily routines in daily practices and then we'll wrap up.

Absolutely. So I believe first you create your habits and your habits create you. You create your habits of exercising, eating well, prioritizing your sleep, meditating, and that creates you back. Right. In order to be able to win the day, you have to win that first hour of the day. So, you know, having a solid morning routine, evening routine, so very valuable for entrepreneurs. I tell people while I teach processes and the free gift will help people read faster, improve their memory and everything. That's the software. But you have to take care of the hardware, which is the brain, this three pound matter between your ears. So I would say make sure in your daily routine you add your meds. And it's an acronym, the M is meditation. We talked about the power of disconnecting to reconnect. Right. To train your focus, to manage your stress. Because chronic stress will shrink your brain. That's your number one wealth building asset. If you're in fight or flight all the time, it creates cortisol, adrenaline. Not the best chronically so M in meds, meditation. So I want to do that each day, even just 10 minutes. And people say I'm too busy to meditate for 10 minutes. If you're so busy you can't allocate 10 minutes, you probably need to do it for an hour. The E is exercise. Remember this. As your body moves, your brain grooves. And I'm not just talking about going to the gym to do pilates three times a week. I'm talking about moving throughout the day. Like you'll notice, I'm standing at a standing desk, which is, I think, one of the best investments ever. But as your body moves, your brain grooves, you create dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, bdnf. All the important Things blood flow to your brain. Yet they say sitting is a new smoking. And so I'm saying is take a brain break throughout the day. A brain break, five minutes where you could do three things. Hydrate, which I talked about. The power of water, breathe. Because a lot of times when we're sitting or we're reading, some people fall asleep because their collapse their posture, they're collapsing their diaphragm. And the lower one third of your lungs absorbs 2/3 of the oxygen and that's why you're tired. And the third thing you could do during your brain break, you say is hydrate and breathe. Move your body then so very, very, very important. So that's the E, the D is in meds is your diet. You know this, everyone knows this. But this is just a coach reminding you what you eat matters, especially for your gray matter. There are certain foods and everyone's a little bio individual. You go to a functional nutritionist or doctor, you might have allergies to certain foods. But what you eat matters, especially for your gray matter. You know some of my favorite brain foods? Avocados, blueberries, broccoli. It's high in sulforaphane, which is very good for your cognitive health. Olive oil, eggs. If your diet allows the choline in eggs, the precursor for acetylcholine, which is important for cognitive health and performance. Green leafy vegetables like kale and spinach. Also some kind of wild salmon or sardines. So you get your omega 3s, your DHAs, which is so very important. Your brain's mostly fat. Turmeric is an interesting one. The active ingredient there is curcumin, which helps to lower systemic inflammation. Walnuts, great snack food, high in vitamin E, very neuroprotective. And everyone's favorite. Dark chocolate. Not milk chocolate, but dark chocolate, but your diet. And on the other side, high sugar, the glucose spikes, you know, that affects your insulin resistance, could affect your brain also as well. Fried foods and everything is on the other side. And then finally the S in medium. In your daily routine, please prioritize your sleep. Here's the thing for your brain. When you sleep, that's where you consolidate short to long term memory. So if you have long term memory issues, do a sleep study. You might be suffering from sleep apnea or something else. And you can now do it at home. Your doctor could prescribe it, send it to you at home. Very simple and easy. When you sleep, the sewage system also kicks in in your brain and you clean out the beta amyloid plaque. And this is Something I'm very passionate about. Fleet. When I was going through my learning challenges, my grandmother started showing early signs of dementia, and she eventually passed of Alzheimer's when I was 7. So we donated all the proceeds to Limitless to Alzheimer's research for women. Women are twice as likely to experience Alzheimer's than men. In memory of my grandmother. And we also donated to build schools. We built schools everywhere from Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya for children have no access to school. Plus we provide health care, clean water, and so on. So I do believe for entrepreneurs, you learn to earn, to return, you know, and that's a very important part of just my ethos. So the s again, sleep. It could help mitigate the brain aging challenges. And so my favorite sleep. And I don't know how your sleep is Fleet, but my favorite tips, and there's a whole chapter on it and limitless. When you wake up, get direct sunlight. Even if it's hazy or it's foggy. Your eyes are only part of your brain that's outside of your skull and helps reset your circadian rhythm, which will help you sleep better that night. Number two, if you're sick, sensitive caffeine like I am, no caffeine past, like noon or maybe one o' clock in the afternoon because it could stay in your system for 10 hours plus. And some people could stay up for that reason. And then two of my favorite actually, three, if you have an alarm clock to wake up, please use that alarm clock to go to sleep. Your brain loves a cycle, you know, and staying on a schedule, even on the weekends. So to the degree you could go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time, overall sleep will be better. And the other two is thousands of years ago, we would know it'd be time to sleep because the environment would tell you there'd be a reduction in two environmental factors. It would get cooler temperature and light. So to the degree you can make it cooler, not where you're shivering and it's keeping you up. Or take a warm bath or a sauna or a hot shower. Epsom salt bath, which the magnesium will help you relax also. But when you get out of that shower, your core body temperature will drop, which is a trigger, a signal for your body to produce melatonin, which is the hormone to help you to relax. And as dark as possible will help you to be able to sleep. So I would say your daily routine is very important. But Duke University says 40% of our behavior roughly is automatic habitual unconscious. Right? And when did we sit down Actually design our day, that which will eventually design our business and our life. And I would say make sure you integrate the your meds really powerful acronym there.

There was a master class just in that last answer there. So tell us about the free gift you can offer so people can find out more about your work.

Yeah, people would like to connect. I mean first of all, 95% of what we publish is free. So you could go if you want information, two free gifts. If you want information on well researched supplements to boost your brain power with human studies, you go to brainnutrition.com or it's in all in the book. But there's 30 different substances that have been shown to improve focus or memory, enhance mood, enhance mental energy. But if you don't want to get the book, you go to brainnutrition.com and get that. And I link to all the studies. But the other one is the big one. You've heard about personalized medicine based on an assessment like a DNA test, personalized nutrition based on like a microbiome test or a food sensitivity test. We created a test for everyone listening for personalized learning and performance. So it's not how smart you are, it's how are you smart? And everybody has a different kind of brain. And we've identified four main brain types. And if you go to mybrainanimal.com, you could take a four minute multiple choice assessment and we'll give you for free a report on how to read faster, which is very important for entrepreneurs. How to remember names, how to make better decisions, how to solve problems, how to hire, how to manage based on brain types. So mybrainanimal.com and what I would challenge everyone to do is we have all these, all this artwork that comes with it. If you're working on video, it's a code. You're either a cheetah. See, so a cheetah is action oriented. An owl is logic. D encode is dolphin, which is your creatives and your visionaries and your E's are your elephants, which are empaths and but once you know your brain type or even more important, the brain, also important, the brain type of your team or the brain type of your potential customer. Because you would sell to an owl who's logical different than you would sell to an elephant, which is who's empathetic. Right? And it's funny, we had our team take the assessment and 100% of our customer service team we found out were elephants. They're highly empathetic. There are Community builders. They want our opportunity to feel seen and heard. You know, our CFO is an owl. Needs to see the data and numbers every single day. So it's a wonderful tool because the key to be whether it's an entrepreneur, educator or anybody else, have the curiosity to know yourself. And then the second part, have the courage to be yourself. You know, because I truly believe, Fleet, that there's a version of yourself that's patiently waiting. And the goal is we show up every single day until we're introduced. But I would love for people to take an assessment, take a screenshot of their animal, post it on social media, tag Fleet, tag myself so we get to see it. And you can post a link to my brain animals. So text it to your family, your friends because that'll be very enlightening. You'll get the free report on how to read faster, improve your memory and I'll actually gift at random since you tag us, I get to see it. We'll send out three copies of my book Limitless as a thank you randomly to people who post it as a thank you.

Wonderful. Fabulous. This has been an incredible masterclass on Mindset. Jim Kwik, thank you so much. Absolutely fabulous. I just can't imagine how you could add more value in the time we just spent together. And I really encourage our audience. This is one you're probably going to want to read and watch and listen to several times and then take notes to pick up all the really pithy, incredibly pithy and powerful distinctions and manomic devices and acronyms and things that Jim just shared with us. So powerful. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Flea, thanks for the great work you do.

Thank you for joining me on the radical responsibility podcast. Remember, real change happens when we commit to our growth, face our challenges with compassion, and stay open to transformation. If you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to subscribe and help us spread the message of healing and personal empowerment. Stay grounded, stay present and stay true to you. Take care.