The Key to Unlocking your Limitless Potential

So imagine 18 years old, very insecure, very sick in a hospital bed. I find that sometimes those places where you're at your lows, you're open and more receptive to new ideas, new thoughts, potentially even new actions because you have nowhere to go.

I feel like you exhausted just everything you knew, right?

Yeah. And I couldn't work any harder, right? And it's not just the tech and the methods. My motivation was fine. I was very driven, but I didn't know what to do because I always thought, you know, school would prepare you for that world, and it does in some ways. But, you know, the world has changed so much. You know, we live in an age of autonomous electric cars, spaceships are headed to Mars, but our vehicle of choice when it comes to education and learning is often like more like a horse and buggy.

Absolutely.

You know, and it feels like it's slow, you know. And so if anyone's listening to this and they get distracted or they're forgetful or they feel overload, I'm here to say that there's not only hope, there's real help.

When I think about my journey with the traditional school system, it's been a very informal journey. I did what I needed to do to get by. I always felt like I was smart, but I couldn't quite unlock that motivation or will to excel. And I think when I think back to my years at school, the one thing that keeps on coming up for me was the teachers always telling me or my mother, she has so much potential. And that saying of like, she has so much potential, was like dangling in front of me at all times, and I just couldn't catch it.

Right.

And it's to your point where no one teaches you how to grab that potential, right? So just acknowledging that you're smart and you have capabilities and you're able, I feel like it even creates a bit of a worse relationship with your own brain because you get frustrated, you get angry at why is this not working when it's supposed to. I think that there's probably a lot of moments in our lives, if it's throughout the school years or later on in general, when we're presented with these opportunities to learn, a lot of the times we still carry that, you know, dangling potential that you're just like, oh my God, it's so close, but yet it's so far.

Yeah, I feel that. And how do you reconcile that? you know, inside of yourself when people tell you that you're worthy or that you can do it and you're trying things. It's not like you're lazy.

Mm-hmm.

But you're not able to get the results, you know? And for me, I felt like it was almost unfair to— when I was working and pulling all these all-nighters and other people were partying and doing all these things and they were doing better than myself. And that really, you know, you don't have any evidence to the contrary that you're not, you know, that you are smart or that you do have this potential because the world is showing you different. And so, you know, anybody who's going through this, I really do believe with challenge comes a level of change, that our struggles can lead to strength, you know, and that adversity can be an advantage. I mean, for me, my 2 biggest challenges growing up were learning for sure. But because I was such a poor learner, public speaking was, was my second biggest challenge because I never knew the answer. You know, my, my superpower— and I talk a lot about superpowers because I'm inspired by comic books because I couldn't read and I taught myself how to read by reading comic books. And but my superpowers are shrinking down. Like, even my physiology was like, I was always like trying to take up less space because I didn't want the spotlight. I didn't want to be called on in class. I would always sit behind the tall kid in class so I just wouldn't be noticed. You know, it created a lot of angst and sickness even, you know, going to the nurse. Just, I would have so much anxiety taking a test or, you know, being called on, those kind of things. So it's, it's, it's tough. And, and, but I also know I have this observation doing this for over 30 years now as a brain coach, helping people at different levels and ages and stages that I've never met one strong person that had an easy life. Like, I really haven't.

Absolutely. I was listening to this podcast episode where, with Lex Fridman, I think, and they were talking about how the most remarkable people have the most difficulty in life, comes with the most demons in a way, because that really pushes you to create a new world for yourself.

Yeah.

And, you know, when people say, like, even for me, thinking about expanding my mind and knowledge is usually framed in increasing your IQ. It's very much focused on that. But I feel like it's not the focus of your teaching.

Yeah.

You have so many layers to The limitless approach. And in your book, you said becoming limitless is not just about accelerated learning, speed reading, and having an incredible memory. It's about progressing beyond what you currently believe is possible.

So the word limitless, which is, you know, Limitless Expanded is the title of the new book. Limitless is not about being perfect. It is exactly what you describe. It's about advancing. It's about growing. It's about progressing beyond what you are currently demonstrating or what you currently believe is possible. And I realized that while IQ is important, so are other areas. You're right, in the United States, even if you look at standardized tests like SATs, which are very, uh, you know, people take to be able to get into university, it has 2 parts, only 2 parts. It has verbal linguistic and mathematical. So basically, if you're not strong in those 2 areas, then you know, it's— it could hamper your achievement.

Mm-hmm.

And there's an idea with IQ that your IQ is fixed, meaning like it's like your shoe size, it can't grow. And that's absolutely not true. Like, we've discovered more about the human brain in the past 20 years than the previous 2,000 years. And what we found is we're grossly underestimating our own capabilities, that, you know, your genius, your knowledge, your skills, abilities could all be upgraded. It's just we don't have the lessons. It's like going to your children or going to somebody and say, focus or study. That's like going to somebody and say, play the ukulele, who's never seen it, who's never got a class on how to do that. When we're— there's no class called focus and concentration in school. There was no class called problem solving or decision making or critical thinking or speed reading or Or even memory wasn't taught. And the reason I like memory is because in order to make good decisions, you have to make, you know, you— it's based on the knowledge that you recall. In the US, they teach you 3 Rs: reading, writing, arithmetic. Obviously spelling is not one of them because that doesn't even start with, start with an R.

Mm-hmm.

But what about recall? You know, Socrates said— here's another quote— Socrates said, learning is remembering. What if you could easily remember names and faces? You know, how would that serve you? What if you could easily give a speech without notes, right? And how much confidence would you have at your work or in school? What if you could remember client information or product information? And so many people, they shrink what's possible to fit their minds as opposed to expanding their minds to fit all that's, that's really possible. And that's more the spirit of, you know, what it means to be limitless for me. So there's so many ways of getting there, Right, to get to this same place, so many different roads to be able to take. But the first thing you need to know in order to make any kind of change, you have to, you have to have self-awareness.

Yeah.

You need to know like what you currently believe, what you currently value, and, and also self-awareness in terms of how you operate. You know, we, we created this assessment for people to understand their brain type, and that's a form of self-awareness. But that's why people go to therapy or they meditate or they journal, just so they get know themselves a little bit better.

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Yeah, I think there's this part in The Matrix where Neo goes to see the Oracle in the kitchen, and the sign above in the kitchen was like, know thyself. And that's— it's very telling. I think a lot of life is having the curiosity to know yourself, and then the other part of life is having the courage, you know, to be yourself. You know, once you get to know who you are, what you value, what you believe, your identity, And then being that person, because so many people kind of get a glimpse of their potential or their strengths or their, you know, like their superpowers, if you will. But also it takes courage to act on it too.

Absolutely.

In a world full of, you know, comparison, in a world full of other people's expectations and what are people going to think, their opinions of me if I do this new thing. You know, I really think sometimes we downgrade our dreams to meet the current situation. When I think, and on the other side, instead of downgrading your dreams and your goals to meet the current situation, what if you upgraded your mindset, your motivation, the methods you're using to be able to meet your destiny?