You Will Never Be Lazy Again | Jim Kwik

The average person opens up Instagram 150 times a day, but that's by design. Like you said, companies, you know, from product design, they're paying— they're putting fortunes in to understand why we do what we do. Variable reward, dopamine talks, all that stuff. Exactly. And so if you're picking up the phone the first thing in the morning, the challenge is— a number of reasons this is a challenge. First of all, there are these 4 primary brainwave states. Beta is what you and I are in right now, we're awake. Delta is when you're fast asleep. In between those 2 states, theta and alpha, are extremely important brainwave states for learning. So theta is the state right in and out of sleep. Theta is the state that we call creativity. When you are your most creative, usually it's coming because you're in this theta state. And you know this, when you're in and out of sleep, or you're close to like, you're so deep, your mind goes and you come up with ideas. You know what puts you in a theta state? Are showers. Oh, really? You ever notice like when you're in the shower, you come up with some of your best ideas? Yeah, and your brain kind of drifts. It does, because you're in that brainwave state. So a big part of my work is taking the invisible and making it visible. Like I always, when I do these demonstrations, I always tell people that I do it because I want you to see that there's a method behind the magic. That when somebody does something that's extraordinary in athletics, in education, in technology, with the human body, there's always a trail, you know, because genius leaves clues. Above theta, though, is this state called alpha, right, right below beta where you're most aware and awake. Alpha is a state of learning, accelerated learning. It's a state of relaxed awareness. This is a state we go into when we meditate. Because your critical mind is set aside and you just absorb information unconsciously. You know what puts you into an alpha state? Television. You ever notice that if somebody's watching the game or somebody's watching their favorite TV show and you're trying to have a conversation with them and they literally are entranced, they don't hear you because of the television programming? Which might be an interesting word, you know, programming and putting people into a trance. Yeah. But that's the alpha state. That's where information is just going inside your mind. So we train people how to learn languages faster, learn facts, better by putting them into an alpha state, a relaxed state of awareness. And we can do that by, by design. And people don't realize this, and this is the whole thing. I really think this should have been taught back in school because school was a great place to learn what to learn— math, history, science, Spanish, important subjects on what to learn. But how many classes were on how to learn? Does that even exist these days? No, that's why I'm saying, like, how many classes were on how to think critically? How to make good decisions, how to solve problems, how to focus and concentrate, how to read, how to read faster, how to remember more, right? Even there's— they teach you 3 Rs in school: reading, writing, arithmetic. But what about remembering? What about recall? What about retention, right? Socrates says there is no learning without remembering, and that's really the, the basis of it all. But I would say that Knowing you're in this alpha-theta state first thing in the morning, you're very suggestible, right? And if the first thing you're picking up is your phone, then that really is rewiring our brain for 2 things, the dangers. That's gonna really decrease your level of productivity and performance. Number one, it's training you to be distracted. And we talked about that. Every like, share, comment, everything is just making you just pay attention to everything else and rewiring your brain. So when you're having a conversation with somebody, you can't even focus because you've trained your brain to do otherwise. And that's why mindfulness is so important, you know, whether it's meditation or something else, because it's not that— I don't meditate every single day just to be at peace and be in this Zen state. I do it because it's a mental exercise. It improves my cognitive capabilities, meaning that when my mind goes somewhere else, that's the opportunity. So I pull it back with my breath or visualization. I built that muscle. Because here's really the basis of my work. is really about taking nouns and turning them into verbs. So what do I mean by that? It's, it's like so many people, they wake up and say, oh, I hope I have energy today, or I have motivation today, things that they have, right? I have creativity so I can write today or make videos, or I have memory, or I have focus or concentration. Those aren't things you have, those are things you do. And so you don't have love, you do loving things. You don't have energy, you do things that give you energy. Just like that applies, same thing with learning. You don't have focus, there's a process for doing focus. You don't have a memory, there's steps to improve your memory or to remember things better. There's not— creativity is not something you have, there's actually a process for creativity. So you should never suffer from writer's block or anything else like that because that's where if you're— if you don't understand how you work, when I was talking about self-awareness and understanding ourselves, You know, I think if somebody wants to improve their esteem, their self-esteem overnight, just study your brain. Like, you'll get a boost of confidence and pride, like, instantly, because it is the most incredible— I don't even know what to call it, a device, a supercomputer, what— in the whole universe. You know, it's not just about going out to Mars and all these other places. I want to go in here, because this controls what? Everything. Our careers, our income, our health, our relationships, you know, whether or not you get, you know, complete. Yeah, we were talking about this before our conversation here. What, you know, when you're training for Ironman and triathlons and everything else, is how much of it is mental? Like, we know, like, everyone knows what to do, but do they do what they know? Because common sense is not common practice. And it's a myth that knowledge is power. No, knowledge is— it has the potential to be power. It only becomes power when we use it, when we apply it. Like, people think they should get points for buying books and sitting on the shelf, and it just sits there. And becomes like shelf help, not self-help, right? Shelf help, yeah. Or somebody will go and learn something or listen to a podcast like this or a show, or they'll go to a conference, they'll pay all this money, but they don't do anything with what they learn. And part of it also is because they forget it. You know, everyone knows there's a learning curve, but there's also a forgetting curve. Did you know, like, the forgetting curve says that if you learn something once, within 48 hours, 80% of it is gone? 80%! So you listen to a show, you watch something on YouTube, you go to a conference, you read a book, within 2 days the majority of it is gone because nobody trains us how to have— that's why memory is so important, you know. And so the first thing, don't touch your phone because it's training you to be distracted. The second thing is it's training you, rewiring your brain to be reactive. Reactive, meaning that you're in this relaxed state of awareness when you first wake up, you pick up your phone, You get one text with bad news or one voicemail or one email, and you know this, we've all— this has all happened to us. You're in a bad mood for the rest of your day because you're so impressionable. You're in that hypnotic state and it affects you, and you can never have a quality life, you know, with that, you know, and be the best version of ourselves, be an elite mental performer or high performer when you're responding and reacting to everybody else. You know, my friend Brendon Burchard says an inbox is nothing but a convenient organizational system for other people's agenda for your life. And how can you have vision for your life? Like for me, the night before, like I have, I did a whole episode on my morning routine, like 10 things I do every morning to jumpstart my brain. And I also have an evening 1-hour routine to get into sleep, to maximize my sleep. Sleep is so very important to be able to do. But one of the processes I do besides blackout curtains and cold and all the temperatures and breath and stuff, meditation, is I don't touch a screen. screen, right, because it creates blue light. And most people should know this. Every, you know, the screen on your laptop, your phone, everything else emits this blue light which inhibits melatonin production, which helps you to relax and go to sleep. So no screens. But the other thing I do is I write down the 3 things I want to accomplish the next day personally, and the other 3 are professionally. So now when I wake up, I have a vision for my life. Like, I'll— this is a win today if I just get these 3 things done personally and 3 things professionally. And when it comes to my phone, I don't touch my phone until I get at least one thing done. And that's my test. If I could just do that. And it's not always perfect, but it's about progress, right? Because practice makes progress, right? Right. And there's never going to be a perfect. And I think people need to find what works for them. But I would say again, to step out is not— trust yourself as the expert instead of somebody else and test it. For one week, keep your phone outside your bedroom for just one week and don't touch it for the first hour a day and spend the first hour a day being a thermostat, not a thermometer. Because a thermometer, what's its function? It reacts to the environment. And that's a kind of crappy way to live. Not that we don't— we do react to the environment. We react to the weather, right? We react to how clients treat us. We react. But to the degree we're happy is that we have the locus, the location of control inside. Right? All the studies show that the happiest people are the ones that feel like they have the control over their happiness and not put it to somebody else, a person or a place or something going on in the economy or politics or anything, right? Mm-hmm. So a thermometer reacts to the environment, but a thermostat's different. What does that function? It sets the environment. It sets a goal, it sets a temperature, and then the environment raises to it. And so I feel like anyone who's attracted to your work or to mine Their thermostats, because they have a growth mindset. Because if they thought things were fixed, they wouldn't watch something like this, because what's the point? It's just all predestined and it's set and we can't grow.