Upgrade Your Brain Power | Jim Kwik

And with that, we are ready to bring out our first speaker, one of the world's leading experts in brain performance and accelerated learning. Get ready to upgrade your brain with Jim Kwik.

One-third of your memory and intelligence predetermined by genetics and biology. That's amazing. One-third. That means two-thirds is in your control. You want to get into the best schools, or have the best jobs, or do the best research, the greater the damage that you have. If there's one skill that matters in the 21st century, it's your ability to learn fast. It's a loss. It's not even a nice to have, it's a loss of what you already actually have. Because what you have is your brain, and how your brain works can be used to grow your brain. So if you tap it appropriately, you can really accomplish whatever it is that you want to do.

So, how many people, this is their first Refuel? Raise your hand, raise it up high. Let's give them a hand. Thanks for joining us. How many of you actually traveled, like you had to get on a plane to be here today? Raise your hand high. Oh, please, applause. Thank you. And let's give a hand to everyone who's watching it at home also as well. All right. So, in my session today, my goal here over the next 60 minutes or so is I wanna double your brainpower. And I wanna double your focus, improve your memory. How many of you— actually, stand up if you feel like there's too much to learn in too little time. Stand up. Too much to learn. Too much to learn, like you're taking a sip of water out of a fire hose. Now, remain standing. And stand— how many of you, you could stand up also, if you have books on your shelf that you went out to buy, but they're sitting on your shelf unread? Raise your hand. And it becomes shelf help, not self-help. How many of you came here today, you could stand if you like, like to have a better memory? How many of you forgot why you came here today? Can we talk? Have you ever walked into a room of your own home and then just forgot why you're there? Does anybody here feel a little bit absent-minded, like senior moments are coming way too early? Like maybe you read a page in a book, you get to the end, and you just forgot what you just read. And you go back and you reread it, and you still don't know what you just read, right? Or how many people know somebody misplaces things all the time? Their remote control, right? Their phone, their wallet, their purse, their cell phone, their car keys, or if not your car keys, something larger like your car. You ever see the people with their car alarm using GPS trying to figure out where they parked their car and they realize they took Uber or Lyft later? How about names and faces? How many of you honestly have trouble remembering people's names? Raise your hand. Have you ever met somebody, you get their name, and then seconds later their name just disappears out of your mind? How many of you, it happens today? And is it important in business, yes or no?

Yes.

A little bit or a lot?

A lot.

'Cause how are you gonna show somebody you're gonna care for their future, their family, their finance, whatever you have to offer them, if you don't care enough just to remember what? Their name, right? What's the message we send to somebody when we forget their name? What's the message? That they're not important, or that we don't care. And just remember this, people do not care how much you know until they... Know how much you care, right? And so let's start with my name. Hopefully you remember it. Remain standing throughout the whole time. My name is Jim Kwik with Kwik Learning, and I help people to learn quickly. The question I always get is about my last name. My last name really is Kwik. I didn't change it to do what I do. It is my father's name, my grandfather's name. You could say my life, my destiny was pretty planned out. I had to be a runner back in school, which is a lot of pressure when it says Kwik right on your shirt. A lot of pressure. I have to be very careful talking about cars. I have to be very careful, honestly, when I'm driving, because the worst name to have on your driver's license when you get pulled over for speeding is the name Kwik, because you're not going to talk your way out of that speeding ticket. And I get to do my mission in life, which is teaching people how to learn quicker. As you heard from the video, I believe it is the most important skill to learn today, because if you can learn how to focus, you can learn how to concentrate, you can learn how to remember things better, You could learn how to think more clearly, right? Or process information. Then you could apply it towards what? Everything, right? Mechanical engineering, martial arts, Mandarin, money, marketing, management, everything in your life gets a whole lot easier when you can learn how to learn. So, my goal here today is to give you 10 or more practical skills you could do as soon as you leave here, or even today, to get the most out of today, so you could really enhance your focus, your retention, and so much more. All right, so what we're gonna do right now is we're gonna start off. How many of you are willing to play with me on this one? Raise your hand. All right, what I want you to do is just get in groups of 3 or 4. 3 or 4, ideally with some people you don't yet know, and introduce yourself.

Go.

3 or 4. 3 or 4 people, just move around. 3 or 4.

5.

You can get in groups of 5 too. 5 is okay. Raise your hand if you need a group. Raise your hand if you need a group. Just find a group, 3, 4, or 5. All right, repeat after me. Repeat after me.

Shh.

Very good, very good. And you can do this at home. I'll be your group for those of you who are watching at home also as well. Now what we're gonna do is we're gonna do a game, all right? I think the fastest learners are who?

Kids.

Our who?

Kids.

Kids, right? How many of you have children? Raise your hand. How many of you once were a child? Raise your hand. All right, great. Children. How fast can a child learn a musical instrument compared to an adult? How fast can they learn another language compared to an adult, right? Fast, right? And one of the reasons they learn so quickly is they're willing to play. But so many people say, oh, I— somebody said to me this the other day, he's like, oh, I stopped playing because I grew older. I'm like, no, you grew older because you stopped Playing, right? So, one of the fastest ways to learn something is to be playful, all right? And so, what we're gonna do is we're gonna pretend, we're gonna play a game called superheroes. How many of you like to geek out over the new, like, Spider-Man movie that's coming out this week or something like that? We're gonna pretend like we're a child, and we're gonna channel that 8-year-old as if we're a child, and we're gonna get certain emotions into our body. You know, I believe— how many of you have a to-do list? Raise your hand.

All right.

I believe more important than your to-do list is your to-feel list, right? What are 3 emotions that you want to cultivate during the day? Because those emotions have power to it, right? Even when I said, you know, do you remember names? And, you know, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Maya Angelou has this great quote. She said, people forget what you say, they'll forget what you did, but they'll always remember—

How you made them feel.

How you made them feel. All right, so a lot of what I'm gonna talk about is connecting those emotions, 'cause you wanna know the key to long-term memory? Do this, do this at home also. Repeat after me and do this physically. Information.

Information.

Combined with emotions.

Combined with emotions.

Become long-term memories. One more time. Information.

Information.

Combined with emotions. Combined with emotions. Become long-term memory. When we add emotions to something, we remember it better. How many of you know this to be true? Raise your hand. How many of you, there's a song that could take you back, you hear it, just a few notes, and takes you back to when you were a teenager? How many of you, there's a fragrance or maybe a food that you could taste or smell could take you back to when you were a child?

Right?

Because information by itself is forgettable, but information combined with emotions become unforgettable. So, the 3 key emotions that we wanna cultivate today to get the most out of today, all right? The first one is a sense of play. Right, you want to have fun. How many of you think that learning should be fun? Raise your hand. And I'm going to tag each of these emotions to a superhero, okay? And the one that represents superhero, I mentioned him today, is Spider-Man, right? The new Spider-Man movie comes out this week. And what I feel like when he's in battle and he's going about, he just has fun doing it, right? Saving the day. So, what I want you to do is get this into your muscle memory. I want you to look at your partners And I want you to show them what Spider-Man's move is. What's Spider-Man's move? Go ahead. Wait, where did this sound—

shh.

Where did—

shh.

Repeat after me, shh.

Shh.

Where did the sound effects come from? And you could do this at home also. So, all right, Spider-Man's move is shooting the webs. What I want you to do is show your partners, but say the word— shout out fun. Ready? Play, right? So, actually, yeah. Ready? 1, 2, 3, go.

Play.

All right, play. One more time, 1, 2, 3.

Play.

All right, that's the— and then feel the fun inside your body when you're doing it. 1, 2, 3.

Play.

All right, fantastic. The second emotion is that of focus. Focus is an emotion, and focus is not something you have. You're like, that's my problem, I don't have focus. Focus is actually a verb, right? It's about, you know what a big brain hack is? Here's one. Taking the nouns in your life and turning them into verbs. Taking the nouns and turning them into verbs. Watch this. So, so many people say, oh, I don't have motivation today. I don't have focus today. I don't have creativity to write today, right? I don't have energy. These are not things you have. These are things you do. And the benefit of turning into a verb, something you do, it gives you your agency back. Because you don't wanna wake up and just say, oh, I don't have focus, because that leaves you as a victim, right? You're reacting. As opposed to, how do I create focus? How do I do focus? So, focus is an emotion. And so, the superhero for me that represents focus is Black Panther. And so, what's Black Panther's move?

Wakanda forever.

Right? Wakanda forever, right? So, 2 fists. Everyone, look at your partners and say, focus. 1, 2, 3.

Focus.

All right, now feel the focus. Ready? 1, 2, 3 again.

Focus.

All right. So, the third one is a sense of confidence. Do you believe if you had— if you're playful, if you're focused, and you were confident, that you would learn better? Yes or yes? Yes, yes, yes. Yes or yes? Yes, of course, right? And so, the goal here is how do you cultivate that? For me, confidence is a physiology. Right? And so the superhero that represents— I think of Wonder Woman. How many sheroes in the room? Raise your hand. So how many of you saw the Amy Cuddy TED Talk where she uses her physiology? Everyone do Wonder Woman's pose. What's the Wonder Woman pose? Show your neighbors. Put your hands on your hips, your shoulders back, put a big smile on your face. All right? So shake out your body. And you're gonna do it. I'm gonna say 1, 2, 3, and you're gonna say confidence. Ready? 1, 2, 3.

Confidence.

All right, one more time. 1, 2, 3.

Confidence.

All right, fantastic. Now, here we go. Here's the game. Go back to back with your partners. Like, literally just go back to back like this. With all of them, not just 2, but 3. And I'm your partners at home. So I want you to do this at home also. Get it in your body. All right, shh. Repeat after me.

Shh.

All right, now here's the game. In a moment, I'm gonna count to 1, 2, 3. When I say 3, you're gonna turn around and you're gonna pick one of the superheroes. You're gonna do their move and you're gonna say the word. You're either gonna say play, you're gonna say focus, or you're gonna say confidence. The goal is for all 3 or 4 or 5 of you to match. All right, so here's the game. If one of you does not match, that means one person is off doing a different superhero, then you don't win. But if you win, what's the sound— I want you to make the sound of when you win. What's the sound you make when you win?

Woo!

No, seriously, guys. When your favorite sports team, they win, what's the sound you make when you win, for real?

Yeah!

All right, fantastic. Now, what's the sound— now, if one person is even off, then you don't win, you lose. What's the sound you make when you lose?

Oh!

Oh, that was a lot more organic.

Natural.

All right, and then do this with me at home also. So you're gonna turn around, and then I'll be your partner, okay? So ready? I'm gonna count to 3. When I say 3, turn around, do your move, and if you win, celebrate, and if you don't, don't. Ready? 1, 2, 3.

Oh. All right, shh.

How many of you won? Raise your hand if you won. Look around. We got some good winners here, about a third. All right, go back. Let's try this again one more time. Go back to back. Go back to back.

Shh.

Calm. Quiet your mind. Go back to back, everybody. Put your backs together. And you can do this at home. I'll be your partner. Now, just free your mind. All right? Matrix coming out next week. You can tell I'm a big fan. Superhero geek. All right, free your mind. Now you're the powers of Professor X. You're gonna read your partner's minds. All right, you're thinking, is she gonna change it on me? No, no, you're gonna think— if you don't win this time, don't worry about it. It's totally their fault, not your fault. All right, ready? Think about it. 1, 2, 3, go.

5.

All right, give your partners high fives.

Have a seat.

Have a seat. Have a seat. Have a seat. All right, here we go.

We still won.

You still won, of course. All right, so the first rule for learning here is that all learning is state-dependent. All learning is state-dependent. When I say the word state, I mean your emotional state. state, that information by itself is forgettable. Think about back in school when you were sitting in class, what was the primary emotion you felt sitting in class? Shout it out.

Boredom.

Boredom, right? Or half the class is bored, half the class is confused, right? So, boredom, on a scale of 0 to 10, if you were to give it a number, what's boredom? 0. And if it's information times emotion becomes a long-term memory, If the emotion is zero or boredom, what's anything times zero?

Zero.

And you wonder why you forgot the periodic table back in school, right? Because it lacked— information is forgettable, information tied with emotions is unforgettable. So, cultivate throughout today. Know, like, how can you be more playful, be more curious, be more energized, more focused, you know, more confident, right? And remember, these are not things you have, these are things that you do. All right. In fact, sit the way you'd be sitting right now if you're totally interested in what I was saying. Sit the way if you're ready to pay attention, learn how to double your brain. Now, why do you even have to move? But it's interesting, you know that your physiology is affecting your psychology, right? That you could do focus, you could do interest, you could develop curiosity, you just have to move your body to be able to do it, right? Or change your mindset. So that's the first rule. Now, I'm gonna give you really quickly 6 tips to learn any subject or skill faster. I said that no matter what your career is, no longer is it like it was 100 years ago where we were paid for our brute strength. Today, it's your brain strength. It's not your muscle power. Today, it's completely your mind power. And the faster you can learn, the faster you can earn. Because knowledge is not only power today, knowledge is profit. And that's why investing and refueling your brain and your mind, your body today is such a An investment in knowledge always pays the best dividends. It just does, all right, in the economy. The challenge is we weren't taught how to learn these things. School is a great place to learn what to learn. You think about the subjects, right? Math, history, science, Spanish. But how many classes are on how to learn, how to focus? Where's the class on concentration? Where's the class on memory? I always thought it should have been the 4th R. They teach you 3 Rs in school, right? What are the 3 Rs? Reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Reading.

Reading, writing, arithmetic. Obviously, spelling's not one of those Rs. But what about remembering, retention, recall? Socrates says learning is remembering, but there was no Memory 101 class, right? So, school taught you what to learn and what to focus on, what to study, what to read, what to think, but not how to do those things really well, right? So, my purpose today is to show you some tactical things that you could do, and you could go deeper, How many of you have read my book Limitless, or you listen to our podcast, watch a video? So, 95% of everything we publish is free. You could find it online. I put a link today right before I got on stage on my Instagram. So, you could just find it, podcast, YouTube, all that. But I wanna give you, while you're here, 6 tips to get the most out of today, all right? I want everyone to write down, or even in your phones, you're not on social media, but if you need a notepad, Remember this: be fast. I'm gonna go through this very, very quickly. Be fast. And it's an acronym because we use acronyms to be able to remember things back in high school, right? It's a shortcut. Be fast. The B stands for to learn any subject skill faster, you need to first believe. If you believe you can or believe you can't, either way, what? Who said that? Henry Ford said that, right? If you believe you can or believe you can't, either way, you're right. You're correct. Henry Ford said that, right? So, one of my mentors, Wayne Dyer, he said, you know, it's not you'll believe it when you see it, it's the opposite. You'll see it when you believe it. You'll see it when you believe it, right? So, what's a belief? What is a belief? How would you define a belief if somebody's— It's some kind of idea that you're certain about. Let me show you what a belief is. Stand up if you can. If you need to, you could do this sitting, but just make some distance from the person next to you, because I'm gonna move you around a little bit. So just come out into the aisles if you can, and just shake out your body a little bit. If you need to, you could do it sitting. All right, so just keep stationary your feet, or if you're sitting, just through the process. Put your arms by your side, empty your hands, not in your pockets, but by your side, and point forward with your right hand. Your other right hand, sir. Okay, cool. All right, now without moving your feet, I want you to turn to your right as far as you could go. Go clockwise as far as you could go and notice the exact point you're pointing at, the exact spot. Go as far as you go and notice the exact spot. All right, come back center. Put your arms by your side, not in your pockets. Take a deep breath. Exhale. And close your eyes and just breathe normally. I'm gonna walk you through a quick 30-second visualization exercise that's gonna show you the power of your mind. I want you, in your mind's eye, as you're breathing naturally, to imagine you're raising your right hand again, pointing forward, but this time, imagine you're turning twice as far as you did the first time. Just see and feel yourself turning twice as far as you did the first time in your imagination.

Okay.

And if you can't imagine it, imagine you could imagine it. Like your body is made out of rubber. See and feel yourself now turning 3 times around. 1, 2, 3, like you're getting the best stretch of your life. Incredibly bet— you're bet the best stretch. Like you're made out of rubber. Your body is completely fluid. And then one more time with a smile on your face, thinking, what does this have to do with remembering names? With a big smile on your face, see and feel yourself turning 4 times around. 1, 2, 3, 4. 4 times around, like maybe you're Gumby. See and feel yourself going 1, 2, 3, 4, best stretch of your life. All right, watch this. Open your eyes. Everyone point forward with your right hand and turn to your right clockwise as far as you can now go.

Wow.

Clap if you went further a second time. Clap. Amazing. Have a seat. Have a seat. Now, notice, raise your hand and look around. How many of you went further the second time? Raise your hand high so everyone could see you. Now, my question for you is this. Were you physically capable of turning that far the first time?

Yes.

Nobody took, like, a yoga class and my eyes were closed, right? You're physically capable. Where was the limit, if there was one?

In your mind.

In your mind, right? And you might be thinking, well, I didn't have a belief on how far I could turn. How many beliefs do you think you have? A lot, right? Countless beliefs. Write this down, please. All behavior is belief-driven. All behavior is belief-driven. You know, the reason I wanna share first today is because I think you come to these events, even if you're watching this online, for one of two reasons. How many of you came here, one of the reasons is you wanna learn great content, usable, practical content to improve your life? Raise your hand. Amazing. So, you come here for the content, and that's why I want to teach you fast ways to learn and remember things, right? Because there's a learning curve, but there's also a forgetting curve. Science says, research suggests that if you learn something once, you read a book, you listen to a podcast, right? You hear from a presenter, within 2 days, how much do you forget? What do you think? Guess it. Guess.

80%.

80%. That's the forgetting curve. You hear something once, 80% of it's gone within 2 days. All right, so that's why we're teaching memory and accelerated learning. But the other reason you come besides the content are the incredible connections, right? How many of you came here because you want—

you want to—

you love meeting people and you want to grow your network, right? Because it's not just what you know, it's what—

Who you know.

And also who knows you also, right? Then one of the best ways to stand out is to remember their name, right? Because if you could walk into a room of 20 strangers and leave saying goodbye to every single one of them by name, who are they all going to remember? You. And that's a standout skill. I believe 2 of the most costly words in business, I forgot. I forgot to do it. I forgot that appointment. I forgot what I was going to say. I forgot that conversation. I forgot that person's name. Every single time we have these thoughts, we lose credibility. We could lose trust, we could lose a sale, right? We could hurt a relationship, right? We live in the knowledge economy, the expert economy, right? So, I believe memory could actually make you money. When you could easily remember names and faces, client information, product information, you could have it at your mental fingertips, you have such an advantage, right? And so, my goal is to show you that. And so, you come here, you make some incredible connections, you learn some incredible content, I want you to be able to retain that information. So, that's why I'm gonna share the tips on how to learn faster and how to remember more. But you need to start with your belief. You know, your brain— somebody came to me in the hallway, they're like, Jim, I'm just too old. You know, my memory is so bad. And that's what I said. I say, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. Is that true?

Yeah.

If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. Then they become yours, right? Because here's the thing. Your brain is like a supercomputer. It is the most amazing supercomputer, the most incredible mechanism device on the planet, technology. And yet, the challenge is we upgrade the other technology, like you upgrade your apps and your phones and your computers and your software. But when's the last time we did a brain upgrade, the technology that controls everything? So, memory in the military, it's like a force multiplier, taking the same amount of input but getting multiple output, multiple rewards.

Right?

And it gives you a level of confidence when you could give a talk and not have to rely on notes or a teleprompter or something like that. It gives you this advantage that we want. But it starts with your belief. Your brain is this incredible supercomputer, and your self-talk, your beliefs, is the program that will run. So, if you tell yourself, I'm not good at remembering people's names, you will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to. This silly exercise that we did, they use it also with athletes. Athletes today don't just do physical training, they do what? Mental training, right? They do visualization. They see themselves getting the ball going through the hoop or in the hole, right? Or the shot, you know, on the court. Actually, what did Roger Bannister do famously in 1954? The 4-minute mile. The 4-minute mile, right? Throughout human history, nobody could run a mile in less than 4 minutes. And then if you saw the ESPN special, did you see the documentary? He would visualize himself crossing the finish line, and in his mind, look at the clock, it says 3 minutes and 59 seconds. Because he knows what you know, that success is an inside-out process, right? It's about taking the invisible and making it visible, that the human brain doesn't know the difference between something you vividly imagine and something that is real, right? So that's kind of like the turning exercise. Some of you went 25%, 50% further. What if— did you work harder the second time? What if you could go 25%, 50% further in your income? What if you go 25%, 50% further in your focus, in your ability to read, in your ability to remember things, and you're not working harder, you're just changing that limit? So, part of what we're doing today is we're redrawing the borders and boundaries of what you believe is possible. Because Limitless is the name of my book. Limitless is not about being perfect. It's about advancing beyond where you are. It's about progressing beyond what you believe is possible, but it starts with your belief. So, you wanna change that negative self-talk, right? Actually, let's just do this real quick. One of the challenges I talk about in the book is our memory, is our memory tends to decline because of technology, right? Because how many of you use your phones kind of like external memory storage devices? It's like your extra brain, right? And it keeps your memory, it keeps your calendar, it keeps your to-dos, it keeps your phone numbers. How many phone numbers did you know growing up? Look at that laugh. Listen, listen. How many phone numbers did you know? Like, all of them, right? How many phone numbers do you know today, modern, today's numbers?

2.

2? 3, maybe? And I don't wanna memorize 500 phone numbers. But it should be concerning that we've lost the ability to remember one, or a PIN number, or a passcode, right? Or a conversation we just had, or something that we did that day, or a conversation, or someone's name we just heard, right? And that's the challenge. Your brain is use it or lose it. In fact, the new belief I want you to have is there's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's a trained memory and an untrained memory. There's no such thing as a good or bad memory. There's a trained memory And an untrained memory. Let me give you an example. Let's test our memory. Let's kind of give it a— how many of you up for training your memory a little bit right now? Let's do an exercise. Let's take numbers. All right? We just said numbers are kind of challenging to remember because they're abstract. Let's see if we can memorize a number together. All right? So, do we have mic runners by chance? Here? Is this one? Okay. What I want to do is take out a notepad, open up— open your phone, take out a notepad, or if you're drawing, if you have a notebook, write it down. What we're going to do is we're going to come up collectively with one number together, right? So don't just put together a long number. Let's pass around the microphone, shout out for time's sake a 2-digit number like 23 or whatever, right? Actually, let's make the first one 23. Everyone write down 23. And we're gonna just pass around the mic, and then when we get to a good-sized number, like 10, 20, whatever, let's see if we could all collectively memorize that list, that list of numbers. How many of you getting a little anxiety when I'm saying this? Like, notice, right? So this is like Memories Anonymous, right? All right, so just raise your hand, just raise your hand. All right, and just pass around the mic and just shout out. I'll repeat the number also so everybody's on the same page.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 2 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, digits. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 11.

68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 11.

101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, So 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128 everyone's writing 11.

So first one was 2, 3, and then 11, right? Everyone on the same page? All right, let's do it. Just raise your hand. If we're having trouble coming up with numbers, I have to take this in a totally different direction. 2, 3, 11, 12? Oh, yeah, you could just give the 2-digit number, 12. All right, so everybody write down 12. All right.

2?

2 digits. Oh.

25.

What's that?

25.

25. Okay. So is everyone on the same page so far? We know what we're doing? Okay. So, all right, 2 more digits.

18.

18. All right, 18. Now, real quick, how many single digits is that so far? Single digits.

10.

All right, now that's about the size of a— of a what? Like a phone number, right? An area code and a 7-digit number. Now notice how many of you that you remember so far. You know, do you have it? All right, let's keep on going.

00.

00. 00.

14.

What's that? 14. So everyone write down 14.

99.

99. Okay, so how many single digits are we getting? We're getting up there. When did we hit the threshold? Notice what your threshold was in terms of like when it started getting more and more difficult, if you will. A couple more.

85.

85. Someone said bingo. 85. And now how many single digits is that?

18.

18. And the last one was 85, is that right? I should be memorizing this myself also. Sorry. This would actually make sense. Yes?

45.

45. So 85 and then 45. How many single digits? Is that 20? All right. How do you— does anyone here feel pretty confident so far with this? What was the last one, if you remember?

45.

45. Okay. So that's pretty good. That's called recency, by the way. Recency says you tend to remember things towards the end, the things that are more recent. Primacy says you tend to remember things in the beginning, right? And so the last one was 45, and before that was what? Very good, very good. All right, just a few more, please.

76.

76, 76.

Anybody else?

Just quick, quick, quick, quick.

13.

13, number 13. Yes, just 2 more. Yeah, just— you can hand the mic to anybody.

22.

22. How many people feel more and more confident they could do this? All right, well, let's wrap it up. Just 2 more.

80.

80. Very good. And then last one?

34.

34. Does everybody have it? Do the best you can. All right, so don't look at your page right now. How many do you think that you remember? Or even if you take out a fresh sheet, can you write down as many as you can remember? Take out a fresh sheet. All right, do you want to try this together? Where's the enthusiasm here? All right, all right, 3, 4, okay. I'll try, I'll try. I should have been memorizing this the whole time. I'll try to just remember single digits. We could go back and forth together. All right, is it 2, 3, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 5? How we doing?

Good.

1, 8, 0, 0, 1, 4, 9, 9, 8, 5, 4, 5? Is that right? 7, 6, 1, 3, 2, 2, 8, 0, 3, 4? Backwards. Actually, can I try doing it backwards?

Yeah.

Can I have some more encouragement, please? All right, ready? No, I'm just joking. I'll try it backwards if it's okay. 4, 3, 0, 8, 2, 2, 3, 1, 6, 7, 5, 4, 5, 8. How we doing?

Good.

9, 9, 4, 2, 2, 1. 4, 1, 0, 0, 8, 1, 5, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 3, 2. So, very— look at this guy. Is there anything on the screens here? No, no, no, no. So, my purpose in doing this for a few minutes is not at all to impress you, it's more really to express to you what's possible, because the truth is you could do this too, whether you believe it or not, regardless of your age, your background, your career, your education level, your financial situation, your gender, your history, your IQ. It doesn't matter. We just weren't taught how to do that. The reason I know it's possible is I grew up, some of you know, with learning challenges, very severe. When I was 5 years old in kindergarten class, I had a very bad fall, had traumatic brain injury, rushed to the hospital. And my parents, the way they describe it, said I was never the same, meaning that before I was very, as a kid, very playful, very curious, very energized, but I became extremely closed down and shut down. I had very poor focus. I couldn't remember anything. My teachers would repeat themselves over and over again, and then I learned to just play along and pretend to understand, but I didn't really understand. It took me 3 years longer just to learn how to read. And it was just, you know, it's like a lot, pretty traumatic as a child, you know, when they passed around that book. Do you remember that?

Yeah.

And you had to read out loud. And every single time that that book got closer, I would go out of my mind. I think that's where a lot of fear of public speaking came from, is we learned it, right? Because I would get the book, and honestly, these words meant nothing to me, and I would just be so embarrassed, I would just pass it on to the next person. When I was 9 years old, I was struggling so badly. I didn't get the lesson. I was slowing down the class. You could tell the teacher was giving extra attention, but the other kids started to tease me for it, and the teacher came to my defense. and pointed out that I was different. But all I remember her doing, she pointed me from the whole class and said, that's the boy with the broken brain. And that label became my limit. It was a good intention, right? But teachers, adults in general have to be very careful with our external words because they become a child's internal words. You get that? Like, for me, like, where it manifested every time I did badly on a test, which was like all the time, every time I wasn't picked for sports, which was all the time, I would say, oh, 'cause I have the broken brain, right? And that became my inner self-talk. That's why I started with belief first, because if you believe you can or can't, either way you're right, 'cause all behavior is belief-driven, right? So I do this more because Roger Bannister, when he broke the— not only did visualization, that wasn't the interesting part of the documentary. What was interesting to me is nobody could do it for thousands of years. One person does it, what happens after that?

Everybody can.

Yeah. And then was there big advancements in shoe technology or nutritional support, training methodology? No. Where was the change? A belief. Because what was the belief back then?

It was impossible.

Not only that it was impossible, it was that you would die trying. That if the human heart couldn't sustain a sub-4-minute mile, it would explode in your chest. Now, I'm a runner, right? You know, that wouldn't keep me from running, that would keep me from jogging, right? I'd be so scared because all behavior is belief-driven. So, you still need to look at those beliefs first, all right? So, that's the B in BE FAST. The rest I'm gonna go through very quickly. The E, second tip to learn any subject or skill faster, the E in BE FAST stands for exercise. Exercise. And I don't mean physical exercise, I mean practice, 'cause practice makes what?

Perfect.

Progress, right? Practice makes progress. And so, the thing is, is anything worth having is worth doing, right? And I'm not saying it's necessarily easy, but I'm telling you it's worth it. For example, the number one business etiquette networking skill there is, is remembering people's names. Because if you can't do that, it doesn't matter what you say after that, right? And so, if someone feels disrespected or that you don't care, they're not important, right? Then— So, here's the thing. Exercise. Like, I'm very good at remembering names. You could watch me memorizing, like, an audience full of people's names, but I haven't gotten much better after 30, 60 days of practice, right? Because once you know how to drive, once you know how to type, once you know how to tie your shoes, it's just what you do, right? So memory is a skill, and everybody could do it. We just never took a class on it, right? So I put in my Instagram link, like, actually a 3-part video on how to remember names. how to do these things. So, it's there for you. It's free, right? But you need to be able to practice. How long does it take to change a habit?

21 days.

21 days, 30 days, some people say 66 days. You know, the consistency. If you're persistent, you could achieve it. But if you're consistent, you get to keep it, just like sales, right? So, the consistency compounds. Little by little, a little bit becomes a lot. So, I want you to— how many are willing to exercise and practice what I'm gonna teach you today? Raise your hand. It's completely— this will give you such an unfair advantage, all right? And that's the E is exercise. And then finally, fast. The F to learn any subject faster or skill, forget. Start with forgetting. Meaning, the challenge, what slows people down often is this idea that, oh, I know this already. And here's the thing, there's so much new information that the half-life of information keeps getting smaller and smaller, meaning how fast and quickly information becomes outdated, because what worked in marketing or sales or health and wellness is maybe not what worked 2 years ago. So, we have to empty our cup, right? They call it a beginner's mind, right? So, you empty your cup so you can put new information in, because what could keep you from learning? So many people say that they have 20 years of experience. When you talk to them, you find out and discover they've only had 1 year of experience that they've repeated 20 times. Does that make sense? Because they're not updating their knowledge, skills, and abilities. All right? So first, forget what you know. The second thing I would say forget is distractions. You know, just like what Joe was talking about in the beginning, not to be on social media and do all these different things. How many of you tend to multitask a lot to keep up nowadays? You find yourself always multitasking. Raise your hand. Now, in actuality, you're not multitasking. It's actually more accurately described as task switching. So, multitasking actually is a myth. Your brain can't do multiple cognitive activities at once. You could ride a bike, chew gum, and think about something, right? But you can't do 2 cognitive activities parallel. So, what you're actually doing is task switching. And what it costs you? 3 things to your productivity, your performance, and your profitability, and definitely your peace of mind. Number one, it costs you time. The thing you think you're gaining, you're losing. Because every time you go from task to task, you go from Slack to social to email, whatever it is, it could take anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes just to regain your focus. So, those watching at home, just focus on one thing, right? The second thing it costs you besides time, mistakes. You know, we do trainings all around the world for Facebook, for Nike, for Google, for SpaceX, right? For a lot of doctors. And did you know surgeons who try to multitask, are more likely to make errors during surgery. So, not only does it cost you time, but it costs you mistakes when you're trying to multitask. And the third reason, if that wasn't reason enough just to focus on one thing, not only does it cost you time and mistakes, it costs you energy. How many of you just the past couple of years suffering from just brain fog or mental fatigue? And part of the reason why is when you go from task to switch task back and forth, you burn more brain glucose. So, it's a It's a really quick way to enervate, to deplete your brain of energy. All right? So, the F is forget what you know, forget about temporarily, forget about distractions. If something comes in your mind, just write it down and then come back to it. All right? The A in FAST stands for active. Learning is not a spectator sport, yet we all grew up with a 20th century education, which prepared us for a 20th century world. Which at the turn of the 20th century was working on farms, working in factories, right? Eventually. And here's the thing, the model of education was a teacher pushing information inside your brain. And here's the thing, the human brain doesn't learn best through consumption. The human brain learns better through creation and co-creation and creativity. You don't learn best by pushing information in, you learn best by pulling it in and pulling it out. If that makes sense. So, being lectured to is not actually the best way of learning something brand new. It's actually how you can be more active. One of the best ways of being more active is taking notes, exactly what you're doing, right? To overcome and mitigate the forgetting curve. How many of you prefer handwriting notes versus digital note-taking? So, actually, when people are tested, students are tested for comprehension and retention, handwriting notes is better. And I did a whole podcast about this also as well, so you can listen to it all, Why. But one of my favorite ways of handwriting notes, put a line right down the page. On the left side, you capture the information. On the right side, you create.

All right?

So, this is a whole brain note-taking. On the left side, you're taking notes. On the right side, you're gonna make notes. So, on the left side, how to remember names, how to read faster, the kind of things that I'm talking about today. But if your imagination, your right brain's gonna take you somewhere, I'd rather take Do you see the right side of the page? That's where you can be creative. How can I use this? How does this relate to what I know? What questions do I have for Jim during the break? Those kind of things. The other thing I would say being active is asking questions. Questions are often the answer. And then finally, after active, the S and the T. The S in BE FAST stands for state. And we talked about this already. All learning is state-dependent. Even right now, how do you feel? Rate yourself on a scale of 0 to 10 in terms of your energy level, your focus, 0 to 10, and then gamify it. If it's a 5, be realistic. Say, what do I need to do to make it a 6? What do I need to do to make— you don't have to jump it to a 10, but just one incremental on that will give you exponential learning. Does that make sense? So just beware, because who controls how you feel?

I do.

You do, right? You are a thermostat, you're not a thermometer, right? Think about the metaphor. If a thermometer is there, a thermometer just what? What's its only function? It just reacts to the environment. Whatever the environment is, it reacts to it. That's all. But a thermostat doesn't react to the environment, does it? It gauges, it knows what's going on in the environment, but it what? It sets a temperature, just like you set a standard, you set KPIs. You set goals, and then the environment reacts to you, right? Just like Roger Bannister, right? You take the invisible and you make it visible, right? And you control how you feel. Like, I got to— I talk about superheroes a whole lot because I couldn't read as a child, as I mentioned, and I taught myself how to read. No matter what the teachers would do or my parents would do, I wouldn't understand it. But I taught myself how to read by reading comic books late at night. When my parents thought I was sleeping, I'd be under the covers with a flashlight, and something about the illustrations brought the stories to life. Because I really do believe when it comes to yourself, your coworkers, your kids, it's not how smart you are. It's not how smart your kids are. It's not how smart your partner is. It's not how smart you are. It's how are you smart? It's not how smart you are. It's how are you smart? And when you discover how you tap into a certain genius, you can learn how to apply it towards other areas of your life. Does that make sense? All right. So, going back to State, I got to introduce 2 of my superheroes, modern-day superheroes together. They wanted to meet each other. So, I invite them, we go to dinner, and it was Richard Branson and Stan Lee. Like, not Stan Lee, but Stan Lee. Who's Stan Lee? Stan Lee.

Marvel.

Marvel, right? He created who? The Avengers and X-Men and Spider-Man, all my heroes, right? And when we're in the car, I asked him, like, you know, you created all my favorite pantheon of heroes, who's— but I need to know, who's your favorite? And Stan was like, it's Iron Man, Jim. He said, Jim, who's your favorite? And he had this big Spider-Man tie. I said, Spider-Man, because I didn't know how to choose my favorite. And but as soon as I said Spider-Man, without a pause, He goes in his iconic voice, with great power comes—

Great responsibility.

And you all know that. Like, where did we first hear that? You don't even probably remember. It's like in our DNA. And I, to this day, I had 3 traumatic brain injuries before the age of 12. Maybe that's why. I flip things when I read. I flip things when I hear it still to this day. 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 don't blame and complain. As Jocko talks about, extreme ownership, we own it, right? Then we have great power to make things better, right? And I think the most important thing to be responsible for, honestly, is how you feel. So many of us, we get the weather and we react, and we're human beings, we're thermometers sometimes. We react to politics, we react to weather, we react to how people treat us. But in actuality, we give up our sovereignty, right? But in actuality, who controls this? We do. You could sit there at an event and, like, I go to a lot of events, right? And let's say there's a speaker that's not the most thrilling speaker or interesting speaker, and I see everyone falling asleep, I'll actually control how I feel. And I'll say something like, wow, that's fascinating to me. How is this guy putting 500 people to sleep all at the same time? Right? I'll actually think that and I'll get more excited and interested in the talk. That won't happen to you today, I promise you, because these people are amazing, and I can't wait to— I'm gonna be in the audience with you, learning from every single one of them, taking notes. But you control how you feel, that state. And then finally, the T in BE FAST, teach. Teach. I'm gonna give you a couple of things you could do to refill your brain, and I want you to think about, how would I teach this to somebody who's not here today, right? If you're online right now, you could take a picture of this. Screen, you know, share it, post on social media, you know, tag cars.com, tag Joe, tag myself so I get to see it, but share what you're learning, right? Because when you teach it, you get to learn it twice. It takes advantage of something called the explanation effect. The explanation effect in science says when you learn something with the intention of explaining it to somebody else, like if you had to give a TEDx talk on Monday about what you learned today, are you gonna pay attention better? Are you gonna have better focus, concentration? Are you gonna take more thorough notes, ask more questions during the breaks, right? You're gonna own that information. So, if you wanna learn something, you see it, you hear it, but then you do it and you teach it to somebody else, all right? And that's be fast. Now, let me jump from that and give you 3 tips on how to remember names, 'cause you're here and I want you to remember names. And, like, the person to your left and to your right could change your lives. How many of you, one relationship has changed your professional or personal lives, right? And so, you know that, but the fortune is in that follow-up, right? But you need to create that connection. So, I want you to remember 3 keys for a better memory. It doesn't matter what it is, I'll apply it towards name. 3 keys to a limitless memory. I want you to remember MOM, M-O-M. Now, raise your hand if you honestly aren't that great at remembering names. Raise your hand. Hi. Let's say that there's a suitcase here. A million dollars cash for you or these amazing charities, tax-free. It's all yours if you just remember the name of the next stranger you meet in this room. Raise your hand for a million dollars if you're gonna remember that person's name. Raise it up high. Now, how come this room is all full of memory experts all of a sudden? Because as a brain coach, a coach doesn't— a coach is gonna call you on your BS, your belief systems, right? The truth is you can remember someone's name. Right? Because you're not using any method. I haven't even taught anything about how to remember names. So, it's not true that you're bad at remembering names. The first M in MOM stands for what?

Motivation.

Motivation. All right? Because there's some incentive here. What is your motive for action? What is your motive for remembering names, right? Even if you did something simple, like when you meet somebody, ask yourself, why do I wanna remember this person's name? Literally, I said that for the first 30, 60 days I did that. Why do I want to remember the person's name? Maybe to show the person respect, maybe to make a sale, maybe to make a, you know, get a referral, maybe to make a new friend, maybe to practice these things I learned from Jim, right? Because if you can't come up with a reason, you won't get the result. Reasons reap results, all right? Same thing with sales. How many of you are in business development? You have a hat that says business development, right? What's their motivation, right? What's most important to them, right? What has to happen in order for them to feel X, right? What's most important to them in a life, in a sale? And then once you find that motivation, then you're not teaching, you're not pushing information, you're pulling it out, right? So success always goes from your head to your heart to your hands. That's the ultimate success formula, H cubed. If you want anything in life, H cubed. You could visualize things in your head all day, set New Year's resolutions in your head, but if you're not acting with your hands, you're procrastinating. Check in with the second H, which is your heart. Right? People don't buy logically, they buy what?

Emotionally.

Emotionally, and they justify logically, because we are not logical, we are biological. You think about dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, right? We are this chemical feeling soup. So everything comes back to your heart, right? So why? And so come up with a reason. So the M, motivation. Find your motivation for remembering someone's name. The O— have the camera on me? Everyone do this. Shake out your hand, either one. Just keep on shaking. Make sure your neighbor is shaking their hand. All right, look at me. Do this. Make a fist. Put it to your chin. Now, come on. Where's your chin, everybody? The O in MOM stands for observation. All right? A lot of people, when they forget a name, they blame their retention. And it's not your retention. It's your attention. The art of memory is the art of attention. The art of memory is the art of attention. And often, we're forgetting names. We're not forgetting the names, we're just not hearing the names. Does that make sense? Because if you're honest, when you're meeting someone for the first time, what are you really doing? You're not even— most people aren't even listening. What are they doing? They're waiting for their turn to speak, or they're thinking about how they're gonna respond. And if you're talking to yourself and you're hearing— you can't hear somebody else's conversation and have a conversation with yourself. So you're not forgetting it, you're just not hearing it. So, like, write down the word listen or type out the word listen in your phone. And here's the little brain exercise. The same letters, scrambled it, spell another word. Perfect. What word does it spell?

Silent.

Silent. The word listen, when scrambled, spells the word silent. And if you want a better memory, Be motivated to remember someone's name, come up with 1 or 2 reasons, and just be silent, right? Really listen. And that's really the key. And the last M is the methods. Now, the methods that I teach all kinds of different ways, like on podcasts and on videos, they're not hard to find. I think we have 400 million views the past couple years. You could watch any of these videos where I demonstrate. I pull people on stage, I show you how to do it. And it doesn't— so the bad news is it takes effort. The good news, it doesn't take as much as you think. You know, just— and when do you have an opportunity to practice? Anytime. If you're watching television or going through social media and you see, you could just assign a name to a face, you could just practice. Jim Rohn said, what you practice in private, you're rewarded for in public. What you practice in private, you're rewarded for in public. Right? So, your success, everyone sees the top of the iceberg, right? But they don't see the sacrifice, the long nights, the hard work. And for you who own your business, you have to feed your business until your business feeds you, right? And so, that's the practice. That's the hard work nobody wants to talk about, but that's the deep work. All I'm reminding you is that it's possible because we just weren't taught how to be able to do this. All right? So, let me give you what I think is key for refuel. Actually, let's do it together. I didn't think about this. But if we were to take this and turn it into an acronym, REFUEL, the R— okay, so let's upgrade our brain. Some of you saw the COVID of Entrepreneur Magazine a few months ago. It had my silly face on it holding a brain, but the title was Upgrade Your Brain, right? Learn faster, focus better, be able to think more clearly. We upgrade our technology all the time, but we don't take time to do the software. The hardware, right? The operating system. So, here are 1, 2, 3, 6 things you could do to refuel your mind, all right? The R, and what I want you to do is write these down, but rate yourself on a scale of 0 to 10, how much energy, time, and attention are you putting into this area, all right? Because everyone wants to know what the magic pill is. There is no magic pill. There is a process, all right? And this is the process, these 6 keys to refuel your mind. The R, rest. You do not have to fix everything. You do not have to solve everyone's problem. You know, take time, make time to rest and refuel to recover. Does that make sense? So many people now, they're in martyr mode. They're taking care of everybody, but they're not taking care of who? You know, themselves. So rest. How many of you honestly aren't sleeping the way you want to? I've done 6 episodes. So my podcast has no sponsors. And it's 20 minutes or less, because your time and your attention is your most valuable asset. So, in the spirit of Kwik, we get you the lessons as quickly as possible. But sleep is important for your brain, because when you don't sleep, how's your brain the next day? How's your ability to solve problems, make good decisions? You sleep— first of all, if you have long-term memory issues, check your sleep. That's where you consolidate short to long-term memory. I lost my grandmother to Alzheimer's. We donated 100% of the proceeds to Limitless, which is out in the lobby, to charity, 100% of it, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and to Alzheimer's research, to building schools around the world for children who have no access to it. But the reason I say this is I think you learn to earn to return. I think it's extremely generous of you for the charities that are involved because that's the best way of getting out of fear. Fear shrinks the human brain. Whole area of science called psychoneuroimmunology. It makes you more susceptible to colds, to flus, to virus. You know what the antidote to fear and stress is? Service, contribution. So, it's actually good for your brain to be able to do that, those kind of things. But going back in terms of when you sleep, that's where you clean out the beta amyloid plaque that could lead to Alzheimer's and dementia. That's your sewage system. It's also where you dream also. I have a whole process for remembering your dreams. But on a scale of 0 to 10, just rate your sleep. All right? So, that's R, is rest. The E, the E stands for exercise. And this time, I do mean physical exercise, right? They say sitting is the new smoking, and we're on screens all day. And I'm saying, take time to move throughout the day. As your body moves, your brain grooves. As your body moves, your brain grooves, right? When you move and exercise, you create brain-derived neurotropic Factors, fancy term, BDNF, which is like fertilizer for your brain, right? Even studies show that when you listen to a podcast or an audiobook and you're on an elliptical or you're doing a brisk walk or on a treadmill, you retain it and understand it better, all right? So, move your body. On a scale of 0 to 10, how much are you moving throughout the day? That's the E. The F, to refuel your brain, food. There are certain brain foods. A whole area of science I talk about in Limitless called neuro nutrition. Certain foods have a very protective property to the human brain. My favorites, and talk to your nutritionist, find out what's good for you. Avocados, great brain food. Blueberries, I like to call them brain berries. Broccoli, great for your brain. Olive oil, good for your brain. If your diet allows, the eggs, choline in eggs is good for your brain. Green leafy vegetables like kale and spinach, good for your brain. If your diet allows, your brain is mostly fat, so the fatty fishes, salmon, sardines, very good for your brain. Turmeric has actually been shown to be good for your brain, lowers inflammation. And then 2 more, walnuts, which are great to snack on, the vitamin E is very neuroprotective. And here's a fun one, dark chocolate. It's actually really good for your brains. And And it's interesting because these are some of my favorite ones, but find out you could put them all into a smoothie, make a brainpower smoothie, right? The chocolate, the green leafy vegetables, the avocados, probably not the salmon, that probably won't taste so good. But 0 to 10, on the other side, the fried foods, not good for your brain, high sugar, not for your brain. But 0 to 10, rate yourself. That would be the F. The U, I'm going to say us, us meaning as a community, is a positive peer group. Who's your us? Who you spend time with is who you become. That's why I think it's so important for gatherings like this. We start imitating the people around us. They say, be careful spending time with 9 broke people because you're going to be number 10, right? Because we start adopting the words, the actions, the thoughts, the character, the habits of the people around us, right? So, it's not just your neurological networks, it's your social networks. So, on a scale of 0 to 10, how positive is your us?

10.

Your positive peers. And then finally, let's take the E and the L. The E, I'm gonna make, this is a really big one, environment. All right? What's good for your brain? Your external world is a reflection of your internal world. And when you clean your external world, you make your bed. Have you ever noticed you clean your desk or the files on your screen, you have clarity of thought, right? So, on a scale of 0 to 10, how clean is your environment?

10.

And then finally, the L, lifelong learning. The best way to upgrade your brain, always be learning. It's like software upgrade for your brain, right? There was a study done of these nuns, and these nuns live 80, 90, and above. And the researchers wanted to find out what was their key to their longevity. It was on the COVID of Time Magazine. I don't know if you saw this. I call them super nuns. They said half of it had to do with their emotional faith and their gratitude. And the other half, they were lifelong learners. And because they were lifelong learners, added years to their life and also life to their years. So on a scale of 0 to 10, I'm preaching to the choir here, how much are you learning every day? I think you should have a to-do list, but also besides a to-feel list, I think you should have a to-learn list. Everything in the past couple of years is a great time to upgrade your skills, knowledge, and abilities also, because the more you can learn, the more you could earn. All right. I'm gonna finish with this idea here. I mentioned to you that I have this affinity for superheroes. And years ago, I got a call from the chairman of 20th Century Fox, and they said, hey, I saw— it's a referral of somebody, I remember their name. So you never could track the power of remembering someone's name. And he says, can you come and work with our executive team? And I go out there on a Friday and I spend half a day with this company and I train their brains. I help a lot of actors speed read scripts, memorize lines, be focused on set. And afterwards, they're like, this is the best training we've ever done since I've been here. And they gave me a tour of the studio and I've never been on a studio lot before. And I saw this movie poster of Wolverine. And I said this simple comment. I said, I can't wait for that movie to come out. So it wasn't coming out for a few months. And he picks up his phone, and 5 minutes later, I'm in his theater just like this with 3D glasses watching Hugh Jackman fight all these super ninjas, right? On a Friday afternoon, it was like the best ever. And afterwards, he was— he came, he's like, how was the movie? And I was like, this was so much better than da da da da. And he's like— I was like, because I was like a 9-year-old, I was like, you don't know this, but I grew up with learning challenges. I couldn't read. I taught myself how to read by reading comic books. My favorite comic books were Wolverine and the X-Men. It's X-Men, not because they were the strongest, it's just they didn't fit in. 'Cause I felt like as a kid, I didn't fit in. And I tell them that when I was 9 years old, I read in the comic book that the X-Men school, there's actually a school for the X-Men, was in— does anyone know this?

Westchester.

In Westchester, New York, a suburb of New York City, and that's where I lived. And so I tell them, I used to, every weekend when I was 9, I used to ride my bicycle trying to find that school, 'cause I wanted to run away and find my superpowers. I wanted to find my super friends, right? And I'm telling this to the chairman, and he looks at me, he's like, Jim, I didn't know you liked superheroes and the X-Men. Do you want to go to the X-Men set? I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, we have another 30 days of filming a new X-Men movie in Montreal. And I was like, oh my goodness, I would love to do that. What can I do for you? He's like, do the same thing you did for us. Teach them how to speed read scripts, memorize lines, focus on camera. I was like, I could totally do that. The next morning, we get on what they call the X-Jet. And, like, I'm the last one on, and the entire cast of X-Men's on this plane. I mean, I don't even see Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart. I see, like, Professor X, Wolverine, and I'm sitting between Jennifer Lawrence and Halle Berry going to Montreal to film the best movie ever, right? And when we get there, you know, the first shot, I have to tell you guys, it took place, you know where? In the X-Men school. And I just, as a 9-year-old boy, seeing my heroes come to life in this school that, you know, that I've been looking for. I was there for about a week. I go back home, and there's a package waiting for me about the size of a television. And I rip it open, and it's this photograph. Maybe they could show it. It's me and the entire cast of X-Men. I'm the Asian dude in the middle. Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, you know, all these. But even better than that was the note from the chairman. This is the point. It said this, thank you so much for sharing your superpowers with all of us. I know since you were a child you've been searching for your superhero school. Here's your class photograph. And I get choked up thinking about this because, you know, my 2 biggest challenges growing up as a child were learning, and because of it, I was phobic of public speaking. You know, my superpower was being invisible, was shrinking down, was hiding behind the tallest kid, because I never had the answers. Right? I would do a book report because I'd work really hard, but if a teacher asked me to present it, I would lie and say I didn't do it, and I would take a zero. And on the way out from class, I would throw it out into the trash. You know, that was— and the universe has a sense of humor because what do I do for a living? I public speak on this thing called learning. But I do believe our struggles can become strengths, that with challenge comes change, you know, that when you could take your mess and turn it into your message, you know, I really do believe when you're thinking about this, There is a version of yourself and your business that you haven't met yet. And I think the goal is we show up every single day until we're introduced. I'm your brain coach, Jim Kwik. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Woo!