Jim Kwik | Unlock Limitless Possibilities: Your Guide to Transforming Beliefs and Supercharging Your Brain

So memory is an essential component for both personal and professional success. And the good news is, anyone can improve their memory, right? About one third of your memory is predetermined by genetics and biology. But two thirds is in our influence and in control. And I take two approaches. We teach people the software, like how to learn a language faster, how to remember a speech without using notes, how to improve your vocabulary, how to remember numbers and passwords and pin numbers and all those things. But that's the software. You also take care of the hardware, right? The brain itself, that three pound matter between your ears. And I always tell people to take your meds. It's not pharmaceutical, it's another acronym.

Welcome to the Radical responsibility podcast. I'm Dr. Fleet Moll 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.

Have you ever been told that you're not smart enough? That your brain is fixed and learning stops after a certain age? Millions of people are trapped by these toxic beliefs, feeling like their potential is limited. But what if everything you've been told about your brain is wrong? Jim Kwik knows this struggle all too well. Once labeled the boy with the broken brain, he he faced learning challenges that seemed insurmountable. Today he's a world renowned brain coach, founder of Quick learning and author of Limitless. Upgrade your brain, learn anything faster and unlock your exceptional life. He has dedicated his life to helping millions unlock their brain's potential and accelerate learning. In this episode, you'll discover the science backed truth about human potential and learn how to break free from self doubt. Are you ready to unlock your limitless brain? This is the Radical Responsibility podcast where transformation begins.

So before we get started, I wonder if you could. It was somewhat referenced in your bio that you had a childhood head injury. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about how that then led you to get into this work.

So my inspiration was my desperation. When people see me in audiences at events, I'll sometimes, if there's time, do a memory demonstration where we'll pass around a microphone to audience members and have them introduce themselves and I'll memorize fifty, sixty, a hundred people's names, or they'll challenge me by giving me a hundred digit number, a hundred random words, And I'll recall it forwards and backwards. But I always tell people, I don't do this to impress you. I really do this to express to you what's possible. Because the truth is, every single one of you watching and listening right now, you could do that too. We just weren't taught. You know, school teaches you what to learn. Math, history, science, Spanish. But there are very few classes on actually how to learn. And the reason why I know it's possible, as you mentioned, I had injury when I was five years old. I was in kindergarten class and I took an unfortunate fall, or maybe a fortunate fall, and I hit my head two times on that fall and I was rushed to the emergency room. And you could say that before my parents would say I was very energized, very curious, very playful. I became very shut down. I had focus issues, memory issues. I had migraines every day as a five year old. So I really struggled. Took me three years longer just to learn how to read like the other children. When I was nine years old, there was an inflection, like an event where I was being teased in class pretty harshly because I just didn't understand the lessons and I couldn't keep up. And a teacher came to my defense. She pointed to me in front of the whole class and said, leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain. And talk about wiring your brain. I wasn't born with this idea that I was broken. But adults have to be very careful of their external words because they often become a child's internal words. So every single time I did badly in school, which was weekly, every time I was in pick for sports, which was all the time, I would say, oh, because I have the broken brain. And so I struggled every single day. When I was seven years old, I unfortunately lost my grandmother, who was my hero. She was. My parents immigrated to the United States. They had many jobs. We live in the back of the laundromat that my mom worked at. She was taking care of me. And she started showing early signs of dementia when I was five. And you know, that was very confusing as a child, you know. So she eventually passed of Alzheimer's when I was 7, and I wrote a book called Limitless. We gave all the royalties that book to Alzheimer's research for women. Women are twice as likely to experience Alzheimer's than men. Yet most of the research is done on males and treatments on males. So you could say, you know, I've taken my mess and turned it into my message. You know, when I was 18. I learned some strategies that really transformed everything. And. And I started a tutor. And one of my very first students, she was a college freshman. She read 30 books in 30 days because I taught her how to speed read, but not skimmer scan. She really understood it. And I wanted to find out not how I taught her how I wanted to know, like why, what was her purpose? And I found out her mother was dying of terminal cancer. And doctors only gave her mother 60 days, two months to live. And the books she was reading were books to save her mom's life, which she ended up doing so. And when I heard that, I realized two things. That if knowledge is power, then learning really is our superpower. And it's the superpower we all have, regardless of what age or stage you are in life. And the other thing I realized, because of neuroplasticity, as we're talking about in this summit, the other thing I realized was my dharma, my mission in life, is to, as the boy with the broken brain, was to build better, brighter brains. No brain left behind.

Wow, what a powerful story. So we're focused on beliefs in this summit. Of course, beliefs have their correlates and neural networks. And we can look at it psychologically changing our beliefs, that means we're changing the brain, changing neural networks. So what have you seen as how the power of belief, how belief influences how we interpret the world and then how we show up in the world and our strategies for getting our needs met and so forth, that you've seen the power play a role in someone's ability to access higher performance and creativity versus not what are some of the limiting beliefs and just the power of belief altogether. How do you see that?

I love this question. This is a topic I really wish was taught in school. I believe all behavior is belief driven, meaning if you want to create a result in your life, you need to do a new behavior. But in order to do that behavior, you need an empowering belief that says it's possible. You know, when I wrote Limitless, before I hit send to my publisher, I asked myself this question. Will everybody who reads this book get the results they're hoping for? And my honest answer was no, because the book was just full of methodology. How to read faster, how to learn languages, how to remember names and faces, how to focus. And a lot of people know what to do, but I realized they don't always do what they know. And so I added two new sections in there. One on motivation. You know, the secrets to motivating yourself when you have to do things you're procrastinating on. But the other big section of the book is mindset, and a big part of mindset are our beliefs. You know, like, what you believe is possible, what you believe you're capable of, what you believe you deserve. If you have this belief that says, you know, you can learn the great methods on how to make money, but if your belief is money is the root of all evil, I have to hurt people to make money, you're still going to be stuck in that box, right? And so for me, belief is foundational. It's a powerful driver for all human potential. The way we think about our own abilities, whether we believe we can improve or not, whether we think our brains are fixed like our shoe size, or if it can grow, it has a profound impact on how we perform. You know, when we're talking about neuroplasticity, you know, the brain's ability to adapt with novelty. When you adopt a growth mindset, a belief that you can develop the abilities through effort. At these same events, people will invariably pull me aside in the lobby and say, I'm so glad you're here. They'll do it secretly. They'll whisper, and they'll say something like, I have a horrible memory. I'm just getting too old. And I always say the same thing. I say, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limits, they're yours. If people truly understood Fleet how powerful their mind is, they wouldn't say or think something they didn't want to be true. And that's not to say you have one negative thought and it ruins your life any more than eating one donut will ruin your life. But if you ate that donut 30 times a day, every single day, I think everybody listening would agree there would be a consequence. Same thing. It's. It's hard to create a positive life with, you know, a lot of negative beliefs. But when you adopt that growth mindset that you can develop through effort, your brain is more likely to engage in the learning process, making it easier to create new neural connections and invariably will help your performance. And so me, my belief was, I'm broken, right? And so, you know, I filtered everything through that. And so it's one of those things where I believe when it comes to something like our brain, there's no such thing as a good or bad brain. There's a trained brain, and there's an untrained brain. And so beliefs are really foundational, which is why this summit is so very Important because your brain doesn't come with an owner's manual, right. And it's not user friendly. So that's why we write books about this, we have podcasts and courses to support people in this process that you could be the pilot of your brain. You don't have to be the passenger.

So, Jim, you work with a lot of students, you've worked with a lot of leaders. I wonder if you could give an example or two of how a real fundamental shift in belief or mindset has helped someone really unlock a whole new level of performance, cognitive abilities and performance in their career life.

So limiting beliefs are, you know, powerful mental roadblocks that could significantly hinder your cognitive performance, your learning, your focus, your overall success. In my experience, these beliefs usually stem from past experiences or societal conditioning. Might be coming from self doubt. It can be, you know, through marketing and media. I think, you know, one of the shared work that we do, you and I and the other experts, is about transcending. If you look at the word trans end or ending the trance, you know, this mass hypnosis, whether it's through marketing or media, that says we're not enough, you know, that we're broken, that we need to be fixed and or be. If it's not hypnosis, it might be self hypnosis from our own self talk. And so, you know, we see many different patterns and so we could, you know, some of the most prevalent beliefs that could hinder you is something like I'm not smart enough. You know, I call these lies in the book. L.I.E. is an acronym. Limited idea entertained. It's not true that you're not smart enough. It's not true that you're too old. It's not true that you have a horrible memory, but it's an idea we're giving energy to. And so like I'm not smart. Harden up is one of the most common I encounter working with performers even at the highest level. You know, people who might have, like me, struggled in school, might have been labeled as slow. Learners tend to carry this belief sometimes through adulthood unless they are, you know, educated with a summit like this, and you know, another one is it's too late for me to learn. You know, the two dips we see in cognitive performance usually are when people graduate school because they associate education with learning. And when their education, their formal education is done, then their learning is done. Which I find it kind of not true also when people retire, because often when people retire from their careers, they often retire their minds. They don't use our minds in the same way. And your brain is like a muscle, it's an organ, but it acts like a muscle, you know, and it's use it or lose it. If I put my arm in a cast for a year, it wouldn't grow stronger, it wouldn't even stay the same, right? Everyone know it would atrophy, but same thing with our mental muscles. So another belief that could hold people back working with high performers is it's too late for me. And that's absolutely not true. You know, research shows that neuroplasticity could occur from beginning of birth to the day we die. And neuroplasticity happens with two things. You need novelty and you need nutrition. Just like if you want to build your physical muscles, you would give it novelty, you would work it out, give it some kind of stimulus, and then you would feed it nutrition, right? So it could grow better and it could help you live longer too. There was a study done. It was featured on the COVID of Time magazine with these community of nuns that were living 80, 90 and above. And the researchers wanted to find out what was the key to their long life. And they found out half of it was their faith, their gratitude. The other half though was they were lifelong learners. They were researching every day, they were studying every day. They were having deep debates and conversations and socializing. And because of it, it added years to their life. But not only that life, to their years also as well. They were good lives. You know, the study people want to look it up is called aging with grace. So it's too late to learn to be another one. Some people say I have beliefs like I'm not creative or I don't have enough time or failure means I'm broken or I'm not capable or on just I can't focus. And these aren't things that you have. You don't have focus, you don't have a memory, you do it. And a big part of my work is taking these nouns and turning them into verbs. Because the other way we hypnotize ourself with our self talk that forms our belief system is saying things like I don't have energy, I don't have a good memory, I don't have motivation. Have is like a noun, right? You have a noun, but when you turn into a verb, it gives you your responsibility back, right? And so very important you talk about radical responsibility, right? You know, it's a choice. I have a quote in Limitless that says life is the letter C between the letters B and D. Life Is C between B and D? It's worth writing down. B is birth, D is death. Life. C. Choice, right. Responsibility is a choice. And when we embrace a hundred percent ownership or responsibility for each and every circumstance that we face in our lives day in and day out, then we could do remarkable things. And you write about this, you know, a lot. So, you know, these are just some of the things that I see. Whether they're, you know, top actors or athletes or CEOs of companies, you know, everybody seems to be struggling with the same things, like other people are more talented than me and, you know, all these different things. So we help people in Limitless to break through and give them a process for freeing themselves from these limiting beliefs, these lies.

Well, obviously you're singing my song, talking about choice and the power of choice. You know, you referenced really taking action. And I was about to ask you, you know, I think many people are familiar with the limiting beliefs you mentioned. All the ways that I think I'm not enough or that it's too late or it's too hard or this or that, and the scarcity thinking we have about life, there's not enough of this or that to go around and so forth, all these classic limiting beliefs. So how do we get out of that?

Right.

And I suspect, you know, I was wondering how you went from the boy labeled with the boy with the broken brain to, you know, not believing that lie anymore. And I suspected it's something you said. You engaged in some accelerated learning, training yourself, and maybe that's how you proved yourself it wasn't true. Oh, I take action. I do this. Actually, my brain's not broken. I'm able to do this. I wonder if you could talk about the importance of taking action to get out of the sort of malaise of that self talk and the cloud of doubt about our abilities.

So I think massive intelligent action is really a cure all. You know, we could visualize everything in our head, goals and learn strategies and read books and podcasts, but if it stays in your head and you're not acting with your hands, you're not acting right. And I think sometimes we have to check in with the second H, which is our heart, which symbolizes emotion, Right. It has to go from your head to your heart to your hands. And so when we don't have purpose or like we're not logical so much as we are biological, you think about dopamine and oxytocin and serotonin endorphins. We are this neurochemical soup. And sometimes if we don't feel something, we won't do something, you know, so breaking free from limiting beliefs is an active process. I talk about six different things in Limitless. You know, starting with number one, awareness. Because it's hard to change something unless you're aware that it exists, right? So acknowledging your limiting beliefs, once you recognize it, then you can begin to change it. The second thing I would recommend, and I would recommend people do this right now. You know, I like to make it an active process. Think about a belief that's holding you back. Maybe you feel like you're not enough, or maybe you feel like, you know, you have a horrible memory or you're too old. The second thing I would do is question that belief. You know, ask yourself, is this belief absolutely true? Often limiting beliefs are based on past experiences or the stories that we're telling ourselves that aren't grounded in reality. The third thing people could do is to be able in action is to reframe that belief. You know, turning that limiting belief into something that's more growth oriented. So, for example, instead of saying, I'm not good at this, you know, shifting it, being aware so it's there, and then shifting it to something like, I'm still learning, you know, and I'm improving. Even when people find themselves saying, I don't have a great memory, even adding a little shift, like a word yet at the end, I don't have a great memory yet, it just opens up the possibility and the potential, right? And so it's one of those things where you could reframe the limiting belief. And then the fourth thing you could do is exactly as your question was, which is take action. The most powerful way to break a limiting belief is to take action that disproves it. You know, even in our courses that we have the largest online academy of brain optimization, accelerated learning, our company's called Kwik Learning. Kwik really is my last name. I didn't change it. K W I K. It's my father's name, my grandfather's name. You know, we get people in the very first session to memorize something they never thought they could do. They take action. And then they start questioning like, wow, if I could do this, what else can I do? And so, you know, start. I always recommend something called S. Three small, simple steps. You know, start by taking a small, simple step that aligns with your new belief. You're creating evidence that you are this person that you aim or desire or to really deserve to be. And these positive experiences as their evidence, they Reinforce this new mindset. And then the last two things I would say for change, an action you could take for changing limiting beliefs is surround yourself with more positive influences. You know, who you spend time with is who you become. We in our nervous system, we have something called mirror neurons where we're constantly, it creates empathy and it allows us to imitate, even unconsciously the people around us. And I always say watch, W, A, T, C, H. I use a lot of shortcut acronyms. The W is words. You know, we start using the language of the people around us. The A and watch are actions. We start to behave as the people around us do. Right. If somebody, you know, if you spend a lot of time with people who meditate, you're more likely to meditate. If you spend time with people who smoke, you're more likely to smoke. So it's less your neurological networks or your biological networks and it's also more your social networks. So surrounding yourself with growth minded individuals who encourage you. Like we all need people to encourage us, to cheerlead for us, to be kind to us, to challenge us. And if you haven't found that person yet, my recommendation is to be that person, you know, especially be that person for you. And then the last thing we talk about in Limitless is create new mental habits. Like we have about 60,000 thoughts a day roughly, and depending on what research you look at. And the problem is, in my experience, 95% of those thoughts are the same thoughts you had yesterday and the day before that. And you know, this sequence of success is, you know, be, do, have, share. But the being is your identity, it's your belief system. And just like you can rewire your brain with new physical habits, you can create new mental habits. Whether it's through affirmation, visualization, eft, self hypnosis, gratitude to cultivate, and we're empowering mindset and belief system daily.

Well, it's really interesting just to listen to you Jim, and tuning into your use of acronyms, which obviously are memory devices and also very clear statements and clear distinctions which I suspect you've said in very the same way again and again because they have such clarity to them. And, and I love that very simple way to reframe a limiting belief by adding yet at the end. I don't have a great memory yet. That's really powerful. You talked about in order to encourage positive neuroplasticity and the need for both novelty and nutrition. So if we think about our day, you know, just getting off to a good start seems to Be really important. And whatever this somewhat mysterious thing called willpower is, we all know we have more of it in the morning than we do late at night when we're tired. So I know you, like many, speak to having a good strong morning routine that'll get us going in the right direction. So I wonder if you could talk about the power of creating a morning routine that's going to both set us up physically, emotionally, cognitively for having a positive day, as well as setting us on that path to learning that day. There's just going to be a day of learning.

That's such a great question, Fleet. I believe to win the day, you have to win that first hour of the day. It sets you up. And to prime me, you know, everybody has a different morning routine. Oprah has hers, Tim Ferriss has his. For me, it's really about getting my brain right. You know, I think our brain is the control center for everything. Our relationships, our wealth and our happiness, our mood. And so, you know, that first hour of the day, I'm very kind of protective and I'll give our listeners some suggestions. But the really the best routine is the one you'll do. So understand more the principles of what I'm saying. And then people could customize it. There's a science to it, but there's also an art, you know, in terms of how we design our days to design our life. So morning routines are absolutely crucial for setting the tone of your day, for optimizing your cognitive performance to jumpstart your brain. You know, what you do that first hour of waking can either hinder or it could help your brain's ability to focus, to learn, to perform at its best. And so, you know, my, my morning routine has changed over time, especially being a new father and, you know, running a business and having a lot of hats like many of your listeners have. At the very least, my non negotiables I could do in 10 minutes and it's free. And so I read years and years ago, I was researching, I found out that ancient civilization, like Babylonian times, the ancient Greeks, they believed everything was made up of four elements. Air, fire, earth and water, right? And I was just like, hey, if I really want to win today, I want to get the. I want to be exposed to those four elements. So, for example, in 10 minutes, this is all it takes. And I could do it with my son. You could also do it with your loved ones. It doesn't take a lot of time and it's free. So there's no excuse to at Least experiment and try it for yourself because ultimately you listening? You're the expert, right? You are the expert of you. So I go outside and I get direct sunlight and the sun represents fire. For me, your eyes are the only part of your brain that's outside of your skull. And what it does is the sunlight. Even if it's hazy or cloudy, it helps to reset your circadian rhythm. And that's your 24 hour clock, which will help you sleep better at night. So that's so very important. Just getting out for five or 10 minutes, not through a window, because a window can actually filter out some of the spectrum of light. Just being outside for 10 minutes will help you sleep better at night. So that's the fire. I also go out and if you can just be barefoot. For me, there's a whole science of grounding. There's an exchange of electrons to reduce stress, to help you feel more stable and healthy, connecting to nature. So I just go barefoot. And the ground represents earth. So the sun is fire, the ground is earth. I also hydrate. We could lose up. You see, your brain is only 2% of your body mass, but it requires 20% of the nutrients. You know, we've done over 400 podcast episodes. They're only 20 minutes. People binge listen to it. There's no sponsors, so it's very easy because I just really want to get it out free to the world. And we had a neuroscientist who's also a nutritionist on and she was saying that Dr. Lisa Moscone, if you're just dehydrated 2%, it could significantly impact your cognitive health and your cognitive performance. And staying hydrated could boost your reaction time, your thinking speed, upwards of 30%. Yet when we sleep, we can lose up to a pound of water through respiration, through perspiration. And so I just have a glass of water, you know, usually sometimes I'll put some electrolytes or some sea salt or some lemon, so it's a little bit more structured. And so water obviously is water and then the fourth element after fire, earth. And water is air. And, you know, while I'm sitting down on the grass or, you know, on the sand, I'll do some breathing exercises. And it's, it varies, you know, if I want to do some wim hof breathing or some box breathing or some, you know, something else, it just, for me, it just clears the mental cobwebs out. It energizes my nervous system and I'm ready to go. So those are Some of the basic things, hydration to replenish my brain, deep breathing to oxygenate my brain. Sometimes I'll do a little bit of priming and, you know, prayer, you know, or gratitude. I think the greatest prayer is just thank you. And I really allow myself to feel. That gets me in that parasympathetic rest and digest. And then those are my non negotiables. And if there's a little bit more time, I'll jump into a cold plunge or take a cold shower. This might sound very extreme to some people, but science is really backing that. Cold exposure has a significant amount of cognitive benefits. It wakes up your nervous system. For me, it's even more than coffee. It increases your alertness. It helps release, you know, these neurotransmitters that it can answer, focus your attention, your mood. Cold showers could also boost your circulation, reduce inflammation, make your body feel more awake and ready for action. And plus, it's also a mental challenge. And you know, I subscribe to the idea that if you just do the easy things in life, you procrastinate, put things off, you just binge, watch things, you don't move. That's easy. And then life gets hard. If you do easy things, like something gets hard. But if you get yourself to do hard things, then life gets a whole lot easier. So cold plunges or the cold showers or the cold bath, it's like a mental challenge, overcoming the initial discomfort. I feel like it could strengthen your willpower and your overall mental resilience. So that way, when you don't want to do something and you get yourself to do it, how you do anything is how you do everything. So maybe you'll take that same attribute to the things that you have to do for work or with your family that you're equally kind of adverse to, but you get yourself to do hard things and that. Cause I think, like, life is hard for one of two reasons. Either you're leaving your comfort zone, you're doing new things, you're challenging yourself, you're exercising, you're reading, you're studying, you're doing, having uncomfortable conversations. So life can be difficult if you're leaving your comfort zone, but life is also difficult if you stay in your comfort zone.

Absolutely. We get into that posture where life's happening to us, or we feel like life's happening to us because we're sitting back there in our comfort zone waiting to see what we get. And it can be challenging to step out of our comfort zone. But it's also where all the energy we need to thrive is so you've described so beautifully. And I do the cold shower every morning and I'll do it for all the reasons you said. There's a lot of science around it. It's also supposed to help with weight control and so forth. But I also do it because there's at least part of my body or part of my brain does not want to do it, right. I take a nice hot shower to begin with, but then I fortunately I have a stand up shower with a head at each end, right. And so I turn that one off, turn the other one on, I step in there and you know, by taking that action I now I'm putting myself in charge. The fear based, you know, comfort zone. Part of me is not going to be in charge. It's just that act of stepping into the cold water puts me in charge in that direction for a day. So I wonder if you could talk a bit about, you know, in contrast to building up the capacities you are talking about by changing our beliefs, by taking action that will change our beliefs. We all do have a kind of basic fear and survival based programming, right? And earlier in the development of human beings and hominids, you know, we really were at survival all the time. And there's part of our brain is continually telling us we're going to die, we're going to starve to death. And if we don't procreate right now, our genes won't go into the next generation. So there's this very base level. But fortunately we're conscious beings and we could override that. But I think so many of us find us, even though we have a lot of this knowledge that we're sharing here on this summit, we still find ourselves not doing the things we know would be good for us or we find ourselves doing things we know are not so good for us. And there's something driving that. And I wonder if you could talk about what it is that's driving that and how do we transcend that? As you said before, a nice place.

To start is in our rituals. I believe first you create your habits, then your habits create you. Right? You create your habits of meditation or gratitude, journaling or moving each day, which is very important for your brain. As your body moves, your brain grooves. But you know, research shows approximately, and it varies, approximately 40% of our daily behavior is habitual, usually unconscious. But when did we sit down and actually design those rituals? So I feel like having success rituals is the foundation for greater performance. And they are often driven by deep Empowering belief systems, right? So through my work with executives or entrepreneurs or performers, I've observed that their success isn't just the result of discipline and willpower. It's also rooted in the beliefs that shape their habits. And these individuals have mastered the art of creating rituals that align with their goals. And also, when you have rituals, you don't have to expend a lot of cognitive energy. A lot of people, you know, like there's something called decision fatigue, which basically states that you can only make a certain amount of good decisions in a day. And then after that, I mean, people might had the experience where they had a long day mentally, and they're sitting at a restaurant for dinner and they're looking at the menu and they can't even decide what they want to eat, right? Because they've spent all their decisions, so creating rituals and habits to really automate, you know, what you're going to wear, what you're going to eat. You don't have to use that energy and you can use it towards other things. But some of the key ritual like belief changes is something like a belief I have is I am in control of my day. It's not the other way around that top performers believe they have, that they are a thermostat. They're not a thermometer. I mean, think about this analogy. A thermometer, its only function is it reacts and reacts to the environment, whatever the environment is, that's what the thermometer, you know, reacts to. But a thermostat doesn't react, right? A thermostat's a little different. It knows, it gauges the temperature, it knows what's going on, but then it sets a temperature and then the environment reacts to you. And we set temperatures on our thermostat all the time in terms of what we deserve. We set temperatures of our standards, our goals, you know, maybe in business, your key performance indicators or whatever. But I believe that, you know, to do this belief enables you to prioritize tasks that align with your goals and avoid being pulled into constant distraction. Right? It's not just about time management. It's about mind management. It's about priority management. And the principle for that is the most important thing is to keep the most important thing. The most important thing, right? The most important things to get the most important thing or things. The most important thing. So, you know, a lot of people feel busy and, you know, sometimes they feel burnt out because they're doing too much, they're exhausted because they're doing too much. But it's been my experience, as you mentioned, doing this for 32 years, that sometimes we're burnt out not because we're doing too much, sometimes we're burnt out because we're doing too little of the things that make us come alive, you know, and including that self care. So you know, high performers, you know, these individuals, they create rituals that reflect their commitment to focus, to productivity, to well being. And how does it manifest? It often starts with their day with a proactive morning routine. You know, one of the other things I do first thing in the morning is, okay, I'll tell you what I don't do. I don't touch my phone. I have a video with Simon Sinek on Facebook 12 years ago saying just don't touch your phone for 30 minutes. Try this. Because when you wake up in the morning, you're probably in the most relaxed state you'll be in all day, right? You're very suggestible and you're in that kind of alpha state. And if you, the first thing you do is pick up your phone, then you're rewiring your brain for react for two things. Distraction. Because every like Share comment cat video is just, you know, Jay Shetty talks about this. It's like you would never, first thing when you wake up, invite a hundred people into your bedroom to talk to you. But that's exactly what we're doing when we're doom scrolling, right? So you get this dopamine flood and it's very addictive. So it trains you to be distracted. And then you wonder why you can't focus with your kids or with your family or at work because you started your day distracted. But the other thing, it rewires your brain. Not only distraction, but reaction. Talking about being a thermometer, right? Sometimes you're, you go through and you get a text message. You pick up your phone first thing in the morning, you get a text message, an email, a social media message, a voicemail, whatever. And it just, you're fighting fires and you're on the defense. And how do you build this extraordinary life that you desire and deserve? By just reacting. You're on the defense. So what do I do instead of I close my eyes when I wake up and I just do this quick visualization. I would challenge everyone to do it tomorrow morning. It only takes two minutes. Close your eyes and do this mental experiment. Fast forward to the end of the day and you're getting ready for bed and somebody asks you, maybe a spouse, family member, somebody calls you, whatever, and they ask you how was your day? And it's nighttime, you're ready for bed. And I want you to imagine you saying, today was an amazing day. I had so much joy. I really wanted to one today, we crushed it today, whatever. And ask yourself this follow up, what had to happen in order for you to feel that way? And then this is what I mean about priority management. I come up with three things personally and three things professionally that would have made me feel like this was a great day. And that's my focus for the day. Those six things, you know, and keeping the most important, they don't have to be huge things. You know, one of my personal things today is going for a walk with my dogs, right. And that would give me a sense of, you know, time to think and connect and just get some fresh nature. But yeah, I just think that creating a proactive morning routine, you know, whether it's meditation, exercise, goal setting, journaling, rather than checking emails and going to social media, it sets the tone for productive and it reminds you of your own agency, right? Your own ability to respond and not react. So many different things, you know, and in this area, we could probably go hours, you know, on this topic.

I'm sure you could. And I can't wait to get the transcript from this. And the transcripts are available to everyone in our audience. You'll be able to download to get the transcript and be highlighting lots of things.

And I recommend everybody do that from a learning perspective because it allows you. One of the ways of learning something is something called space, repetition and review. A lot of people take notes, but they don't review those notes. But it's a wonderful way to fast track consolidating information from short term memory to long term memory. So highly recommend people rewatch this, read the transcripts and, and do all that.

And also I emphasize the power of these rituals and strategies and that they have momentum when we repeat them. So, you know, I had to start by literally getting my phone out of the room. Now it is in my room now. It's not near the bed, but it's on its charger and I use it for my wearables and the sleep and stuff like that. But I've trained myself, I have now absolutely no interest. I don't go anywhere near email or social media or text, anything like that for the first two and a half hours of my day. And I've trained myself that. And I actually no longer have any desire to do that. I don't feel the impulse, but I had to start by getting it out of the room. So I couldn't do it.

We've had on our podcast the top habit experts in the world. Dr. B.J. fogg out of Stanford University wrote Tiny Habits. I've interviewed James Clear wrote Atomic Habits. One of the most important aspects to habit design is exactly what you said, is to manage your environment. The principle here, and I always go back to first principles, is you want to make. My suggestion is for everybody, is you want to make what's good for you easier and what's not good for you more difficult. So a simple thing like having your phone in your bathroom, you know, if that's possible, would just make. It's just like if you don't want to eat gluten and you're at a restaurant and the wait staff brings you bread, you could either say no to the bread right up front, or if the bread sits there and you don't want to, you're not supposed to eat it for your health concerns then. Otherwise, if it's sitting there, you have to say no to yourself 50 times during that meal as opposed to just removing it. And you're controlling the environment. Like for me in my office, I have a pull up bar right in the doorway. So I'm more likely to do those pull ups because I make what's again, what's good for me easier in my life. I have a fiction book by my nightstands. I look at that. Or a gratitude journal by my nightstand. It makes it a lot easier for me to follow through on those new habits.

Yeah, wonderful. I love that. Make what's good for us easier and what's not good for us more difficult. Another one of these, Jules, you're sharing with us, so I wonder if we could maybe geek out on the neuroscience a little bit. There are people in our audience I know appreciate that. So, you know, you talked before about, you know, some limiting some of the amount of decisions we have made because we can get into decision exhaustion. And our brain is continually economizing its energy because it's exposed to gazillion points of data continually. And the brain is a processing machine organism. And so, you know, we're processing information and making decisions about what to do with that information. Steve Jobs was renowned, wearing the exact same black turtleneck shirt every day and a whole closet full of them. So he didn't have to waste time deciding what shirt to wear. And I think there are other thought leaders that do think similar things. So I wonder if you could talk about that. The process of how the brain actually processes Information and how we can sort of get in sync with that. So that we are going along with the brain's tendency to economize energy and do so in such a way that is enhancing our memory. Remembering what we need really. I mean, we don't need to remember everything, right? Prioritizing that. And so maybe a little bit about how the brain actually works as a processing unit and how we can optimize that by understanding how it works and then kind of getting in flow with it or getting in sync with it.

Now, I'm glad we're talking about memory because I feel like, I mean, Socrates said learning is remembering. And, you know, even with AI and Google and everything going back to the, you know, life is the C between B and D, where C is choice. We can only make good choice. Like our life is a sum total of all the choices we've made up to this point, right? And we can only make good decisions based on the information that we know. And if we know it, we must remember it. I believe two of the most costly words in life or definitely in business are I forgot. You know, think about the consequence of saying, I forgot to do it. I forgot to go to that meeting. I forgot what I just read. I forgot what I was going to say. I forgot that conversation. I forgot that person's name. It just goes on and on, right? We lose time, we lose momentum, we lose trust. We could hurt a relationship on the other side. Memory is a magnifier. It can enhance every area. It makes your relationship better. When you can remember important information about, you know, the person that you care about. Certainly in sales, when you can easily remember client information, product information, give a speech with how notes, all the things that we teach. So memory is an essential component for both personal and professional success. And the good news is anyone can improve their memory, right? About one third of your memory is predetermined by genetics and biology, but two thirds is in our influence and in control. And there's two, I take two approaches. We teach people the software, like how to learn a language faster, how to remember a speech without using notes, how to improve your vocabulary, how to remember numbers and passwords and pin numbers and all those things. But that's the software. You also take care of the hardware, right? The brain itself, that three pound matter between your ears. And I always tell people to take your meds. It's not a pharmaceutical, it's another acronym. The M is meditate. You know, you got the disconnect to reconnect your brain's not meant to go a hundred miles an hour all day. Taking a little pit stop to recover. So very important, I call them brain breaks. Where I move, I hydrate, I do some breathing to keep my brain fresh and not having it slump. The E in meds, the M was meditate is E is exercise. You know, when you exercise, you create something called brain derived neurotropic factors, A bdnf. What is it? It's like fertilizer for your brain. Fertilizer. Nourishment for neuroplasticity. Right. So, and I don't just mean going to yoga or pilates three times a week. I mean, how much are you moving throughout the day? They say sitting is the new smoking. And the primary reason we have a brain is to control our movement. And as your body moves, your brain grooves. Even if people are listening to a podcast or an audiobook, when they're doing something rhythmic, they're on a treadmill or doing a brisk walk, they'll actually understand the information better and retain the information better also as well. So the E is exercise, the D is diet. We talk a lot about an area called neuronutrition, which is your brain. It requires different nutrients than the rest of your body. You know some of my favorite brain foods and everyone's bio individual. Right. So you could take a food sensitivity test, a microbiome test. Avocados, the monounsaturated fat is good for your brain. Blueberries, I like to call em brain berries. Very full of antioxidants. They're very neuroprotective. Broccoli has something called sulforaphane, which is important for cognitive health and performance. Olive oil is good for your brain if your diet allows. Eggs. The diet, the choline in eggs leads to acetylcholine, which is important for cognitive health and performance. And there's also supplements for this, all these things also as well. You know, fatty fish like salmon or sardines, you get your omega 3s, your DHAs. But if you can't eat fish, you could supplement with something or flax, you know, green leafy vegetables, kale, spinach, turmeric, that's wonderful to lower systemic inflammation. The active ingredient is called curcumin. There walnuts, high in vitamin E, very neuroprotective. Dark chocolate, not milk chocolate, but dark chocolate has been shown to be supportive for good brain health. So that's the D is diet and then the S is sleep. Right. We do a whole chapter on sleep. Everyone knows this, but are you practicing good sleep hygiene? How's your brain operating the next day when you have a bad night's sleep, you can't. How do you think, how do you focus? How do you remember, you know, what's your cognitive energy, your mental vitality when you don't sleep? When you sleep, a couple of things to highlight. You consolidate short to long term memory. So if you have long term memory issues, you could do a sleep study. And nowadays you don't even have to go into a clinic to sleep overnight. Doctors could prescribe you a sleep study that you could do at home from the comfort of your own home. Some people struggle with sleep apnea or other things that could affect their sleep. So it's very important also when you sleep for your brain, you, the sewage system in your brain kicks in when you sleep, when you're in that slow brain wave state, usually in deep sleep, REM sleep, and you clean out that beta amyloid plaque that builds up that could lead to brain aging challenges like dementia. So my favorite things for sleep, and you know, just, just as a reminder, everybody has different things. Again, direct sunlight first thing in the morning will help you sleep better at night. Another thing, I'm very highly sensitive to caffeine, so I can't do caffeine past 2pm cause it could stay in your system for 10 hours plus. Also two, probably a couple big things. If you use an alarm clock to wake up, I really encourage you to use that same alarm to go to sleep. Your brain loves a routine, a rhythm structure, even on the weekends. And nobody gets this perfect. But to the degree you could go to bed at the same time and wake at the same time, you're gonna get better overall sleep over time. And then the two big ones. Remember thousands of years ago, we would know it'd be time to sleep because the environment would tell us there would be a decrease in two environmental factors. It'd be temperature and light. And so we sleep better when it's cooler and when it's darker. So what can you do? You could not only control the temperature, because nowadays it could stay the same temperature and the same lighting because of modern conveniences. But you know, what I recommend is you can have your blackout curtains. But the challenge is a lot of people, they're on their devices again. And that the light coming off from your phone or your iPad or whatever, it fools the mind into thinking it's still daylight. So you don't create this hormone called melatonin, which helps you to relax and phase into that sleep. So the blue light in your screens could Affect your sleep. And then the other thing is temperature. We sleep better when it's cold now where it's so cold you're shivering because that'll keep you up. One of the things you could do is just take a warm shower or warm bath. And even with me take a warm bath, put some Epsom salt because the magnesium that you absorb transdermally which will help you to relax better also as well. But when you come out of a hot shower or bath or sauna, your core body temperature will drop and that's the signal to create melatonin again. So take care of your sleep. So that's your meds. If I was to add two things, meds rx. The R is relationships we talked about who you spend time with is who you become. We had on our podcast the director of the largest study at Harvard, 80 years plus on happiness and longevity. And yes, diet was important, exercise is important, but was what trumped that was social connection. And so we are social beings. And so you know, having those deep bonds are so very important. So that's the R and the X are all the extras. It could be a cold plunge. You know, we talk a lot about in limitless nootropics like these are different than supplements for cognitive health or food for cognitive health. That's for just baseline wellness. But there are substances with human studies that have been shown to enhance focus, memory, mood, mental energy. We put together. If you don't want to buy the book, you could get this list of ingredients with all of the studies listed human studies at brainnutrition. Com so people like to go there. They could get a free report and you know, see which ones they want to be able to look into. Creatine is one of the most studied supplements. Substances and non people associate that with working out. But it also helps with mitochondria mental energy and it also helps to offset. A recent study shows it can offset bad night's sleep also or at least not completely offset, but help you to recover from it. So that's the X meds rx.

Well I really do encourage everyone in.

Our audience to download the transcript and highlight it and study it because this is everything.

It's just so dense with very practical how to information to improve the overall quality of our life. You know, I think we're getting towards the end of our time and you know, a lot of our audience I think comes from a mindfulness background. And this issue of performance and success can be a difficult one because I think a lot of us associate it with being automatically evaluative and comparative. And I think a lot of us that cause a lot of us to hold back from the idea of, you know, stepping into, you know, really manifesting our talents and everything we could be in life because we don't want to get into that high performance success. Well, you know, because we just think it's, you can't divorce it from that comparative ego centered kind of, you know. And I wonder if you could say something that obviously that's a set of beliefs there, right? So how could we change our beliefs about how we think about performance and success for ourselves individually, that it could be meaningful, not become a limiting belief, but become a life enhancing belief for us.

That's a great question. You know and nonetheless I talk about these digital, the four super villains, the four horsemen of the mental apocalypse, digital distraction, digital dementia, which is the outsourcing term, memory, like it keeps your schedules or to do it thinks about how many phone numbers you and I knew growing up. But how many phone numbers do we remember today, right? That's digital dementia or its high reliance on technology. He also has something I coined called digital deluge which is that it's the information anxiety, the information overload which could create higher blood pressure, compression of leisure time, more sleep. I mean how many people buy books and they sit on your shelf unread, right? And you know, and it becomes shelf help, not self help. Nowadays it's like you take a sip of water out at fire hose. Just because we don't know how to read properly. That's why we spend so much time teaching people this. And then the last one is something called digital deduction where your devices aren't just remembering things for you, it's thinking for you. I mean if you take something simple like getting from here to there, you have an app, but you don't have to develop your mental spatial, visual spatial intelligence, right? And it's a muscle. And I'm not anti technology and I'll get to your the answer in a moment. But like fire is an early form of technology, it's just how it's applied. It could cook your food or it could burn down your home, right? Technology, just like an elevator is a form of technology. If your apartment or your office was on the fifth floor, yes, it's very convenient to take an elevator, but we could have got those steps in, right? If you take a car to go to the bank and it's eight blocks away, yes, it's convenient, but it also could be crippling if we're not using, getting our steps in. Right. So it's always a balance. So I'm not anti technology, but another, if I was to add a fifth one, it's exactly what you're talking about is it's digital depression. People, when they're scrolling. We live in a very. We understand things through comparison often. And sometimes we're comparing our life on social media to somebody else's highlight trailer because nobody's putting a lot of the harsh, you know, struggles and everyone's fighting a battle no one knows about. Everybody is, no matter what it looks like, you know, on social media and such. So I would just say my suggestion for that person who's comparing themselves is sometimes the grass is greener where you water it, but sometimes it's greener on Instagram or Facebook because the filter that they're using. Right. And there's also a lot of artificial turf out there also as well. So I'd remind you that, you know, we, if we're green with envy, if we're using that green thing, then we can never be really happy. And the only person that's worth comparing ourselves to, if there's anybody, is the person we were yesterday. Right? Because you can't Compare your chapter six to someone's chapter 20. It just doesn't, it just doesn't even make any sense. And so a lot of times, you know, I spent a lot of time in senior centers having lost my grandparents at a very early age. I go there not only to help them with their memory, but also I hear a lot of stories and a lot of wisdom. And in my culture, like, you know, we learn from, you know, people that there's so much wisdom. People have been on the planet longer than we have. But I also hear a lot of regrets. And I'll say this, when it comes to comparison, our own self worth, our own personal self esteem is the regrets I'm hearing is like these men or women, they somehow limited their life because of what other people would think, right? And because they didn't pursue a relationship because of what other people would think about that relationship or they pursued a career path because it was expected of them by family members or parents or whatever. And I would just remind everyone it's not pleasant to think about. But if we're going to begin with the most important things in mind today, first of all, we can't be upset by the results we didn't get from the work we didn't do. So do the work like everybody's doing right now. So that's why I applaud everyone who's listening and rolling, you know, upgrading to the transcripts, doing all that because you're doing the work, Right? But sometimes the people that hold us back are the people closest to us because we care about what they think and how they look at us. And so somehow, like, we don't want to disappoint them. But if you fuel your life with other people's expectations and their opinions, we're going to run out of gas. And so what I would say to those individuals who are like these at the senior center, for example, I also hear a lot of regrets. And when you're taking your final breaths, not pleasant. Again, none of other people's opinions are gonna matter in those moments. None of other people's expectations, none of your fears are gonna matter. What's gonna matter is how you learned, how you laughed, how you loved, how you lived. I believe the life you live are the lessons you teach. I truly believe that. And it can be scary. I'll admit it. Like, growth can be hard, Change can be scary. But nothing is as hard and scary as being stuck somewhere you don't belong. Right? And so I would say for everyone listening, I promise you, when I talk about Limitless, it's not a name of my book. It's not about being perfect. It's about advancing and progressing and retrying the borders and boundaries of what's possible for you. Because there is a version of yourself in the future that's patiently waiting. And I think the goal is we show up every day, we learn, we're kind of. We work hard until we're introduced to that person.

Wow, that's a beautiful image. I swim in these waters, and I'm sitting here completely blissed out and on fire, ready to go out there and tackle the next challenge. So inspiring, Jim. Really, absolutely is. So thank you so much. Where can people find out more about your work? You mentioned a resource for nootropics. I think brainresearch.com, if I'm not mistreated.

Brainnutrition.Com.

Guide there also, as well, we also have a free gift for everybody. Like, it's not how smart you are or how smart your kids are or how smart your spouse is. How are they smart? And everybody learns in different ways. And we've identified four different brain types. And we use colorful animals that you could be a cheetah, an owl, a dolphin, or an elephant. And once you understand your brain type, you understand so much about, I think, knowing your having the curiosity to know Yourself is so important, but also having the courage to be yourself. And this shows you that, you know, sometimes if you want to learn something and you're not getting it, it's kind of like you're trying to learn it with your opposite hand. If you. I was asked everyone to draw, you know, write their name with their dominant hand. Easy, right? But if I ask them to reverse it and with the other hand, write their name on below it, it would take longer, it would be more uncomfortable, it would feel a little weird, and the quality won't be as good. Sometimes when we're learning something, it's like we're learning with the opposite hand. So it takes longer and it's uncomfortable. Sometimes your brain type is different than the teacher's brain type. Your learning style is different than their teaching style. And it's like two ships in the. You're passing each other, there's no connection. You don't even recognize the other ones there. So the best way to get this is we created an assessment. It's only four minutes, it's free for your community. You get it@mybrainanimal.com and it's a 4 minute multiple choice and you'll see what your dominant brain type is. And then I'll give you strategies and videos and free, you know, reports on how to read faster, how to improve your memory, how to even parent sell everything based on brain types. So mybrainanimal.com and then everything we put out there, 95% is free. You can join 1. 7 million subscribers on YouTube. We have a podcast, just search my name and your podcast app, 400 episodes. And then my book Limitless, you could find anywhere. And we donate all the proceeds to build schools. We built schools in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya and also Alzheimer's research. And what I would challenge everyone to do, fleet, is take a screenshot wherever you're consuming this and tag Fleet, tag myself and share one thing you're going to do for your brain. Today, my social media is just imquick everywhere K w I K. And so that way we get to see it. And I'll actually gift a few signed copies of Limitless just randomly to people who do that. So if you don't tag us, we don't see it. So or repost it and share. Cause I think what you do is you learn something, you apply it and then you share it. When you teach something, you get to learn it twice. If you want to be a faster learner, you take advantage of something called the explanation effect. The explanation effect says, if you have the intention of learning something but teaching it to somebody else, you're gonna learn it so much better.

Wow. I love that. What a beautiful, empowering call to action. So thank you so much for that and I really encourage our audience to all take action on that. So thank you so much. Jim, this has been absolutely illuminating. So really, really appreciate it.

I appreciate your work. Ple. Thank you so much for the work that you do. Not only what you do, but how you do it.

Thank you. Be well.

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. 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.

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