Jim Kwik breaks memory into three parts: your life's best moments, your relationships, and lessons from mistakes. He recommends writing one thing you're grateful for daily and saving it in a jar for a year to rewire your brain toward appreciation.
When people talk about memory, it's not just about remembering facts, figures, formulas. That's all amazing.
Yes.
You can remember all of the client information, be able to give it to them, and then they feel like you care. It's amazing. But, you know, 3 areas. It's not just mental intelligence, it's mental health, and it's mental fitness.
Yes.
I want people to remember things that are most important to them, like 3 L's especially. Number one, you gotta remember your life, because if your life is worth living, it's worth remembering. But most people don't remember Those moments. Most people don't remember what they had for breakfast.
No.
Right? And so I wanna, I wanna keep the—
Or, or the 15 great things that have happened this year.
Exactly. Exactly.
They have a tendency to, they remember the, the dragon that got, you know, that killed 'em or the deal that got away.
Yeah.
Or the anger in their relationship at the moment.
Yeah.
But I'm like, well, did you have any victories along the way? Like, well, yeah, I went to the gym every day and I lost 2 pounds and I feel better and I closed a bunch of deals. And I'm like, but which one's taking up all your mind power?
Exactly. I mean, what if you just like every single day just put like, wrote a little note to yourself and at the end of the day, like one little thing you're grateful for and put it into like a fish, you know, a jar or something. Oh, that's a good idea. At the end of the year, you have like 365 things that you're just like, here's a great— 'cause gratitude, I did a whole Thanksgiving episode on how gratitude rewires your brain and 4 ways of getting into instant gratitude. And it's interesting because what you appreciate appreciates. So you do this thought experiment and just kind of close your eyes and just ask yourself, what if the only things in my life tomorrow, the only things I kept tomorrow are the things I express gratitude for today? You know, that would get your priorities really, that would dial you in. Because here's the thing, like we've all, I think gratitude is the ultimate emotion because we've all won the lottery. You know, life, just the fact that we're alive.
Everyone listening right now.
Everyone, you won the lottery. If you're alive listening to this right now, you won the lottery already. And so there's this saying that says gratitude is riches and complaint is poverty. You know, it's when you feel great. A lot of people, you know, they could have a lot of stuff, but if they don't feel like they're blessed and they're grateful for it, they don't have a lot. But you know, there's a lot of people who don't have a lot of resources, but they're really grateful for things that they have and they live with that vibrancy. And so I would love to tell you the—
tell me the 3 L's. Life.
So first thing is remember your life. The second, you know, is remembering your loved ones. Yes, because those are the people that make life worth, you know, those magic moments you share with the people that get the, the family and friends that are also family. Family. Family. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That become friends that become so close they become your family. Those moments. And then finally, the 3rd L are your lessons. You know, going back, a lot of people—we've all heard this phrase and we've all said it before: insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Maybe it's not insanity; maybe it's just a bad memory. You know, you're repeating problems like we—you—you date the same kind of person, you eat the same kind of food, you know, you eat all the make the same financial mistakes all the time because you're not remembering the lessons. Yeah, and I would say life. Remember your life, remember your loved ones, remember your lessons. Because mistakes, and you know, you and I, we've talked about this a lot to our students, you know, mistakes, we make mistakes, you know, and mistakes don't necessarily define us. What defines us is how we respond to it. Are we owning it? Are we responsible for it? Are we—
The meaning we associate to it.
Exactly. Are we learning from them? Well, I always tell people when you make a mistake, 'cause this is what keeps people from doing things. One of the things that keep people from procrastinating, that keeps them procrastinating is they, They don't want— they're fearful of what other people would say. And you look at a child and they'll fall 50, 100, 1,000 times before they learn how to be able to walk, but they don't give up and they still, they don't say, oh, okay, I'm not gonna walk.
Yeah.
But what happens? We go through one course and we try a sales presentation, it doesn't work, and we're like, okay, that's it. You know, I don't wanna look bad. And that keeps us.
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