Creative Problem Solving Expert: How to Think Smarter and Innovate Faster

So imagine you could take any challenge in your life— stalled project, frustrating roadblock, maybe even a dream that feels just out of reach— and turn it into an opportunity for rapid innovation, creativity, and greater impact. Maybe not even in years, but in days or even hours. So what if I told you there's a set, proven way that you could think, you can learn, you could be able to solve problems so effectively that billion-dollar companies, world-class athletes, even Nobel Prize-winning scientists have used, often without even realizing it, and that you could start using it today. Welcome back, Kwik Brains. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. Today we're going to talk about how to succeed in learning and life when you have been maybe even labeled as someone Like me, who isn't traditionally successful. Our guest today was a puzzle for his teachers, maybe a misfit in a conventional academic sense and more of an outcast socially. So this definitely relates. I could definitely relate to that. Year after year, many teachers gave up on him. One teacher even called him a lazy con artist. And another told him, you will never make it in the real world. From the age of 7, Dr. Jeff Karp began thinking about thinking, tapping into metacognition to transform an undiagnosed ADHD into a catalyst for creativity, for leadership. He's a Harvard MIT professor, inventor, bestselling author, holds over 100 patents and has co-founded 14 companies. He sees obstacles as rocket fuel propelling him to champion neurodiversity, mindfulness, and environmental stewardship. He speaks— I really enjoyed this book called Lit. So he speaks a lot about that. I highly encourage everybody, all our Kwik readers out there, Life Ignition Tools. Using Nature's Playbook to Energize Your Brain, Spark Ideas, and Ignite Action. So, welcome to the show, Geoff.

Hey, thank you so much. And thank you to everybody who's tuning into this. A lot of gratitude.

So, I alluded a little bit to your origin story. Before we do that, I added just a kind of question. We've talked about metacognition and meta-learning in our show. I'm curious about— I feel like one of the competitive advantages we have is our ability to learn, unlearn, relearn, apply that learning, right? Can we talk about unlearning to learn? Meaning many high achievers reach a point where maybe the old playbook stops working. I'm curious, just right off the bat, before we go into your story, is there one belief or habit you had to completely unlearn before you could think and innovate at the level that you do now?

Yeah, I love your question. Great place to start. And I think one of the ways that I really think about this in terms of unlearning is pattern disruption. And it really just sort of tapping into how my brain, as I go through my experiences in life, tends to just learn patterns that I'm exposed to in my environment, whether that's at work or at home or wherever I am. And then those patterns start to shape my life. And I start to realize over time, because I've spent a lot of time trying to be hyper-aware of all of these patterns and how they impact me, start to realize that many of them actually don't serve me. And so, and what I mean by that is a lot of these patterns actually take me away from my core values or what I personally define as important in my life. So if I define, for example, spending time with my family or spending time with the 2 dogs that we have or with close friends, and then I find myself drawn to experiences where I'm not with them, you know, that's giving me an indication that maybe there's some aspect of a pattern that I've been taking on that I need to unlearn in order to learn a new pattern that connects me with what truly is most important to me. Because I think there's a lot of algorithms or patterns or habits, you know, that we're exposed to in our lives And in some ways, you know, we're kind of like our brains are a little bit like computers in that we learn these algorithms and then we just repeat them at a very high efficiency where we don't need to use much brainpower. And they become so common, yet it is like it's taking us on a path that's not evolving us in a direction that is really true to our hearts and our souls and what is is really the most meaningful to us. So to me, that's really the key is that I've spent almost my entire life unlearning. It's kind of like you can't help but learn because your brains are wired to learn. And so every experience you have, you're learning and you're learning patterns. And so to me, it's always like, okay, what patterns did I just learn and which ones are serving me? Which ones do I need to disrupt and unlearn? And so, yeah, I feel like it's so important. Um, in today's society, because otherwise we just end up living the values and the, um, the definition of someone else's— someone else's definition of importance.

One of my definitions for genius is pattern recognition and, uh, pattern creation, pattern implementation. It's, uh, for me, it's always been, it's not how smart you are, it's really more how are you smart. And, uh, I mentioned that you and I have had similar, uh, Different, but the through line of our, you know, our childhood. And I'm curious, many of our listeners are familiar with mine. Traumatic brain injury at age 5, learning disabilities, took me 3 years longer to learn how to read. Teacher called me the boy with the broken brain in front of the whole class, you know, losing my grandmother to Alzheimer's at age 7.

Mm-hmm.

Maybe you could walk us through your early journey, like maybe your school journey? How did it shape you? What strengths it eventually gave you? Maybe some insights or lessons that you took away from it into adulthood, you know, when it comes to your own learning?

Absolutely. Yeah. So if we go back to the 2nd grade, I'm from Canada, so I'm living in a small town called Peterborough, which is near Toronto. And I am just— nothing is landing for me. I'm sitting at the back of the class feeling like an alien, not connecting with anybody. Anything the teacher says, my mind is going in different directions. I'm not able to pay attention. My mom is trying flashcards, cue cards, like all kinds, you know, phonics, all kinds of things. Nothing's working. And I'm sitting there trying to figure out why is everybody getting it, but I'm not getting it. And the end of the year, the teacher, Mr. Steadwell, pulls my parents aside and said, actually basically says, I want Jeff to repeat the 2nd grade. So my parents negotiated, luckily, that I would, if that I could go to the 3rd grade if I spent the summer catching up with tutors. And so all of my classmates went on vacation and here I am in summer school. And so something transformational happened to me in between the 2nd and 3rd grade at this learning center that I spent the summer at. And what happened was that I went in every day and they would, you know, it was all kinds of games and things they would play, and it was fun and engaging. But on this one particular day, the tutor read me a passage, asked me some questions. I gave answers, never really feeling like I was giving the right answers, but they were encouraging me, so I kept going. But on this day, after I gave my answers, they paused and they looked me in the eye and they said— they asked, how did you think about that? And it was almost like a bit of a violating question because I didn't really get it. And I really didn't think that much about thinking because I was so— I had undiagnosed ADHD and learning differences. And I was really just spontaneous, erratic. I would just say what was ever on my mind. And so in that moment, it was this light bulb moment that nothing happened right away, but I kept reflecting on that question. There was something about some energy associated with that question that stuck with me, and I started to bring that to everything. I started to realize that I had this power of observation that I could engage and I could observe what people were saying in different situations in the classroom and that I could try that on because I didn't. It was almost like this analogy of a computer where I felt like I had this hardware, but I didn't have software that was working for me and I needed to program my own software and using an experimental approach because I just, I didn't know what to do. Like, it just, I just, I had to figure it out. And so I start— I started to clue into, for example, the power of questions. That when the teacher was teaching, my brain would just be flying in different directions and I couldn't pay attention for more than a few seconds. But if I asked a question, my brain would hone in laser focus on the answer for at least a few moments. And whatever was being transmitted to me would be ingrained in my brain and I could connect it to other things that I knew. And I could recall it later. And so I started to, using the power of thinking about thinking, I started to tune into my observational powers. I started to tune into the power of questions and figure out how I actually learned. And so through that process, I was able to develop all kinds of tools to essentially survive in school. But I was a C and D student up until the 7th grade. I mean, it was just barely scraping by. And in the 7th grade, my mom went to the school board because they didn't want to do anything and demanded they look at my file. My mom had put together all of these things that teachers had said about me, you know, lost cause and never going to make it. And, you know, they asked me at one point, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I said, I want to be a doctor. And they said, well, you better set your sights lower because you just, you don't have what it takes to do that. And so in the 7th grade, my mom, I got identified as having learning differences, ADHD. I got accommodations like some extra time and space to write tests and things. And my grades went from Cs and Ds to straight As because I had been developing all these tools along the way, and then finally was able to implement them.

Yeah, questions are often the answer. Yeah, we talk about, in my book, Limitless, a dominant question, like a question we ask more often than any other question, and how it really shines a spotlight and really shapes our experience. When we're talking about lit, maybe you could give a quick overview of what lit is. And in your research, how does being lit align with what neuroscience tells us about neuroplasticity, learning, adaptability?

Yeah, absolutely. So, Lit is all about resensitizing our aliveness, right? I think that in today's society, our curiosity is flattened, our imagination is flattened, our attention is atomized, and we just end up being at the mercy of this very primitive biology that that just starts to dominate our sense of being. We start to, you know, the large corporations that are essentially pulling the strings of society start to— we start to lead our lives and make decisions of what to buy and what experiences to have, not based on what's true to us, but based on the definition of others, others' definition of importance, essentially. And so to me, Lit is like, it's tools that can disrupt those patterns. It's tools that can help us to become aware of the patterns that we're being subjected to or the patterns that are dominating our lives. And it can help us to invigorate our lives with fresh energy in really simple, accessible ways. And that's what Lit is all about. It's about really going within and really connecting with our core wisdom, with our core intentions, our core values, you know, what's really most important to us. And, and I think there is this commonality with, with everybody that we are all connected. We all gravitate towards goodness. And, you know, when we connect with another human or animal, it just— there's this feeling we have that is just so incredible. And there's so many things like that when we encounter awe in our lives. There's just something that happens in a visceral way in our bodies that it's just, you know, we can't get in any other way other than experiencing awe, right? And to me, we need tools and strategies to be able to access that. And we need an approach in our lives where we can continually experiment with practices and rituals that can help us stay on track to really raising our baseline fulfillment and living our best lives.

Well, you may mention patterns again a couple of times. I'm curious, in your book, you talk about connecting seemingly unrelated fields. Maybe you could give our listeners an example where this cross-pollination of ideas led to some breakthrough.

For sure. Yeah, yeah. So, one example of how I use LIT in my laboratory at Harvard Medical School is how I populate the lab with people from different disciplines. And so, you know, a lot of scientific labs will have, you know, one type of expertise in the lab, and everybody has that expertise, and they're trying to go deeper and deeper into that area. What I've tried to do is I've tried to minimize the overlap of expertise between people. And so we have material scientists, We have chemists, we have electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers. We've had a gastrointestinal surgeon, a cardiac surgeon. We've even had a dentist in the lab. And so, the idea is that by constantly submersing ourselves in an environment where everybody has different expertise, people think differently. We've had people from over 30 countries as well. And, when you're exposed to different education systems, you think differently. You approach things differently, and and so by being in an environment where there's so much, so many, you know, there's so many differences in how people are thinking and what they know and their technical expertise. But we're all focused on common on a problem. We're all aligned towards solving something that is really important to everybody. And to me, that's where things just light up because now we're fully engaged. You know, high octane, our our cylinders full. all cylinders for curiosity, for moving towards helping patients. And my lab is based in the hospital. And so, we see patients every day. So, we're connected to the problem that we're trying to solve. And so, this idea of like— so, I'll give you an example to your question. So, one of the projects that we've worked on, we work on many different things and many of our projects actually don't even overlap. They're completely different areas. But, one of the things we wanted to develop was a fixation system like tissue adhesives and glues that could work inside the body because sutures and staples tend to work for certain things but have a lot of challenges associated with them. And so, what we did is we brought together people, as I was mentioning, chemists and engineers and biologists and surgeons. And, we just looked at this problem and we were trying to develop an approach to seal holes inside a beating heart to help children with congenital heart defects. And, really tough problem. In the heart, the heart's expanding and contracting 60 beats per minute on average and there's just filled with blood. It's a really harsh condition to try to seal a hole, especially in a growing heart of a child that's growing over time. And so what we did is through this interdisciplinary team, we were able to— and also turning to nature for inspiration. That's actually one of the ways that we disrupt patterns is we say, okay, nature, how would you solve this problem? Or how have you solved similar problems before? And we often get ideas that allow us to pattern interrupt our own thinking. And so through that process, we were able to develop a system where we could seal holes inside a beating heart through mimicking adhesive mechanisms in nature from slugs and snails and sandcastle worms that sit on rocks in the sea and the waves hit them and they remain put. So, we learned from that and we developed that and we showed we could actually seal blood vessels in the very high-pressure blood vessels in the body, seal holes in the heart. We could also use this for intestine tissue. And, We further— we started this company called Tissium that's based in Paris, and they actually just got FDA approval a few weeks ago for using this for nerve reconstruction. So patients who have severed nerves in their fingers, using this system, all the patients regain sensitivity and function of their fingers. And so we just gained FDA approval for this adhesive system. So that's one of the examples.

Yeah. Um, we, we do an annual brain performance, uh, conference, and, uh, we'd love to have you in the future speak. Um, many of our— we, we, in one of them, we had somebody talking about biomimicry, you know, how we could learn from nature and apply it. Um, many of our listeners are going. It's limitlesslive.com for our listeners. Uh, we talk about Is it the resources we have or is it our resourcefulness? So, if we could do a little mind experiment.

Whoa.

I like to get people's imaginations going. But, let's say if we took away your resources, if tomorrow you didn't have your lab or your funding, your incredible network, but you have lit, right? You have lit mindset, you have lit tools. How would you— what's the first thing you would do to rebuild your path to impact from a baseline of zero?

Wow.

How would you approach— and this could be an hour conversation, but maybe the starting point, because I'm sure a lot of people listening Like, you know, for me, when I started my— had my issues, my parents immigrated here, didn't speak the language, living back on a laundromat, uh, you know, didn't have the education, didn't have many money, no network for certainly. Um, I do believe our struggles can become strengths, right? And, you know, it's a matter of more of our resourcefulness than it is our external resources. But yeah, well, if, if you didn't have the lab, the funding, the network, where would you start? You know, using the LATE as a kind of a framework?

Yeah, love this question. I think where I would start is really, I think, you know, everybody has powers and everybody has superpowers. And I think that we often don't connect with them because it's just not part of the mainstream conversation. that we're having. And to me, where I would start is really at this incredibly powerful biology that we all have access to where we're using just a fraction of it. You talk a lot about brain potential and activating our brains. And I think that often in today's society, we're using such a tiny fraction of what we have available to us. And so, to me, where I would start is really with the power of observation, with the power to be able to go into experiences, whether it's go out into nature or having conversations with others, and not being limited by my current beliefs or by my sort of current knowledge, but rather going in with a deeply open mind and expansive approach. And feeling into what I'm observing and letting that guide me forward. And I really think that to me, that's the path. Like, that's the way to really move in life towards maximizing impact is that we all have this— we tend not to feel into things as much as I think we could do in our lives. We tend to use our brains, you know, to sort of guide us and then our brains, as we sort of spoke about before, can easily be hijacked by all of these algorithms that are out there. And so to me, I would think if we separate ourselves from these external algorithms as much as possible and we start tuning into, um, you know, our, our— how we getting ourselves into new experiences and feeling it, feeling like what really lights us on fire, what really excites us the most, and then we use that to guide us forward. I think that's the way to achieve ultimate impact with, you know, if all of our resources are taken away from us.

You know, I, I, I was interviewed recently and we're talking about burnout and I, uh, I was telling the, uh, the host that sometimes I feel like we're burnt out, not because we're doing too much. Sometimes we feel burned out because we're doing too little of the things that light us up, the things that really make us come alive. If somebody, maybe they're struggling, they want to leverage, right? Because let's say our time is limited, attention can be limited, money, resources limited, but I think leverage is pretty limitless. If going micro to macro, if someone listening, let's really go extreme. If someone only had 5 minutes a day to apply— Lit, the principles, processes, what action, mental exercise, what would, do you think would give them the greatest ROI in terms of leveraging that and getting a good return if they only had like 5 minutes? I'm being like very extreme here, so this is not—

Yeah, I like extreme. Yeah, I love these things. I mean, I think of these as like thought experiments and I do them all the time because because they're just, they're ways to break through and to uncover, you know, these potential sparks that can just illuminate our whole lives, you know? And so I think if you only have 5 minutes a day, what I would do, and this is something I actually do every day, which is I would engage in practices and rituals that you haven't tried before that could be connected to something where you have this inner desire for possibility. So, I feel like we all have this inner desire for possibility where there's something that we want that's different or something more. We want a deeper connection with a friend or a relative or a loved one, or we want to feel more alive. We want to unlock our curiosity. We want to, whatever that thing may be, there's— we want to engage in gratitude. We want to feel more interconnected to everything. We want to feel part of the oneness. And, there's practices and rituals that we can engage. And, a lot of these don't even take 5 minutes, they could be 30 seconds. And so, for example, what I would do and what I would actually do every day is when I'm having my breakfast, I hold this kind of bowl of oats, which by the way, I know this sounds ridiculous, but my breakfast was featured in GQ last year. I don't really understand how that happened. It wasn't planned, but it was actually there. And I've actually updated the breakfast too because now there's other things I add. But I hold it in my hand and I look out at the trees in front of me. I have the window open and I just say thank you. I say thank you to the trees and whatever in nature. Thank you for providing this. Thank you for the energy that I'm getting from this. And I think about what I'm going to do with that energy. How am I going to use that? And I think about the cycle of what's out there is going into me, what's in me is coming out. It's just this This cycle. So I practice that. That's just one example. Before I eat, I like to just think about— I look at what I'm eating and I sometimes— this is a different ritual. I'll think of the flavor of each ingredient. And before I eat, I'll just look and I'll try to imagine it. And the more I do it, the faster I get. And then I'll think about the energy of the sun and the power of photosynthesis and the farmer's hands and all the people who transported the food and the people who prepared it. And then I think now this food is going to become me. You know, like that's another ritual. It's really simple. Or I'll walk through my neighborhood with the dogs and I'll set the intention to just connect with them, you know, because too often in life I found that I made it about me rather than about, you know, the connection. And so when I do that, then if it's— if I don't— if I don't set the intention, I'm on my phone, I'm just thinking random things, I'm ruminating. But if I set the intention to connect, I'm now connecting with The pets, like I'm walking with them, they're looking back at me, we're making eye contact, I feel this energy exchange. So that's another thing. Another one is before I go to meetings or conferences, I set the intention for connection and it changes everything. Like literally 30 seconds of like in an Uber arriving and I'm like, my goal here, I'm going to connect with people. I really want to connect with people. And all of a sudden I'm just connecting with everybody. Like, it's like these deep connections that it's not just this surface-level conversation. We're going deep. We're like making arrangements to connect again. Like, it's, you know, like, it's, it's, there's all these opportunities that we can engage intentionality in our lives in less than 5 minutes. And, you know, it, it's like, it's, and it's all available to us and it's free and it's, it, you know, it's, it's just, it's so accessible and there's so many possibilities.

Yeah.

that we can embrace. And that to me, that's just like— and I, you know, there's so many rituals that I have. Like another one is I cycle through my senses. So as I'm walking through the neighborhood, I'll say sight and I'll just look at the texture of the bark on the trees and I'll look at the shapes of the tree, like the clouds. You know, if you— I'll look at— I'll try to— I'm trying to work on becoming more imaginative. Right. And one way I look up at the clouds and look for creatures, I look for like, oh, what animals do I see? Right. Like, we can all do that. And, it takes 20 seconds or a minute, whatever it is. And, just doing that, I found that I'm unlocking my imagination by cycling through my senses. If I say a sound and I hear the birds and the rustling of the leaves and things, touch, I feel my heels hit the ground, I'm actually doing a bicep curl for each of my senses as I'm cycling through them. And now, as I walk around me, I'm connecting more deeply. I look at the pattern on the trees, the bark, and I see rivers and ocean. You're just start to see things, start to see creatures in the, you know, and it, to me, I don't know, it's like noticing the nuances. It's, it's, it's just, it just unlocks. And the reason why to me this is really important is that those 5 minutes or less creates a domino effect through all the other time in the day. So it actually opens up the possibility to now bring this heightened awareness, this engaging new possibilities, accepting fresh energy into your lives, you can now do that throughout the rest of your day. So the more you practice it, the more you have access to. So it's not— that 5 minutes then transcends all the other minutes.

Yeah, I got goosebumps. Our audience knows I call them truth bumps. It's the superpowers of imagination, attention. It's use it or lose it also. You know, the more you use it, the more you flex those muscles, the easier it is and the stronger it definitely, it definitely grows. The, um, and, and just to comment like that, being present in the moment, right? Mindfulness doesn't have to be just meditation. It could be checking in with your senses, right? For, for, for me, I go through, if I want to get present, I'll, I'll list 5 things that I could see and 4 things, you know, that I could feel and 3 things that I could hear.

Mm-hmm.

So that I could, you know, the taste or smell. Turning your— let's say somebody listening, they have a lot of ideas, right? Which a lot of ideas are pretty common. But let's say they're using what they learn in your book a little bit and they're more creative, innovative, turning ideas into action, right? A lot of people get stuck between idea to inspiration to implementation. What would you say to them is an effective method for turning a spark of an idea into something, uh, implement— implementing something impactful or something that's tangible? Let's say they have— I always like to put constraints because I feel like when you put a limit, it becomes more limitless. It focuses on concentration, it focuses on creativity.

Yeah.

But, um, Yeah. And what would you say to somebody who goes from idea to— take from idea to inspiration to implementation? They have an idea, how do they make it tangible within 24 hours? What method would they use or where would they start?

Yeah. Love this question. Love all your questions. I'm really big into questions.

And I want to practice, you know, because I enjoyed your book. So, I want to At a meta level, I want to be practicing what I've been reading about. Cool.

Yeah, no. So, I would say, well, one is actually questions. So, I think really the questions that we ask are the questions we don't ask. And questions are our greatest technology. And there's something that I really look at questions as a skill. And so, we can improve wherever we're at, we can improve our are, you know, the skill of asking questions. And so, one of the questions that I have iterated and sort of landed on that I ask in every lab meeting to create a North Star for every project, which really is exactly what you said, to take— figure out like which ideas we want to focus on, and then how do we create an action plan to bring that forward? Because that's really the mission of my laboratory, is every single project we want to turn that into something that can help patients in the short term. And so the question is that I ask is, what's the bar that we need to exceed to get everybody excited? We know it's the so what question.

Mm-hmm.

What's the best result that anyone has ever achieved, and how much further do we need to go in order for this to be something meaningful that we could bring to the world? And so, just as one example, in the laboratory, if we're developing a technology to make an advance in cancer treatment, we might say, okay, this very aggressive type of cancer, there's a model system. And in that model system, maybe a certain percentage of the animals, you know, there's— it would survive for like, you know, 3 months. But what if we could extend that to 6 months? What if we could extend that to a year? What if we could increase the number of animals that survive to those time points? We would set that as the goal of the project. So we want to go beyond what anyone has done before. We want to have a very tangible way to test this. And then we want to make that the North Star of our project. And when you land on that, when you, when you tune into where the field is at and the impact that you think you can bring, that then brings the energy. to allow the idea to then advance forward towards a successful endpoint. So it's like tapping into that energy. And so to me, that's what it's all about. It's accessing that energy by really having a detailed, like, clear understanding of the impact that you're trying to achieve. How much further are you going beyond where things are currently at? How's that— how's that going to help people?

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Yeah. Well, the first thing that jumps into my mind is I would take them out into nature.

Mm-hmm.

And I would, you know, walk through the forest or, you know, wherever it is. And, um, and I would, uh, I would strategize beforehand, but I would, I would, I would, um, essentially do everything I could to get that child to ask questions about what's happening around them. So for that child to tap into their curiosity and to feel connected to what they're experiencing around them and to feel into how this power of curiosity, this power of observation is infinite. And I think that when you start to tap into that, you realize that nobody can take that away from you. You realize that you can keep coming back to that. You can access that at any moment of your life, and that there's this particular energy that just illuminates your whole being when you're doing that. And so to me, I think once you start connecting to that, um, you— it just, it just opens this, this, this path that, um, in any moment, you know, regardless of what challenge you're going through, you can come back to that. and you can re, you know, engage and, and open up new sparks that can, you know, create new beginnings. And so to me, that's what it's all about, is, is, is these, like, that, you know, we all have this life force that's just thrumming through us, thrumming through everything. And it's how do we, you know, with that 8-year-old, how do we get them to connect with it and realize that it is part of them? And that, and, and I think that involves feeling that involves, you know, having this visceral reaction and tapping into, tapping into this power of observation, this biology that we all have, you know, working for us that we're, we're just not fully using.

Well, one of the, when I'm out speaking, I invariably get people asking me a question like, do you, do you as a memory expert or, or they'll ask, um, Do you ever forget anything? Do you ever get distracted? Do you ever feel overloaded? And I'm curious, do you personally ever feel stuck or uninspired? And if you ever felt stuck or uninspired, how do you do like a lit reboot for yourself? Like, is there, you know, how do you get lit again?

Yeah. Well, I think the answer is yes and all the time. And I would say likely maybe even more than most people just because I'm constantly getting into new things and where I am not the expert. I mean, that's actually one of the things in my lab is that I'm getting into new areas where I'm not really qualified to be. But because I have this desire to learn and surround myself with people who know what needs to be known, and I want to learn from them, we can figure this out together. So I would say, okay, I get stuck so often, and sometimes it's a short period, sometimes it's a longer period of time. And I realize that there are patterns to getting stuck, but even knowing the patterns don't necessarily prevent getting stuck. So, you know, I might have limiting beliefs, or I might get trapped in some sort of a looping, you know, where my brain just won't stop sort of thinking of something in particular, you know, maybe something that was suboptimal or some decision I made that didn't go well, you know, whatever it is. And, or nothing is working. Like, we're working on this project and like, oh my gosh, we've tried all these things and nothing works. Like, this seems like a dead end. I mean, that happens in every single project. Right? And most people only see the end result. They don't see the path and all the stuckness along the way, right? Like, we tend not to talk about that in the research papers, about every single point that we got stuck, right? And so to me, the, the, the, the— what's really important is, is tuning into the places we've got stuck in our past, in our history, and how we're not still stuck by those things. Yeah. You know, like there's so many, like in previous projects, for example, in the lab, we were like majorly stuck, but we found ways to get unstuck. And so to me, when I get stuck, I do feel it's not a good feeling. But I also, because I've been able to use these tools and get unstuck so many times, that thought does cross my mind every time I'm stuck that this is not permanent. Right? That this is not forever, that there are energies that we can access to get unstuck. And one of the key ways that we do it is actually through connecting with other people. So we'll say, for example, in the lab, is there somebody who has expertise in an area that we don't currently have that might be helpful? And then we connect with someone and we explain to them what happened, and then they'll say, oh, have you tried this? which often we haven't. And then all of a sudden, we're all excited again. And so we flip from this moment of complete stuckness to one of excitement. Like, it's like that, you know, to get unstuck. And so I think, you know, part of it also is like being stuck. Okay. I think, all right. I think being stuck or like experience failure or whatever you want to call it, is an opportunity where we have the greatest receptivity for insights to grow.

Hmm.

Right? And, and, and so it's kind of, it's kind of magical, actually, when we're stuck, although it doesn't feel that way. It feels the complete opposite. But I think when we're stuck, we tend to, we have this pain that we are experiencing, and now we are Motivated to become unstuck, right? Like, and so we become a more available— like, not necessarily immediately, because like when you have a rejection or something happen, like a paper of ours gets rejected or a grant or whatever, like it feels like we've been punched in the face. We're not very receptive at that moment, right? But the emotions tend to subside after a day or two, a night, good night's sleep, you know, whatever it is. It kind of halves and halves and halves. And then we have this like after the rain moment where we have this, this receptivity that we tend not to have unless we've experienced the stuckness or the failure. And that then is where we've been able to, you know, really have the best patterns for our work is, is like, you know, the, the, the, the approach changes because we got stuck. We actually are open to insights that help us get closer to our goal because we got Right. And so I feel like the more times you get stuck and then get out of it, and that's why it's so important to reflect back on the different times you've been stuck, to journal about it, to write them down. And like, to any time you've been stuck and then you got unstuck, like, write it down or like somehow record it so you can come back to it and realize that there was something you were able to access, some through that receptivity, some insight, some what happened then. And then if you can remember back to that, that gives you hope. In the moments of stuckness to then, you know, get unstuck and not only get unstuck, it's not about getting unstuck. It's actually being elevated to the next dimension or level where now you have a greater chance of getting closer to your goal.

I like that insight of, uh, when you get stuck asking the question, who, like who maybe outside the industry would have a different, uh, perspective on this problem, this situation. Years ago, I read this book, The Structure of Scientific Revolution, that was just talking about how a lot of innovation comes from people outside the field because it takes somebody outside that didn't have this traditional education with the same limiting attitudes, assumptions, for somebody to come in and say, hey, if I was to recreate this now, how would I go about doing this? Last thought experiment, I promise.

I love them.

Let's say, imagine it's, uh, 20, 30, 40 years from now and somebody has fully integrated Lit into their life. Um, what would you say would be one, um, like measurable change that you hope to see in them that would make you say, wow, they, they truly lived, uh, you know, Lit?

Wow. Yeah. So I would say, I mean, the first thing that comes to my mind is just, is the energy that they're giving off, right? I think being in the presence of someone who is lit, someone who is really tapping into this idea that it's really about our approach. It's not about, you know, we're talking about getting stuck. It's not about getting stuck. It's about the approach you take to then, you know, what do you do with that? Right? It's like our minds might have all these thoughts, but it's the approach of like, what do we say? Which thought do we focus on? Like, what do we bring to a conversation? We have a choice, right? Like, so to me, it's— and when people start engaging in that approach where they're more intentional with which thoughts they're anchoring to or which thoughts they're acting on or which decisions that they're making. It just creates this energy that emanates and you can feel it. You can feel it when you're in the presence of someone who's taking that approach. And it's not that they get stuck less often. It's not that they are experiencing less struggles than you. It's that their approach to engaging those struggles or that stuckness is one of that brings them forward in a positive way. And we all have access to that. And so to me, that's how we would experience people who— that's how we experience people who are lit.

Perfect. I love it. Before we wrap, Our podcast is at its essence is about the love of learning. And so I always love to ask our guests, what is one thing outside of the conversation that we had? What's one thing you're currently learning about or studying that has you lit?

Yeah. So one of the projects that I'm involved in is called GeoVersity, and it's a science, nature campus in the middle of the jungle of Panama. And it's just really, it's so incredible there. Nathan Gray, who was a co-founder of Oxfam America, moved to Panama 25 years ago at the request of one of the indigenous groups there, procured this massive amount of land that was rancher land, which is terrible for the environment because you cut the trees down, you burn them, you put cattle on it. And often, it's up in the mountains and the trees control the rainfall. So, you actually reduce the rainfall. So, the wetlands below get less water and all the biodiversity is impacted in a major way, like death to all kinds of creatures. And so, Nathan went in and together with the indigenous communities planted 500,000 trees and restored this rancher land to primitive jungle. And the river started to flow and proceeded to build this campus in the middle of the jungle where he has— there's a pool that's fed by a river. There's this bamboo, incredible, almost like Taj Mahal of bamboo, which is just so striking. Jane Goodall's been 4 times and people are coming from all around the world to have transformational experiences, to reengage with their purpose in life, to feel the oneness, to connect with the interconnectedness of everything. you know, high school kids come and they're on their phones the first day, like 2 days later there's no phones. They're talking about the snake they saw in the jungle or the teacher down the road who is teaching to 8 grades at the same time, or, you know, just all these things that they're experiencing. And to me, that's— I've been now 8 times in the last year and a half to GeoVersity, and to me, I'm just learning so much about how our way of being in this world is not the healthiest or the best way that we can be, and that we have a choice to be differently. And so what I'm learning is through the collaborations with indigenous peoples and through submersing myself, my power of observations in the jungle, and just learning about, you know, all these new snail and bird species and just everything. I'm learning how to access awe more in my daily life. I'm learning to feel that oneness. I'm learning to appreciate different ways of being and different ways of knowing. And that's what I'm really focusing on right now.

Outstanding. Absolutely outstanding. How can people go deeper in your work or stay connected with you? I'm sure a lot of people, you sparked a lot for them and they want to connect with you or learn more from you. Um, I'm holding— if you're watching this on YouTube where we put the extended version, I highly recommend you join our, uh, 1.8 million subscribers so you could listen to— so I'm holding a copy of Lit: Life Ignition Tools. So we'll definitely put a link in our show notes, uh, at jimkwik.com/notes. But where, where else can they go? Your website or social media or—

Yeah, my, my website would be great. Um, and it's just my name, uh, so Jeff Karp is K-A-R-P, like the carp fish with a K. And yeah, and so you can find information about Lit and a bunch of things that are not in Lit, and you can subscribe to a newsletter that I have there as well.

Fantastic. Are you on social media at all?

I am on social media. I'm on primarily LinkedIn is one of the ones I use quite a bit, but also Instagram. Although I must admit, I'm not fully knowledgeable yet about Instagram, still trying to figure it out. But I do post there from time to time.

Okay, we'll put links to that also in the show notes. So I encourage everyone to go there. I just want to remind everyone that your differences aren't necessarily your weaknesses, right? They can be your superpowers when you know how to use them. So I want to thank you, Dr. Jeff Karp, Thank you so much for joining us for this show.

Hey, thank you so much and thank you for your awesome questions. I love them. I love them. I want more.

Yes, stay with us. So, if everyone, if your brain feels a little brighter right now, I think it's because you've just been exposed to Lit in action. And, I just want to remind people that the biggest gap is not necessarily between what you know and what you don't know. Surely there, there exists that. It's also between what you know and what you do. Um, the ideas you just heard, for me, they're like, they're like sparks, but, but a spark only becomes a flame when you put it into action. So I just want to challenge everybody. Uh, we always have this quick challenge for this week. Pick, uh, maybe one situation in your life. A problem that you're avoiding, an idea that you've been sitting on, and apply just one principle from today's episode. Put it into practice within— give yourself a constraint, 24 hours. It's not just the speed of learning, it's really this— and your speed of creating, it's your speed of implementation. It's really key. If you want to go deeper, grab a copy of Jeff's book, Lit. This is not just a book about innovation, it's really It's like an owner's manual or user's manual for unlocking the way your brain was designed to solve problems and create the breakthroughs you desire and that you deserve. So make sure you subscribe on YouTube, leave a comment. I read it because I'm a pretty fast reader. I read every single one. Your comments are very appreciated. Take this conversation into our private Facebook group. You can join 160,000 people there who are talking about the podcast and sharing ideas. Connect in our app to find accountability partners and so much more. And again, Jeff, thank you so much, and thank you for listening. This is your brain coach, Jim Quick. Until our next episode, be limitless.