Jim Kwik | Kwik Learning | 2018

As you've heard by now, we have an institute called the Performance Science Institute to teach high-performance mindset in any domain. And we have Dr. Glenn Fox, a neuroscientist, who leads that here. Many of you are in his class on Monday evenings, and those 2 classes work together. So part of my personal reason for starting this institute was I constantly feel like I'm not performing at my best. I just constantly struggle with, am I maximizing my potential, my abilities? I used to be really smart. I get that feeling of, geez, when I was in grad school, I could remember everything. I could read a case. I could digest it. Now I don't retain things like I used to. I was like, how can I improve my brain? One person's name just keeps coming up around town, not just around town, but around the world. You heard it last week when Ty said it. I have friends in YPO, friends in entertainment, they're all like, you should get Jim Kwik for your class. You should get Jim Kwik for your class. He works for some of the best companies and entrepreneurs in the world, Fortune 50 companies, and is paid to do that. So we're really lucky that he is here. I'm a fan of his, not just his work, but his mission to serve others and help others. And when he heard about our class, he insisted on coming here. So I'm just really excited to welcome— let's give a USC welcome to Jim Kwik.

How's everyone doing? Doing well? Yes, like this. My— what I want to do is I want this to be a different kind of class. I want this for you, this to be the most valuable class session you've ever had, and I know that's saying a whole lot. And it's not because I'm so great. It's I believe that you are so great. And so, is the volume OK in the back there? You can hear me OK? So what I'm going to talk about is how to make you— how we could become collectively twice as smart. How many people here like to be twice as intelligent? Right. Basically, I want to show you how you could double your brain power. So effectively, you could read twice as fast. Your focus could be double. You could remember twice as much. I mean, effectively learn anything in half the time. Any subject or any skill. How many people would find that valuable? A little bit or a lot? A lot.

A lot.

And so here's the thing. I am going to do this in a way that's a little bit different. I'm gonna show you how to hack your brain. They say we use a very small percentage of that potential. What percentage of your brain do they say we use?

10%.

Yeah, like Einstein said like 10%. I read Stanford later, it said about 2%. I read recently it's 1/10,000th of 1%. It keeps on going down. But actually, in actuality, I feel like we use all our brain, but some of us use it more efficiently than others. Can people relate to that? And so what I'm gonna do is show you some hacks to be able to get more out of it where you don't necessarily have to work harder, but you're just working smarter. So I have no, no set presentation. And so what I'd rather do is, I know sometimes you'll learn something and at the end you'll ask questions. I would actually rather start by saying, asking you a question like, what would make this extremely valuable for you? If we're gonna spend the next 75 minutes together or so and I was a magical genie and I could snap my fingers and help you to be able to, your focus, your habits, your mindset, your concentration, your ability to read, your ability to recall things. What topics do you think would be really interesting and useful for the majority of the people here? And then we'll go from there. Yes? To read and retain good stuff. To read and retain. How many people here have too much to read, too little time? How many people have books on your shelf you haven't read yet? Right? And it's hard, right? How many people get more than 10 emails a day?

Right?

We're drowning in information, but we're starving for wisdom. Right? And so we live in this information age. I was doing a program. I remember hearing that from the chairman of Google that the amount of information that's been created from the dawn of humanity to the year 2003, just think about it, like a decade and a half ago, that amount of information, that data, how long does it take to be able to create that now? That wealth, that volume? 2 days. Every 48 hours. You think about all the podcasts and the YouTube videos, social media, blogs, and so on. Every 2 days. So, the amount of information is doubling at dizzying speeds. But let me ask you a question. How we read it, has that changed at all? How we focus on it, retain it? So, the amount of information is going like this. This gap creates what? Stress, right? Anxiety. They call it information fatigue syndrome. You're going to hear a lot about this. It's a compression of leisure time, more sleeplessness, right? Higher blood pressure. Or even if you have time to enjoy yourself, you can't enjoy it because your mind's still like multitasking. So, reading faster. So, we could talk about that. What else would be useful for you?

More time.

Yes.

To be able to focus.

To be able to focus. How many people have ever, going back to studying, you're studying a page in a book, you get to the end, and you just forget what you just read? And you go back and you reread it, and you get to the end, and you still don't know what you just read, right? How many people's minds wander? So we're gonna talk about how do you maintain your concentration in a world full of distraction. What else? If we're gonna cover, we could definitely cover this, reading speed.

And focus.

Remembering people's names. Remembering names. How many people have ever met some— is it important to remember names? Have you ever met somebody, you get their name, and then seconds later after the handshake breaks, the name just falls right to the floor and you wonder where it goes? Or if it's not a short-term issue, it's a long-term issue. Like you could be out and about, somebody taps you on the shoulder, you turn around, you see somebody you recognize, but for the life of you, you honestly don't remember who that person is. And what makes it worse is when you have to introduce 2 people. Or that, or what makes it really worse is when that person has the audacity to remember your name, right? And then it gets really awkward. Or you have to introduce 2 people whose names you don't remember and it gets very awkward. Was it, I don't know, you ever watch Seinfeld? Wasn't there a Seinfeld episode on this? Like he was dating somebody for a while and he forgot her name and every time she went to the bathroom he would try to go into her purse and see her ID and George and Kramer would come by and try to introduce themselves and get the name out. They'd play all these games. I think it— what was it? It rhymed with a part of the female anatomy, right. So it's names, names and faces. We'll cover that. What else? Yes?

Help your mind control your emotions.

Control your emotions, like your emotional state, like how you feel about certain things, or anxiety?

Yeah, like as you're rational thinking, don't let it trigger emotions.

It's tough, right? How many people feel like, you know, you want to be logical sometimes, but you get your, your, your mind gets hijacked by your heart sometimes, right? Especially the emotions that get in the way of you learning, like anxiety and stress. Because when you go into fight or flight, you go— what happens is, I just did a whole pod— I don't know if anyone listens to my show. It's, it's the number one training show on iTunes in the world. It's called Kwik Brain. So you just look at your app and just search Jim Kwik. And there's nothing sold there. There's no sponsors or anything. It's just 10-minute episodes on how to read a book a week, how to learn another language, how to be able to remember people's names, that kind of thing. But we did a whole thing on emotional states because when you're stressed, you create cortisol and adrenaline, which is really good for fight-or-flight, but it's not good if you need to study. It's not good if you need to give a presentation in front of a group of people. And so we'll talk about learning states. That's a lot to cover. Is there anything else that's really burning for somebody, like— You know, something you're struggling with, something you'd like to be able to fix that's really holding you back from being the person you'd like to be here?

Yeah. How would I like be able to add more units after like before a certain thing, you know, and not forget things like— not be able to forget it.

Okay, so how many people could relate to this? It's like you don't study in school because what are you doing the night before? You're what? You're like cramming, right? And then the next morning, you like, you don't study, and then all of a sudden you're studying all night. The next morning at breakfast, nobody could talk to you because you don't want anything to spill out of your brain, and you can't wait to take the test. And when you take the test, what happens afterwards?

You forget.

It's like gone, right? So everybody knows there's a learning curve. What a lot of people don't realize is there's also a forgetting curve. That within 48 hours, this is what the research is showing, within 48 hours of learning something once, 80% of it is gone within 2 days. Isn't that crazy? And you might be concerned, like, how do you learn new things built on, like, prior knowledge, right? We could talk about that. All right, so I'm gonna go through— so this is great because it's good that I didn't prepare a set presentation, and I'm gonna hit all these points for you in the time. How many people will find that this is incredibly valuable if we could really move the needle in those areas for you? Would that make things better? Okay, and the reason I ask is not because I I don't know the answer. It's just this active is really important. You'll find that one of the keys to learning faster is participation, meaning being active. Because learning— here's what you want to remember. And I love the format of this class where people are sharing their big takeaways and their ahas. And in terms of what the big things you take away, I want to make sure that everybody has something that's just— you have it. I call these quickenings. My last name really is Kwik. I didn't change it to do what I do. That's my father's name, my grandfather's name. You could say my life and my, my destiny was pretty much planned out. I had to be a runner back in school, which is a lot of pressure when it says Kwik right on your shirt. I have to be very careful driving because the worst name to have on your driver's license when you get pulled over for speeding is the name Kwik because you're not going to talk your way out of that ticket. And I get to do my mission, which is helping people to learn faster. And the reason why I find that that we can together collectively boost your intelligence almost 100%, like double your brain power, is not because I'm so great, it's because you're so great. It's just you weren't taught how to do this. I always think it's kind of interesting when you look back at school, a lot of, especially when you think about high school, elementary school, and junior high, middle school, a lot of classes on what to learn, right? Math, important classes, math, history, science, Spanish, all classes on what to learn. But how many classes were there on how to learn? Like how to think, how to focus, how to concentrate, how to really listen, how to study, right? How to read faster. The kind of things that you want to know that would make your life easier, right? How to remember things. I always thought it should have been the 4th R in school. They teach you 3 Rs in school. What are the 3 Rs? Reading, writing, and what?

Arithmetic.

Arithmetic, right? The 4th R, what about remembering, right? What about recall? What about retention? Right. Socrates says there is no learning without remembering. And you know this because if you forgot half of everything you know, how effective would you be? If you forgot half the people, half the words, half of everything that you studied. But what if you could double that amount? So that's what we're going to talk about here. So I'm going to share with you, I'm going to go through this rapid fire. You want to take notes as best you can because I want to give you like a whole download basically over the next 60 minutes. Get you to the point where you will be able to double your brainpower when you leave here today. Now, the key here is this. I'm gonna customize it around, around you being able to learn. How many people have a subject or skill you'd like to learn faster? Can you think of one right now in your mind? Like, I want you to think about a subject that you're having a challenge in or something you really want to master. It could be marketing. It could be Mandarin. It could be music. It could be martial arts. Think about a subject or skill because I want to make this extremely, extremely practical. So here's what I want you to remember. Now, when I— see, the reason why I know you could learn how to do this is because a lot of people don't know I grew up with learning challenges. Okay, and I don't share this a lot, but at the age of 5, I had a very bad accident. Head trauma, brain injury, and I had learning difficulties. I was put in very special classes. Teachers would have to repeat themselves 5, 6, 7 times to me, and I still wouldn't understand. I would pretend I understood, but I didn't really understand. I had very poor focus. I had a very bad memory. It took me an extra 4 years to learn how to read. And it was really hard. You think about school where you're passing around— remember you used to pass around that book and you had to read out loud? And when that book got closer and closer and closer, I would get so nervous. I think actually a lot of people who have a fear of public speaking, that's where it actually came from, right? Because that was a learned association that we have, right? I read, I read recently that the fear of public speaking is actually the number one fear in this country. Number 2 is fire. Number 3 is death. It's crazy, right? So really when you're thinking about it, some, you know, if somebody's at a funeral or something, somebody would rather be like in the casket than actually giving the eulogy, right? Because people are so scared of public speaking. But I think the reason why people are so scared is they're scared they're gonna forget what they need to say.

Right?

And so, I teach a lot of the TEDsters how to be able to memorize their speeches. A lot of actors, you know, from Jim Carrey to Will Smith, be able to teach them how to memorize their lines here in Hollywood. Because it's such a valuable skill. Right? Because I believe 2 of the most costly words in business are, I forgot. You know, I forgot to do it. I forgot that conversation I had with that person. I forgot that client information. I forgot what I needed to say. I forgot that meeting. I forgot where I put it. I forgot that person's name. Every time you hear yourself say those words, you know, you lose time, you lose opportunity, you lose credibility, right? And so, I know, like, after compensating, I learned all these ways to compensate, and now I teach these to individuals, but I know you have genius inside of you, right? So, I'm gonna show you how to activate that other 90% of the potential. So, what I want you to remember though is if you wanna learn, Here's what I, what I believe, that genius leaves clues. Genius leaves clues. That when somebody does something extraordinary, that you could see them do something extraordinary in any field, whether it's art, architecture, it could be mathematics, it could be fashion, whatever it is, and you could leave, or you could say, wow, that person's amazing, how do they do that? Because there's always a method behind the magic. When you see magic in the world, there's always a method, but it's usually unconscious. So I'm gonna pull the the curtain, if you will, and show you what people are doing inside their mind that allows them to get these incredible results. When someone can learn a language faster than somebody else. When people could read a book. I've been reading a book a week now. I'm sorry, I've been reading a book a day for over 4 years. Everybody could do these kind of things because you weren't taught how to do it though, right? And so, one of the ways that besides reading and research, Is when you're role modeling genius, is who are the fastest learners on the planet? Who are the fastest learners? Children, right? How fast can children learn a musical instrument compared to an adult? How fast can a child learn another language compared to an adult, right? I did this, actually I was in a group of, an audience of 10,000 people from 60 countries. I said, who are the fastest learners on the planet? The whole table here yelled out pygmies, which I don't know, if you know why they're so fast.

They're so small.

such fast learners, please tell me. But children learn fast, right? And part of it is they're so playful, right? Children ask lots of questions. They have a sense of wonderment, right? There's a Rumi quote that says, sell your cleverness for bewilderment. Sell your cleverness for bewilderment. Like, when's the last time you felt bewildered about something? So children learn so well because they play and they get involved in things. But the challenge is when we grow older, we stop playing. Right? When we grow older, we stop playing. And I don't think that's true. I think it's actually the opposite. I think we grow older because we stop playing. Right? That we grow older because we stop playing. So how many people are willing to play a little bit here to learn faster? Raise your hand. All right, stand up real quick. Let's prove it. Find somebody you don't know in the room and just partner with somebody in the room ideally you do not know. Introduce yourself. Go, go, go.

Hi, I'm Stephanie. Hi, I'm John. What'd you say?

Raise your hand if you need a partner. Raise your hand if you need a partner. Raise your hand if you need a partner.

Go around.

Raise your hand if you need a partner and look for somebody else raising their hand. Partner up. If you hear my voice, go. Repeat after me. All right. This is what we're gonna do, okay? We're gonna, we're gonna wake up your brains because it's the end of the day and we're gonna do this little exercise because I believe Oliver Wendell Holmes says this, says that once a person's mind is stretched by a new idea, it never regains its original dimensions. So I want you to be able to think differently and what, where it starts with is in your body. When you move, when your body moves, your brain grooves. When your body moves, your brain grooves. All right, there's a connection between your brain and your body. There was actually a study done at Oxford University saying jugglers actually have bigger brains. Raise your hand if you know how to juggle. These people have very, very big brains. So you actually create more white matter. Jugglers learning how to juggle actually creates more white matter in your brain. And so as your body moves, your brain grows. So I want to get you to think differently as opposed to just saying think differently. We're going to do it with our partners. So what we're going to do, Lauren, can I borrow you? Put you on the spot. We're gonna do this. We're gonna do very, very simple. We're gonna count to 3, right, with our partner. We're gonna go 1, 2, 3, and then alternate back to 1. Ready? 1.

2.

3.

1.

2.

3.

All right, go with your partner, go.

1, 2, 3. Yeah.

All right, we're gonna do it again. Stay with me.

1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3.

All right.

Shh.

Very good. Now what we're going to do is this. Now we're going to take levels of difficulty. Now with the number 1, we're going to replace the 1 with a clap. All right? So watch this. Wait, wait, not yet. Don't start yet. Don't start.

3, 2, 3.

Go, go, go. This would be a nice picture. This would be a nice picture at the next one. The next, in like 2 more from here. All right.

Shh. Shh.

All right. So when I go shh, you repeat after me.

Shh.

Very nice. Now, 1 is going to remain a clap, but now you're going to stack number 2. 2 is going to be the sound of an animal. Okay, so watch this.

Caw caw.

3. Caw caw. All right, go, go, go. What animal is that? I don't know.

Okay.

The next one, you want to take a stab at it? The next one you want to take a picture of. Okay.

Shh.

Very nice. Very nice. Now finally, we keep 1 and 2 the way, you know, keep those stacked. The 3rd one is, I don't know, some kind of dance. Like the twist. How do you do the twist? All right. So watch this. So start with 1. Second one. So watch this.

Caw caw.

All right.

Caw caw.

All right. Go, go, go, go, go with your partner. All right, all right. High-five your partner, have a seat. High-five your partner, have a seat.

Okay.

Can you turn my volume up a little bit? Okay. This is the, this is the lesson. We're going to talk about this. All learning is state dependent. All learning is state dependent. If you walk away with anything out of this session today, remember this. If you want to know the key to a long-term memory, do this. Repeat after me. Do this. Information.

Information.

Combined with emotion. Combined with emotion. Becomes a long-term memory.

Long-term memory.

One more time. Information combined with emotion becomes a long-term memory. And you know this because you are a memory expert. You know, how many of you, you could hear a song and it could take you back years? Raise your hand. Automatically, right? Without you thinking about it. How many people, it could be a song, but it could also be a fragrance. You could smell something and it could take you back. What about it's a food? How many people, for you it's a food? There's a certain food that'll take you back to when you were a child, right? Because the information alone is not memorable. Information combined with emotion becomes a long-term memory. Especially when you understand the brain anatomy part. But going back to this, when it comes to emotion, what was the primary, when you think about school in the past, like think about high school. What was the primary emotion you felt back in high school?

Hope.

Say depression. What'd you feel primarily?

Confused.

Okay, yeah. Half the class was bored, the other half of the class was confused, right? But bored, right? Boredom usually. And so here's the thing. Information combined with emotion becomes long-term memory. Boredom, on a scale of 0 to 10, what's that? 0. What's anything times 0?

0.

And you wonder why you forget. Like if I ask you about the The presidents. I ask you about, like, the periodic table. All the things that you learned back in school. What's your retention of that information? It's probably very little because of the state that you learned it in. Does that make sense? Okay, so you need to be able to up the state. And so part of what we do by moving around, and we kind of laugh about it and move our bodies a little bit, is we change the tone of it, right? Because emotion is created by motion and moving around. Emotion is created by motion. So for example, let me prove it to you. Sit the way you'd be sitting right now if you were completely fascinated and interested in every word I was saying. Sit exactly the way you'd be— now why do you even have to move? Because here's the thing, you know your physiology affects your psychology, that you can control the way you feel. It's not up— you know why I love this class? Because you're elite, right? You are exceptional because you self-selected to be here. Right? You're what I call a thermostat, you're not a thermometer. Because you want to be a thermostat, you don't want to be a thermometer. What's a thermometer on the wall do? What's the primary function of a thermometer?

It reacts to the temperature.

Yeah, it just reacts to the what? To the environment, right? Are people sometimes the same way? They just kind of react. They react to the weather, they react to how people are treating them, they react to how the economy is doing, right? Now, there's a difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. What's a thermostat do?

It controls the environment.

It controls the environment, right? It influences the environment. It sets a goal, it sets a standard, it sets a vision, and what happens to the environment? It rises, it raises to be able to meet that. And that's what leadership really is, right? It's about taking the invisible and making it what? Visible. So, when you think about what you want to learn faster, and my promise to you is to be able to give you enough brain hacks to double your brain power, to be able to supercharge your intelligence, I want you to remember this: BE FAST. Write this down. BE FAST. It's an acronym. The B is believe, because if you believe you can or believe you can't, either way, what? You're right. Who said that?

Henry Ford.

Henry Ford, right? Henry Ford said that. If you believe you can or believe you can't, either way you're right. Now, what's a belief? Actually, let me show you what a belief is. Stand back up. Quick. Make arm-length distance from the person next to you. I know it's going to be tight, but just try to make some distance from the person next to you. Even the wall behind you, try to move around a little bit.

It's impossible.

I know. You guys got it. All right, put your arms down. Now what I want you to do is this. I just want you to jump up and down a little bit, shake out your body.

Stop.

Notice where your feet are. And what I want you to do is just point forward with your right hand. With your other right hand. Okay, good. All right, so right hand, and what I want you to do is that without moving your feet, I want you to go clockwise to your right as far as you can turn and notice where you're pointing comfortably. Turn as far as you go as you take your neighbor's eye out and notice where you're pointing comfortably. Notice the point that you're pointing at exactly. Got it? Come back center. Let me show you what a belief is. Put your arm down. Put your arms by your side. Take a deep breath. Exhale and close your eyes. I'm going to walk you through a quick visualization exercise I do with athletes. With your arms by your side, breathe normally, and I want you to imagine now, just imagine you're raising your arm again. And this time I want you to imagine you're turning twice as far as you did the first time. See and feel in your body turning twice as far as you did the first time, getting a great stretch. And again, with your eyes closed, I want you to imagine, see and feel yourself turning 3 times as far. What does that feel like in your body? Just imagine it. And some of you are thinking, I can't imagine it. If you can't imagine it, imagine you can imagine it. Imagine turning 3 times around. And then one more time with a smile on your face thinking, what does this have to do with speed reading? See and feel yourself turning 4 times around in your body, getting the best stretch of your life. What does that feel like? See and feel yourself turning 1, 2, 3, 4 times around. All right, open your eyes. Point forward with your right hand and turn to your right now as far as you can now go. Whoa.

Whoa.

All right, come back. Clap if you went further the second time. Have a seat. Have a seat. Have a seat. Now here's my question for you. The magic question, the obvious question for you is this. Were you physically capable of turning that far the first time?

Yes.

Yes, right? Like nobody took a yoga class when my eyes were closed, right? You're able to— where was the limitation if there was one? In your mind. And you're like, well, Jim, I didn't have a belief on how far I could turn. How many beliefs do you have? How many beliefs do you think you have?

Millions.

Yeah, millions, countless beliefs, right? But here's the thing, we don't— we're not conscious of those beliefs, right? But here's what you want to do and understand, that everything— there's a success formula I subscribe to. I believe it's this.

Be.

Do.

Have.

Share.

In that sequence, because the syntax is very important here.

Be.

Do. Have. Share. Now, it's kind of interesting because some people try to reverse engineer this or actually like put something that's later, something former, right? Like somebody could, somebody, you've heard this before, right? Where somebody wins the lottery, all of a sudden they're at the have stage and they have millions of dollars. What happens after years? What happens to their financial situation?

It's gone.

Right, it's all gone, right? Because they were given or they have millions of dollars, but starting with the B, they were never a millionaire. Does that make sense? Right, so they never had to be able to do those things, so it went back to that thermostat. Does that make sense? Now in order to be, do, have, share, in order to have anything to share with the world, you need to be able to do something. Is that true? Right, 'cause it's not just the law of attraction, it's the law of action, right? You're taking action on things. And so, in order to be able to do something, you need a belief that allows you to do that behavior. Okay? So, for example, if for somebody, let's say that they have trouble remembering names, and I teach you how to remember names, which I'm gonna show you exactly how I remember people's names. If you have a belief, a sense of certainty around this idea, that you're not good with names, what's gonna happen?

You're not gonna remember.

You're not gonna remember. I remember I was preparing to run a marathon and I was reading this book on training and one of the chapters was on the psychology of running a marathon. And it said, one of the, it said this verbatim, 'cause I'm a memory expert. It said this, your brain is a supercomputer and your self-talk is the program it will run. So if you tell yourself you're not good at remembering names, You will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you programmed your supercomputer not to. Does that make sense?

Yes.

Because here's the thing, a lot of times people go and just like, they come to me and say, Jim, I'm too old, or this runs in my family, or I'm just not smart enough, or I have a horrible memory. But I always tell people, if you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. Right? If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you argue for your limits, They're yours, right? And so you always wanted to monitor, you always want to monitor your self-talk. Always, always monitor your self-talk because here's why: your mind is always eavesdropping on your self-talk. Your mind is always eavesdropping on your self-talk. And you know, when I was 9 years old, right, I had this injury, this brain injury. When I was 9 years old, I remember in class, this changed my life. For the worse. Or it's hard to judge it now because it's an inflection point that puts you on a path. Because sometimes your struggles become your strengths, right? Because my inspiration really was my desperation. How many people can relate to that? That going through desperate times actually led— I believe that a breakdown can lead to a breakthrough.

Right.

You hear a lot about post-traumatic stress, post-traumatic stress disorder. What you don't hear a lot about is post-traumatic growth.

Right.

A lot of people who've been through adversity, the most difficult time of their life, and they've come through it, and they wouldn't wish those— that situation on anybody. And yet they find— they found value in it. They found a gift in it, right? They found a deeper meaning. They found a mission. They found some kind of strength from it that they wouldn't have had outside of that. And so post-traumatic growth— but going about my trauma with this brain injury, I remember I was in class And a teacher pointed to me, talking to another adult, said, that's the boy with the broken brain.

Wow.

Right? And here's the thing with people, like how many people interact with kids, children? How many people was once a kid? It's, this is what it is. You have to be very careful because your external voice becomes their internal voice. You know what I mean? And that became my internal voice all through school. Like I was the boy with the broken brain. And anytime I didn't get something right, I would say, oh, it's because my brain is broken. You see how I kind of default for that? But here's why you want to monitor your belief. A lot of you went 25— how many people you went— raise your hand if you feel like you went like 25% further. Right? 25, 50% further. And here's the thing. You could go 25, 50% further in your health. in your relationships, right? In your grades, right? But it's having that belief that says you can do it. Because here's what you always wanna remember, all behavior is belief-driven. All behavior is belief-driven. In order to do a new behavior, you need an empowering belief that allows you to do that behavior. And so when we do this visualization exercise, it's not just limited to students, right? I do this with, with Executives. I do this with athletes a lot. What did, I'll give you an example. What did Roger Bannister do in 1954? What is he famous for?

The 4-minute mile.

The 4-minute mile, right? Throughout human history, nobody could run a mile in less than 4 minutes, right? And how was he able to do it? It wasn't just physical training. He would do mental training, right? He would visualize inside of his mind, just like you were visualizing how much further you could go, he would visualize himself crossing the finish line Looking at the clock and it said 3:59. Because he knows what you know, that success is an inside-out process. Here's the thing. It's not you'll believe it when you see it. It's you'll see it when you believe it. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

You'll see it when you actually see it, when you believe it in here, because all behavior is belief-driven. So he was able to do it because he saw 3:59 in his mind, then he was able to do it out here, right? And that's what entrepreneurs do, right? Entrepreneurs solve big problems. They create new value because they have this vision for what they want to create in their mind, and then it becomes external, right? Inside-out process. Be, do, have, share. So, you have to be that before you be able to do it to be able to have it. Now, here's what I find interesting. I didn't find it interesting that he broke the 4-minute mile by visualizing. What I found interesting is what happened after that. Throughout human history, nobody could run a mile in less than 4 minutes. One person does it, what happens after that?

Everyone runs a 4-minute mile.

Yeah, everyone starts running a 4-minute mile. Dozens of people start doing it in the next couple years. Now let me ask you a question. Was there big advancements in shoe technology and nutritional support and training methodology?

No.

What was the change?

Belief.

A change in belief. Because you know what the belief was back then? The belief was the human heart couldn't sustain a sub-4-minute mile. So it would explode in your chest. Now if you believe that, would that keep you from running a sub-4-minute mile? Like that would keep me from jogging, right? Nobody would do anything because if it, like no one would do anything because all behavior is belief-driven, right? Then all of a sudden one person does it, then everybody starts to do it, right? And that's the power of a belief. Like I'm here because years ago, When I was growing up, when I was about 9 years old, I remember going to a family reunion. A bunch of us went out for dinner, and it was about 25 of us, busy Saturday night at a restaurant. And the waitress came and started taking everyone's order. And when she got to me about halfway through, I noticed something funny. She wasn't writing it down. Have you ever had a waiter or waitress like this? And I'm thinking like— and I'm 9 years old, I'm naturally very skeptical, right? Because I'm the broken brain, I think nothing's working. I'm just thinking, you know, all this stuff. And, but when she came back, she got every single thing perfect. I mean, like the, what we wanted to drink, the salad dressings, the appetizers, how we wanted the meal cooked, like our desserts, every single thing perfect. Now, is that a standout skill or a standout— is that a standout skill in business? Yes or yes? Right? Because it's hard to be able to stand out. Make it really easy. Yes or yes? I know it's the end of the day.

Yes.

But it's like, it's a standout skill in business, right? Because people don't care how much you know. until they know how much you care. Like, just, if you want, just own that, right? Especially when it comes to names, right? How are you going to show somebody you're going to care for their business, their future, their finances, their health, their family, whatever it is you have to offer them, if you don't care enough just to remember them, right? And before you sell anything, what do you sell?

Yourself.

Yourself, right? And so that's why you want to be able to remember these things. So, so after I saw that and she came back, she was my Roger Bannister. Does that make sense? She did something I never thought was possible and opened up the possibility like, wow, what else is possible? Somebody could do that. Because here's what you want to remember. Genius leaves clues. That if somebody's a genius in any area, you could get similar results by finding out how they do it. Let me give you an example. Let's play a quick game together. I want you to, let's as a group, let's, um, What's your name? Somebody before we started here asked me, before we got started, about numbers. How many— let me ask you a question. To be real, when you were a kid, how many phone numbers did you know? Okay, a lot, right? How many phone numbers do you know right now? Honestly.

Same.

How many people have a number you call all the time? Literally text or call all the time? And you honestly, if your phone was dead or you didn't have it with you, you honestly do not know what that number is. Right? You know what they call that? They call it digital dementia. Digital dementia. This is a new term in healthcare. Basically, it's like our phone's keeping our to-do list, our schedules, it's doing simple math. I was out with a group of people, it was 10 of us, I swear to God. 10 of us, and then when the bill came, 3 people took out their phones to divide the bill by 10. And if you laugh, the people who aren't laughing are thinking, yeah, why wouldn't you do that, right? Because here's the thing, we're outsourcing our brains to our smart devices. And your brain is like a muscle. It's use it or what?

Lose it.

Lose it, right? But if I put my arm in a sling for 6 months, would it stay the same? Would it even grow stronger, stay the same? What would happen? It would atrophy. It would grow weaker. And that's what's happening to our minds. Right? You feel that, right? If I ask you, like, nobody wants to memorize 500 phone numbers. But we've lost the ability just to remember one. How many people can relate? If I gave you a 7-digit number or a 10-digit number, how many people honestly would have trouble remembering that number? Right? Because we've lost that potential. We forget passcodes. We forget all these different things. And so here's, here's, watch this. Let's play a game together. Let's try to collectively try to remember a number. Right? Let's, instead of like 200+ numbers, let's collectively just come up with one number. We all write the same number down, right? And just for time's sake, so just raise your hand. Instead of doing single digits, let's do 2-digit numbers. So just raise your hand and say 27. In fact, let's say 27 is the first one. Write down 27. Everyone writes 27. And I'll repeat the number, and let's do the best we can to memorize this list. This will be a nice brain training exercise for all of us.

27.

So 27. So everyone writes 2-7. So raise your hand. Yes.

94.

94. So everyone writes what? 94. We got it. Yes. Back center.

13.

13.

13.

Yes, sir.

21.

21. Blackjack. Is this all the volunteers? If we're having trouble coming up with numbers, we have to go in a totally different direction with this class. Yes?

50.

50. 5-0.

Yes?

88. 88. Next one is 88. Yes?

31.

31.

Bingo.

Yes.

75.

75. How many single digits is, is that, by the way, just to get an idea?

16.

What's that?

16.

16 digits.

Wow.

That's, that's at least, what, 2 numbers, right? Okay, let's do a couple more. Yes, back there.

47.

47. 47.

Okay.

Yes.

12.

12. How many single digits are we at now?

20.

20? Okay, let's do a few more. Let's see how many we can do here.

Yes. 39.

What's that?

39.

39. Number 39. Yes?

19.

19. Number 19.

Yes?

69. 69. What'd you say? Yes, back there.

23.

23. Number 23. And all the way in the back.

10.

10?

Yeah. 10. How many single digits are we at now? You're like, a lot. This number's getting really big. 30.

30?

All right, let's stop there. Now, how would you go about memorizing this list? This, this long number, how would you go about, how would you go about memorizing it? Chunking? Let's see how many— actually, let me see if I can remember. I should have actually memorized this while we were doing it. Cover your pages in the front row here. Let me see if I could— let me see if I can remember these 30 digits. Wait, I need some encouragement here. All right. I'll do single digits. Ready? 2, 7, 9, 4. How are we doing so far?

Good.

1, 3, 2, 1, 5, 0, 8, 8. Good. 3, 1, 7, 5, 7— ooh, no. That was so— 4, 7? Yes.

Whoa.

1, 2, 3, 9. Is that right?

Yes.

1, 9, 6, 9, 2, 3, 1, 0. I honestly, I don't do this to impress you. I do this to express to you what's possible. Just like what this waitress did for me, right? She remembered everybody's order and all of a sudden I was like, wow, what else is possible? She was my Roger Bannister. Like backwards? Well, maybe. Someone said backwards. How many people would like to see me do this backwards?

No!

I need some energy here. All right, ready? Actually, let me try this. 0, 1, 3, 2, 9, 6, 9, 1, 9, 3, 2, 1. How we doing?

Good.

7, 4, 5, 7, 1, 3, 8, 8, 0, 5, 1, 2, 1. 2, 3, 1. 4, 9, 7, 2. Can we get him mic'd up again?

It's never happened before.

Okay, so I am actually, yeah, there's, actually putting a card game together after this if anyone wants to play some cards. All kidding aside. All kidding aside. So I will, the truth is if you come up to me, if we happen to see each other like in the neighborhood or whatever, And just like, hey, do you— I was in that class. Do you remember that list? Like even 3 weeks from now? I will literally go 2, 7, 9, 4, 1, 3, 2, 1, 5, 0, 8, 8, and so on. Because here's the thing. When you understand how your memory works, you can work your memory. When you understand how your brain works, you could work your brain, right? And so the truth is every single one of you could do this. We just weren't taught how to do this. All right? If anything, we were taught a lie that somehow our intelligence, our potential, our memory is somehow fixed like our shoe size. But really what this is about, at the essence of what we're talking about here, is about transcending. Transcending. Ending the trance. That's what transcendence is for me. Ending this trance. Ending this mass hypnosis that somehow, you know, we're limited. Somehow— like something is fixed, right, that our powers are something that we're not as strong and capable as we are, that we're not enough, right? So I want people— my thing is because I taught myself, I couldn't read growing up as a kid, I told you, I taught myself how to read by reading comic books late at night. And something about the comic books about superheroes brought the words to life. How many people like kind of geek out over superhero movies and like Avengers and X-Men and Wonder Woman and Black Panther? Like, so that was like, those are the things I just enjoyed so much because for me it was about like these heroes, and I'm not talking about superpowers like leaping tall buildings and shooting lasers out of your eyes. I'm talking about real-life superpowers, right? It's like you finding your unique strength, right? Your unique ability, your talent. But just having a superpower, does that make you a superhero? What do you have to do?

Be brave.

You have to use that power for good, right? To be able to contribute to community, to be able to create a business, to be able to scale it for impact. So it's not just about income, it's about impact. So it's not about making a dollar, 'cause anyone can make a dollar, but it's about making a difference also as well, right? And so what we're talking about here, this exercise I do, I don't do this to impress you. I'm doing it to more express to you, impress upon you what's possible. So let me show you how to do this. How many people wanna know how to do that kind of thing? Towards names, towards what— how many people would love to do that towards what you're studying?

Ooh.

Right? And be able to have that for the rest of your life. But here's what you wanna write down. There is no such thing as a good or bad memory. Write this down. There is no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's just a trained memory and an untrained memory. There is no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's just a trained memory and an untrained memory. And you know what the key is here is because, you know, one of the things that I like to do that makes things doable, remember I said genius leaves clues? For me, if people wanna be more creative or they want focus, it's not about having focus, it's about doing focus. You don't have creativity, you do creativity. You don't have a memory, you do a memory.

That's right.

And a lot of what I teach is about taking things that are, you feel like are, is a noun, like something you have, like focus, and turning it into a verb. Because when you turn it into a verb, what happens?

What?

It gives you something. Yeah, it gives you something. It's a process, right? It's a recipe. It's something you could do. And so I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna move kind of the curtain apart. I'm gonna show you what people are doing inside their mind, and it makes it look like where they're having focus.

Right.

Or they're having creativity or having great grades. Exactly how you do it step by step. But the first part is you have to believe. Alright, so the B in BE FAST stands for believe. If you believe you can or believe you can't, either way you're right. All behavior is belief-driven. The E in BE FAST stands for exercise. Exercise. And I don't mean physical exercise, although it's across the board. All the research says People who are more physically active. When you are more physically active, you will do better on cognitive tests. You'll have better focus, right? You'll have better concentration. You'll have a better memory. Especially, basically any, to make this very simplified, anything good for your heart's gonna be good for your head. What's good for your heart is gonna be good for your head, right? So more blood flow, more oxygen to your brain. For those of you who feel like, how many people feel like you have mental fatigue? Right, brain fog. One of the best ways of curing that brain fog is just deep diaphragmatic breathing. Remember I said sit, let me test you again. Sit the way you'd be sitting right now if you're totally engaged with what I was saying. And don't get lazy on this. You're like, sit the way you'd be sitting, right? Because a lot of you, to get more energy, you sit up. Because here's what you do, 'cause you don't like have fatigue, you do fatigue. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

You don't have brain fog, you do brain fog. And so part of it is when you're slumped over, you collapse the lower third of your lungs, and the lower one-third of your lungs absorbs two-thirds of the oxygen. Is oxygen important for your brain?

Yes.

Yes or yes? Right, and that's why a lot of people get tired. So this is about like peak performance, right? Elite mental performance. And if you want to learn under best conditions, put yourself in the best conditions, right? So the E is exercise, and I don't mean physical exercise though, I mean practice. Right? Because I'm going to teach you skills that you'll have for the rest of your life. The ability to read faster, you know why reading faster is so important? It's because they say upwards of 4 to 5 hours a day is spent every day processing information. Now for here in an academic setting, I know it's more than that. Yes or yes?

Yes.

Right? You have to spend at least 4 or 5 hours a day studying or reading, right? You know, in the workplace certainly also. Think about all the emails and business plans and books, magazines, periodicals, blogs, blogs, all this reading, right? And here's the thing, if you have to read 4 hours a day, if I could just show you how to double your reading speed and you could save 2 hours a day, 2 hours a day, what would you do with 2 hours a day? Right? 2 hours a day. Let me show you what's— what's 2 hours a day over the course of a year? All right, get out your phones. What's, what's 1 hour a day over the course of a year? Let's be very conservative.

365 hours.

365 hours. Now that's a pretty big number, so let's break it down. How many, 365 hours, how many 40-hour work weeks is that? 9. Over 9 weeks of productivity. 2 months of productivity you get back saving 1 hour a day on something ubiquitous like reading, right? And so one reason why I do so much training at General Electric and Nike and so on is if If an employee's spending 4 or 5 hours a day reading, that means half of their salary is being paid just to read. Does that make sense? And that's the biggest line item, right? It's human capital, it's payroll. And so that's why that efficiency is so important, especially for your own life, right? But when I go back to this exercise, I mean practice. Because I'm gonna teach you how to turn, create new habits. One of the most popular episodes of our podcast Was how to create new habits. The second most popular episode that we've ever published is my morning routine. Like, there are 12 things I do every single morning to be able to jumpstart my brain. How many people want to jumpstart your brain first thing in the morning, right? And that's the thing. Because here's what you want to remember. If you want to win the day, you have to win the first hour. If you want to win the day, you have to win the first hour of the day. Right, because there's something called the science of momentum, right? So you want to start. And I'll tell you the thing that— okay, so we talked about digital dementia. I think there are 3 supervillains. We talked about superheroes. There are 3 supervillains that are robbing you right now. That it wasn't like it was previous generations, right? 3 digital supervillains. Number 1 is digital overload. Too much to learn, too little time. You're taking— how many people feel like you're taking a sip of water out of a fire hose? With all the studying you need to be able to do, and you're drowning in it, right? Too much information, too little time. Digital overload's one. Digital dementia we already talked about. That's the idea where we're outsourcing our brains to our smart devices, and our brains are basically making us stupid. Like our smart devices are basically making us stupid, right? So I was talking to this brain doctor, he was saying GPS, if you're looking for a third-party piece of technology to tell you when and where to turn, you're not getting early detection of things like dementia. Because you're not realizing when you would have memory lapses, so you're not going to doctors to get checked out. Does that make sense? This is this thing called digital dementia. And then the third digital villain is digital distraction. You're talking about focus, right? You want to improve your focus? Like, where's your focus nowadays? We live in a world full of distractions. And I'll tell you one of the best brain hacks, and you're going to say, like, Jim, you were interesting up to this point. Now I hate you. This is what's going to happen. But as your coach, as your brain coach, 'cause people have a, you know, they have a voice coach, they have a business coach, a personal trainer. I wanna be your brain coach, right? The worst habit you could have is to pick up your phone the first hour of the day. Raise your hand if you pick up your phone the first hour of the day. Look around. It is the worst habit you could have when it comes to high performance. And let me tell you why, okay? The most successful people in the world, they have a to-do list. Yes, all the things you need to be able to do and accomplish. The people who are the elite, the 10% of those people, I noticed they also have a not-to-do list. All right? It's even more important. Even that list sometimes is even bigger than their to-do list, right? Because they are very clear of things they will not do because it wastes energy, it wastes focus, it wastes— you know what one of the things, like one of the things on that list? Multitasking. Multitasking. How many people like to multitask? Do multiple things at once? Now in actuality, all the research is absolutely clear. There is no such thing as multitasking. Multitasking does not work. Now you could walk and chew gum and have a conversation. I'm talking about doing 2 cognitive activities. All right? 'Cause in actuality, you're not multitasking. In actuality, the correct term is task switching. You're going from one task to another. But you're getting this novelty dopamine fix and you feel like you're getting stimulated and then not like the novelty and you feel like you're being more productive. But you're being busy. Because here's what happens. Every single time you switch from one activity to another, it takes anywhere from 5 minutes to 20 minutes to reset your focus and your flow. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

They do these studies with doctors and surgeons. They found that when they multitask actually increases the rate of error rate. So they're making more mistakes. So not only are you wasting time, but you're making more errors also on top of it. So multitasking is on that not-to-do list. But the other thing on that list, when you put this on the list, you'll see big, big changes, I promise you, is not pick up your phone the first hour of the day. Now I'll tell you why. It's because we are rewiring our brains to be distracted. I'll tell you the 2 things that we're rewiring our brains when you pick up the phone first thing in the morning. You're training your brain to be distracted, right? Like we interviewed Dr. BJ Fogg at Stanford University who runs the Influence Lab. One of his students actually co-created, co-founded Instagram. So that's all about habits and making things addictive, right? Now think about it, opening up Instagram 100, what's the average, 150 times a day, right? And if you're not doing it 150 times a day, somebody's doing it a lot more, right, which is really scary. But that's addictive, right? Because every time you see a like, a share, a comment, you get this dopamine rush. And that runs along the pathways of your motivation and your learning. So you're literally learning to be motivated by being triggered like that. So if that's the first thing you're picking up in the morning, shares, comments, likes, cat videos, or whatever it is, then your attention is being pulled everywhere. And you're training your brain to be distracted. And you wonder why you can't concentrate. You see this on Facebook all the time, that our attention span is less than a goldfish right now. That's what they're saying. A goldfish is 9 seconds and our attention, human span, is about on average 8 seconds. After 8 seconds, our attention goes somewhere else. So here's the thing. Whether that's true or not, we get the idea of where things are going. Don't pick up your phone because it's training you to be distracted. I'll tell you the second thing it's training you to do, it's rewiring your brain for. It's training you to be reactive. All right, not just distracted, it's training you to be reactive. Meaning, how many entrepreneurs or future entrepreneurs are in the room? Raise your hand, founders. Now here's the thing, like, and I'm just asking, I'm just gonna get a sense of this. When you wanna create a business, right, and you have a vision for where things are going, you can't be reacting to everything in the environment. Because what you're doing is when you wake up first thing in the morning, you go through, you cycle through brainwave states. And I'm not gonna go through all of them, but basically right now everybody here is in beta. That's the awake state. Delta is when you're asleep. In between are 2 critical states. One is called theta and one is called alpha. Theta is the state of creativity. So when Einstein was doing all these thought experiments, he would flow in and out of this state right, right above sleep, right? He would, he would actually be in his rocking chair at Princeton holding a rock in his hand and he would do these thought experiments, visualizing himself on a beam of light. And luckily he has the left brain, you know, science and math and formulas to be able to turn it into something. But he did this right brain creativity, these thought experiments. But why would he hold the rock? Why would he hold a rock?

To hold it up.

Because if he fell asleep, he would what? He would drop it and wake up, 'cause he didn't wanna go to delta. Does that make sense? So he wanted to stay in theta. So theta is the state of creativity. You know what puts you in theta? Showers. When you take a shower, how many people, when you're taking a shower, you get, you come up with all these ideas in your mind, right? You get inspired, you come up with, it's always when you can't write stuff down, right? Come up with all these ideas, and that's when you come up, you're brilliant, right? I actually took 6 showers before I got here today just to be on for you guys. So here's the thing, like showers put you in a theta state, but that alpha state between In between theta and beta is the state they call relaxed awareness. Relaxed awareness. This is the state where you just absorb information. It's this hypnotic state that you're in when you meditate. This is the state that you're in of high performance a lot when you get into the zone. For example, have you ever, have you ever been talking to somebody who's watching television and they're in a trance? They're watching sports or they're watching whatever their favorite show is and they honestly don't hear you. Like they're so, they're hypnotized, they're in hypnosis, right?

Yeah.

That's an alpha state. TV puts you into alpha state. It's where your conscious mind is set aside and you just absorb information unfiltered, right? So we train people how to learn languages, how to learn school material by training them to get into an alpha state, right? This relaxed state of awareness where you just start absorbing information like languages or foreign, like facts and figures and all that kind of information. Now, you are highly suggestible. So if you're in an alpha state when you first wake up in the morning, alpha, theta, and When you pick up your phone, you're highly suggestible. It's rewiring your brain to be reactive. Meaning if you look at a text message, a voice message, you know, your emails, and you have all these things, people wanting stuff from you, right? You have to fight all these fires. My friend Brendan says that an inbox is nothing but a convenient organizational system for other people's agenda for your life.

Yeah.

Yeah, that hits home, right? So why on earth, if you're a visionary, right, you want to, you want to Create your day. You want to win the day? Like, why would you look at everybody else's agenda, all the fires you need to fight, and go be in reactive mode? How are you going to be proactive, right? So what I do is I have 3 things that I need to do every single day personally and 3 things I need to do professionally. And that's it, right? Because I look at my to-do list— how many people are familiar with Pareto's principle?

Oh, wow.

OK, so this is the 80/20 rule. So how many people are familiar with the 80/20 rule, right? 20% of your efforts yield you 80% of the rewards. Now this has been proven across the board in health, in marketing, in business. 20% of your customers give you 80% of the income, right? 20% of your customers also give you 80% of the headaches, right? So you're always top grading, right, your employees and so on. So 20%. So you always want to focus on that 20% that gives you the big return, right? And so when I'm looking at my to-do list, I'm looking for the 3 things that are going to move the needle the most. Right? The things, the dominoes, if you will, that are towards the beginning, not towards the end. That one of my very favorite books of all time was a mentor of mine, Dr. Stephen Covey. He wrote a book called what?

7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If you have not read it, read this book. All right? 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. These are the habits of some of the most highly effective, productive people in the world. 7 habits. And the 7th habit is sharpen the saw. Sharpen the saw. Remember this, if you have all this wood that you need to cut and you're given like a saw but it has a dull blade, when would you want to sharpen that saw? Do you want to spend all this time suffering and struggling and sweating trying to cut wood with a dull blade? When would you sharpen it?

Before.

In the beginning, right? Right? So they say that the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is when?

Now.

Today, right now. And so that's why we teach accelerated learning, because if there's one skill to master in the 21st century, it's your ability to learn faster. I'm not kidding. Meta-learning, learning how to learn, is the most valuable skill in my opinion, because that makes all the other skills and subjects after that easier. Does that make sense? That if I was a magical genie and I could say, you know, I grant you one wish, If I granted you one wish, what's the obvious thing to wish for? More wishes, right? That's the hack, right? But if I was your learning genie and I said I could help you learn any subject, any skill, master it literally, and you get one, what do you pick?

Learning how to learn.

Learning how to learn. Because then you could apply it towards any subject, right? Coding, Spanish, anything, right? So that's what you wanna do because the only constant is change. I heard somewhere recently that graduates right now, they're gonna have anywhere from 8 to 10 different careers. Not jobs, but careers, because the world is changing so fast. Nobody knows where we're gonna be 5, 10 years ago, but you could predict based on trends where things are going. There's 3 A's that are affecting us, 3 A's, right? AI, automation, and Asia, right? So, like, think about it. Like, all jobs are being, like, think about what AI's gonna be able to do in terms of artificial intelligence when it comes to things like, simple things like taxes coming up, bookkeeping, right? Or automation, things that are being automated, right? Done through machines and computers. Or outsourced to a third world country, right? So the 3 superpowers that I would focus on for you are the superpowers of learning, right? Superpowers of imagination. Of creativity, of strategy. These are things that computers aren't gonna be able to catch up in quite a while. So that's what you wanna be able to double down on, emotional intelligence, right? On empathy, on bedside manners when it comes to doctors, things that machines can't do. 'Cause really the future belongs to the creatives, right? Left brain is logical. What's your left brain? Logical, words, sounds. What's your right brain? If your left brain's logical, your right brain's what?

Emotional.

Illogical. What? It's imagination. It's creativity, right? It's visualization. It's emotion, right? And that's an oversimplification. But I'll tell you, the best readers, they're not left-brained. You might think like if you— if someone's hooked up to brain sensing device, they might— for most people, it'd be a left-brain process. Words, language, sounds. But on the right side though, the best readers tend to be more right-brained because they don't just like hear the words. They experience the words. Does that make sense? All right. But going back, all the way back here, going back to the power of exercise, I mean practice. Because there is no magic pill, but there's a magic process. Don't look for the magic pill, look for the magic process. Right? Turn it into a verb. And what I'm saying here is this. Practice makes what? Progress.

Progress.

Practice makes progress.

Progress.

Right? There's no— there's never a level of perfection because there's always another level, right? And so what I'm saying here is BE FAST. The E stands for exercise, which is practice. Now, FAST. The F in FAST. If you want to learn any subject or skill faster, I want you to forget. And you're like, Jim, you just did this whole thing on memory. Why are you talking about forgetting? Going back to like getting rid of old information, right? If your cup is full, it's really hard to learn new information. Does that make sense? So you kind of temporarily forget what you already know about a subject so you can put new information in. Here's what you want to remember. Your mind is like a parachute. It only works when it's what? When it's opened, right? But when I think about this, I think about this beginner's mind. Beginner's mind. That's, that's what I mean about forgetting. Pretend you're a beginner. So that's what you want to forget. Actually, forget 3 things. Forget what you know about a subject so you can learn something faster. The second thing I would say, forget about situational things. We already proven you can multitask. But what I mean by that is if you're thinking about 4 different things outside this room, that only leaves you 25% of your potential to be here to learn. And you're not going to learn faster if you're only using 25% of your presence and your resources. That make sense? And I'm not saying— what I'm saying to do is this: don't fight it. Don't fight it, just write it down. This is tactical. If you're thinking about other things that are going on outside this room, just write it down. Because here's what you want to remember: what you resist persists. What you resist persists. Let me show you a perfect example. Raise your hand up straight up. Raise your hand straight up. Take your other hand, put it straight up. Right? And with your dominant hand, I want you to push. Push into, push, push, push your other hand. Push. Push harder. Push harder, harder, harder, harder, harder. Now watch this. As you're doing this, this makes an interesting photo. As you're doing this, why doesn't your hand just fall down? Did I ever say push back?

No.

No, put your arms down. Because what you resist persists, right? Does that make sense? And so if I ask you to don't think of a big pink elephant, Whatever you do, don't think of a big pink elephant in front of this room. Pink polka dot elephant. What are you gonna do? You're gonna think about it because your mind can't process a negative. Your mind can't process a negative. That's why we always do affirmations in the positive. It's not something you don't want, it's something you want. Because your mind can't process a negative, right? Because it has to think about what you don't want to in order to be able to do it, right? And so what you resist persists. So don't try to think about not think about everything going on. Just write it down so you know it's there and then you can focus, right? The third thing that you wanna forget are your limitations. And we already covered that, limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs. 'Cause if you believe you can and believe you can't, either way you're right. But here's what you wanna remember. You know who has a really good memory? Elephants, right? What animal? Elephants.

Elephants.

You ever notice the elephant, like the elephant at the circus and you wonder why it's tied to this rope To the stake in the ground and you wonder why it just doesn't like leave. Because it's an elephant, right? It is incredibly strong. It's incredibly huge. It could pull down the whole circus tent. But why doesn't it? Because since that elephant's been born, it's been tied to that same rope with the same stake in the ground. And when it was first born, it would try to get its freedom. It wants its sovereignty, right? It would pull, pull, pull and it would struggle for days.

Weeks.

Maybe a week or so. But after a week or so, what happens? It learns something. It learns it's helpless. And in psychology, it's called learned helplessness. Because what happens over time? That elephant gets big and strong, right? And it's physically capable of escaping, but it's not mentally capable. Does that make sense?

Yes.

Because all behavior is belief-driven. So don't be an elephant. Like, don't be that elephant, right? So we, you know, because you're thinking about what does it have to do with reading? What does that have to do with your memory? Think about like you believe what, how smart you are. Do people have a belief on how far they could turn? Do people have a belief how much they're worth financially? Yes or yes? They're going to set that thermostat and the environment's going to reflect. So you want to forget about your limitations temporarily. The A in FAST, in BFAST, stands for active.

Active.

Active.

Active.

And what I mean by this is this. If you're struggling right now, it's because we all, we've all had this 20th century education. And a 20th century education prepared us for a 20th century world, which at the turn of the century was working in farms and factories. And that's what a lot of the education system was tailored to, right? It's one size fits all, sit quietly, you know, by yourself, don't talk to your neighbor, and so on. Now it's changed. It has changed, but the world's changed a lot faster. Is that fair? Like we live— I get to do a lot of training for SpaceX, and I posted a picture recently, you know, with Elon and everyone in the audience there. And I train some of the most amazing brains. But like think about Elon, right?

It's—

he— in his world, we live in an age of electric cars and spaceships that are going to Mars. But our vehicle of choice that we choose when it comes to learning?

Paper.

It's like a horse and carriage. Do you feel that? Do you feel like you're falling behind more and more and more? That you can't keep up? Like, how do you get ahead in this world when you feel like you're falling behind? And so one of the reasons why is you don't want to be passive. Like, you don't want to just sit there and consume information. The human brain does not learn based on consumption. Your brain learns through creation. The human brain does not learn Based on consumption. It learns through creation and co-creation. And so you want to be active. So for example, how can you be more active when you're learning? Just shout it out. How can you be more active in your learning process?

Participate.

Participate. Like how?

Take notes.

Take notes, right? By the way, a really fun way of taking notes, they did a study and they wanted to find out the best and worst ways of taking notes. And what was— by the way, what do you think the worst way of taking notes was?

Handwritten.

Oh yeah, okay, good. Yeah, actually I did a whole thing on note-taking, digital versus handwritten, and 100% people do better on handwritten tests. Now by the way, about handwritten notes on the test, out of curiosity, would you guess one reason why? It's not as fast. Yeah, because it gets you to focus. Because you can't write as fast as somebody can speak. Right? So you have to, you have to self-select and filter the information, qualify the information, and only write the things that are most valuable. But the worst way of taking notes actually was pure dictation, word for word. That was the worst way. People who were tested that did it verbatim did the worst on the test. But one of the best ways of taking notes was through keywords and key ideas, right? Mind mapping and such. And so a fun way of taking notes that I do that works really effective, that's whole brain, is I take a piece of paper, I put a line down the page, On the left side, I capture notes. On the right side, I create notes. Now let me specify for this. On the left side, I'm writing down how to remember names, how to read faster, how to give a speech without notes, step by step, right? On the right side, I'm not capturing, I'm creating. I'm writing my impressions of what I'm capturing. Does that make sense? What, like the things I'm, questions I have about what I'm capturing. How am I going to use this and apply this in the future? How am I going to teach it to somebody else? How it relates to what I know, right? So because if my mind wanders, right brain wandering, imagination, creativity, I'd rather it wander on the right side. Another way of saying instead of capture, create. On the left side I'm note-taking. On the right side I'm note-making. You see the difference? Okay. So active, right? You ask questions and so on. So you be more active in the process. Here's what you want to remember, and you can write this down. Learning is not a spectator sport. Learning, like life, is not a spectator sport. How many people believe what you put in is what you get out of something? Because you take responsibility for it, right? And this is the thing, because it's not the teacher's job, really it's not. It's your responsibility to be able to do that. And when you take responsibility, then you can make the positive change. I posted this picture. On social media recently, a picture— recently I got to introduce 2 of my modern-day superheroes together. And I drop names not for the purpose of dropping names. I drop them because I want you to remember the lesson. So next time you see these people on the news or you read about them, it reminds you of the lesson. Does that make sense? So I got to introduce 2 people for dinner who wanted to meet each other. It was Stan Lee and Richard Branson. Now watch this. Stan Lee, not Stanley.

Stan Lee.

Stan Lee. Who's Stan Lee?

Marvel.

Marvel, right? He co-created who? Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Avengers, Black Panther, all these amazing, like my heroes, right? And we're in the car and I asked him like, Stan, you created all these incredible superheroes, who's your favorite? Like I need to know. And he's like, Jim, it's Iron Man. I'm like, how many Iron Man fans? Like Robert Downey Jr., love the movie and stuff. I was like, that's great. He's like, Stan's like, Jim, who's your favorite superhero? And you'll see his picture on Instagram. He has a picture of Spider-Man on his tie. And I was like, it's Spider-Man. And without— I said, Spider-Man. He said, without a pause, he goes, Jim, with great power comes—

Great responsibility.

Great responsibility. Now, how about— how do every single one of you know that, right? And you don't even remember. It's like in your DNA, right? The hero's journey, right? Joseph Campbell's work. It's like there, right? And I have dyslexia. I have these learning challenges, you know, head injury, all this stuff. And I remember, like, I reverse everything automatically, and that's one of my challenges. And so I was like, Stan, you're right, with great power comes great responsibility. And I said, the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great power. Yeah, that's worth writing down. With great responsibility comes great power. That when we take responsibility for something, we have great power to make things better. Does that make sense? But here's the thing, and this is what I noticed with entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs have values, certain values, and we all have values, right? But a high value on that hierarchy is freedom. How many people here love their freedom?

I do.

How many people here want to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, wherever you want? How many people like that, right? And that's your— that's what you want to do with your business, and you have this This idea and this myth that, you know, like it's like being an entrepreneur is just like this incredible thing where you just have ultimate freedom and it's just like no responsibilities and everything. Now in actuality though, a lot of them actually move away from responsibility and discipline, right? They don't want to have to do something because that's the opposite of freedom. That's a jail. But here's what I noticed. If you can't get yourself to do the things you need to do, whatever that is, Then that's a prison. Because in actuality, discipline equals freedom. Right? That when you're disciplined, it gives you the freedom and the responsibility to be able to do the things. Because if you don't take responsibility for something, the ability to respond, responsibility, then you can't do anything. Then you're a thermometer again. Right? As opposed to owning you being a thermostat and you could affect things out positively, right? And so my thing here is when you're taking, when I'm talking about active, is to be active because it's not the expert in front of the room, right? It's you. You take the responsibility and then you get the benefit. And when you responsibility, that takes me to the S in Be FAST. The S in Be FAST is state. State. And I'm saying this because it came up in terms of how people feel about something. And I think if there's one thing to take responsibility for, if there's one thing, Be responsible for how you feel. Does that make sense? Because all learning is state dependent. All learning is state dependent. And so don't be at the effect. Be it— don't be a thermometer, be a thermostat. So right now what you could do, on a scale of 0 to 10, how do you feel? Like check in with yourself right now. How do you feel on a scale of 0 to 10?

6.

You have a certain thing? Now whatever it is, if I ask you to just up it 2, if it was a 7, make it a 9. If it was a 5, make it a 7. Can you do that? Yes or yes?

Yes.

Alright, do it right now. Do it. Take yourself 2 levels up. Notice in order to do that, you had to do one of 2 things. You had to do something with your body or you had to do something with your brain. Yes or yes?

Yes.

You had to move your physiology or affect your psychology, right? Because your attitude affects your what? Altitude. Your attitude affects your altitude. So you always want to monitor your state because all learning is state-dependent. The last T, the last letter in FAST, be FAST, is teach. This is the big— I think this is a big one, right? That you learn— if you want to learn a subject or skill in half the time, learn it with the intention To teach it to somebody else. Like right now I'm gonna teach you a couple of hacks to be able to read faster. I want you to learn it as if you're gonna teach it to someone very specific. Does everybody have someone in mind that you wish was sitting here right now, that you wish was auditing the class? Does everyone have somebody? I want you to think about that person and take the responsibility to learn what you're about to learn right now, everything you've taken notes on, to teach it to that person. Is that fair? Because here's the thing which, see, I remember hearing this thing in school, like saying those who can't do what? Teach.

Teach.

I never thought it was a negative. Like I heard it, maybe it's just how I was organized, but I always said, yeah, if I can't do something, teach it and then I could do it. Does that make sense? Because here's what you want to remember. When you teach something, you get to learn it twice. When you teach something, you get to learn it twice. So you learn with the intent to teach because intent matters. Intent matters. All right, I'm gonna give you these hacks very fast when it comes to reading because I want you to just be able to go out there and do it. I'm gonna show you a hack that'll improve your reading speed 25, 50%. Some of you, it'll be 100%. You'll double your reading speed, right? Raise your hand if you wanna be able to do that right now. What do the rest do? The rest of you? Don't wanna learn how to be able to read faster? So here's the thing. There are a number of things that keep you reading slow. I'm gonna tell you what a couple of them are, and then I'm gonna give you one solution, all right? And then you can subscribe to the podcast and listen to more of them. But here's what you should do. No, no, because in terms of time. Like, I wanna be able to be respectful of your time. So here's what it is. There are a few obstacles to effective reading, right? There's 2 parts to reading. There's reading speed, and there's reading what?

Comprehension. Comprehension.

Comprehension. And it doesn't make sense to have one without the other. Is that true? Now traditional speed reading will teach you to skim, scan, skip words, get the gist of what you read. Now my clients run countries and companies and they're doctors. They're like— like you don't want your doctor to get the gist of what she's reading. I promise you that, right? And so there's some things that keep you from reading better, right? There's 2 speeds. There's 2 things: speed and comprehension. So one of them, obstacle to effective reading, is lack of education, right? All right, let me ask you a simple question. Are you born with the ability to read?

No.

No. Nobody was born and started like reading magazines in the waiting room, right? You're taught. But let me ask you a question. When's the last time you were taught how to read? When's the last time you took a class called reading? Not a college lit class, a class called reading. How old were you?

7.

7 years old? 6, 7 years old? Let me ask you a question. Has the difficulty and the demand increased a little bit since you were 7? A little bit or a lot?

A lot.

Is it fair to say you're still reading it the same way you learned it? Yes. That's the problem. All right? So the second obstacle effective reading, and I'll bring this up because you brought it up, is lack of focus. Lack of focus is a big one, right? How many people, you can't concentrate on what you need to read? Big problem because you're wired for distraction. Here's a lie or myth that's being spread around, a rumor if you will. And I think this is a rumor being spread around by really slow readers. It's this. If I ask you to read faster, what do you think will happen to your comprehension?

Down.

You think it'll go down, right? Now in actuality, it'll go up. Now see, we have— so we publish online— we publish an online speed reading course. Memory course, academic success program, like how to study, right? Focus program. And so we have students in over 180 countries. So we have a lot of data. And we found that the fastest readers actually have the best comprehension. Do you know why? Because they have the best focus. Watch this. Like, your brain is this incredible supercomputer. It is magnificent, right? But when you read, you feed this supercomputer— Data. One word at a time. Metaphorically, you're starving your mind. And if— here's the thing— if you don't give your brain the stimulus it needs, it'll seek entertainment elsewhere in the form of distraction. Does that make sense? You're reading so slow that you're not stimulating your brain enough, so So it's seeking entertainment elsewhere in the form of mind wandering, right? Watch this. If you're driving going 15, 20 miles an hour, are you really focused honestly on the act of driving? No, right? What are you doing?

Everything else.

Everything else, right? Like I saw somebody the other day putting makeup on and shaving and reading a newspaper. Like you could be thinking about the dry cleaner. You could be thinking about 8 different things, having conversations, trying to text. You can be doing 5 things when you're going slow, right? But let's say you're racing cars and you're doing straightaways 200 miles an hour, right? Do you have more or less focus?

More.

A little bit or a lot?

A lot.

Are you thinking about like what you're doing Saturday and trying to text and doing— no. What are you doing? What's your focus? On exactly what's in front of you, right? Same thing with reading. People who read faster tend to have better comprehension because they're not distracted because they're fulfilling their need, their entertainment, if you will. Right? Because when I started to speak slow, what did your mind naturally start to do? Wander. You start thinking about other things. You start getting easily distracted. If I kept on talking like that, you would fall asleep. Tell me those aren't the same exact symptoms you have when you're reading. Your mind wanders. You get distracted. You fall asleep. Right? How many actually— how many people actually use reading as a sedative? Like you use it to fall asleep? You have like a token book by your bed that you've been reading for like an embarrassingly long period of time. Remember, information combined with what? Emotion becomes long-term memory. If you're connecting sleeping with reading, that's the wrong association. Do you get that? All right, so here's the thing. I'm gonna teach you how to hack your reading, but if you believe, remember all behavior is belief-driven, that you're, that if you read fast your comprehension will go down, you're not gonna do it. Does that make sense? But I'll show you the 3rd obstacle to effective reading. This is the big one. This really is the 3rd obstacle to effective reading, and it's not focus. It's called subvocalization. Subvocalization. What is it, right? What's subvocalization?

Speaking.

Speaking. How many people notice when you're reading something, you hear that inner voice inside your head? You hear that inner voice when you're reading? Hopefully it's your own voice. It's not like somebody else's voice. The reason why it keeps you reading slow is if you have to say all the words in order to understand them, you could only read as fast as you could speak. Isn't that crazy? That means your reading speed is limited to your talking speed and not your thinking speed. Isn't that nuts? But here's a question: do you have to pronounce words like New York City or computer to understand what those things are? No, no more than you would have to pronounce a stop sign when you see a stop sign on the side of the road. But do you comprehend it exactly? You understand it, right? No more than you would have to pronounce punctuation marks like comma, exclamation mark, question marks. You don't have to pronounce those things. So why are you pronouncing and, there, because, this, that? You don't have to say it in order to understand it. And the best readers, they don't do that. Let me give you one hack to be able to overcome some of these obstacles. One of them is using a visual pacer when you read. A visual pacer is a pen, a highlighter, a mouse on a computer, your finger while you read. Here's what you want to remember. If you want greater speed, use your finger while you read. If you time yourself to read 60 seconds, count the number of lines you read in a book, time yourself to read using your finger, just underlining, not skipping anything, just underlining the words. 60 seconds, count the number of lines the second time. That second number will be a lift of 25 to 50%. Some of you, 100%. Now let me tell you why, because as adults you want to know why certain things are the way that they are. Number 1, children do it. All children use their finger while they read until they're taught not to. Secondly, you do it. You're like, Jim, I don't use my finger when I read. When I ask you to count the number of lines when you read, what will 100% of you do? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You use a visual pacer. Third reason you use your finger while you read, Is because your eyes are attracted to motion, right? That if something ran across this room, you wouldn't look at me because as a hunter-gatherer, you need to pay attention to what moves in your environment. You're a hunter-gatherer in a bush and you're hunting lunch, right? A rabbit or carrot, whatever your diet is. If the bush next to you moves, you have to look at what moves because it's your survival, right? Number one, it could be lunch. Number two, You could be lunch, right? You have to look at what moves, right? So when your finger's going through the page, your attention's being pulled through the information as opposed to your attention being pulled apart. But the 4th reason you use your finger while you read is because it's how your neurology is set up, your nervous system, right? Your brain, your spine, your senses, certain senses work really closely together. So for example, have you ever tasted a great piece of fruit? Like not something that's been waxed and sprayed in the supermarket, But like something that right off the vine, right from the farmer's market. Have you ever tasted a great-tasting peach before? Now, in actuality, you're not tasting that peach. In actuality, you're smelling the peach. But your sense of smell and taste are so closely linked that your mind doesn't know the difference. You know the difference when you're sick, because when you can't breathe out of your nose, what does food taste like?

Nothing.

It tastes bland, right? Just as your sense of smell and taste are so closely linked, so is your sense of sight and your sense of touch. If there was a toddler right here and I take out my keys, I said, look at my keys, look at my keys, look at my keys, what's the child going to do? Show me. Reach out and touch. Because in order to see, he or she needs to feel like they're touching it, right? When people read with their finger, they tell me all the time, they feel more in touch with their reading. Let me— another example. If somebody loses their sense of sight, how do they read?

Braille.

Braille, right? Touch. Use your finger while you read. If you want greater speed, use your finger while you read. I'll share this with you. Remember I told you that I had learning difficulties when I was a child? I taught myself how to read by reading comic books. Recently, I got to do a training up the road in Los Angeles for the chairman of 20th Century Fox. And it was for the chairman CEO. And we spent like half the morning training his board on how to do these things, speed read, memory, and so on. And here's the thing. Afterwards, the CEO, he walks me around and says, thank you so much. This is the best training ever. He walks me around the film lot. And I saw this movie poster of Wolverine. And I was like, I made a comment saying, I can't wait for that movie to come out. I can't wait for this movie to come out. And he picks up the phone. And 5 minutes later, I'm in the Fox Theater watching Hugh Jackman fight all these super ninjas. I mean, it was like the coolest thing ever, right? On a Friday. When I was done, the chairman asked me, Jim, how was the movie? I was like, wow, it was really good. It's like, you don't know this, but as a kid, I had this brain injury. I couldn't read. I taught myself to read by reading comic books. My favorite comic was Wolverine and the X-Men. How many X-Men fans are here? Right? And it wasn't because the X-Men were the strongest. It's just they didn't fit in. Right? They were the mutants. Right? They were the outcasts. Because I felt like I didn't fit in growing up. Right? The boy with the broken brain. But the highlight was when I was reading the comic books, was the school, the X-Men school, Professor X's School for the Gifted was where?

Westchester.

In Westchester, New York. And that's where I grew up. It's a suburb of New York City. And I remember thinking like, that's amazing, it's right here. And I used to every weekend ride my bicycle as a 9-year-old around my neighborhood trying to find this school. And you laugh, but this is what I did every weekend, right? Because I wanted to run away to find my superpower. I wanted to find my friends, right? Where I fit in. And I'm telling this to the chairman of Fox and he's like, Jim, I didn't know you liked superheroes, you want to go to Comic-Con? Now raise your hand if you know what Comic-Con is. Okay, so I'm like, when is it? He's like, today, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I'm like, I go from a 9-year-old to a 99-year-old. I think, oh, I have all these meetings in LA, how am I going to get to San Diego? There's all these, you know, traffic and I have nothing to wear, all these lines, I don't have a ticket, right? We talk our way out of this stuff. And he's like, Jim, do you want to go? I'm going tomorrow. I'm like, oh yeah, CEO of Fox is going, I'm going to go with you, right? So, he picks me up the next morning, Saturday, 8 AM from my hotel. And instead of driving, we get on his plane. And— No, that's not it. Watch this. On the plane is the entire cast of X-Men. They are going to surprise Comic-Con with the cast, right? And I don't even see like Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart. I see Professor X, Wolverine, right? And I'm sitting between Jennifer Lawrence and Halle Berry going to Comic-Con, right? That's a story on its own. But we come back to LA and the chairman's like, how was your day? I was like, the best day ever. Thank you so much. He's like, Jim, I have something else for you. I'm like, I don't want anything else. What can I do for you? He was like, Jim, they really loved you. How would you like to go on set? I was like, what do you mean? He's like, we have another 30 days of filming the new X-Men movie in Montreal. How would you like to go? I'm like, I totally want to do that. But what can I do for you? He's like, just do what you did for us. Share your superpowers. Teach them how to speed read scripts, be present and focused on set, memorize their lines faster, retain it and everything. Like, I could totally do that. And the next morning, Sunday, we're on the X-Jet. They call it the X-Jet. We're flying from LA to Montreal. And I'm brain training my superheroes, right? We land, and the very first scene that they're filming takes place in the X-Men school. And I literally, as a 9-year-old, got to see my superheroes come to life, right? And, right, I mean, I get goosebumps. I call them truth bumps, right? Because I think your gut, your body knows things. But if we could show the— and when I get back to New York, I open up my package, and there's a package waiting for me. It's this photo right here. It's a photo of a whole bunch of people when it goes on. I open it up, and it's me and the entire cast of X-Men, like literally the entire cast of X-Men. And even better than this, this photo was the note that came with it. It makes me like kind of tear up even thinking about it. It said this, it was from the chairman. It said, Jim, thank you so much for sharing your superpowers with all of us. I know you've been looking for your superhero school since you were a child. Here's your class photo. And it just blew my mind, right? I mean, just talking from a leadership standpoint in terms of what's really possible, This cover photo is actually my Facebook and my Twitter photo, so you can actually pull it up on your phone, @JimKwik. But it's like literally— but what I realized at this time, the reason I'm here with you is this, is that when I started teaching this in college, one of my very first students, she read 30 books in 30 days. Can you imagine that? Could you imagine being able to read 30 books in 30 days, be able to retain it and understand it all?

Yeah.

I wanted to find out not how she did it, I wanted to know why. Why did she do it? Motivation, right? Going back to motivation. And I found out that it was because her mother was dying of terminal cancer and was given 60 days to live, 2 months to live. And the books she was reading were books to save her mom's life. And I wished her luck, said prayers. 6 months later, I get a call from this young lady. I get a call from this young lady, and she's crying and 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, they don't know why, they called it a miracle. But her mother attributed it 100% to the great advice she got from her daughter who learned it from all these books. And that's where I realized in that moment that if knowledge is power, learning is your superpower. If knowledge is power, learning is your superpower. I get quoted on this more than anything on social media. I compare your life to an egg. That if an egg is broken by an outside force, life ends, right? If a life— if an egg is broken by an outside force, life ends. If it's broken by an inside force, life begins, right? All great things began on the inside. And you have greatness inside of you, and you have genius inside of you, and now is the time to let it out. Thank you very much.

Thank you.