Tools to Unlock Your Brain’s Full Potential | Jim Kwik & Dr. Scott Lyons

Jim, welcome to The Gently Used Human. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited for this conversation.

Likewise, Scott, thanks for having me. Thank you to everybody who's tuning in.

Yeah, we're so excited because I think you have done things that I don't really know that many people have done. You have helped increase people's concentration and focus and potential to perform like no one else. And you have these skill sets and ability to break down such complicated things into accessible, achievable tools that I'm just like, give me all of your brain right now.

Yeah, we could turn this into a masterclass on all those subjects.

Yeah, let's do it. Because I know everyone wants these tools of like, how do I get through my mental blocks? How do I increase my focus? How do I increase my productivity and concentration? And just like, maybe let's start with what's getting in our way as humans. Like, What are the main things, the culprits, so to speak?

Oh, goodness. In my book Limitless, I talk about 4 that are driven by technology. People feel forgetful if they feel that they don't have that peace and they're burning out or they're losing their focus, they're easily distracted, they're overloaded. One of them is digital distraction. I mean, how do you maintain your focus in a world full of rings and pings and dings and app notifications, social media alerts? Every like, share, comment, you get this kind of dopamine hit. You know, focus, I found, is more like a muscle. It's use it or lose it. But if the first thing we do in the morning is pick up our devices, we're in that relaxed state of awareness and feel like we're wiring our brain for distraction. Yeah, your brain's very suggestible first thing in the morning because you are so relaxed, probably the most relaxed time you'll be in the day. So I think it's the choices. You know, there's digital distraction. That's why we teach people focus. We have programs on focus. We do podcasts on focus. We wrote a Whole chapter on limitless unfocus. Second one, digital dementia, which is a term in healthcare, which is the high reliance on technology to remember things for us. So, you know, our devices also remember our— keeps track of our to-dos. It keeps track of our schedules, keeps track of phone numbers. I mean, I'm in my 50s. I don't know about you, but I mean, how many phone numbers, Scott, did you know growing up?

All of them.

Yeah, we remembered all of them because we had to. And so we exercised that muscle. But how many current phone numbers do you, do you recall?

I actually added it up the other day and it's 5.

Yeah. So most of us, you know, most people could count on one hand how many they remember. And not that I want to memorize 500 or 1,000 phone numbers, but it should be very concerning. We've lost the ability to remember one phone number or PIN number or passcode or something we just read or something we just heard or something we're going to say or someone's name. You know, I believe something sometimes 2 of the most costly words in our life are, I forgot. I mean, think about the consequences of saying, I forgot to do it. I forgot to go to that appointment. I forgot where I put it. I forgot what I just read. I forgot that person's name. You know, we lose time. We could hurt a relationship, you know, trust, and show we don't care. And on the other side, memory could magnify you.

Yeah.

I mean, just take your career. If you could easily remember client information or product information, give speeches without notes, you know, have facts and figures at your mental fingertips, you have such an advantage. You really have a mental edge. So, um, that, that's one of 'em. And then the last 2, I, I call 'em the 4 Horsemen of the Mental Apocalypse. So it's, uh, digital, digital distraction, digital dementia. Yeah. Another one, digital deluge, which is the overwhelm. I mean, how many people listening or watching, they buy books and they sit on your shelf unread and it becomes shelf help, not, not self-help, right? Where we're drowning in information. You think about all the emails and reports and the news and everything we need to keep up with.

Yeah.

Again, taking a sip of water out of a fire hose, we feel like we're drowning. So that's digital deluge. And there's a health effect.

Yeah.

They call it information anxiety, higher blood pressure, a compression of leisure time, more sleeplessness, cuz your mind's always kind of ruminating. So that's why we teach people how to learn faster, teach 'em how to read faster and understand better. And then finally, the last one is, uh, digital, a term I coined digital deduction. Mm-hmm. Where, uh, your devices and technology's not only remembering things for you, Unless you're not flexing that muscle. But also it's thinking for us. I mean, with all the algorithms, I mean, take something simple. Like for us years ago to get from here to there, we would have to exercise our visual spatial intelligence.

Yeah.

You'd have to build those muscles. But now you have an app that tells you when to turn and where to turn. Yeah, I, I just feel like I love technology. It's just, I never wanted to use, use it, over-rely on it, cuz then it'll, I feel like it cripples us. Like an elevator is a form of technology and if your office or your apartment's on the 5th floor, it's very convenient, that technology, taking that elevator. But then, you know, if we would've done the stairs, we would be more physically fit, right?

Yeah.

If you have to go to the bank and it's 8 blocks away and we drive or take, you know, some kind of rideshare, then we're not getting our steps in. And so I feel like technology is amazing. It makes our life very convenient. And I also feel like the ultimate technology is found between our ears, right?

Yeah.

That 3-pound matter that doesn't come with an owner's manual and it's not user-friendly. And so I just wanna help people build better, brighter brains so their life could be easier, more at peace, more productive. They could catch up, keep up, and get ahead.

Yeah, I love your mission. And there's a little bit of tension I find in the sense that we're like, and I imagine some people might get a little defensive as they're hearing your horsemen because they might go, well, the convenience frees up more space for me to do other things and be more productive. But I really hear you. Like, the— that may be true that there might be more space in some ways. I mean, the research shows, as, as you've shown in your book also, like, that ability to get to— that we're getting distracted and bouncing back, like, becomes more of a lag time. And so we're actually not more productive. The convenience isn't actually producing the strength we need to be more productive is what I hear you saying. Yeah.

I agree. I feel like sometimes we're just— we have maybe flabby mental muscles because we're not utilizing— your brain is an organ, but it acts more like a muscle. But if you put your arm in a cast for a year, it wouldn't grow stronger. It would atrophy. It would stay the same, right? It would atrophy. And I feel a lot of that happens with our mental muscles. It happens with our focus. It happens with our memory. It happens with our decision-making also as well. And the good news is, no matter your age or stage in life, You could apply novelty and some good nutrition to build those muscles back. And that's how neuroplasticity works, right? It's just like if you want to build your physical muscle, you go to the gym or you lift weights, you give it novelty, some kind of stimulus, and then you feed it the proper nutrition. Same thing with your— with neuroplasticity.

Yeah.

You have to be able to stimulate your brain. This phenomenon where your brain will adapt and grow stronger based on new stimulus, novelty, and nutrition is really the the name of the game. And then when you're doing that, life just gets so much easier. Right. And, and in pictures on social media, I'm always, you know, usually wearing a brain shirt or I'm pointing to my brain just to remind everyone listening that what you see, you take care of. You see your clothes or you see your hair, you see your car, skin, you take care, better care of it because it's in your awareness.

Yeah.

But we don't always pay attention or aware of the thing that really controls everything, you know, which, which, which is our brain. So I just, I want people to know their brain, to understand their brain, to, to trust their brain, to love their brain, and of course use their brain.

I love that. And you're so right. It's like the things that we are able to see in a mirror or in other people are the things that are often going to get the most attention unless there's some type of pain that we're experiencing that draws our attention. And it's so important. I love that, that you're just pointing to the brain, reminding people, see this because it is so significant for everything.

Especially, especially now, because it's not like it was thousands of years ago where our value in society was more brute strength. Today it's our brain strength, right? It's our ability to solve problems, our ability to think clearly, to make good decisions, to innovate. That's how we add value in the world. So it's not as much our muscle power, but it is definitely our mind power. And I believe the faster you learn, the faster you can earn because knowledge today is not only power, knowledge is profit. Yeah.

Right?

It's not just a gap between those who have and those who don't have. There's also a gap between those who know information and those who don't know. And those who know information, they can make better decisions. It informs their choices. There's a quote in my book Limitless from a French philosopher that says, life is the letter C between the letter B and D. This is worth writing down. I have it on my wall. Life is C between B and D, where B stands for birth and D stands for death. Life, C, choice.

Hmm.

That our lives, as you know, is the sum total of all the choices we've made up to this point, good, bad, or indifferent, right? And where are we going to live? What are we going to focus on? What are we going to be? What do we eat on a regular basis? How do we move? Who do we spend time with? What are we going to study? What are we going to do as a career? Right. And I believe these difficult times, they could distract you. These difficult times, they could also diminish you. But these difficult times can also— they could develop you.

Mm-hmm.

We decide with the choices that we make on a moment-to-moment basis. I feel like sometimes the other thing that could keep us from— that holds us back besides those digital supervillains is just the idea that somebody is going to save us. And I really do believe that the only person coming to save you is the version of you that you've been avoiding.

Hmm.

That the only person that's really going to come to save you is the version of yourself that you've been avoiding. And I feel like the treasures we seek in life are often found in the work we're avoiding. The treasures we seek are found or hidden in the work that we're just putting off or that we're not willing to put attention to. You know, the nature of my work, while we teach people how to read faster, improve their memory, their focus, learn any subject or skill faster, I think it's the number one You know, skill to master because if you can learn rapidly, you could apply that towards anything— money, medicine, manifestation, martial arts, music, Mandarin. Everything gets easier when you could focus and think and read and understand and remember and, you know, be able to do that. Yeah, I feel like it's the master skill, learning how to learn. And unfortunately, it wasn't taught in school.

Yeah.

And it was very frustrating for me because, You know, I had a childhood brain injury when I was 5. I had learning difficulties, poor focus, memory. I would have migraines every single day in school. Took me 3 years longer just to learn how to read. And that, that, that, you know, you create at that impressionable age a lot of self-doubt, a lot of self-esteem issues, a lot of self-confidence issues. You know, I know you had your path also, people telling you that you wouldn't graduate school and that you had these challenges and those labels become limits. Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, you're not born with those beliefs. When I was 9 years old, I was slowing down the class and I was being teased really harshly by the other kids because the teacher would have to repeat herself in different ways for me to understand the lessons. And I would pretend to understand, but I didn't really understand. But then one day I was being teased because I was slowing the class down and my last name is Kwik, right? So I was extra teased. And that's really my name. I didn't You know, change it to do with my work, speed reading, you know, speed learning. My father's name, it's my grandfather's name, but I was being teased really harshly. And a teacher came to my defense when I was 9, and from the whole class, she pointed to me and said, leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain. And I was like, whoa. I did— it's like— and I know she had good intentions.

Yeah.

She was very sincere, but people could be sincere but also be sincerely Wrong, if that makes sense. So every single time I did badly in school, which was every day, every time I wasn't picked for sports, always the last one, I would say, oh, because I have the broken brain.

Yeah.

And adults have to be very careful of their external words because they often become a child's internal words. And so, you know, I believe your brain is this incredible supercomputer. Your self-talk, your belief system are the programs that will run. So if you say to yourself or you believe that I'm not good at remembering people's names. And, you know, very useful skill in business and life. Then you won't remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to. I feel like, Scott, if people truly understood how powerful their mind is, they wouldn't think or say something they didn't want to be true. And that's not to say you have a negative thought, it ruins your life any more than eating a cupcake will ruin your life. But if you eat that cupcake, 30 times a day, every single day, I think everyone would say that there would be a consequence. Same thing with a lot of our negative thoughts.

Yeah. Thank you for kind of naming that we share that history together because it's both inspiring but also really sad. I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm curious, like, is there any residue for you still of those Those words or those years?

Yeah. I mean, I think— I mean, I've done a lot of personal work, like, you know, much of your audience and you have. And I also feel like, yeah, if I'm honest, probably I'm still a little bit shy on stage. You think about like when you can't— I couldn't read for 3 years like the other kids or, you know, had these challenges. So I would never want to be called on in school. And so how did it manifest? I would sit all the way in the back. I would, you know, plop myself behind the tall kid in class. I would— I remember one time I was failing high school freshman English. And so my parents immigrated to the US and we didn't have any resources. And that's a common theme with immigrant families. We lived in the back of a laundromat that my mother worked at, you know. And so we didn't have the education or the financial resources or the network or whatever. But I really think, you know, it's not so much the external resources, but more the internal resource. fullness that we have. I know you had our mutual friend Marie Forleo on and just having this belief that everything is figureoutable, right?

Yeah.

And so, I wanted to make my parents proud. So, I continued to just go through and work hard. But unfortunately, I would work 3 times harder as everyone else and still barely pass. And I was failing freshman English and they called my parents in and they had to take off of work and it was very embarrassing and basically said, your son is going to fail our class and I'm going to give him— and I begged for an opportunity and she agreed to give me extra credit. And if I just did a book report and then she picked a topic, it was around Albert Einstein and I did it and I worked on it for weeks. I've never worked on anything harder. Every day I would go to the library because, you know, again, You know, this was a long time ago, no internet or anything like that. And, and I worked on it for weeks and weeks and weeks. And when I was done, the day I had to hand it in, my dad surprised me, had it professionally bound. And it just was like amazing, like this little treasure. And I couldn't wait to hand it in. And it was like a symbol of like, I could do it, right?

Yeah.

The class happens and towards the end of class, I can't wait to hand it in. And the teacher says, Class, we have a surprise. Jim, come to the front of the room and present your book report. And Scott, I freaked out because I've never spoken in class. You know, most, most of the students wouldn't even know that I was in the class. And, you know, because when you don't want to take up space, you know, I was always hunched over. I wanted to be invisible. That was my superpower.

Yeah.

My heart's beating out of my chest. I know public speaking is a people get nervous around it, but I was phobic. I couldn't breathe. I was perspiring. And I just was able to stutter out to the teacher. I said, I didn't do it. And I lied. And I have a lot of shame around that. And but you could see the disappointment in her face. And when the class ended and everyone— I was the only one there in the classroom, that empty classroom. I remember getting up from my desk, going towards the door to exit, and I reached into my book bag and I pull out this, you know, this professionally bound book report and I threw it in the trash by the door. And I maybe symbolically, I felt like I was throwing out my potential or my dreams or my hope or whatever. But that's how bad it was, you know, when it comes to public speaking. So is there some residual? Yeah. When I go, I'm on stage, I could be on 3 continents in 1 week as a keynote speaker in front of a good 250,000, 300,000 people. total every single year. But my 2 biggest challenges are learning— growing up or learning and public speaking. And life has a sense of humor because what do I do? I just public speak on this thing called learning almost every single day on our podcast and our courses and our lives and our writing and interviews like this. And I just want to remind everyone who's going through hard times that with challenge comes change.

Yeah.

With struggles, you get Strength. I don't know, Scott, maybe you do, but I don't. I don't know one strong person that had an easy life.

Yeah.

And, you know, I just feel like I'm on purpose. This is what I've been doing for 33 straight years. I never took a break. This is my mission as the boy with the broken brain, is to build better, brighter brains. No brain left behind is like the mission.

That's so tender, Jim. And it's like—

It's weird even talking about it because I don't really like talk about myself. But I even get— when I was talking about my nervousness, my mouth was getting even like dry and everything. So I think there's some residual that I haven't processed. But I, you know, I did a whole thing around tapping, EFT and EMDR and, you know, various modalities to help me mitigate that. But I'm also very introverted. You know, growing up, I was incredibly shy, which is more of a worthiness issue. But I was also very introverted. You know, I had lunch once with Susan Cain, who wrote the book on introversion, which is called Quiet, and Simon Sinek. And I remember Susan explained— we've had them both on the pod, on our podcast— but explained the difference between extrovert and introvert. An introvert, not so much about You know, your, your level of comfortability around people, but it's more an energy thing that she described it very simply as an introvert wakes up with 5 gold coins, energy coins, but every time they engage with somebody, they give up one of their coins. And when they're out of coins, they have to go regenerate and recover by themselves.

And—

Mm-hmm. Where an extrovert wakes up with no gold coins. And they can't wait to engage with people because they get energy, they get coins from, from them. Yeah. For, for me, I don't know. I'm curious. People could take a screenshot of this and post it, tag both of us and let us know if you're more of an introvert or an extrovert or maybe an ambivert, a little bit of a combo. You like being around people, but you have to recharge by yourself. And but yeah, that was— that made public speaking more difficult. In fact, like when Limitless came out in 2020, you know, it sold over a million copies and we're very proud. We donated all the proceeds to charity. to build schools. We built schools in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, in villages they didn't have schools. And also, we also funded research for Alzheimer's for women. Women are twice as likely to experience Alzheimer's than men, yet most of the research and treatment is done on males. And in memory of my grandmother. So I was going through my challenges when I was 5 all the way to 18. When I was 7, my grandmother passed of Alzheimer's. And it was hard, you know, going through my issues with my brain injury and then And she would call me by my father's name or she would repeat something she just said 30 seconds ago. It's very confusing for a 5, 6-year-old. And so because of those challenges, you know, I wanted to take my mess and turn it into my message that regardless of your age, your background, your career, your diet, your education level, financial situation, gender history, IQ, whatever, we could all get better. It's just the challenge that in school they teach you what to learn. Math, history, science, Spanish. And how to learn that. Yeah. Then there's zero classes on how to learn. Yeah. Right. And like, there's no class on how to focus and concentrate. You know, there's no class on memory. Right. And that would have been very useful. I always said it should have been the 4th R in school. Right. They talk about 3 Rs: reading, writing, arithmetic. Obviously spelling is not one of them because that's not how you spell. But also, what about retention? What about recall? You know, Socrates said learning is remembering. And even in a world— and I train at Facebook, Nike, Google, SpaceX, you know, you name it— you can only— if we have access to all the information, people say, why do you have to remember? I was talking, doing a program for Google, mental fitness training. And, you know, then they came— we all came to the same conclusion. Yes, it's great that this information is easily accessible, but in any given moment, you can only make a decision. If your life is based on the decisions you make, life is a choice between birth and death. You can only make good choices based on the information you know. And if you know it, that presumes that you retain that information. Right. And so I feel like memory is a muscle and it can get better. And, you know, Limitless was endorsed by the top Alzheimer's researcher out of Harvard, Dr. Rudy Tanzi, to the founding director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Brain Health. And when I speak for these institutions, we know that approximately one-third of our brains perform is, is genetic biology, but 2/3 is in our influence and our control. So, you know, we focus in Limitless teaching 2 things: how to optimize your brain, the hardware, and then teach all the software. How to give a speech with a toast at a wedding without notes, how to remember, improve your business vocabulary, how to remember names and faces, how to read 3 times faster with better comprehension, how to focus in a world of distractions, software and hardware.

If I can reflect something back, because I see a third kind of wing or tendril of what you do, which is to all the little kids in us or the, the young people out there who have felt like they have a broken brain, who don't think like everyone else, who have struggled, whether it's because of trauma or some other mechanism, through this process of learning.

Yeah.

You've been a major healing Thank you.

I appreciate it. And everybody has their own struggles. And I'm inspired by individuals all the time, you know, in our community that just, you know, I think it's relatable. It's funny because not funny, haha, but I never shared my story half my career. I never talked about my traumatic brain injury coming from immigrant, you know, family that didn't have any resources. I was almost embarrassed, you know, losing my grandmother to Alzheimer's. But the things that I— where I am now in this life cycle, I feel like the things that I was most ashamed of or embarrassed about, I'm now today, I'm most almost proud of. Yeah. Right. And I feel like there's a grace in that. And I feel like self-care is not just eating the best brain foods and getting optimized sleep and all the things that we teach. It's also having the ability to look in a mirror and seeing that person looking back and honoring that person and loving that person who's gone through so much, but is, but is still standing. Yeah. Right. And I just feel like, you know, a lot of us, a lot of it has to do with our own forgiveness of ourselves, you know, just acceptance of ourselves. And, you know, if there was another area besides brain optimization, accelerated learning, we, we do a lot. There's a whole, a third of the book is on mindset.

Yeah.

You know, what we believe is possible, what we believe we're capable of. And if we're going to get really raw, what we believe we deserve.

Yeah.

You know, you, people could learn a great memory thing or how to make money online thing. But if their mindset is money is the root of all evil, you know, I have to hurt people to make money or I don't deserve it, you know, then they're still going to be stuck in that box because of that mindset. And so, yeah, I realized when I started sharing my story halfway through my career with the thing I was embarrassed about, We, the impact we had was so much greater in terms of numbers, the people that we, we helped, because I feel like a lot of people think that I was just born with this ability where people see me on stage and we pass around a microphone in the audience and they introduce themselves and I memorize 100 people's names. Right. But that was not something I was— my teachers would be surprised if I read a book, much less wrote a book. Right. And so, but the reason why the book came out in 2020, almost 30 years into my career, People thought I had 150 books, but it was my first because I just, I want to help people, but I just never felt the need to be acknowledged for it or I didn't need the credit for it. Like, I didn't— I want to help people, but I don't want to be famous about it. So I turned down everything in my career. You know, I met with Kaplan, who is a big franchise.

Yeah.

Kaplan Review, to be able to like a franchising opportunity, open up Kwik Learning Centers around our You know, a big infomercial company reached out to do speed reading and memory on infomercials. I said no. I said no. Media interviews, you know, no. Train the trainers, no. Write books, no. But in 2018, I don't really talk about this, but in 2018, I was in a car accident where I almost died, probably should have died.

Yeah.

And it just made me think about I don't know, like, like what I leave behind. And the next day I signed the book deal that I had for years in my inbox. It's interesting how life conditions could open us up.

I see how it propelled you from that no into a legacy. Yeah.

And I think some of your listeners, your community could relate to going through struggles that became strengths or they've had some kind of trauma. And we hear a lot about— we did a podcast on this recently with an expert, but we hear a lot about post-traumatic stress. PTSD, but we don't hear a lot about post-traumatic growth. And I would encourage people to Google it. Post-traumatic growth is where you go through— and this is just kind of a 30,000-foot view— you go through something that you wouldn't wish upon anyone, some kind of adversity or difficulty that you wouldn't wish upon anyone. You wouldn't change it for yourself. That you went through this difficult time. There was a gift in it. There was, you found a strength, you found a mission like I did, or you found a purpose, you got clarity on something and you grew from it. You know, you came out, you know, on the other side. And I really do feel like life is difficult for one of two reasons. Either we're leaving our comfort zone, which many of your community members are doing. They're trying to starting a new business, studying something new, saying hi to that person.

Yeah.

you know, that they feel called to connect with, they leave their comfort zone. So life is difficult, or life is difficult because you stay in your comfort zone, you know, and the comfort zone is a nice place to visit. But I think everyone would agree not much grows there.

Right.

And so I just, I honor everyone who's just going in and, you know, embracing a little bit more of that unknown, because I just feel like that's when we play and practice at the edge of those limits or the, of what's known. I feel like that's where the growth happens. And growth for me is, is paramount. Everything in nature has to grow, right? It's brown, it rots, it's green, it grows. You know, I think that's why we're here is to be able to grow and inspire other people and, you know, support them, you know, along the way.

That's beautiful.

That's really different kind of conversation than how to remember names, but I'm happy to.

We'll get there. We'll get there.

Yeah. I don't think it's just about the technique.

I mean, so much of perhaps why we haven't maybe achieved that focus practice or that capacity that we're wanting might still be the underlying scripts and, and sense of worth underneath it. Or we haven't really felt like, wait, can we truly do this? When I was in grad school and I discovered your work, hmm, I was wanting to drop out. I was ready. I was so flooded and, and all the old scripts of how stupid I am Oh, wow. Just pouring back in. I'm like, this was— I was like, I, I don't— the amount I had to read. And, and, you know, when I was in high school and undergrad and grad school, even before that, I would stay up. I would be up 20 hours a day, 22 hours a day, so that I could keep up to my colleagues who were so much, quote unquote, smarter than me and could read and didn't mix up the letters and, you know, all of that. And I discovered your work And while I couldn't quite master it in the sense that like, I just didn't have the— I was so overwhelmed with other things. But what it did do is it gave me hope.

Yeah.

And that was enough fuel to keep going.

Yeah, I think all of us need some hope and some help. Yeah, those two things. And it's one of those things where— And I, you know, I enjoy podcasts. Because it's— you learn new ideas, right? And hopefully people are taking some kind of action because an idea by itself isn't going to change your life. We all know it's in the implementation. But like, if I give you a dollar, you give me a dollar, nothing changes. We're literally in the same exact same situation. But if I share an inspiration or a new idea with you and you share a new idea with me, all of a sudden we have 2 brand new ideas. So we've created something brand new and we've helped somebody along the way. But I feel like, you know, We hear this all the time. You know, asking for help is not a weakness. It takes courage. You know, it's a strength. And I feel like nobody does this alone. Like, how do you become limitless in a limited world? I feel like the answer is we do it together.

Mm-hmm.

And the people we spend time with is so very important. And, you know, getting in rooms where your dreams are others' realities, I think it elevates because I feel like we're all Can be a thermostat, not a thermometer, right? A thermometer, just its only function, it reacts to the environment.

Yeah.

Right. And sometimes as human beings, if we're honest, we react sometimes to politics, to what's going on in the world, to how people treat us, to the weather, right? Yeah, it was interesting. We have a 2-year-old and I— it was kind of rainy and foggy out and, you know, we do this walk and And, you know, he was looking forward to it. He likes his routines. And I was like, and I caught myself. I was like, wow. I was like, oh, today's a bad day because it's raining out. And I just, and I caught myself. I realized like what I'm, what I'm teaching our son is your happiness, whether it's a good day or bad day, is based on something outside of us. Right. And so subtle. And so, But a thermometer just reacts to the environment, but a thermostat doesn't. A thermostat, it gauges the environment. It knows the exact temperature, just like we can know what's going on in the world. We have situational awareness.

Yeah.

But a thermostat does something else. It sets a temperature and the environment reacts to you. You know, it's— and, and as human beings, we could set a temperature, we could set a vision, we could set a mission, we could set a goal or a dream, right? And then we take the invisible And then we make it visible on the outside. And I notice athletes do it, visionaries do it, entrepreneurs do it, parents do it. They have this vision of their brand or their business or their family, their life, their body, whatever it is. You know, I believe there's a version of ourself that's patiently waiting.

Hmm.

And the goal is we just show up every single day until, until we're introduced. And so be a thermostat, not a, not a thermometer. But it does. It's, it's going back and unraveling, you know, processing, You know, everything that went on with our family and our environment and everything. And it could be true.

Yeah.

We make— we complain, we make excuses. Every— all that can be true. But again, if we're gonna get real raw and I have my coaching hat on, the idea is like, okay, that happened and that might be true that you didn't have the whatever, but nothing changes, you know, from that. And so all that complaining, excuses, worry, it uses up a lot of time, a lot of valuable energy, a lot of valuable focus when we could be putting it towards— and it's hard. For me to say this because I'm, you know, I still deal with, you know, these kind of things, but I'm talking to myself. Like, we can't be upset by the results we didn't get from the work we didn't do. And again, I feel like a lot of the things that we want in life are hidden in the work that we are avoiding and not looking, not willing to shine a light on out of fear or, you know, numerous things. And so I feel a big part of In The Matrix, one of my favorite movies, when Neo goes to see the all-knowing wise Oracle in her kitchen making cookies, there's a sign above the door. I don't think a lot of people saw this, but it says, know thyself.

Hmm.

You know, and then that's a process. I feel like to be fulfilled and going back to mindset, I feel like having the curiosity to know yourself, that's why you do therapy or you journal or whatever you do for the, you know, the internal. And then once you have the curiosity to know yourself, The second part is having the courage to be yourself. A lot of people have done the work and they know who they are and their identity, more of like what they value and what they believe and will stand for. But acting in alignment with that, you know, is work also.

You know, speaking of the beautiful analogy or metaphor you gave around thermostats, you know, I think one of the things that I really appreciate about your work And a greater understanding of neuroscience too, is that like often when we, we think about adaptability, homeostasis, most people don't think or recognize how essential focus and attention is in the process of homeostasis. You know, what we're paying attention to, how much attention, how much we're able to pay attention, the amount of attention and energy And, uh, all actually play into our capacity, our homeostatic levels, our ability to be in balance and flow. And I'm wondering with that in mind, if we might be able to give folks at home some tools, some sort of practices that they can start to implement in their life, because I know that if they're gonna start to implement these practices, their greater wellbeing. will be so impacted because they'll be more adaptable, but there'll be more to be able to be in the dance of life.

And being present, it's so staying focused in a world full, like it's brimming with distractions, right? Yeah. It's indeed a challenge. And then, but it's one that can be managed with the right strategies. So happy to offer tips. It's different than like going through like an online training course that we created.

And everyone should do that. It's brilliant.

Oh, I appreciate it.

Yeah. No, it's so brilliant.

Personal acquisition. It becomes just what you do is read faster or focus or remember things because it's, you know, we have more time. But for tips, things that think about, which I think will serve all of us for greater focus, in no particular order, you need to prioritize your environment, right? So it's common sense, but not often common practice, as a lot of things are often. But start by creating an environment that's conducive to focus, right? Because your external world is a reflection of your internal world. And we know when you clean off your desk, you make your bed, you On your computer, everything's in the right file folder. You just have clarity of, of mind. So this might be like decluttering your workspace, using noise-canceling headphones to block out distracting sounds. It could be setting boundaries with your family or coworkers that really the best you can minimize interruptions, but you wanna make your environment work for you, not against you. The second thing I would say, going back to technology, is use it just wisely. Technology can be extremely helpful. But it can be a major distraction using technology mindfully by— I think the most important like function on my phone is like airplane mode personally. You know, if you're doing focused deep work or you're with your family or wherever you need to be present, turning off nonessential notifications, setting specific times to check emails or social media could be very valuable. You know, and there's obviously all these apps that block distracting websites or whatever. Another thing that can help everyone's focus is utilizing techniques like the Pomodoro technique. This is a time management method that involves working for a set period, usually about 25 minutes, the length of a sitcom, followed by a short brain break. And so you're doing these sprints for 25 minutes and then you take a 5-minute brain break. Pomodoro, it means tomato. And it's— I actually have a tomato timer if you're watching this on YouTube or on social media. You know, it's a cooking timer in the kitchen. I set it for 25 minutes and I just go. And then I take a 5-minute brain break. And what do I do during the brain break? 3 things. I make sure that I, I move my body because as your body moves, your brain grooves. They say sitting is the new smoking and we're behind screens all day. When you move your body, you create something called brain-derived neurotrophic factors, BDNF, which is like That's the best I've ever heard it explained. Oh, thank you. Like Miracle-Gro for neuroplasticity.

I've been in lectures with neuroscientists who make it so boring and complicated and so unsexy. And, um, I love you, Jim.

I know, much love too to you because I just feel like sometimes we overcomplicate things.

Oh my God.

Yeah. So yeah, you move your body. You also, when you move your body, create dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, right? These neurotransmitters, This chemical feeling soup that just is so important for your cognitive well-being and even performance. And the third thing besides— sorry, you move, hydrate.

Mm-hmm.

You know, if you see, if you're watching this on video, I'm just always hydrating. Your brain is like 75% water, give or take. Just staying hydrated could boost your reaction time, your thinking speed upwards of 30%. If even if you're 2% dehydrated, it can impact your cognitive health and performance. And the third thing besides movement and hydration, I would recommend if you can, is to just get some deep breathing in. You know, a lot of times when we're working, we're losing focus, not because we're reading or anything. It's just like our posture.

Yeah.

You know, when you collapse your diaphragm, roughly the lower one-third of your lungs roughly absorbs two-thirds of the oxygen. So sometimes we're tired not because we need calories. Sometimes we're tired just because we're not just getting enough air, oxygen to your brain. And so, Pomodoro technique, work for 25, 30 minutes, take a 5-minute brain break, and then come back recharged, recovered. The last thing I'll recommend just for focus is just exercise your focus. I don't know, do you have like a mindfulness or some kind of meditation practice yourself?

Yeah, yeah, I do a lot of also move— I mean, kind of a mindful movement practice is my favorite. So, you know, Yeah, 2 birds, one stone.

Yeah, if you could bring mindfulness into your— we were just talking, I'm wearing these glasses because I was sparring and I got cut in the eye. But, you know, anything that takes your mind and puts it into your muscle, dance, you know, certain sports and martial arts, you know, it's a nice way of stacking that and also forces you to be present, right? So, regular practice of mindfulness or meditation can improve your ability to concentrate, to stay present. Like, I meditate twice a day for roughly 10, 15 minutes, not for enlightenment. I do it more as an exercise because invariably my mind will think about something that's, you know, something that is not important or important. But when I bring it back to my breath or I bring it back to a mantra, a word, or a candle in front of me, right, something I see, feel, or hear, I've just exercised and flexed my focus, my presence muscles, right? So even a few minutes a day could help reduce the overall stress and enhance your focus because chronic stress will actually shrink your brain over time. And so, yeah, all this, you know, everybody wants to know what the magic pill is for whatever, focus or making money or memory. There's no magic pill, but there is a process. And so, the nature of our work is giving people those tools, you know, science-based tools to help people fill in the gaps, you know, where we didn't learn it in school or in our Yeah.

And they're accessible. They're, they're not like— one of the things, again, like, uh, that I love about you and your work is that you brought it to a level of achievableness and accessibility where it's like, again, I've sat in these lectures where I'm like, oh my gosh, what interesting, brilliant fMRI studies that we're deconstructing. But then it just stays there. Yeah.

there.

And I'm like, how are we helping people? And, you know, I, I— one of the things that I might add to your list, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts, is I used to call it brain anarchy when I was younger, which was, um, things like that are in the common culture right now, like the truncation of language and text, like LOL, and as opposed to laughing out loud. And, and the studies— I remember reading this in, I don't know, high school or early college about like the truncation of language minimizes metacognitive skills, meaning like our ability to see the bigger picture of ourselves or the environment. And I never used truncated language again. And I would get, you know, I would text friends laughing out loud, like I would spell it out and I would get made fun of. But I was like, no, I'm gonna be a brain anarchist. And really, I'm not gonna truncate my language. I'm not gonna truncate my metacognitive skills. And so there's a little bit of counterculture work that we have to do to actually strengthen our brains again.

Like, yeah, we don't want— we don't want to get too mentally, cognitively lazy and lax. It's just like with our bodies, you know, and there's this myth that we use only, you know, 10% of our brain. The research actually shows that we use practically all of our brain, but everyone uses their brain just like we use all of our body. Yeah, right. If we're going out for a hike, we're utilizing, you know, our entire body. And if we're climbing this hike and we're going, you know, running canyon and we're doing this hill and getting to the top, some people will get there easier with more enjoyment and less effort because they're skilled in climbing or they're just more physically fit. And somebody else could take much longer and suffer and struggle, spend an enormous amount of energy to do so because they don't have, you know, either the training or the fitness. And just like with our brains, we use 100% of our brains. My experience is some people just are more trained or they're just more— their brain's more fit. And when it is, life is easier. And I understand sometimes we only have like— sometimes you're going through the day, you have 40%. But just remember on the days that you only have 40% and you give that 40%, then in my opinion, you gave 100%.

Yeah.

And so it's nice as a reminder how far you've come. Right? You, you look back and all the degrees that, that you have and looking back at that child, and I don't know what conver— that conversation would look like in terms of advice, but it's nice to be reminded that all big things have small beginnings.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Every pro was once an amateur. Every expert was once a beginner, and that little by little, a little becomes a lot. And so just a little bit each day, 1% every day compounded over 365 days is a multiple of 37 times, right? And it's just the power of how inch by inch it's a cinch, but yard by yard, it's just too hard. You know, what are the little things that could stack up? Because those little things add up to big things for all of us.

Is that what you would say to your little kiddo who—

Yeah, I would give that boy a big hug and just You know, there are actually 2 lessons. If I can instill in a child or a younger version of myself 2 belief systems, one would be you are 100% responsible for your life.

Mm-hmm.

I feel like that's because you have the ability to respond so you can make things better. I mentioned I get introduced to my superheroes. I talk about superheroes because I learned how to read By teaching myself how to read by reading comic books.

Same.

And that's why I have a love of, you know, something about the art just brought this words to life. That's how I learned under the covers when I, you know, parents thought I was sleeping. I'd be underneath there with the flashlight. Yeah, Stan Lee and Richard Branson wanted to meet each other. So I arranged for— we do a dinner and I pick up Stan Lee, who's the creator of all of the, you know, Marvel superheroes. And I— when we're in the car, I had to ask him. I was like, Stan, you created all the most amazing superheroes, X-Men, Avengers. Who's your favorite? And he looks at me and says, Jim, Iron Man. And he says, Jim, who's your favorite? And he had— I posted this on Instagram— a Spider-Man tie. And so I said, Spider-Man. And in his iconic voice, he says, with great power comes great responsibility. Right? And we've all heard that phrase. But I sometimes, Scott, I reverse things when I— maybe because of my brain injury. I— when I read it or I hear it, sometimes I reverse it. And I heard something different. I was like, Stan, you're right. With great power comes great responsibility. And the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great power. When we take responsibility for something, we have great power to make it better. And so, you know, that belief that would install is you are 100% responsible for your life. And then the second one would be like we talked about earlier, that everything is figureoutable.

Yeah.

You know, where there's a will, there's a way. And, you know, I feel like these are truths that serve us. Like beliefs aren't necessarily true or false. It's like, does this serve me or does this not, you know, serve me? Because all behavior is belief-driven. Yeah. I just feel like life is— there's a— going back to to the power of grace. You know, we can forgive ourselves and accept ourselves and just realize also what I've discovered over the 3 decades as a brain coach is it's not how smart you are, it's how are you smart.

Hmm.

It's not how smart your kids are, it's how are they smart. And we all have this intelligence that's not fixed like your shoe size. Your focus, your memory, your reading ability is not fixed like your shoe size. It can grow through discipline and training. And we all have different ways to learn. And But like, you take standardized tests like the SATs, it's what? It's verbal and math. And those are the 2 sections. But, you know, there's so many other areas of— there's visual spatial intelligence, right? The great graphic designers and architects, artists. There's kinesthetic intelligence, people who are just amazing with their bodies.

Mm-hmm.

There's interpersonal intelligence, people who are just, they're geniuses at connecting with other people. There's intrapersonal intelligence where interpersonal is self to others, intrapersonal is self to self. People have a deep understanding and wisdom with understanding the human psyche, understanding, you know, does a lot of self-introspection. And musical intelligence just goes on and on, right? Howard Gardner's work out of Harvard, you know, multiple intelligence theory. You know, we created An assessment, just like I'm excited about. We see personalized medicine based on an assessment, like a DNA genetic test or something.

Yeah.

You see personalized nutrition based on a microbiome test or a nutrient profile test. You know, we created in Limitless Expanded a 4-minute multiple choice assessment to determine your dominant brain type, and we codified it. It's literally code, C-O-D-E. And I'm curious which one you would fall under. We made it animals and people could take the assessment at mybrainanimal.com. We made it free for everybody.

Take a note, text you.

Yeah, mybrainanimal.com. Text, you know, your family and friends. Don't do it right now. Listen to this episode. But after you go through the 4-minute assessments, you determine your dominant brain type. And then I give you for free to your listeners strategies on how to read faster, improve their focus, remember things, learn a language, remember names based on your brain type. Because just like I realize Some strategies and tips work for some people differently. They get more of a return or reward on it, just like certain foods work better for certain people or certain exercises work better for certain body types. This is your brain type and CODE is C-O-D-E. The C are your cheetahs. And if you're watching on video, I'm just going to show you a picture of a cheetah. Their dominant brain type, as you're listening, think about which brain type you would be, is action. So their dominant trait is action. Cheetahs are fast. They act. They're very intuitive, right? They don't have to think about it. They just have a kind of a knowing and they decide and they execute. The O in CODE stands for owls. And if you're an owl, your dominant brain, your dominant trait is logic. So owls love facts. They love figures. They love formulas. They love data, right? And just think about it. If you're a cheetah and owl, you're going to do certain things. You're going to parent differently. You're going to buy differently, right? The D in CODE stands for dolphins. And then their dominant trait is creativity. They're your innovators. They're really good at pattern recognition. They often have a dream or a vision of their life that other people don't yet see, but they're very passionate about, about that vision. So their dominant trait is creativity. And finally, the E in CODE stands for your elephants, and their dominant trait is empathy. Highly compassionate. They want people to feel seen. They want people to feel heard. And it's interesting, this assessment, mybrainanimal.com, it's also in the book, but if you're not going to get the book, then it's free online. We had our team take it. And do you know, Scott, that 100% of our customer service support team?

Elephants.

Elephants. They are highly compassionate. They want our community to feel seen, feel heard. They're our community builders. My business partner, our CEO, she's a dolphin. She has this vision for our brand and our business and the impact we'll make. Our CFO, Wow. Owl needs to see the numbers and the KPIs on everything, right? And so, when you understand how your brain works, you could work your brain. And just as a visual, a fun visual, I think most people are familiar with the sitcom Friends, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, Ross, the scientist professor, is your owl. That's the archetype. You take somebody like Phoebe, creative, right? Musical. That's, that's your dolphin. Joey is your cheetah. Doesn't think, just acts on pure instinct. And Monica always wanted to host everything, had to be at her apartment and everything, you know, brings everyone together. She would be your elephant, you know. And so you'll see this in Star Trek and Harry Potter and everything, but you see these archetypes. But again, when you understand your brain, You know, a cheetah is going to read in sprints. They are going to scan. They're going to skim because they think at lightning's, you know, act in lightning speed. Right. They thrive in fast-paced environments. A cheetah, they adapt quickly, often impulsive sometimes because they trust their instincts. But their swift reflexes can sometimes lead them to overlook those details. Right. The owl is more analytical, methodical. So they are your deep thinkers, meticulously analyzing information, considering things from different Angles before they make a decision. But if you're selling to that person, you wanna sell them the, the, you wanna show them the facts, the evidence, right? But if you're selling to a dolphin, you're gonna, for example, show them how your product or service fits into their personal vision for their life, right? How they're creating their life. If you're selling to an elephant, great facts and evidence and social proof and testimonials and, and vision. But what's more important to the elephant is the relationship itself.

Right.

They need to make sure that they feel seen by you and feel heard and connected to you. So it really— we follow up with strategies to help parent, to hire, to train, to teach, to read, to remember based on those brain types. And you can think of a lot of famous people that are owls, like your Albert Einstein, your Marie Curie, your Isaac Newton, right? Your Warren Buffett. You can think of your cheetahs, your Richard Bransons, your Sir Serena Williams. You could think of your dolphins, your Leonardo da Vincis, your J.K. Rowlings, your Walt Disneys, those visionaries. You can think of your elephants, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela. These are individuals that brought people together. And so, yeah, out of everything in Limitless, I'm most excited about, again, personalized medicine, personalized nutrition, but personalized learning and performance based on your dominant brain. type and the traits. And yeah, again, it's not how smart you are, it's how are you smart. And all of us, you know, have different tendencies. And I created this pulling on everything from introvert, extrovert to things, you know, personality tests, Myers-Briggs, left brain, right brain, multiple intelligence theory to create something that I feel like is more targeted advice based on, you know, the individual. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I would actually, going back to this, because I feel like we learn the best by teaching and sharing, is something— take advantage of something in science called the explanation effect. When you learn something with the intention of explaining to somebody else, you're going to learn it better, right?

Yeah.

But if people took a screenshot of wherever they're consuming this audio video and tag Dr. Scott, tag me, and so we get to see it, and then post a picture of which animal you are, because I'm curious which is the dominant brain type in your community.

You personally have impacted my life so much, and I just want to say thank you for doing the work that you're doing. Thank you for championing hope in the world around our learning, our growth, our potential, our development. And it just feels like thank you isn't enough, but I'm going to say thank you for the— for now. And keep finding the ways to really—

I want to thank you. I'm very grateful. We talk about gratitude. We always do a Thanksgiving episode on how gratitude affects our nervous system. So I'm grateful to be on your show. I'm grateful for everyone listening. I feel like we don't have to wait for a greater life to be grateful. We be grateful and then we'll have a greater life. And I'm the first to admit, like, change is hard. Growth can be scary, but nothing is as hard or scary as being stuck somewhere you don't belong. And then I just really feel like any given moment, we can make a new choice, and one step in another direction can completely change your destination or your destiny, right? And so much love to everyone who's listening. I can't wait to see which— what you learned on the show. I love to read the comments. I love to see which dominant which of the brain animals you are and continue the great work. Yeah.

And Jim, where can everyone find you or connect with you more?

You can find the book Limitless anywhere where books are sold. Again, we donate all the proceeds. I feel like you learn to earn to return, and that's our way of self-serving. You could go— our courses are at kwikbrain.com. That's where we teach accelerated learning, speed reading, memory, focus. We have all these professional and student programs. To help level up your learning and your life. My Brain Animal is a free resource. If you, if you're really interested in the nutrition part, we created— there's 30, roughly 30 ingredients we talk about, substances that have been shown to improve focus, memory, human studies. And again, if you don't want to buy the book, we put out brainnutrition.com. You can get the— and we link to all the studies if you're interested in things that could help give you an edge. And on social media, I'm @JimKwik. Everywhere. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, all that, all that good stuff.

Brilliant. Please go follow. Please get Jim's book. Please enhance your life like you never have before, everyone. Thank you so much, Jim. And to all of our gently used humans out there, we love you.