The Hidden Habit Hijacking Your Sleep and Memory

So what if one simple decision could clear your brain fog, boost your mental energy, improve your sleep, and sharpen your memory? In this week's Kwik Brain episode, I get to sit down with James Swanick. He's the author of the book Clear, and we're going to talk about how to remove just one habit that can unlock your brain's potential. So whether you drink a little, a lot, or not at all, this conversation is not about judging It's really about freedom. You know, I believe clarity is your superpower. So make sure you tap the link, subscribe to our podcast, listen in, and discover how to reclaim your freedom starting today. What if one simple decision, just one, could give you back your focus, your mental energy, your confidence, and even your clarity? Most people Who are listening, you want a sharper brain, you want a better memory, you want deeper sleep, and you want more, more peace of mind. But very few realize the hidden obstacle that's clouding all of that. For many, it's, it's actually not lack of motivation. For many, it's not lack of intelligence. It may be what you're unknowingly pouring mental fog into our brain one glass at a time. So we're going to talk about alcohol. That the, the glass of wine you're sipping to unwind may actually be wiring your brain to underperform. It could hijack your memory, it could dull your focus, it could sabotage your, your sleep and your decision-making. Welcome back, Kwik Brains.

I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik.

Today we're tackling a subject that affects millions of high performers, often without them realizing it. We're gonna be talking about alcohol and how it changes your brain. You've heard me say that your brain is your number one asset, but what happens when we unknowingly compromise it one drink at a time? Whether it's for relaxation, socialization, alcohol can quietly erode your memory, your focus, and your ability to learn. And my guest today is James Swanick.

Hi, Jim.

He's a former ESPN anchor turned brain health advocate and entrepreneur and author. He's helped thousands of professionals quit drinking, not through willpower, but through applied science. He's the author, if you're watching this on our YouTube where we put the extended version of the book Clear, this is the only neuroscience-based method for high achievers to quit drinking. And he's the founder of Alcohol-Free Lifestyle. You're going to discover how to become clearer, pun on the book, stronger, more limitless by removing this one thing that has maybe been silently holding you or someone that you love back. So whether you drink a little, a lot, or not at all, this episode isn't about restriction. It's really about liberation. So welcome to the show, my friend.

Thank you very much.

This episode's about alcohol and it could be charged, right? Everyone's listening in a different age and stage or place in their life. You know why? The science is pretty conclusive and we'll talk about that, but why do we still consume alcohol even though there is so much evidence around it being harmful, right? Similar to processed sugar, cigarettes, and, and so on.

Well, I submit I submit cultural conditioning plays a huge part in that. And it started when we were little boys and girls and our parents or our adult figures in our life said, oh, no, no, little Jim or little James, you can't drink now. You can drink when you're older. And in that moment, they planted this idea in our childhood heads that drinking is something we get to do. It's something that we aspire to consume. And then that gets perpetuated towards the end of our school years, and then we go into college, and there are smiling assassins everywhere. A smiling assassin is anyone who's smiling as they offer you a glass of attractively packaged poison, which is what I refer to alcohol as, attractively packaged poison. It's our friends saying, hey, can I get you a drink? Hey, let's catch up at the bar. It's the waiter or waitress who greets you, who says, hello, sir. Hello, ma'am. May I get you started with a— Glass of wine or something from our drinks menu? I mean, they may as well be saying, hello, sir, may I get you started with a glass of 10 pounds of unwanted body weight and some fogginess and irritability tomorrow morning? But they do it with a smile. And this myth that alcohol is necessary for social connection, it's necessary for celebration, for romance, for commiseration, for sadness, for loneliness, for isolation. gets perpetuated over time. And then we have Hollywood celebrities who then peddle their poison. And, you know, you've got folks like Ryan Reynolds who does a lot of great stuff in the world, but he has a gin company. You have Dwayne The Rock Johnson who has a tequila company. You have George Clooney with a tequila company. And so in culture and cultural conditioning, we start to believe that this is just a normal substance that we consume.

Hmm.

Yeah, we're probably not gonna get any of those as sponsors anytime soon for the show. Maybe you could tell us, I mean, our audience is all about brain performance, brain health. Maybe you can mention what the science is saying, what alcohol does to our brain specifically, and then we'll go into ways of mitigating and managing the consumption of it. You know, what are the long-term effects of continuous alcohol?

There was a study in 2022 out of the UK of 35,000 middle-aged adults, and what that study showed was that even one seemingly innocent drink per night, which is just 7 standard drinks per week, was still enough to destroy gray and white matter in the brain. Now, the bumper sticker there is even one drink a night can cause some level of brain deterioration. And then anecdotally, You may have seen this in your life. Maybe you know some people who've been drinking consistently for decades. Maybe dementia comes on a little quicker or it's more aggressive. Again, I can't speak to individual cases, but anecdotally, we know, like we know that it's causing some level of brain degeneration. And that study in 2022, that should be a wake-up call for all of us as a society because this notion that just one drink a day is fine, a couple drinks here or there is fine, It really needs to be extinguished because it's actually not fine based on modern medical literature and recent studies. Now, back in the late '80s, there was this idea perpetuated that a glass of wine a day was good for the heart, was good for your health. That claim has been debunked repeatedly over the last 3 and a half decades. And yet, you know, as a society, we still clamor on to this idea. Um, in addition to the brain degeneration, Jim, because I know that's, that's your work, that's your life's work, you know, making sure we've got optimal brains and great memory— alcohol's been linked to 7 different cancers, and it destroys our sleep, which you'll know from your teachings and coachings really affects brain performance the next day. And when we are not well slept and we're irritable and we're stressed and we're foggy, what tends to happen is that we then reach for a sugary food to give us a little bit of a kick-me-up and now we're eating more unwanted calories and then we're more stressed and more anxious. We don't exercise as much until we get to 5 or 6 o'clock in the afternoon when what do we want to do? Relieve ourselves of that stress and anxiety with another drink. So I'm not here to hypnotize you into quitting drinking, but I do desire to dehypnotize you around the so-called health benefits of drinking.

The, um, it's, it's interesting because with sleep especially, a lot of people will drink thinking it's helping them to sleep when in fact it's more like being knocked out is very different than getting quality deep and, and REM sleep. But we know alcohol could affect everything from your neurotransmitters to your, to your gene expression. You know, in Limitless, I talk about mind Mindset as a starting point. I'm curious if we're gonna kind of deconstruct this. How do you reframe the mindset around an alcohol-free life? You know, what are— I mean, you mentioned a number of hard hurdles that people have to overcome, the, the, the, the deprogramming, if you will. Um, what, what would you say if you can install into, uh, another human being a mindset that would keep them on track? Um, What would that look like?

It's to desire and move towards an alcohol-free lifestyle as opposed to trying to quit drinking. So most people and most traditional modalities are, I've got to be sober. I'm going to be dull. I'm going to be boring. I need to surrender to a higher power. Maybe if it's that bad, I have to go to an AA meeting. But really, the story is I need to stop. I need to cut back. I need to reduce. But that energy is really bringing this deprivation type of feeling. So we feel like we're depriving ourselves of fun and joy. And in that scenario, we associate not drinking with deprivation, pain, being dull and boring, and we associate drinking with pleasure and fun and relief and the joy. But I submit it's the other way around, Jim. And that is that every day that you choose to be alcohol-free is a day where you are experiencing joy and energy and clarity. That's the reward. That's the special occasion. I hear a lot of people saying, oh, just drink on a special occasion. Well, I submit the special occasion is every single day that you choose to be alcohol-free. There's actually a bundle of nerves in the brain called the reticular activating system, known as the RAS.

Mm-hmm.

And the RAS Focuses in on that which you think about repeatedly. So if you and I were talking about a red car, we'd go out today, tomorrow, and we'd just see red cars even though they were always there. We'd see them. That's the RAS working. So when people are saying, don't drink, I have to quit, I need to stop, we're focusing still on the alcohol, and therefore we tend to reach for the alcohol and consume it. However, if I Invited someone to say, you know what, just create a compelling vision of this lifestyle, an alcohol-free lifestyle, a style of life with clarity, focus, focusing on great sleep, conscious communication, exercise, drinking lots of water, good nutrition, being around good people, doing personal development. Focus on that lifestyle and move towards that. The RAS, that bundle of nerves, will focus in on that, and then living an alcohol-free lifestyle just becomes very simple. very simple in that point as opposed to, oh, I've got to stop. I've got to stop. So, it's focusing on what you will do and what you desire as opposed to trying to remove away or avoid that which you're trying to avoid.

And is part of it, because I know in Clear, you explore the power of identity shifts when you're doing the exercise and the deep breathing or the cold therapy, whatever happens to be, the reading, the personal development. You know, that becomes evidence that you are who you say you are. So how does identity play a role in people making this, this shift? Do they need to let go of— who do they need to let go of today to be that person, that, that version of themselves that is vibrant and clear and focused?

And There's a lot of resistance from folks around the idea of, I'll never drink again. Because if you've grown up and your whole adult life has been, oh, I'm Jim the social drinker, or I'm James the person who creates good times, or I'm Jim the great host who's always making sure that people are well fed and they've got wine and that I offer them vodka, and I'm the person who loves to just go out and have a couple of drinks and it's all great, or I'm the person who has always created romance with a bottle of wine, then this idea of removing that substance is really, really challenging to try to get our heads around because most of us have lived our entire adult life as James or Sally or John the drinker. And in the eyes of our friends and our family and our colleagues and our workers, it's the same thing. Oh yeah, James likes a couple of drinks. Jim likes to have a glass of red wine. He enjoys a glass of red wine. So I understand the resistance. I understand the resistance because that is a fundamental identity threat. However, what my experience was because I stopped drinking alcohol in 2010 and I've been alcohol-free now for 15 years is that when I finally let go of the alcohol, I started to embody this new identity, this upgraded identity, this health-conscious identity. Yeah. And I realized that I started attracting what I perceived to be a higher energetic type of person into my life, a higher caliber type of energy, someone who didn't need alcohol in order to connect, someone who was interested in deep conversation, someone who was interested in health and vitality, who wanted to catch up for a morning hike or an ice plunge versus meeting at the bar for a couple of drinks. So, it's actually when you can let go of the resistance around the identity you've had and take that first step into the identity of who you desire to be, and that is energy, clarity, great sleep, smiling, being a great role model, being a great friend, doing the right thing, feeling amazing about your life, dancing on tables, being alcohol-free, candidly, it can include. Then this becomes so much more preferable that you just naturally start to live an alcohol-free lifestyle, and your identity is no longer Jim the drinker or Jim the host or Jim the party guy. It's now just Jim, who's a great guy irrespective of if he's drinking or not.

And so let's, let's take a situation. Let's say somebody is at a social event, a party, a wedding, uh, You know, they're given a glass, you know, from a friend or a colleague, or maybe they're at home and they just had a really stressed out day and they're looking to decompress and that's part of their ritual. Is there a quick tip that they could do in, you know, a handful of seconds that could help to reduce that craving or that pressure? And, you know, sometimes it's just hard to stop one thing without replacing it with something else. Right. You know, you might stop binge watching Netflix and then start, you know, reading, right? It's, it's, it's helpful in behavioral, uh, change to be able to do something brand new. But is there something quick that people could do when they're in a situation where they have that craving or they have that pressure to be able to, to, um, to manage themselves?

Yes. It's not just about removing alcohol. It's also replacing the alcohol with something else. So if you're in your home, for example, I would stock the fridge with beautiful, tasty alcohol-free alternatives. And it can be as simple as Pellegrino with a piece of lime. You can create the ritual of cutting a piece of lime and squeezing it into some Perrier or Pellegrino. You can stir it around. Just last night I had some beautiful flavored soda water, which was delicious. You can create a ritual in your home that used to be the ritual of Popping open a bottle of wine and pouring it and hearing the wine kind of like go into the glass by actually keeping your glasses in the fridge and having Perrier Pellegrino flavored soda waters in your fridge and a lime bowl. And then you just create this ritual, the same thing of like cracking open the Perrier bottle, pouring it into an ice cold glass, stirring around. the lime that you're squeezing in there. So that is one way of doing it, is being prepared. The other way is that when someone offers you a drink and in that moment you're feeling a craving and you'd like to say, yes, I'd really like to have that drink, what matters in that moment is not so much what you say to decline that drink. What matters more is how you say it. There's a lot of studies that show that influencing and persuading people and ourselves is only 7% words But 93% how we say those words. So if in this scenario, scenario A, someone says, hey, would you like a drink? And you're like, oh, I shouldn't. Oh, I know. Oh, geez, I really want to, but I'm trying to stop and trying to cut back. Then again, you're reinforcing this notion that stopping drinking or not drinking is hard and painful and drinking equals fun and pleasure.

Hmm.

Whereas in alternative B, option B, if you said, oh, actually, Thanks so much, but I'll take some soda. We got some soda water. I've actually been alcohol-free now for a few weeks. I'm doing an experiment. Feels pretty good, but I'll get drunk on some of your soda water if you got some.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Have a little joke. Now that 93% body language, which is lightheartedness, playfulness, fun—you're feeling good about the fact that you're alcohol-free. Even in if in that moment you have a craving, then it becomes much easier to remain alcohol-free. Love it. Choose it, and those instances where there is a craving starts to subside.

And so you talked about things to be able to manage your mind, including your self-talk, and not just what you say, but how you say it and the power behind that. What about managing our body? You mentioned in Clear when I was reading it some potential nutritional strategies to be able to also support reducing that That craving? I think you, you mentioned some amino acids. Are there certain things, a protocol that people could do to better support themselves?

Yes, absolutely. So I'll give you some foods and then I'll give you some supplements which can, uh, well, a lot of studies have shown can reduce cravings for any substance, whether it be alcohol or drugs or even things like shopping and love and porn and all those kind of things. So the foods are really to eat a very protein-rich diet. So that can be lean meats, that can be wild-caught fish and salmon, some omega-3s from the fish are particularly good. They're great for brain health, as you would know. So really being focused on healthy fats as well, for some raw almonds, some raw nuts, some avocado, olive oil, all the things that I know that you've been a big proponent of over the years in your work, Jim. Those kind of things should be really the baseline. And there is a lot of evidence to suggest that eating that type of diet with good fats and good proteins can reduce cravings for any substance. Now, I mentioned supplements. In addition, supplements for neurotransmitter support because any craving really is a misfiring of the neurotransmitters in our brain. And so, things like tyrosine which supports the neurotransmitters, which enhances focus, enhances our dopamine, our natural dopamine production, not dopamine from drinking alcohol but natural dopamine. GABA absolutely is beneficial for reducing stress. DPA and DLPA helps retain natural endorphins, which promotes feelings of joy and pain relief. Of course, when we drink alcohol, we temporarily boost our endorphins, but what I'm recommending here is natural endorphins that are released, and we can do that with, as I said, DPA and DLPA. Glutamine is also a great supplement which can provide a selfie. I'm sorry, provides a supply of glucose in the brain and supports neurotransmitter function. And then tryptophan, which we get a lot of anyway on Thanksgiving because we eat turkey and there's a lot of tryptophan in turkey. But tryptophan really aids in serotonin production, which helps relieve feelings of depression and pessimistic thinking, irritability. But really, we must eat, in my view, based on my research, animal protein. Because that has been shown, at least from a reducing cravings point of view and brain functionality, that's the research that I've read seems to suggest that that's probably an optimal way of nutrition.

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Well, we'll put a lot of the— because I'm sure a lot of people listening that might be driving or working out, we'll put a list of those supplements in the show notes as well as a link to your book Clear, which goes way, way more in depth at jimkwik.com/notes. Make sure you go there also as well. So if I'm doing this mental experiment now. I'm thinking if you could design, James, like someone listening, like a 7-day clear challenge to help someone experience the benefits of removing alcohol. We don't have to go into detail, right? Because people should get a copy of your book and use that as their manual. But what are some of that, the high level, some of those— Those 7 days include mentally, we already talked about nutrition, socially, emotionally. Well, what are some of the, the core elements there?

Well, I would definitely get around a like-minded community. So in other words, rather than doing it by yourself, get some friends together and say, let's do this together. In fact, I interviewed one of the world's leading addiction experts. His name's Professor David Belland from University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and he came on to one of our Stop Drinking client calls, and one of our clients asked him, you know, what are the 2 best supplements that someone can take to overcome an alcohol use disorder or to reduce drinking or reduce cravings? And he said 2 things: exercise and human connection. So as I just referenced there about the importance of doing it with other people, that human connection creates accountability, it creates camaraderie. And I don't mean doing it with your wife or husband who's cheering you on saying, you can do it this time, or even just one friend. I'm talking about a group of like-minded people who are really committed to loving living an alcohol-free lifestyle. Not doing Dry January or Sober October with the intention of forcing yourself to stay quit for 30 days and then you go and celebrate on day 30 with a drink, but rather you're committed to experimenting Which is also reinforcing that that is a reward. Yeah, that's right.

Alcohol, you put it on a pedestal, something to be achieved and attained or as a reward for, in which you reinforce it even more, right?

Yeah, which is why I'm skeptical of the success rate of these 30-day challenges because what happens is that people go into it and they're doing it with deprivation. They're doing it as like something that's tough, and they're just— they're feeling like a prisoner. And that's why they get to day 30, and, you know, all prisoners want to break free of prison, and so they drink. And then they return to the same level of drinking that inspired them to reduce or cut back in the first place. So to answer your question, first thing is get in a like-minded community of people and, um, look at this as a lifestyle, a style of life. It's not being sober. It's not, this is going to be tough. This is, yes, we get to do this. Let's do it. Let's experiment. Let's see feel how this feels. So that's the first thing. Um, the other thing is definitely make sure that you're moving, exercise, because that will release natural levels of dopamine and serotonin, and that will feel good. And when you're feeling good and feeling better and feeling exercised, the cravings for any substance, including alcohol, subside. I would stack your fridge with lots of beautiful flavored soda waters. There's a company, I think it's called I'm not sure what it's called. I'm gonna butcher it, Jim, so I won't even say it. But anyway, there's some really natural zero-calorie drinks out there, 5-calorie drinks out there that are flavored soda waters. Drink those, have it in the fridge.

Um, what about kava?

Kava's fine. It's just— there's absolutely minimal of, you know, I can't really speak to that with great authority, but what I would say is why are we trying to reach for any type of, let's say, questionable substance, even if, you know, there's, there's no debate on that? Rather, let's just love living an alcohol-free lifestyle and just, just choose to live that way. A lot of people say, oh, well, can I, um, can I drink, um, uh, lots of kombucha? I'm like, it's fine, it's minimal amounts, right? Um, But just, you know, let's go into this with fun and being open-minded to this being a fun and preferable lifestyle. But the most important thing there, I think, is like-minded community, preparedness, which is, you know, making sure that your home is set up to win. James Clear, who wrote the book Atomic Habits, is always saying, like, if you've got a wine cellar at home, remove the wine cellar. If you've got wine glasses and posters glorifying alcohol, remove those and instead replace the items in your home with really healthy things like a bouquet of flowers, anything that demonstrates health and vitality. And I think if you do that and you're open-minded to it being fun, I think you're going to experience it a lot better than maybe doing like a 30-day challenge where it feels like pain and suffering.

Yeah. Who we spend time with, as the saying goes, is who we become. If we spend time with entrepreneurs, we're going to be more entrepreneurial. If we Spend time with people who are exercising all the time. We're going to just be doing that and being more fit. What if— I know somebody's listening to this right now and they're thinking about how do they support a loved one in getting more, more clear, right? Do you have any recommendations on that? Maybe they have a friend or a family member or coworker that they see that could benefit Um, for mitigating or managing their alcohol consumption. What's your recommendation for approaching that?

Yeah, and it's a delicate situation, isn't it? Because we don't want to be, um, getting on a stool and pontificating and saying, you should quit drinking, or you need to quit. And my experience has been that when you start telling people what to do or what they should do, they just respond with combativeness and hostility and defensiveness. So certainly just being caring and empathetic, I would submit, um, inviting your loved one to go out and do morning activities like, you want to go for a hike? Should we go for a walk together? Um, definitely, um, saying, look, I understand that you're having some challenges with this, if indeed they've been— if indeed they have, um, you know, verbalized that they have. And then just not judging them, not telling them what they need to do or trying to fix them, but rather just inviting them to participate in alcohol-free activities, including morning hikes and going for Mm-hmm. And then also sharing vulnerably about your own situation. You know, it's like, you know what? I've been really noticing that since I've been focused on good food and moving, I've lost like 20 pounds. I feel actually really energetic. Actually, my sleep's actually got a lot better. You know what? I'm thinking about doing this like 30-day sleeping like a professional sleeper kind of thing. I'm wondering, would you be interested in joining me? In that, like, see how that's a much easier, nicer way in to try to get people to start exploring what could be possible in terms of improving their health versus your drinking's out of control, you need to stop, you have to stop doing this. It's more first empathetic.

Judgment and people feel, you know, uh, more, more criticized and judged. I— that, that makes sense. That definitely makes sense to me. Um, What about— I mean, I think number one, right, you want to be an example of what it looks like on, you know, living that lifestyle, right? The life we live are the lessons we teach. So no matter what we say, it's hard enough to change ourselves, much less change somebody else. But if we could be a shining example— I'm curious because I always, in my mind, even with work and the coaching I do, I always think about what could go wrong. Right? So I can anticipate that. Let's say somebody's on a streak of a matter of days or weeks, and they, they, they falter, right? And they have a drink. And whatever scenario creates that, maybe they're highly stressed, or some peer pressure, whatever it is. What's the mindset you have or the attitude assumptions you want that person to have the next You know what I mean? Like, so they've been doing well for, let's say, X amount of time, and then something happened and they have a drink. Is it the end of the world, or how should they be looking at what happened? And should they judge themselves and be hard on themselves? And, you know, moving forward, what's the attitude they should adopt?

Yeah, be kind and empathetic to yourself. It's okay. The master of any modality expects there to be a plateau. If we look at a tennis match, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal, they go into every tennis match knowing that they're going to lose points and lose games. They serve the ball wide into the net. When Roger Federer serves a fault, he doesn't smash his record— his racket and start going, oh my God, I'm terrible, I'm hopeless. Like, he knows that because he's the master, he expects that there's going to be slip-ups. He's not going to perform the way that he ideally would do it all of the time. So in this scenario, the same thing. Of course, you want to have the vision and the intention to remain alcohol-free for as long as you can until it really embeds as a fun and preferable lifestyle. But if you do drink on occasion, even though you kind of had the intention not to, just look at it as, okay, I'm a master of this. I expected there to be a plateau. I expected that there could have been A little what I'm deeming right now a slip-up, but that's okay. I'm now going to just like come back to it and go, okay, what am I committed to? I'm committed to being the best role model for my kids. I'm committed to being super healthy, to sleeping well. I acknowledge that that happened. Now I'm just going to go again. And it's just like you can go up, but instead of going backwards and down, you maybe just go across a little bit for a day or two, and then you go again, and then you go across a little bit. It's kind of like look at compound interest in the stock market, for example, Jim, and you invest in something, S&P 500, whatever it is, it's never a straight curve or a straight line up. Um, it's more like up and down a little bit and up and across, and it just kind of stays the same, but over many weeks, months, years, and decades, there almost always is this, this trend up. So I think if you just go into it Knowing that the master expects the plateau, then you can stay on that alcohol-free lifestyle path.

I like, I like that mindset shift for a lot of people because I really think so much of this is, uh, you know, 80% of it comes down to our psychology often when we want to be able to make a change. I just want to remind everybody, to make a positive change, there's only 4 decisions you make. You either stop something, you start something, you do less of something, or you do more of something. Right. People could stop drinking, right? They could start meditating. They could do less binge watching. They could do more movement, right? It's those simple little things, as you mentioned, the consistency, it compounds, you know, just like the interest of investments. And how can people— because I could, I could talk to you for hours on this, but people are going to want to go deeper with you. How can people stay connected with you? How do people get your book, your other work? Where, what's the best place for people who feel inspired to, to make a big shift or are a resource for their loved ones?

If you'd like to go deeper with the book, the book is called Clear. It's a neuroscience-based approach to help people to quit drinking. Thank you, Jim. Yeah, you're showing it up on the video now. It's available on Amazon. I also did an 8-hour recording reading the book, so it's narrator, uh, narrator-led. You can put me on double speed and just do it in 4 hours if you like, but it's available on Amazon. And wherever books are sold online. You can also go to alcoholfreelifestyle.com where you can get the book there. We can learn about some of our methodologies for helping people to finally break free from alcohol. I have a podcast called The Alcohol-Free Lifestyle Podcast. And then finally, I'm most active on social media, which is just my name, @jamesswannick, where I put out a lot of free resources to help people rewire their mindset around alcohol.

Outstanding. Well, we'll link to all that in the show notes again, to your book, to your social media, to your website, jimkwik.com/notes. Before we wrap, this podcast, over 400 episodes, is really about learning, right? And I like asking this question of guests, you know, what, what is one thing you're currently learning about or studying outside of this subject? that has you, uh, has you excited?

I'm learning how to be the best husband for my wife who's expecting a baby. We're going to have a baby girl in December of this year. And so what I'm going deep on and learning at the moment is how I can be the best partner for my pregnant wife who's experiencing a lot of health challenges, morning sickness, Let me be clear, it's not morning sickness, it's 24-hour-a-day, 7-day sickness. And, um, so it's being with her emotions and trying to be a support. And my work really is— I'm someone who always tries to fix things, but I can't really fix this. All I can do is just be there and be with her. And so that's really what I'm going deep in at the moment, like, how can I be a support without actually Feeling able to fix things.

I love it. I absolutely love it. Congratulations.

Thank you.

Um, all right everybody, if you're watching this on YouTube, uh, you then you heard the and watched the extended version of this conversation. Highly recommend you join our 1.8 million subscribers there, uh, where we put the extended version, um, as well as, uh, Q&As and lives and me on stage. I really hope this conversation sparks something for you. Remember, it's not about judging your lifestyle or your past decisions. For me, it's about becoming curious and conscious of how each choice affects what I think is one of your most valuable assets, which is your brain. And so make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel where we put extended interviews. Follow us both on socials. If you want to be bold, you can take a screenshot wherever you're consuming this, tag James, tag myself, and share one thing that you got out of this. Or if you're watching this online, you can put a comment down below, share your biggest ahas or a commitment so we could hold you accountable to that. I speed read every single one of them. So I enjoyed this conversation. Until next time, this is your brain coach, Jim Kwik, reminding you to stay limitless.