Work Smart, Not Hard | Jim Kwik

Welcome to Quick Brain, bite-sized brain hacks for busy people who want to learn faster and achieve more. I'm your coach, Jim Kwik. Free your mind. Let's imagine if we could access 100% of our brain's capacity. I wasn't high, wasn't wired, just clear. I knew what I needed to do and how to do it. I know kung fu. Show me. How do you work smart? And not just hard. This was a question in our private Facebook group for our podcast listeners. It's the place, as you know, to go to get exclusive free trainings, livestream question and answers with me, and also where you could submit topics for future episodes and so much more. Just go to kwikbrain.com for your free access. Let's talk about working smart. This is a question we get a lot. There are times in life where you might find yourself overwhelmed, You might have a really long to-do list, insane demands, and not enough time. All of these action items may appear to be really high priority tasks, and you're carrying the weight of it all. And you could sometimes feel a little bit unbearable. And you feel like you're being held back or tired of the pressure. So, I understand where this question is coming from, because if you're just like the rest of us, you want to become more efficient. Right? Smart. And you want life to feel easier, not so hard. Before I give you my quick tip for working smart, here's a little quick story. One day at a well-known package delivering distribution center, everything came to an abrupt halt. Literally all the machines, all the conveyor belts stopped running and no packages were moving. The silence was really deafening. Can you imagine running this plant? Thousands of dollars are lost every single minute. Now, after hours and hours, none of the workers there could track down the problem, and the head of operations was frantic. So he called the best expert he could find. Now, the expert technician arrives and glances around the facility. He goes to one of the numerous beams. He draws an X on the electrical box, Opens it and stares into the various bolts and wires inside. He turns one screw about a quarter of an inch and bam, like magic, everything starts working again and the plant came back to life. Now the operations director was so relieved. He thanks him and asks, how much is owed? The technician looks at him and says, $10,000. The director now is in shock. $10,000? What? You were here for less than 5 minutes. You turned one single screw. Anyone could have done that. I need an itemized bill, please. The technician reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a notepad, scribbles on it a few seconds, and hands him the bill. The director reads it and immediately pays him. On the piece of paper, it reads this: turning screw, $1. Knowing which screw to turn? $9,999. So what's the lesson here? Is it that you have a screw loose? No, that's, that's not it. Here are 2. Number one, knowledge is not only power, it's profit. You know this. Our world has changed dramatically and we must change with it. Very quickly, we've moved from an industrial age through a service age, and now we're in this This is an expert economy where your mind has become the primary source of wealth. We have moved from an age of brute strength to brain strength. Now, this might be why you listen to our show. You want to optimize your mental assets to absorb, create, think, and apply faster, smarter, better. And you want to enjoy it also. The faster you could learn, the faster you could earn, right? More you could learn, the more you can earn. And I don't just mean financial profit. But growing all the treasures of your life so you could make a greater difference, right? Learn, earn, return so you could give back. And like the story illustrates, your greatest asset is found right between your ears and it's called your brain. So that's the first lesson, really develop your brainpower so you could create more wealth. And again, not just financial profit, but in all the areas of your life, your health, your relationships, your career, anything you hold dear. Now, that's the first lesson, but what's the second lesson? For me, this simple story of the technician in the distribution center— now, I've heard this in very different iterations, everything from it taking place in a major newspaper printing press to I've heard the same story with Nikola Tesla visiting Henry Ford at his car factory and doing the same thing that this technician did. Whatever the level of accuracy, the parable clearly illustrates an important principle of success. One that could dramatically turn on, like turning that screw, your performance, your productivity, your prosperity, your peace of mind. So what is it? It's your ability to assess, to determine where to put that X in each part of your life is the critical determinant of everything that you accomplish or you fail to accomplish. What do I mean by that? There are very specific focal points, certain screws you could turn that yields disproportionate rewards and returns. A focal point in science is that point at which all elements or aspects converge, a center of activity or a center of attention. When you think about elements, think about light or sound, maybe light going through a magnifying glass. In game theory, a focal point is a solution that people will tend to use because it seems natural. And in today's digital age, How does that apply towards you in your everyday? Well, in today's age, you are no longer rewarded for the hours you put into something, but more for what you put into those hours, right? It's about working smart and not just hard. You hear that all the time, but how do you practically do it? So if you're struggling in some area of your life, my guess is it's not a matter of you working harder. My guess is you already do work hard. It's a matter of spending your time identifying and turning the right screws. So how do you apply this so you could benefit? Here's my question for you today. What are the activities that have the greatest impact in your life? Again, what are the activities that have the greatest impact or return in your life, in your health, in your relationship, In your business, in your income, in your level of joy and fulfillment. This idea of a focal point is very similar to the principles like force multipliers and the Pareto principle. You might've heard of force multipliers. They use it in military science. Basically, it's a factor or a combination of factors that dramatically increases or multiplies, as it were, the effectiveness of a resource to accomplish greater things than without it. Same input, but you get more output. So for example, GPS enabled troops to accomplish the same kind of results of a force 5 times as large without GPS. Using GPS is a force multiplier. Boosting your memory, for example, is a force multiplier, right? It magnifies your abilities and it gives you multiple rewards. The Pareto principle is— you might be more familiar with the 80/20 rule— means that 20% of your efforts yield you 80% 80% of the results. If you, for example, have a list of 10 items on your to-do list that you need to accomplish, 2 of those items will likely turn out to be worth more than the other 8 items put together. The fact is that most people procrastinate on the top 20% of their items, their to-dos, their tasks, and these are the most valuable, the most important. That's working hard and not working smart. When you focus on the 80% that's giving you 20% rewards, as opposed to what you should be focusing on, the top 20% that's giving you the majority of the rewards. So what are the subjects? What are the skills? What are the solutions, the metaphorical screws that once developed will give you the biggest return on your time invested? Your ability to determine where you put the quote unquote X in each part of your life is the critical determinant of everything that you want to accomplish or fail to accomplish. This X is your focal point. This is the one thing you could do at any given moment to get the very best results possible for you in that area. Your ability to choose the correct time, the place, the activity to place that X has more of an impact on your life than any other factor. And that's really my goal for you with our podcast, with our online training programs, It's to help you identify and develop those Xs, to provide you with practical, proven, powerful mental processes that you can apply in every area of your learning and your life to achieve better, faster, easier outcomes and results than you ever imagined possible. We may be friends on social media, on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, where I post daily quick tips and insights. Recently, I shared this. The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing. I'll say that again. The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing. So, here are a few questions to ask yourself to find your focal point. If you could only accomplish one of your goals on your list today, which one task would have the greatest positive impact on your life? Another question, where's my focus right now? What needs to happen for today to be a success? So as I'm going through these questions, consider some of these answers and notice where your focus goes. Here's another one. What can I do to raise the odds of having a successful day? What's the one thing I could do today that will lead to meaningful progress towards my goal? What one project, if completed, would likely have the most impact? And here are 2 of my favorites. What is the best use of this moment? What matters the most right now? So if you feel stressed, remember that things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least. Keep calm, and you want to put first things first. And what I would recommend is you write these questions down. We have them in the show notes at kwikbrain.com and in our private Facebook group. Post your favorite ones in your work area so that you can see them regularly. You could prompt yourself by having your automatic alarm, maybe on your phone, pop up every X amount of time with one of the questions to remind yourself to ask. And as you focus on your focal points and become excellent in those few areas that make a real difference in your life, you can begin to think in terms of possibilities rather than impossibilities. And you can move even closer towards the realization of your learnings and your life's full potential. And of course, your Kwik Brain. Want to double your brain speed and memory power? If you'd like to learn rapidly and get ahead faster, I'd like to give you my brand new Kwik Brain Accelerator program. You will discover exactly what I teach my clients to learn, read, and remember anything in half the time. There is no charge. It's my gift to you for being one of our subscribers. That's kwikbrain.com.