If you're struggling in life WATCH THIS | Jim Kwik

Now, the metaphor I'm using for what's going on right now is that of a butterfly, a butterfly, because while the beauty is in the butterfly, the growth happens where? In the cocoon. And don't you feel like you're cocooning where you're physically distancing yourself? So I'm going to share with you right now 5 quick things you could do to be able to come out of this cocoon with your brand, your business stronger, faster, better. Right? Stronger, faster, and better. Because while the caterpillar feels like it's the end of the world, it becomes that butterfly. But it's that creature's will to get out of the cocoon that builds the strength to be able to soar to new heights. And in Limitless, I have a quote from a French philosopher. It says, life is the C between B and D. Life is C between B and D. You're like, Jim, what are you talking about? That doesn't make any sense. B stands for birth. D stands for death. C— what do you think C stands for? Choice. The power of choices. Your business, your brain, your body, your life is a reflection of all the choices you've made up to this point. True or false? Right? The sum total of all the choices. And we always have that choice. You always have the ability to make a decision. And I believe that these difficult times can define us. These difficult times can diminish us, or these difficult times can develop us. But we decide. We always decide. So here are 5 things you could do while you're cocooning for you, your family, your team to come out of this stronger. When I'm done with this, I'm going to share with you the Limitless Model, which is the core of this book. It's a 3-part framework for accelerated learning, and it becomes a lens to look at what keeps us truly limited and how do we redraw the borders and boundaries of what's really possible. It's also a framework framework for tapping human capital, because that's, as you know, the largest line item of any spreadsheet. And so how do you get the most out of your team? So here we go. 5 choices you can make while you're cocooning to come out of this stronger. I'm going to make them 5 C's. I tend to alliterate everything, use acronyms, simple memory devices so you can store it in your mind even without— you don't take notes. So the first C, rapid fire, is clarity. Clarity. Clarity is power. When you're going a million miles an hour throughout your day, when are you taking a pause to say, am I going in the right direction? Am I going in the right direction? You don't want to— as Stephen Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, one of my favorite books— I'm gonna recommend a number of books. It's interesting because I'm doing this because when I learned these skills and researched these and I changed my life around 18 years old, I started to tutor. And one of my first students, she was a freshman in college. She read 30 books in 30 days, not skim or scan, but really read them. And I wanted to find out not how, but why. And I found out her mother was dying of terminal cancer, and the books she was reading were books to save her mom's life because doctors only gave her mom literally 2 months to live. And I get a call 6 months later from this young lady, and she's crying and crying. And I find out they're tears of joy that her mother not only survived, but is really getting better. Doctors don't know how or why. They called it a miracle, but her mother attributed 100% to the great advice she got from her daughter who learned it from what? All these books. And in that moment, I realized that if knowledge is power, then learning is your superpower. And that's where I started 29 years ago. I've been doing it ever since. Now, going back to this clarity, how do you get clarity? You ask yourself a question. And the question I want you to train yourself to ask is this: what's most important to me in life? Life? What's most important to me in my business? What's most important to me in my brand? What's most important to me in hiring? What's most important to me in my impact? Because that's going to give you your values. Because sometimes, as Stephen Covey says, you're going to climb the ladder of success, get to the top, and you were very efficient about it. But you find out it's leaning against what? The wrong wall. And that's not the goal. So solitude is a wonderful time for self-reflection. So ask yourself, what's most important to me in life? And the second qualifying question I want you to ask yourself, are my actions today aligned with those values? Are my actions truly aligned with the direction I want to go in these areas? Because here's the thing, how many of you— write it down— feel burnt out? How many of you feel burnt out? You feel overwhelmed, you feel exhausted. A lot of times people say they're burnt out because they're doing too much. But it hasn't been my experience talking to people that's truly the cause. Maybe you're not burnt out because you're doing too much. Maybe you're burnt out because you're doing too little of the things that light you up, the things that make you come alive, the things that you value. So you want to make sure your actions are aligned with those values. So that's clarity. The second C, the second choice you can make while you're cocooning to come out of this stronger and wiser and smarter, is that of care. Now, you know, self-care is not selfish. And it's more important to take care of yourself and others than ever before. And here's the thing, it's not just physical hygiene, but also mental hygiene. Did you know that there's an algorithm to your mind? Just like there's an algorithm to Instagram and an algorithm to Facebook, that if you engage with just all the cat posts, you watch all the cat videos, you like all the cat videos, you comment, you share all the cat videos, what happens? The algorithm is gonna give you more of what you engage with. But here's the thing, your mind has that same algorithm. So you want to make sure you stand guard to your mind, because if you're just watching everything that's dark and scary and threatening, because if it bleeds, it leads, and it hijacks your amygdala, right? And you're in fight or flight. The challenge is whatever you engage with, you get more of. And so it just— and you have a limited bandwidth. And so here's the thing, if your attention's going there and it's feeding you more of that, then you don't have the bandwidth or the focus to focus on possibility. To focus on opportunity, to focus on things that you could be grateful for. But here right now, we're talking about your brain. I find that more people upgrade their apps and they got the new iPhone and they upgrade their technology more than they upgrade the most important technology, which is the human mind. And the faster you can learn, the faster you could earn. So how do you upgrade your mind? I'm going to give you 10 things right now you could do, and they're very tactical. 10 practical things you could do right now to really upgrade your hardware, your brain. And I teach this at places like the Cleveland Clinic Center for Brain Health. I train their doctors, their caregivers, their researchers, their patients. And we find that 1/3 of your memory is predetermined by genetics and biology, but 2/3 is in your control. Isn't that exciting? 1/3 is genetics, biology, but 2/3, more than twice as much, is in your control and your influence. So here are the 10 things that move the needle. Now, I don't want this to be passive. I want you to make this something that's relevant to you. So what I want you to do on your piece of paper is I want you to write these down, maybe in the Q&A. If somebody asks, how do I memorize them? I'll teach you how to memorize these 10 things. So many people know I train a lot of TED speakers to memorize their, their talks. I teach a number of actors, Hollywood actors, how to memorize their scripts. And this could apply towards entrepreneurs. If you have to give a talk at a board meeting, you have to go on to national business news. If you need to give a sales presentation or a sales video or sales script, Such an important technique. All right. So if that's one of the questions, I can teach you how to memorize these 10. So here are the 10. But when I give it to you and you write it down, I want you to rate yourself on a scale of 0 to 10. How much energy and effort or focus are you putting into these 10 categories? Because I don't think you're going to debate any of these 10, right? It's common sense. But sometimes a coach reminds you of what you're doing when you're getting world-class results, right? Because if you miss one of— there's not just one. There's not a magic pill. Like, some people think when limitless, they think about— how many of you saw the movie with Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro? He took a pill, he went from zero to hero. He wrote his book really fast. He had incredible focus. He learned languages. You know, he had this eidetic, you know, photographic memory, and he had this surge of motivation. But after 24 hours, it disappeared. It had all these side effects. We had Dr. Mark Hyman write the foreword of the book, and he's head of functional medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. And he said, there's no magic pill, but Jim gives you process for having your best brain, your brightest future. And this is the process. All right. So 10 things. Let's go through it. Rate yourself 0 to 10. How much energy and effort are you putting into it? Ready? Number 1, a good brain diet. A good brain diet. What you eat matters, especially for your gray matter. There's an area of science I talk about in the book called neuro nutrition, that while your brain is only 2% of your body mass, it requires 20% of the nutrients, and it actually requires different nutrients than the rest of your body. And so we talk about different recipes and different foods. Some of the best foods are this: avocados, blueberries— I like to call them brain berries— broccoli is good for the brain, has vitamin K, olive oil is good for the brain, eggs if your diet allows— the choline in eggs is good for cognitive performance— also green leafy vegetables like kale and spinach, good for the brain. Wild salmon and sardines, good for the brain. I'll give you a spice. Turmeric lowers inflammation, is good for the brain. Walnuts. And walnuts look like the human brain. There's a little memory trick right there. Walnuts have vitamin E, good, very neuroprotective for the brain. And finally, dark chocolate, not milk chocolate, not a lot of sugar, but dark chocolate is good for the brain. So enjoy that, right? And so those are foods. And so on a scale of 0 to 10, what you don't want to do, what we know is harmful to the brain, Processed foods, right? High sugar foods. And we go a lot more detail. So number 1, good brain diet. Rate yourself. Number 2, killing ANTs. Killing ANTs has been clinically proven to be good for your brain. And ANTs, I get this from Dr. Daniel Amen, who's written a number of books and he's a brain doctor. Automatic negative thoughts. All right. Because here's the thing. A lot of people come to me and they say, Jim, I have a horrible memory. Jim, I'm too old. I say, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. And so your brain is like a supercomputer and your self-talk is the program that will run. So if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering names, you will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to. So on a scale of 0 to 10, how good and positive, encouraging is your self-talk, or does that need to be worked on? Number 3, as part of your assessment, number 3 on the list, what's good for your limitless brain. Number 3, exercise. Write this down: as my body moves, my brain grooves. As my body moves, my brain grooves. And here's the thing, when you move, you create something called brain-derived neurotrophic factors, BDNF, and it's like fertilizer for your brain. We know the research shows that when people are on an elliptical or they're going for a brisk walk and they're listening to an audiobook or a podcast. I know we have many, many of you listen to our podcast. You will retain it and understand it better. There are a lot of entrepreneurs who are famed for doing walking meetings, outdoor meetings. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, right? As your body moves, your brain grooves. So it's not just about doing Pilates 3 times a week or CrossFit 3 times a week. It's about moving throughout the day. I heard recently that somebody said, Sitting is the new smoking. We're all behind these screens all the time, but when are you getting up to move? And I would suggest the ideal amount of time to work, you'd be surprised, about 25 to 30 minutes. 25 to 30 minutes. After that, there's a dip in your focus. And so I advise you to do it. They call it the Pomodoro technique, that take a break every 30 minutes and then take a 5-minute break. And what are you doing? You're moving, you're hydrating, you're deep breathing, you're getting your brain back online. Right. And then go back to your focus activity. So on a scale of 0 to 10, how much are you moving throughout the day? Number 4, brain nutrients. Brain nutrients. So if you're not getting it from your diet, maybe you need to be able to supplement with it. The number 1 brain nutrient, DHA, right? Omega-3s. Number— that's number 4. Number 5 is a positive peer group. Positive peer group. Who you spend time with is who you become. And they say if you spend time with 9 broke people, be careful because you're number 10. Because what happens is you have mirror neurons and you're constantly imitating people around you. And that's what it does— mirrors. And what does it mirror? I always tell people to watch. Watch what? W stands for words. A stands for your actions. T, your thoughts. C, your character. H, your habits. First, create your habits, then your habits create you, right? But we tend to imitate the people around us. And so make sure— are you around people who are encouraging, challenging? cheerleading for you? Are you around energy vampires? Scale of 0 to 10. Number 6, clean environment. We know the human brain thrives in a clean environment, that your outside world is a reflection of your internal world. You clean your desktop, you clean your desk, you have clarity of thought, right? On a scale of 0 to 10, how good is your environment? Number 7, sleep. Let's have a conversation about sleep. How— tell me, share with me, how was your sleep last night? When you don't sleep the night before, how's your how's your focus? How's your memory? How's your ability to solve problems? How's your mental endurance? Right? You have all this mental fatigue. So sleep is important for three reasons for your brain. Number one, it's where you consolidate short to long-term memory. So you have long-term memory issues. Check your sleep. Number two, it's also where you clean out plaque that leads to brain aging challenges. This is something that's near and dear to my heart because I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer's when I was going through my issues. 5, 6 years old, she, she was taking care of me. And then I started to take care of her because there was this mental decline. And so we actually donated the proceeds of this book to education and also Alzheimer's research in totality. So that's number— that's actually number 7 is make sure you're getting sleep. The last reason you want to do is when you dream. And did you know some of the most amazing entrepreneurs and inventors came up with their ideas in their dream states. Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein in her dream. Paul McCartney came up with the song Yesterday in his dream. Elias Howe created the sewing machine in a dream. So what are you dreaming about if you get proper sleep? That's number 7. So how's your sleep? 0 to 10. Number 8, brain protection. Wear a helmet. You know, obviously your brain's very resilient, but it's very fragile. Number 9, new learnings. And I'm preaching to the choir here. There was a study done, it was on the COVID of Time Magazine. I don't know if you saw it, on longevity. These nuns living 80, 90, and above, they found out half their longevity was their emotional faith and gratitude. The other half, they're lifelong learners, and because of it, add years to their life and life to their years. So always be learning and schedule it. The best exercise: reading. Reading is to your mind what exercise is to your body. Schedule that reading every day. Somebody has decades of experience they put into a book, and you can sit down and read that book in a few days. You could download decades into days. That's the number one advantage. If you see pictures of me on social media with Bill Gates, you know, with Oprah, with Elon Musk. We bonded over books. Leaders are readers. The average person only reads 2 or 3 books a year. You know, we like to get people doing 4 to 6 books a month, 51 book a week, 52 books a year. You can get a PhD or master's in any area and be able to do that. So that's number 9. And finally, stress management. Manage your stress. Chronic stress shrinks your brain. Chronic fear, actually, this whole area called psychoneuroimmunology makes you more susceptible to colds, The flus, the viruses. So on a scale of 0 to 10, how well are you handling stress and what are you doing to cope? Is it meditation? Is it bodywork? Is it red wine? What are you doing? So those are 0 to 10. I mean, 1 to 10, what you could do to care for your brain. I'm gonna go through the rest really fast. Number 3, third C is contribution. Contribution. The antidote to this fear I was talking about, the chronic fear and stress, is contributing, right? How can you invest some of your time, your talent, your treasure to make a difference? Especially now with your brand, with your business, with yourself. And it can be something simple like making food for frontline workers, being able to check in on somebody who might be more vulnerable, right? That's number 3. I believe the success formula is you learn so you can earn so you can return. Learn, earn, return. Number 4, after you have contribution, creativity. Did you know it was during the Great Plague that Shakespeare created some of his most amazing masterpieces. Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra. Sir Isaac Newton had to physically distance himself from London University when it closed, sitting underneath the tree. Apple fell on his tree. He created the theories of motion, the theories of gravity. So what can you create? What new departments in your, in your business? What new marketing initiatives? What can you create? Or personally also, as well. What do you want to write, music, and so on? And finally, number 5, capabilities. Capabilities. Everyone always said, I'll do that when I have time, I'll learn that. You have a to-do list, but do you have a to-learn list? The future belongs to the learners, all right, and the creators. So what's on your to-learn list? And I think number 1, I mean, we have unfeathered access to podcasts, the world's information, to YouTube, right? So what can you learn? I think the number 1 thing, as we talked about, is learning how to learn. And you've heard these, you read Lean— how many of you read Lean Startup, Eric's book? The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else, right? Jack Welch said, an organization's ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage. So learn how to learn.