In this solo episode Jim Kwik challenges the common saying “knowledge is power,” arguing that knowledge is only potential power until it is actively used. He describes how many people live in a self‑imposed trance of believing they are not good enough or smart enough, which keeps them reactive rather than proactive. Kwik proposes a simple linguistic shift: turn desired states that are usually expressed as nouns—focus, energy, creativity, motivation, memory—into verbs, prompting action instead of passive longing. He explains that the brain operates like a super‑computer that runs the program we feed it through self‑talk; saying “I don’t have focus” puts us in submission, whereas asking “How do I focus?” initiates behavior. He outlines practical habits: each morning create a “to‑feel” list (e.g., feel curious, bold, playful) and pair each feeling with concrete actions, and a traditional “to‑do” list. Kwik links emotions to long‑term memory, emphasizing state‑dependent learning, and stresses the importance of shaping one’s environment (separating work and rest spaces, surrounding oneself with supportive people) to reinforce desired states. He references his online courses that provide step‑by‑step recipes for focus, speed‑reading, memory, and critical thinking, reinforcing that these abilities are learnable processes, not innate gifts. The episode concludes with a call‑to‑action: viewers should screenshot the episode, share a noun they will turn into a verb, tag Kwik, and use #KwikBrain, reinforcing learning through teaching.
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We often talk about this lie that knowledge is power, but we know it's not true power. It's only potential power. It only becomes power when we what? When we use it. But here's the challenge. We have put ourselves in hypnosis every single day, a lot of us, by telling us something that's absolutely not true. And this episode is about transcending. It's about ending the trance, ending the trance that we're not good enough, that we're not smart enough, that we're not good enough. We're not smart enough. smart enough or something is outside of us. Because when we give our power to the outside, we're always in reaction as opposed to being proactive and maintaining your agency, maintaining your personal sovereignty and freedom, knowing that you have the power and the responsibility inside. So what do I mean by how to have what you want by doing it? A lot of people, what they really want is they want to feel a certain way. They want to wake up and they want to feel focused. You want to wake up and have focus. You want to wake up and have energy. You want to wake up and have motivation. You want to wake up and have creativity so that you could write or you could make videos or you could draw the things that you want to be able to express yourself. You want to have a good memory. So notice, what's the trance? The trance word is have because it means you either have it or you don't. What I want to do is take those same words and turn them into verbs, to take a noun like focus and turn it into more of a verb. I want you to get used to using it as an action. I want you to think about not having energy. I want you to think about what would I need to do to do energy? In order to have creativity, maybe it's not having creativity, maybe you're doing creativity, and maybe you're not having focus, You're actually doing things to help you to focus. Does that make sense? It's very subtle, but your mind is like a supercomputer, and your self-talk or your external words, your thoughts, are the program it's going to run. If you say to yourself, I don't have this, I don't have this, I don't have this, you put yourself into submission as opposed to, how do I do this? Because we know one thing, that genius, leaves clues that when somebody is exceptional in some area where they're— they have motivation, or you see them motivated, right? Or they're very creative, or they're very focused, and they have concentration, they have energy. They're not actual things that they have, it's more things that they are doing. So there's always a method behind the magic. So you'll notice a lot of the episodes that we teach, and certainly in our online programs, Many of you know we have online courses, 21, 30-day courses, on how to have better focus, how to read faster, how to improve your memory, best critical thinking skills, how to be a great student for junior high school, high school, and also college students and graduate students. They're full, they are full of processes because there's always a recipe to success. That's what I learned early on in this training. Somebody was not just born with these gifts. These are gifts that you could also create yourself. So yes, in the morning, have your to-do list, but put on your to-do list things you wanna feel, and these are verbs. So what are you gonna do? You're gonna do focus, you're gonna do energy, you're gonna do a memory, because there's a process to a memory. It's not a magic pill, but there is a memory process that goes on of encoding, of storing, of retrieving, and when you turn it into a process, where's the benefit? The benefit is you have— again, you have agency, you have sovereignty, you have a level of high level of personal power to be able to influence your environment because you're not at the effect, just reacting to things. And so what I would say is every morning have your to-do list, but even better, what if you had a to-feel list? We know that all learning, just in life, is state-dependent. The key to a long-term memory, part of the behind-the-scenes recipe, the method if you will, is information combined with emotion becomes a long-term memory. So what are the emotions you want to feel that day? What if you actually created for yourself a to-feel list? So in addition to doing this and doing this and doing this, what if you committed yourself to feel curious, to feel bold, to feel playful? And notice Not just feeling this, but what do you need to do to create those states, those moods, those feelings, if you will? I'm sure you could list 3 different things that you can do to feel curious, either inside your mind by maybe asking new questions, or to have better focus, which could be inside your mind. What's most important to me? You know, Jim's always saying the most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing. So either internal things Or external things, meaning shape your environment. Because behavioral change and habits, yes, there's a difficulty to it, but also there's a simplicity to it. Because your brain, your body, your mind is the ultimate adaptation machine, and it's always conforming to the environment. That's why who you spend time with is who you become. And that's why also setting up your environment to enhance focus and creativity— We've done multiple episodes Even an episode we did early on with Julia Roy about how to set up your environment to be able to promote workflow, and for example, not using an iPad for work and for Netflix. You anchor one state or the other, just like not working in your bedroom, because in your bedroom you want to be able to relax and downregulate and get into parasympathetic. Don't use it to study, right, because you anchor those environments. To those states also as well. So what's the main message here? In order to be able to have things by doing them, all you have to do is listen to your self-talk and your languaging and take nouns and get in the habit, even relentlessly get in the habit, of turning those nouns into verbs. What I want you to do now is take a screenshot of this episode. Let's do this together. Take a screenshot of this episode, tag me in it. What I want you to share is What noun are you going to turn into a verb? Share that, because when you teach it, you get to learn it twice. So share with your friends and your family. You can post it online. As always, I'll repost some of my favorites. And also, we also gift every single week some of our favorite books by our authors to some of our very favorite posts. So tag myself, hashtag KwikBrain, K-W-I-K Brain, and I look forward to seeing you in the next Episode.
