947 Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster and Become Limitless with Jim Kwik

This is episode number 947 with Jim Quick. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur, and each.

Week we bring you an inspiring person.

Or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.

Thanks for spending some time with me today.

Now let the class begin. Margaret Fuller said, Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. And Frederick Douglass said, Once you learn to read, you will be forever free. Welcome to this special episode with my friend and master on all things upgrading the brain, learning things faster, memory and becoming limitless, Jim Quick. He is an entrepreneur and a massively successful business coach. He's the founder and CEO of Quick Learning, which is an online brain training and learning firm. Now, he suffered a brain injury at the age of five, which led him to his slow brain performance and left him struggling in school, just like myself. And as the years wore on, he undertook a journey to learn about his brain, why it was broken and what he could do to fix it. And that journey has led him to discovering different learning habits, including accelerated learning systems and tactics. And he spent years training his brain for speed reading and memory improvement. And companies like SpaceX, Virgin, owned by billionaire geniuses like Richard Branson and Elon Musk have trained with him, along with many celebrities, actors, leaders in the world. and he's got a brand new book that's teaching you all this stuff called Limitless. Upgrade youe Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock youk Exceptional Life. You can get it right now. And in this interview, we talk about the three important questions we should ask ourselves every day. What it was like to be known as the boy with the broken brain and how that shaped his future success. How to turn your passion into your purpose. The importance of reading every day and techniques you can use to become a faster reader now. What it takes to truly master a skill, his unique formula for motivation, you're going to love this part, and so much more. I'm so excited about this. The last time I had Jim on, the episode blew up all over the internet. So make sure to share this with a friend, lewishouse.com/947 right now. And let me know what you think over on your Instagram story. Just tag me @lewishouse and tag Jim Quick. as you're listening to this and share your thoughts on what you enjoyed the most. All right, I'm so excited about this one. Without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one and only Jim Quick.

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Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got the inspirational Jim Quick in the house. My man, good to see you. Very excited. We had you on five years ago, we found out it was when we did a video interview, one of my first video interviews. back at your other place in Hollywood Hills with all the Marvel comic stuff and Hulk and all these big action figures you have. And you have been impacting so many people's lives over years, decades. You've been working with massive celebrities, massive CEOs, helping them become limitless in their mind, helping them really capitalize on the tool, the technology that we all have, which is our brain. to remembering things more, learning things faster, accelerating all these things in our lives so that we can maximize the impact we have in our businesses, our careers, our relationships, everything. And I'm so excited you're here. I've been telling you to do a book for five, six, seven years now. You finally got it out. It's called Limitless. Make sure you check this out. Upgrade your brain, learn anything faster, and unlock your exceptional life. This is going to be amazing. And it's really like three books in one. And there was a model that you give that I think we should start with. There's a method that you give or a model for how to become limitless. And if we don't follow this model, then something's going to be broken in our life, isn't that right?

Yeah, this model really is a framework for learning anything faster. So for people who are listening and watching and they want to learn a language, they want to learn Mandarin, music, martial arts, management, marketing, any skill. I think if there's one skill to master in the 21st century, it's our ability to learn faster. Like if there was a genie and a genie could grant you any one wish but only one wish, what would you wish for? If it was only one wish, what.

Would you wish for? You know, most people would say money or this or that, but you think learning is the-- I mean, I think.

A lot of people would say-- I.

Think being the matrix, like downloading the matrix, is where I could learn jiu-jitsu in a second.

Exactly.

If I could learn a language in.

A second, if I could have this skill. So I think the hack a lot of people would do is if it was anyone wish, they would wish for more wishes, right? Exactly. Infinite wishes. So the equivalent, if I was your learning genie and I could grant you any one wish to learn any subject or any skill, just become a master at it, the equivalent, what's the equivalent of the answer of asking for infinite wishes? It would be learning how to learn. Because if you can learn how to learn, the world is yours, especially today, because nobody who's listening and watching gets paid for their brute strength. It's their brain strength. It's not your muscle power, it's completely your mind power. And the challenge is your brain doesn't come with an owner's manual. It's not user friendly. And that's the reason why I wrote this book. But the limitless model is an explanatory schema, a framework for learning anything faster. And not only that, but really for accessing our human potential. Because I think if there's one infinite, limitless resource on planet Earth, it's human capability. There's no limit on our determination. There's no limit to our imagination. There's no known limit to our creativity, and yet we're not shown how to be able to access that. And so this framework is a three-part framework. And what I would offer everyone to do is I love to turn this into like a little masterclass. Okay. Make it really engaging. And so don't listen passively, because we don't learn through the human brain doesn't learn through consumption. It learns through creation and creativity and getting involved in things. And I know a lot of us learn faster when we actually roll up our sleeves and do it. So I would encourage everybody as they're working out or cleaning the house or whatever they're doing at the same time to try to get involved in this.

I think as an athlete, I can speak to that because for me in school, it's really hard to remember or learn things because I didn't feel like I was participating in a way that worked for me. But as an athlete playing basketball, when a coach would tell me, okay, I want you to watch this video and then automatically shoot in a certain way with your hand positioned this way and follow through this way just by watching a video and not actually implementing and practicing it, he would take me out on the court and we would practice it and do it over and over again and he would correct me and I would learn through muscle memory as opposed to just watching something and then thinking I can do it without actually practicing. So putting it into practice quickly for me is how I learned sports and it's how I try to apply it in other areas of my life as opposed to just, I'm gonna learn and then, okay, I know it.

I feel like I need to work in it.

I feel, yeah.

Get dirty, you know what I mean? I do, I do. I think a lot of people, this is the thing, it's not how smart you are, It's not literally not how smart you are, it's how are you smart. It's not how smart you are, how smart your kids are, how smart your business partner is. It's how are they smart, how are you smart. What's the difference? So you are smart through experiential learning.

Like in the book we talk about.

How are you smart? Exactly. It's not how smart somebody is, like their IQ or their intelligence. It's how are they smart. And it's always context dependent. And so some people learn, we talk about learning styles in the book, It's like, have you ever been interested, just like you were saying, you're interested in a topic, but you're not getting it? Because sometimes the way you prefer to learn is different than the way the teacher prefers to teach. And it's like you're two ships in the night and you pass each other and you don't even realize there's no connection. You don't even realize the other one is there and it feels uncomfortable. Like if I asked everybody as an exercise to take out a piece of paper, I encourage everyone to take notes because I'm going to drop a lot of practical methods. When you're taking, if you were to write your name first and last on a piece of paper, actually you could do it right now. First and last. And everyone encourages you to do this. Or imagine you're writing your name first and last on a piece of paper. And then when you're done, I want you to switch hands. And in your opposite hand, right below it, write your first and last name with your opposite hand.

-I don't even know if I can.

It takes me 10 minutes. -And so while people are doing it, you'll notice when you're doing it with the opposite hand, as we're doing it, that's actually pretty good. That if I was to ask you which one is the, which one was easier, first or second, and you would say the first was easier, which one is more comfortable, first or last?

The first one.

The first one. So not only was it faster, it was easier. And then which one was higher quality? Let's check that out. Hopefully the first one's higher quality also as well. And so here's the thing. That means the second time it took longer, the second time it also was not as comfortable, and the second time also the quality wasn't quite as good. And here's the thing, when I'm saying it's how you learn, some people are trying to learn something with the opposite hand. So, it takes longer, it feels weird, and the quality is not quite as good as opposed to if you're using your dominant hand.

So, how do we know how to learn with our dominant hand as a as opposed to the opposite hand.

Yeah, and that's a metaphor for how we like to take in information. Some people like to learn by reading. Some people, they just cannot get through a book though. They have to listen to that audio or that podcast, other people- Or watch.

Someone lecturing it or talking about it.

Exactly, and so we all have different styles and it's not right or wrong. Now we can actually improve our ability to read. We actually can improve our ability to listen and apply. So if there are areas where we feel weak, this book is a guidebook to be able to level up those areas so you could be more of a whole brain learner also as well. But really when it comes to accelerated learning, it's not again how smart you are, it's how are you smart? And that honors us and it takes the judgment out. Sometimes in school, it's like the top 10% get A's, another 10% get B's, and then 80% were like you and I. It's like we're failing school as opposed to the way school maybe is failing us because school teaches you what to learn, what to focus on, what to think, what to remember, but not how to learn and how to think.

Well, it teaches you how to think and learn in one way.

Exactly. And when I talk about in the book, I talk about the, the, the four super villains that are holding you back in your work, in your schooling, in your life is driven by technology. But one of them is digital deduction, where we're where we're depending on technology to tell us what to think. We're not even using children right now. They're finding that their reasoning abilities, their ability to analyze critical thinking is not as sharp as where it should be because of technology. Because technology is doing the thinking for us. And our mind, I'm going to say this repeatedly, is like a muscle. It's use it or lose it. And just like when you go, you have your personal trainer to make your muscles more energized, more flexible, more pliable, you know, more, you want your mental muscles to be stronger, more energized, more pliable, more flexible. And so many people refer to me as a brain coach, because what I do is I train your brain, because I think we're in the millennium of the mind. I mean, it's really about mental fitness, our ability to adapt, our ability to think, our ability to solve problems. And this really is everything. When people see me wearing brain shirts all the time or pointing to my brain. The reason why I do that is because what you see, you take care of. You see your hair, you take care of your hair. You see your skin, you take care of your skin. You see your clothing, you take care of your clothing. You don't see your brain. Exactly. And that controls everything. And so when I point to the brain or honored with their shirts, it's like people have their emotions on their sleeve. You know, I have my brain on my chest because I want to put.

It Forefront to remind people to love their brain, to care for their brain. Yeah, I think it's, I mean, that's why a lot of people, doctors and nutritionists are talking about gut health. It's like we can't see it, but we can start to feel rashes or we can start to feel the effects of it. It's also heart health is a big thing right now. It's just like the emotional health, self-care, self-love, you know, mental health and emotional.

Health kind of kind of together. And I love your work because you bring that to, to everybody, to the world, and it's all connected. I talk about in the book. you know, there's this hard intelligence and also your gut, as you mentioned, a lot of people call it your second brain. It's the second highest concentration of nerve cells. Really? And so, and it's connected too. And sometimes, what you eat affects how you think. We know that because of the guests we've had on our shows and everything else that when you eat junk food, which is not really a thing, there's junk and then there's food.

There's sugar and there's fat.

Exactly. And what you eat matters, especially for your gray matter. I remember in our previous episode we did years ago, I showed people how to memorize the brain foods and all of the best neuroprotective area of neuro nutrition. It's really fascinating that your brain has different nutritional requirements than the rest of your body. But I'm going back to the limitless model. There are three keys to reaching your goals. And this is my distinction here because originally, I remember years ago when you prompted me to write this book. You're like, Jim, you know, it's been, you know, over two decades. You gotta put something in this book. And so, because, you know, fundamentally, I'm a reading teacher. And, you know, somebody has decades. Why? I love reading. If somebody has decades of experience and they put it into a book like you, and all of a sudden people could read that book in a few days, they could download decades into days. And readers are leaders. We know that reading is to your mind what exercises your body. It's the best mental fitness. And so the limitless model as an exercise, what I want everyone to do, so it's not hypothetical because in part of the book I demystify the seven lies of learning. There are seven lies that hold you back to learning. And one of them is knowledge is power. We hear that all the time. I've even said it also as well. But when we think about it, is it really true? Is knowledge just knowing something give you power? No, not unless you act on it, not unless you apply it. So knowledge times action equals power. And so I would encourage everybody as you're listening to this to take immediate action. And there are three questions I want you to ask as you're listening to this episode to make it very valuable. And I would encourage you to write these down. Three master questions. We were talking about some of the famous actors that I work on before we started filming. And Will Smith did the COVID endorsement of the book that says, Jim Quick you know, it gets the maximum out of me as a human being. I've learned so much from this man just being around so many around clients.

What have you learned from Will?

So one of the things is this idea of... We were in Toronto and I help actors speed read scripts, help them to memorize their lines faster. I mean, imagine like 30 pages of scripts. There's a lot of information.

You can't remember a sentence.

There's a lot, right? And some of them have their strategies and And no matter how great somebody is, you know this because you make your life about studying and researching greatness. They always know there's another level. And they get really good at the fundamentals and the basics. But one of the things when we were there, we spent the day together and it was wintertime in Toronto. They were filming from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. which can you imagine? Like so hard. Overnight. Overnight. That's very difficult. But during the day, we went through an exercise and I believe So in there, I talk about how we have 50 to 70,000 thoughts a day, right? And these thoughts are controlling our lives. And a lot of those thoughts are questions that we ask ourselves. You know, thinking is that process of asking and answering questions. And if people are asking, is that true? Notice you had to ask a question to define if it's true or not, right? And there's certain questions we ask more than any other question. So here's the thing. I talk about dominant questions that you have one, two, three questions that you ask a lot of it. And I want everyone to think about what your dominant questions are, including you. And I'll give you a couple examples to get you started. So, for example, one of my friends, we went through this exercise of meditating and writing journaling down. We found out her dominant question is, how do I get people to like me? How do I get people to like me? Now, she asked that question all the time, and you don't know anything about her. You don't know her age, you don't know her background, you don't know what she does for a living, you know what she looks like, you know what where she lives, you don't know anything about her, but you know a lot about her. If you ask yourself, how do I get people to like me hundreds of times a day? What's her personality gonna be like? What's her life gonna be like?

Well, I guess it could be either side of the spectrum. She could be super outgoing and super adventurous to try to get people to be more attracted to her, or she could be super shy and introverted because she's so worried about what people think about her. So that's the first thing I thought of, but I'm not sure if that's true.

And it's absolutely true. She actually does both of those things.

Really?

I mean, if you ask yourself, how do I get people to like me? Then what are you doing? You're people pleasing all the time. You're a sycophant. Just saying yes to everything. You people take advantage of you because you're martyring yourself because they're always trying to, you know, they're making themselves less than or their personality is never consistent because their personality changes.

The chameleon, the change for people.

Exactly. And you know all that about her and you only know one question she asks herself. And that's one of her dominant questions. I would offer everybody who's listening to this, what do you think your dominant question is? Because questions are the answer. You know this from the work that you do in high performance and greatness that the questions you ask determine what you focus on. You have part of your brain called the reticular activating system, RAS for short, and it's your filtering system. So at any given time, there's a billion stimuli that we could be paying attention to. And primarily, your brain is a deletion device. It's trying to keep information out. Otherwise, you would go crazy if you paid attention to everything. So, what gets in? So, for example, years ago, my little sister started sending me emails and postcards and pictures, a photograph of a very specific kind of dog. It was a pug dog. You know those little dogs? Exactly. Black dog, right? Yes, exactly. Very smooshy faces. they're very compliant, you can dress them up as ballerinas and they don't care. And she starts, and I didn't know why. So my question was like, why is she sending me these pictures all the time? That became a dominant question of the day. And then I realized her birthday was coming up. So she's a smart marketer, right? Planting those seeds. And here's the magic though. I started seeing pug dogs everywhere. Everywhere. I would go to the grocery store, I'd be checking out, and I swear to you, women's carrying pug dogs at the register. I would be running and jogging in my neighborhood and somebody's walking six pug dogs. Now my question for everybody is where did these pug dogs magically appear all of a sudden in the world? No, they were always there but they were not, I wasn't paying attention to them because they weren't important because I wasn't asking that question. Once you ask a question, you start to pay attention to those things and that focus determines how you feel, determines.

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And primarily it's so interesting. It's kind of like social media. There's an algorithm to your mind, like there's an algorithm to Facebook and Instagram that what you engage with the most you like and you share, you comment, you start seeing more of those kind of things, right? And so just like your mind, what you start engaging with, if you start watching all this news about fear and all the things that are going on, you start paying attention and your mind just starts focusing automatically, it becomes a reaction, a reflex. And you start to attract more of.

The fear and anxiety or worry that's in the world that's being posted. Very much so. You start to subscribe to whatever that is to receive more of it.

Exactly. That's what you're thinking about. So just like on social media, if you start just liking all the cat stuff and everything else, they'll just start feeding you cat stuff. And same thing with negativity and same thing with opportunity also as well. So the questions make a difference. So questions are the answer.

What are the two questions you've been that are dominant in your mind over the last five years the most? Yeah.

So for learning, because I grew up with the broken brain, many people know my story from the last episode, when they see me do these demonstrations at Summit Series or You know, Vence, you.

And I have- Remembering a thousand people's names in 10 minutes.

All of that kind of stuff. I say that I don't do this to impress you. I do this to express to you what's possible. Because the truth is we could all do that and a whole lot more. We just weren't taught. If anything, we're taught a lie that somehow our intelligence is fixed, like our shoe size. But I do it as a demonstration because I grew up with learning difficulties. I had my brain injury when I was five. I fell, had a very bad fall when I was in kindergarten. Rushed to the hospital. Before I was curious and very energized, my parents would say, but then I became very shut down. And my superpower growing up was being invisible. It was shrinking because I didn't want the spotlight. I didn't want to be called on. So I was literally physiologically, I was always trying to look smaller to protect myself so teachers wouldn't call on me.

Or I wouldn't be bullied or something like that. I would do that as well, except I was just a giant in the class.

So I always picked off. So for me, I would actually be sitting behind you and I would be guaranteed no one would be able to see me. But going back to my question, my question became all the time, first of all, when I was nine years old, I was slowing the class down and a teacher pointed to me and said, that's the boy with the broken brain. And that label became my limit. And so we have, think about when you're listening to this, what are the labels that we put on ourselves? It's like we're not born, we're born with a blank slate. But through experience, through expectations of other people, through our environment, we learned that we are limited. And the good news is we can unlearn it. And that's the point of the book. But because I was in the broken state, I would always ask myself, why am I broken? Why am I the stupid one? I started getting answers of why I'm so stupid. Every time I did badly on a test, I would be like, oh, because I have the broken brain. If I was in sports, I would be like, oh, because I'm the broken one. And that became my self-talk. Adults have to be very careful with their external words because they become a child's internal words. But later, I started getting so frustrated. I started asking, getting curious. And when you're curious, you start to ask different questions. I was like, why is that person so... why are they so smart? And how come I'm studying three times harder and getting less grades than them? And I started getting answers. My primary question started, My dominant question ended up being like, how do I make this better? But the three questions that I focus on, and let me tell you first what Will's is, Will Smith's, one of his dominant questions when we went through this exercise is, how do I make this moment even more magical? How do I make this moment even more magical? It used to be, how do I.

Make every moment or like an action moment?

This moment, this moment, every moment, any moment. shows up, right, in his life. Because later that night when we're filming, it was like two o'clock in the morning and his family, we're all outside for the superhero movie that many people know of. And it was really cold because it was in Toronto and it was winter time and we're all just waiting. And just waiting and waiting and waiting. Because people think that, and you meet all these people all the time on your show and they think it's so glamorous. They're just- They're already up and away. Exactly. And I ask him this question because I believe genius leaves clues. I was like, you know, how do you prepare? How do you get ready when the director, you're just sitting here for hours and then the director calls on you, how do you get ready? And he was like, Jim, I don't have to get ready. I stay ready.

It's good to be Will Smith.

It's hard to stay ready for six hours a day. Exactly, but that's just who he is because I believe the life you live are the lessons you teach. The life you live are the lessons you teach others. Going back to his dominant question, his family was there also at the same time visiting the set and, you know, from West Philly, you know, the song. And we're all outside and shivering and when he wasn't shooting, he would bring us blankets. He would make hot chocolate and bring it to us. He would crack jokes. He would live that dominant question because the life he lived. He's like, how do I make this moment even more magical? Now, before it was like, how do I make this moment magical? Then we played with it, like even more magical, presuming it is already magical and amazing. And so these questions we ask are very important. Now there are three questions when I said there's turning knowledge into power that I want everyone to obsess about. I mean, this will make you a master. And if you get any, this is it. Three questions to turn knowledge into power, because knowledge alone is potential power. Number one, how can I use this? When you're listening to this podcast moving forward, every time you listen to it, I want you to ask yourself, how can I use this? Get obsessed about this. Like even write it down. And this is where your mind can be very creative because in here I teach the power of note-taking because people don't realize this. When you listen to a podcast or you go to, you know, a summit or an event or have a great conversation with somebody within two days, 80% of it is gone. We forget it. They call it the forgetting curve. And one of the ways to retain it is by taking notes, exactly what you're doing. Now, I encourage people to take notes a very specific way is to put a line right down the page. And on the left side of the page, I want you to take notes and on the right side, I want you to make notes. So, on the left side of the page, you're taking notes. You're capturing information. You're like, this is how Jim remembers his name. This is how Jim reads a book a day or whatever it is. so on the left side you're capturing, but on the right side you're creating. Now that's a subtle difference. On the left side, you're note-taking. On the right side, you're note-making. What's the difference? Again, on the left side, you're taking notes. You're writing down the quotes and the strategies, the processes. But on your right side, what you're doing, the right side creativity, instead of your mind being distracted when you're listening, have it be distracted on focused on How can I use this? On the right side is where you're writing your impressions of what you're learning. How can I use this? Another great question, second dominant question I would ask is not only how can I use it, could you come up with all these answers? Just like I see, you start seeing pug dogs everywhere. It's like, oh, this is how I could use this in my relationship. This is how I could use it, you know, in my career. Second question I would ask is why must I use this? Why must I use this? You know, we know one of the, People that endorsed my book, he's on your show, is Simon Sinek. And one of my favorite books, I'm going to mention a lot of books, including your own, start with, his is start with why, right? And so why must I use this? So once you have all these ideas of how can I not use this, why must I use this? Because if you don't have the reasons, you won't get the results.

You won't care enough about it.

Exactly. Reasons reap results. I'm going to give a lot of people a lot of quickisms here. because it goes from your head to your heart to your hands. You could affirm things in your head all day, set goals in your head all day, but if you're not acting with your hands, you're procrastinating, putting things off, check in with your second age, which is your heart, which are the emotions, right? Because we are not logical, we are biological. Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, this chemical soup drives us to act. Just like people don't buy logically, they don't fall in love logically, They do these things emotionally. So find your emotions. And in this book, we really uncover and I decode motivation. Not motivation getting hyped up and dancing on chairs and then the next day not changing. We figured out this formula of sustainable motivation in this book. But the second question is go back to why must I use this? Because if you don't have the why, you won't do the what. And then finally, the third question, first question, How can I use this? Write all the answers down. Think about that. Second question, why must I use it? Gives you the energy and the fuel and the drive to do it. And finally, when will I use this? When will I use this? Because we know that one of the most important performance productivity tools that we have is our calendar. If it's not in our calendar, it just doesn't get done. How many people will go, you put doctors appointments there, you put PTA meetings, you put meetings with your investor there, but are you scheduling your workout? Are you scheduling your meditation time? Are you scheduling your journal or your white space just so you can be a creative thinker? And if we don't write it down, it comes at the end and then you just, you know, you never get to it. And so those are the three dominant questions that you want to ask to take knowledge and turn them into power. So as you're going through this, ask those questions, you'll get better answers and you'll learn it deeper.

It'll deepen into your nervous system so much more. What are the And what are the two questions you ask yourself beyond this that have been dominant in the last few years for you?

So, I would say personally. Personally, okay. Okay, so this is interesting. In the book for the first time, I really reveal one of my kryptonites. Growing up, I had my two challenges, which were learning and public speaking, because I was always shrinking. If I was called to do a book report, I would I would get nauseous. Like, I would, my heart would be down in my chest. I'd be perspiring and I would just lie and just say I didn't do the book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even if I spent weeks on it. And so it's interesting that learning in.

Public speaking were my challenges.

But now you're a master of public speaking. You speak all over the world. Because that's what I do. And so it's interesting, the universe has a sense of humor because all I do is public speak on this thing called learning. One of the things that I reveal in the book is one of my challenges, as you've known, for 10 years has been sleep.

You sleep like two hours a night on average.

For the first five years of those 10 years, it was about 90 minutes to two hours, very interrupted, not even solid. And I later found out I got diagnosed, I did a sleep study because I was misdiagnosed, but I did a thorough overnight study and I have very severe sleep apnea, which means I stopped breathing over 210 times a night. And each time is at least 10 seconds. What is sleep apnea caused by? So, sleep apnea for me, it's obstructive sleep apnea. And so, physical. It was, it's not mental or. No, my mind, I've meditated for more than half of my life. So, I fall asleep within four minutes.

Wow.

So, you can fall asleep quick. Yeah. You can't stay asleep. I don't ruminate. I'm not thinking about things because I have anxiety or worry. No, because you and I have We've done the practice, right? So I can fall asleep fine, but what happens is the airway gets shut down. And so I had a surgery five years into it after I was diagnosed.

It helped a little bit, I think you said.

It did, it did. It made a marked difference. It took me up to about four hours, which is not a lot, but it was big difference for me. I later found out I had my parents tested, my siblings tested, they all have obstructive sleep apnea. so I went through a very painful procedure down the street at UCLA, head of throat. They, they cut out my uvula, my soft palate, my tonsils, so more airway created so that I can breathe easier because I was using a CPAP and a dental device, all these things, but nothing was really moving the needle. That happened. But, and it's tough because when, when I say 200 plus times a night, that's like, Doctors were like, no wonder you can't sleep. Somebody's coming in and imagine someone putting a pillow on your face 200 times a night. My gosh. And you wake up suffocating. So I'd wake up 9 to 14 times at least a night over a court, you know, and only get about two hours. So I never get the deep sleep.

Which helps with your body recovery.

How were you able to function though? How were you able to memorize everything and speak in front of everyone? Yeah, and so nobody knew I was struggling with that only intimate group of friends that I was, you know, relying on for emotional encouragement and support, which we all need. But I found out that, I mean, that's why this book actually took longer. I didn't want to put out the book unless I could really dedicate full resources into it and then be able to do book signings and tours and all of that. And so that was one of the things that delayed it. But I realized just like with my learning and my public speaking, one of the questions I ask is, what's besides, okay, my two questions, how do I make this better? Right? Because I'm obsessed with fixing these things. That's like, I ask it all the time. How can I do this better? How can I do this better?

And who can I learn from? With everything in your life. How can I make them sleep better? My relationship better.

My health better. My brain better. How do I help reach more people? I'm always thinking about how do I make it better? And the second thing is when I go through challenges like sleep every single day, it's like, you know, it could be like, here we go again. It's not a pleasant, where most people look forward to sleeping and resting. even if I'm exhausted, I couldn't get that recovery. So that's why I have a float tank and all these recovery devices and I meditate. Meditation twice a day changed my life. Those kind of things, but nothing replaces sleep. But the other question I started asking besides how can I make this better is what's the gift in this? What's the gift in going through this? And I started, just like magic questions, give you magic answers that help you become limitless. because some people are asking very poor questions that limit them. Why am I so stupid? You know, why can I never learn this? And like, oh, here are all the reasons why you can't learn this. You know, why can't I learn Spanish? Why can't I learn how to dance like everybody else or whatever? They start getting answers and those answers aren't empowering as opposed to how can I learn this in a fun, enjoyable way? How can I make this more enjoyable? How can I simplify this? Those are more empowering questions. So my questions two questions to answer your question, how can I make this better? And when I'm going through challenges, where's the gift in this? And I noticed I started getting answers because a few gifts. Number one, when it came to my sleep, number one, I got really good at what I teach. Like I could roll out of bed and have this conversation with anybody because this is what I live. Because all like, you know, when people see the tens of millions of views on my morning routine and everything else like that, that we've talked about, in prior episodes, like 10 things I do to jumpstart my brain every morning, it's because that's what I do every morning. Because it forced me to do what I talk about because otherwise I wouldn't be able to survive. Right. And I also know, field tested for 28 years of working with children with ADD learning challenges, dyslexia, to elderly. I lost my grandmother. So my parents immigrated here. My dad was 13. he, he lost both his parents, you know, pure, very below poverty, very harsh conditions. And so when he came here, he lived with his aunt because they couldn't afford to, to feed, to feed him. And so we grew up very, you know, not very a lot of external resources. There was a lot of love there because when you lose now, now see how he learned his questions. Like, I grew up hearing this phrase, Family is most important, family is most important.

Yeah, because when you lose something, it becomes important to you.

Exactly. And then you guys started asking questions about how do I make the, you.

Know, how do I do this for the family, preserving it.

How do people feel safe, connected, loved? Exactly, so a lot of our questions just like mine, how can I make this better?

Because I had these learning challenges came from my challenges.

Right, right. From pain. From pain. Discomfort, yeah. So he lost, I mean, imagine losing your parents when you're 13 years old. Oh, that's tough. Right, and then moving to a foreign country, not speaking the language. and leaving your younger brother and sister behind. And they passed away early because of the conditions. So you prioritize family above everything. So a big part of my values are love, growth, contribution, adventure. Because I would do anything for my family and my friends because I grew up in that environment. So we didn't have money, we didn't have connections, we didn't have education, they didn't have that. But they were really good people. Yeah, you know, and so they are my role models. They are my original superheroes. You know, my mother, like, you know, we grew up in the, they had many jobs, you know, and we grew up in the, family grew up in the back of a laundromat that my mother worked at. And it was, you know, it was, it was, it was, it was difficult to say the least, but I think through adversity comes an advantage.

Mm-.

You know, like the person that, The person that falls and gets up is so much stronger than the person who never falls. That is just given just everything. And so if you have to be able to work for it, you build those muscles. But because they had so many jobs, my great aunt, who I call the grandmother, raised me. She was my caregiver. But when I was going through my learning challenges, she was going through dementia and early stages of Alzheimer's. And so we lost her to Alzheimer's. But to watch, you know, to go bring her when she's bedridden, soup or anything, and then she calls me, you know, by my brother's name or something. Or says something that she just said 30 seconds ago. It's really tough. Is, you know, and so that leaves an impression, but that led me to, you know, be interested in memory at that age, because you're very impressionable. And I've been called the boy with a broken brain. All that was going on at the same time.

Yeah.

Right, so I spent a lot of time with, in nursing homes, helping them polish off their memories, but also, you know, hearing their stories because there's so much wisdom that's there.

What's the greatest lessons you've learned from your parents and family?

So the dominant question, my dad, you know, when we're talking about making family important and valuing it, they weren't extraordinary, you know, they don't have the most money or the greatest health, they're not spiritual or anything, but they're just hardworking people who are kind. And so I would say hard work for my dad, like by the time I was nine, I was pushing a lawn mower and shoveling and doing that in my neighborhood to earn extra money. But every time I would, I don't know, talk about this, there was like, I was like, I was trying to do all this 'cause I have these allergies. I was like, it's really hard in the summer to put mowing lawns and stuff.

Where was this, Wood City?

So I grew up outside New York City in Westchester, New York, which is the home of the X-Men, which is the story of how I ended up working with the cast of the X-Men because the school was there. And at nine years old, I used to, when I read in the comic books, I taught myself how to read by reading comic books. The stories brought a hope in my life. So I would escape in my imagination because my reality wasn't very comfortable. But I would ride my bicycle. I found out the school for the X-Men because they're not the strongest, they just didn't fit in. And I felt like I didn't fit in. in school. And so I used to ride my bicycle around my neighborhood because that's where in the comic books, where this Professor X's school was. So I used to look for it on the weekends. Really? I wanted to find my superpowers.

I wanted to find my super friends where I fit in somewhere. So the city that the school, what's it called?

The school for X-Men yeah, it's what's it called?

School of the Gifted.

School of the Gifted. It's the X-Men school. Was it actually in the city you grew up in? It's in my neighborhood. No, it's in Westchester, New York. That's where Yeah, exactly.

Wow.

So I used to, when I read that, that's crazy. I taught myself how to read by reading comics late at night when my parents thought I was sleeping. I'd be under the covers because I would want to escape into that world because that was much, you know, my external was very harsh. But what I learned from my parents was even when I was mowing the lawn, that quality matters. Meaning that my dad, I would say, like, why do I have to mow behind this sign or behind this rock? Like, no one could see that.

Or perfect lines.

Exactly, exactly. Nobody could see that. And, you know, like, why do I have to do that? But he's like, you know, you know, you know it's there. And then how you do anything is how you do everything. So, you know, the discipline was hard work and family most important was so that that became values for my dad. My mom is the kindest person on the planet. You know, she, you know, she had similar story where she lost her mom before she was married and everything and just, losing that also gave her the value of family is most important. And, you know, when I have a brother and sister and there was so much love from her. She did everything. So kindness and discipline and hard work is what I got from my parents. Yeah. And so, I mean, so that was my advantage because I won the lottery there. We didn't have the love and connection and family. Very much so. And molded my values to use now. And so going back to the power of questions, I would ask everybody to reflect on your questions that you're asking yourself on a regular basis. Because the second gift I got out of lack of sleep, first of it, was doubling down on everything I teach so I could be productive because I was still very efficient and flying all over the world teaching. And I'm live in front of 200,000 people. When you have a phobia of public speaking and your energy, and I'm a introverted, you know, introverted. I was having this conversation with Simon Sinek and Susan Cain about introverts who wrote Quiet, which is the power of introverts in a very loud kind of society. And Susan explains introverts as someone who wakes up every morning with five gold coins, energy coins. But every time they interact with somebody, they give up one of their coins to that person. And then once their coins are gone, they have to go back and be like, you know, Recharge, but extroverts are different. They wake up with no gold coins, no energy coins, and they have to interact with people.

The gain game, that's me.

Yeah.

So for me, my girlfriend's the opposite. She wants to be at home all day. She doesn't want to see anybody. She just wants to focus on, with her family only, work out, eat clean, like learn her stuff.

And that's me because that's where I recharge, but I do, my passion is learning, right? I love learning now because it wasn't when I was growing up, I loved to learn. But my purpose, again, your passion is what lights you up, learning lights me up, and your purpose is how you light other people up. My passion is teaching other people how to learn. And that's really my mission because I grew up with a broken brain, is I want to build better, brighter brains. And everybody has this genius inside of them, regardless of their age, their background, their career, gender. None of that matters. What matters is choice. I start the book with this quote from this French philosopher saying, that life, you'll love this, life is the C between the B and the D. Life is the C between the B and the D. And people listening, thinking this guy speaks in tongues, is like, okay. I'll give you a hint.

What's the B and D?

B is birth.

D is death.

So what's life?

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Choice Wow like let that sink in life is a c between the B and the D and C is Choice. Life is all about choices because we are you are sitting here right now the sum total of all the choices you've made to this point. That's true.

That's true.

And I'm saying like everyone, you know, who are you gonna date?

Who are you gonna marry?

Where are you gonna live?

Isn't it crazy that you could be, you know, you could be making all the right choices your entire life and make one wrong choice and set you in a prison or make you go bankrupt or whatever. Or in the blank.

Or in the opposite.

Right, you can make all the wrong choices and make one right choice to set you on a path of greatness.

Because one step, if you're going this way, here to here and you take one step in another direction, it completely changes your destination and your destiny. So the good news is, yeah, you could make one choice that takes you off tangent, but one choice or the right about who you're gonna spend time with, what are you gonna eat today? Whether you're gonna move today, if you're gonna listen to this podcast, if you're gonna look at, you're gonna focus on crisis and all the terrible things in life, or you're gonna focus on like, wow, how people who are stepping up and how they're doing other things. But the second thing I learned besides how did my sleep doubling down on skills and capabilities, you know, I always tell people, don't downgrade your dreams to fit your current reality. Upgrade your mindset, your motivation, your methodology to really meet your, your, your destiny, the things that you want most in life. How important are skills?

So important. Acquiring new skills at any level.

Absolutely critical. Absolutely critical. Even coming back to the second gift I got from Lack sleep, the second gift besides doubling down on all my skills was protecting my time. Okay, so here's something. When you have a finite amount of energy and you only slept two hours or three hours or four hours last night, you don't over commit. And I find one of the things that drains energy from people that makes them stressed out of their mind is they are saying yes to way too many things. And when you lack sleep every single day and you're exhausted, you only do the things that you're supposed to do. Meaning that you don't have the luxury of saying, like right now, there's nowhere else I'd rather be, no one else I'd rather be with than right here with you. And there's a power in that. So whether I got three hours of sleep last night or got off a plane last night, or I'm still doing this with focus, with energy, it's because I made the decision to do this and everything, as you've heard, everything is like, Heaven yes or heaven no, right? Like if you don't feel completely like, yes, no, yeah. And you say no, And here's the thing, a lot of people feel they're burnt out because they're doing too much. I don't think you're burnt out because most people are burnt out because you're doing too much. I think you're doing too little of the things that make you feel alive. You're doing too little of the things.

That really matter in your life.

You're saying yes to things that don't matter. Exactly, so the second gift I got out of years of not sleeping was... You said no to everything. Exactly, and I only do the things that are important because one of the lessons I got from spending time with elderly, because I lost my grandmother and I spent all the time senior centers and nursing homes and training them and helping with them. The gift I got back, I always get a gift back from working with anybody is I heard stories and so much wisdom of generations that have gone through, you know, like real hardship, right? I mean, our lives compared to theirs is, you know, now is, it's, there's no comparison. But one of the things I do hear, because I do believe genius leaves clues, and when somebody asked me, what's the definition of genius. I don't think it's IQ. It's not this number that you test at eight years old and that's your number when you're 88 years old. I demystify IQ and everything else in this book that everybody can learn to be better in all these areas, interpersonally, with their focus, with their memory, everything. One of the things that I've learned is that with working with these seniors is that there's a lot of regret. at that place. When you're taking your final breaths, my definition of genius is pattern recognition. That you could see patterns. Like someone who's a genius at greatness, you see patterns in what everybody who sits across from you, you see they're doing certain similar things, certain habits, certain mindset, certain drives, or they're eating a certain way. There's a commonality with that. And so I believe genius leaves clues and genius is, it can be built, not born. And that's a big part of my training. But the other thing I learned from these seniors is these regrets, they come out. And the biggest regret always is that somehow they lessened or limited their life because of other people's expectations, because they were fearful of other people's opinions about them. They didn't date that person or marry that person because of what society would think. or they started a career because their parents wanted them and expected them to do that. And I'm here to remind everyone, it's not a pleasant conversation, but when we're thinking about our mortality and one of the things that was the impetus for this book was, I had a near-death experience, like in a car accident, and it made me think about legacy and ask a new question. I was like, wow, I'm gonna I want to get this book out because shame on me if somebody's struggling and suffering the way I was with distraction, with memory loss, with overload, overwhelm, not feeling good about themselves, and I didn't help them. So I feel like what gets me on stage, even if I am an introvert and shy, is that I'm focusing on them. Right. And that's my focus. But the regret people have when you're taking your final breaths at the end of our life, None of other people's opinions and expectations will matter. What will matter, none of our fears will matter. What will matter is how we lived, how we laughed, how we learned, how we loved. You know, that's really what's gonna matter. And one of my mentors, Dr. Stephen Covey, another great book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the habits of the most highly effective people is begin with the end in mind. You know, and then the ultimate end is like when we're you know, when we're passing. Because when you think about being in that box, that coffin, there's no room in there for possessions. And I'm all for people having toys and everything else like that. But there's not, you can't take that with you. And in that coffin, there's no room for regret. You know, one of the things I learned from Jim Carrey, and I'm dropping a number of names, and the reason why is because when you see their movies, you see, you know, Sonic Hedgehog or, or you watch another Will Smith, it reminds of the lessons. It triggers, that's how human memory works. I was spending the day with him and he was like, Jim, I want to get really smart before filming Dumb and Dumber. I'm like, that's ironic, but that's really, you know, to play dumb, you have to be really smart to do that, right?

And so I spent the day with.

Him at his home and we take a brain break. It was a long time ago. Yeah, it was. We were at his home, we were taking a brain break and we make all these brain foods during lunch. And I wanted to know motivation again. I wanted to get into this model about motivation because I'm always curious what drives people. And I found out, I was like, why do you do what you do? And he was like, Jim? He was like, I act like a complete fool on camera. So extreme because I want to give people watching permission to be themselves. He's like, My religion is to free people from the concern of others because that's what limits us. And isn't that interesting how adults, what keeps us limited are sometimes the expectation. It puts us in a box. Right? We don't want to look bad. We don't want to make a mistake. And yet children are really, they have this limitless mentality, right? Where they could do anything. You don't look at a child, you know, for people who have children, they're learning to walk or talk, how many times do they fall?

Thousands.

Yeah, exactly. And never after the 500th time they fall do they say, okay, it's not for me. Yeah, exactly. I'm not gonna walk. That's right. But as adults, they take a Spanish lesson. Fall once and we stop. Exactly, they take a salsa lesson and they're like, okay, this is not for me. Too much embarrassment. And I always encourage people to at least, I'm telling you, we have one life to be able to figure this out, so you try new things. The brain thrives on novelty. To build your brain cells, two things just like your body, novelty and nutrition. And obviously rest and sleep. Novelty, you give it stimulus, you work it out, and then you give it nutrition to feed that muscle. Same thing with your mental muscles. To create neuroplasticity, Right? All you need to give is novelty. You learn something new every single day and then you feed it the right nutrition.

Shit, man.

So it could build. But I would recommend everybody try something at least three times. If you feel called to it, I challenge everyone watching this and even post it on social media, tag us both, 'cause I'll repost our favorite. Try things three times. Number one, to get over the fear of it.

Yes.

Right? Number two, like karaoke or doing stand-up or something just to get over the fear of it. Number two, just to get a little competent at it. Get good at it. And then try it a third time to see if you like it or not. Because we don't really find our passions. We have to put ourselves out there and give ourselves stimulus, just like with kids. We have a bonus chapter on how to be raised limitless children. But part of it is giving them enough opportunity by giving them stimulus to see what they get drawn to and what they want to be able to develop. But my other thing with sleep is I just got obsessed about how do I honor my time and how do I say no so I can say yes to the great things. I'm going to recommend a lot of books because we have a book a week club because we teach the speed reading program. One book a week will change your life. 52 books a year. Leaders are readers. But yeah, good to great. Say no to good so you can say yes to great. I really feel like- you- say yes.

To great by saying no to a lot of things.

Exactly, because here's the thing, especially for self-care. A lot of people think that self-care is limited to bodywork and meditation. Part of self-care and self-love is when you say no, and when you say yes to somebody or something, make sure you're not saying no to yourself. I really want this to sink in for people. That part of self-care is when you say yes to somebody, or something that you're not saying no to yourself.

Right.

Right. Part of self-care is putting boundaries and borders on your time, borders and boundaries on your heart, on your emotions and everything, because that it's so important. And part of self-care is also self-love. You talk about this so much, right? When you and I have had conversations about, you know, about your previous books and everything, it's just, you know, how can we fall in love with that person in the mirror? who's been through so much but is still standing. Right? Because I feel like no external source of love is going to match what your soul needs from yourself. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

I mean, I've wanted to stop you non-stop for 20 minutes, but it's all so good. I wanted to go back to the choices we make. You know, we talk about choices, you talk about habits, mindset habits, physical habits in here with food, the way you think all these different things, I really believe that habits allow us to make better choices automatically. As opposed to, should I make this choice today? Yes or no? Should I make that choice? You know, every day we have the opportunity to make different decisions and habits keep us on the right path to making better decisions and choices every day. The mindset, and you know, you've got mindset, motivation and methods, which is your whole limitless mindset process. the mindset will keep you on the right path. The skills, for whatever reason, skills I think is one of the most important things. More than habits in a sense because when you acquire new skills, you become bulletproof, limitless to any economic downturn, to any breakup in a relationship, to any career change. You become limitless when you have a tool belt of skills at your disposal. and it takes courage to create new skills. And it takes learning how to learn to get a lot of skills because it takes time to master a skill if you don't know how to learn the right way. And I've learned all the wrong ways over the years and found out for me that learning the right way is throwing myself in immersion of it. Within three months, going all in physically, tangibly feeling it, emotionally connected to it, getting messy. For me, that's what works for me. And when you have the skill, you have it for life. Yeah. You know, it's like you learn how to ride a bike. It might take you a few weeks, it might take you a month of falling a bunch of times. But I haven't been on a bike in years, but I can know I can go back on it. Maybe I'm not as fast as I used to be, or maybe I don't have as much control or maneuverability, but I'm 80, 90 of the way there. Yeah. Same thing with salsa dancing. I learned it. It took me three and a half months of misery, of embarrassment, of fear, anxiety, of stepping on girls' toes constantly. But now I can go anywhere in the world, not speak the language of the community, but I can speak the language of salsa and I have it. And I have that skillset where I feel motivated to put myself out there. So same thing with public speaking. When you mastered it, it's like now you can go into a room and even if you're not prepared for the speech, you know you can do a pretty good job. Someone said, Hey, Jim, come up here and teach us something for 15 minutes. You've got this skill set. And I think that gives us confidence, that gives us self-belief with the more skills we have. And so how do we, what's the process of then learning how to master a new skill when it's challenging, when it's scary, when it's uncomfortable, when it's, we're excited, I'm excited to learn Spanish right now, but I've tried to learn for 20 years. I took eight years of classes. I've traveled to different Spanish-speaking countries. It's just like, man, how do we learn how to learn something that we want, but it's really challenging.

Let's deconstruct this.

Yes.

So this is the key. So you mentioned two interesting words with competence and confidence.

Yes.

And in psychology, there is a competence-confidence loop. That the more competent and skilled you get at something, the more confidence you get at it.

Of course.

And because you're more confident, you're more likely to do it and you get better at it and gives you more confidence, right? Yes. And so if I could play golf like Tiger Woods, I would be playing a lot more and I would get better. I'd be more confident of it. I remember years ago I get a call on a Friday evening and I don't know the guy's voice. I didn't know to see the number and I don't recognize it so I pick it up and he was like, you got to help me. We have this mutual friend and my speaker tomorrow in New York City, canceled because of an emergency. And I need a speaker, please. And I'm like, well, this is not usually how...

The night before.

Exactly. It's usually like a six month in advance process. But the mutual friend was a very close friend. And I was like, Look, maybe I could help you, but what's the topic? And he tells me what the topic is. And I'm like, I don't know anything about that topic. Why are you calling me? He was like, well, he wrote a book. I'm like, so? He was like, well, my friend says you're a speed reader. And I'm like, okay. He's like, well, can you come a little early and I'll give you his book?

And then oh my gosh.

And I was like, this is gonna completely blow your mind. I have to do this, but this is gonna cost you. But this is gonna make a great story. And what ended up happening was I show up at 10 o'clock, I read his book, and I give the keynote that afternoon. And humbly, it was the highest talk of the event. And I don't take credit for that because I've never had training in public speaking, but when you understand how people learn, you could present it. And so I read the book, I remembered everything that I needed to say because I train a lot of TED speakers how to memorize their speech, and I know how to be able to present in a way that's interesting and also sticks with people. But I say that because that's what I mean about, I don't have to, just like Will Smith, I don't have to get ready. I stay ready. And that's the power of skill development. And if there's one skill to master, it's our ability to learn. It's called meta-learning. This book fundamentally was going to be called meta-learning, but people are like, oh no, they're not gonna buy it if it has learning in the title, right? And, but meta-learning is learning how to learn. And that's a meta skill, and it helps you to learn salsa or Spanish or anything else better. And so let's deconstruct how to do that confidently. We'll start with the limitless model. So this book used to be a book completely on skill development, which was all methodology. It was everything that I teach about how to read three times faster, how to learn a language, how to remember names, how to do the things that how to get to inbox zero, how to do the things that how to be focused, concentrate, critical think, solve problems, all the important things that really is our life. But then when I finished it, I talked to friends like you, and everybody else is like, this is a really good self-help book. But if somebody found it just on the street, even they know what to do, they still wouldn't do it. Like how come you want to learn Spanish or something else and you put it off or it takes longer than you should? Because method is only one of the three parts. And so this is the limitless model. And I want everybody to think about a subject or some area of your life where you're feeling held back. It could be your relationship, It could be you're not making progress in your career. It could be maybe in your physical performance or wellness. Think about one area where you're stuck in a box. Now, a box is like a cage, 3D box, and 3D is three dimensions. What keeps you in the box? Three forces. And these are the three M's. And I want everyone to draw a circle. And in that circle, we're going to draw a Venn diagram. You know what a Venn diagram is? It's three intersecting circles. And the first circle, is your mindset, 3Ms. And I always alliterate everything because it helps you to be able to remember it better. First one is your mindset. Now, your mindset are your assumptions and your attitudes about something. Now let's break that down. For me functionally, what your mindset is about this subject, and I want people to make this very personal, think about something, an area you're held back. This is what you believe is possible, is your mindset. It is what you believe you are capable of. It is what you believe you deserve is part of your mindset, because that's a big thing. That's your thermostat, right? If somebody has a mindset of, like I could teach someone the method of how to remember names, but their mindset is, I'm stupid.

I don't deserve to remember names or.

I'm not capable of it. Exactly, or exactly, or I'm too old or whatever it is. That's a mindset. My brain doesn't work that way. Exactly, then the method won't take hold.

It won't matter.

Exactly, so this is the formula here.

How do you learn to believe that you are capable?

So we'll go into this. That's exactly what the book does. I take people through a process called unlimiting. It's a word that I coined years ago. Unlimiting is different than unlimited. Unlimiting is like the process of removing limits.

Limiting beliefs.

Exactly. Or behaviors or habits, right? So unlimiting is an active word where it's you're redrawing the boundaries and borders of your life. Limitless is not about being perfect. Limitless is about advancing and progressing beyond what you believe is possible. That's what this book is about. Now, I apply that towards accelerated learning so you can learn your languages and, you know, give speeches without notes and all that stuff. But really, it's a process of liberating yourself out of that box. So one of the dimensions that keep you in that box is your mindset. Yep. All right. And we can go deep into how to change negative beliefs and everything. And I talk about the seven lies. Lies for me, again, is an acronym. Lie is a limited idea entertained. Because it's not true. It's not true that you don't deserve it. It's not necessarily true that you're stupid, but it's an idea we're giving energy to. We're entertaining that idea in that moment. I show people how to unravel it in the three-step process. But that's the mindset. Okay. All right. Now, the second M, you can have the greatest mindset and believe everything is possible, you're capable, you deserve it. But if you don't have the second M, which is motivation, you're not getting out of that box, right? In your career.

I believe I can do it, but.

I'm going to sit here and eat chips on the couch. Exactly. And so your motivation for me is your drive, it's your purpose, it's the vitality that you bring to something. Now, most people think motivation, they'll say motivation is a lie. And in some respects it is, because the way a lot of people perceive motivation is just rah rah, get excited, get hyped up, and next day, nothing changes. So my evidence, the evidence of motivation is something is happening. There's an action, there's a new action taking place. And if you're not doing that action, you're not motivated. No matter what you say, if you're not doing it, it's better well done than well said. Even like a lot of people on social media, they promise things, but prove it. Right? Don't say it, show it.

Right?

You take it to action. Yeah. Because knowledge is not power. It's potential power applying it makes it powerful. So motivation for me is a three-step formula. And here's the formula. And I go deep in in this book because there's a chapter on each part. The key to sustainable motivation, how to overcome procrastination, if you're putting things off, this is the key. It's this. P times E times S3. Now this is a formula for sustainable mo, not just a surge of motivation. right? We've all watched the Limitless movie where he takes a pill and he can learn languages and read really fast and remember everything. And Dr. Mark Hyman, who wrote the foreword of the book, who's a mutual friend of both of ours and I know he's been on your show, he says that there is no genius pill, but Jim gives you the process for a brighter brain, right? I like that. Like it's the process and there's no side effects, right? Yeah, it's good. But going back to this, you know, when he had a surge of motivation but then when the pill wore off, it goes back to go no motivation. But this is the key. There's no pill, there's a process. And these three things, P times E times S3 is sustainable for the rest of your life. Because I've lived on no sleep for over a decade. My sleep has gotten much better since of recent, just some breakthroughs in medicine and everything else like that. But I had sustainable motivation. I was still doing all the conferences, still doing my podcast every week. still speaking and traveling and doing all this stuff because I had these three things. Number one, so the P stands for purpose. Now again, if you feel not motivated in any area of your life, pick, now, so some people could have motivation. Now some people are very motivated to sit on the couch and binge watch Netflix. They're highly motivated to do that, right? But if you're lacking motivation to work out consistently, and now here's the, here's another lie, limited idea entertained, is that you you have to enjoy the activity, right? Like, you know, it doesn't mean that you have to do that. Like, I was having this conversation with Tom Bilyeu, right? And he was like, I work out 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock every morning. I was like, Do you enjoy it? He was like, no, I don't like working out at all, you know? But he's motivated, doesn't miss a day, so he has the motivation. So motivation doesn't mean you enjoy it. Like, every morning I do my cold showers, you know, like Wim Hof, right? No, it's not fun all the time, but- Exactly. I grew up in the Northeast. I hate the cold, right? But I do my cold showers or my ice baths. I post all the time on Instagram about doing it because I know I have a purpose. So I don't enjoy it, but the P in the formula is purpose. Reasons reap results. And if you get the reason, so even if I'm not getting my sleep, I have a purpose. I have a reason to help people every single day. I want every single person that comes in contact with me, whether it's on my podcast or a video or a book, their brain is better off because of it. And so that's my reason. And really, you know my story. My first student three decades ago almost, she read 30 books in 30 days. And what was her purpose? Her mother was dying of terminal cancer, two months to live, 60 days. And the book she was reading, Health, Wellness, Energy, right? And she ended up saving her mom's life.

Wow.

And that's when I realized that if knowledge is power, learning is our superpower. I dedicated my life to make that kind of difference. And that's what, that's what, so I have my reasons to do something so I don't have to pump myself up. So P is purpose, tap into your reasons. And it can't be intellectual, you know, you have to feel it. Of course.

Right?

And even you could even feel the pain, like who's counting on you to do this activity, you know, who's watching you, who's role modeling you, right? Who's counting on you to to show up today. It can be painful too, but if it gets you to move, that's what's important. Have that reason, the purpose. This E, now my mind does this thought experiment, scientific experimentations. If somebody just has a reason, are they always motivated? Are there any cases where they're not motivated? And I said yes, if they're lacking the E, energy. So somebody could have a reason to work out, or they could have a reason to read or learn Spanish, but if they're trying to do it late at night and they didn't sleep the night before, or they had a big processed meal. It's hard to have the motivation. Exactly, and they're a food coma, they can't be motivated because they lack energy. So in the book, I talk about 10 keys for brain energy. The 10 things that I do to light up my brain, and one of them is our brain foods. Another one is optimizing your sleep. So I do a whole area of what I've learned really moves the needle for maximizing your sleep. Because how's your thought process if you don't sleep? How's your focus? How's your memory? How are you making good decisions? I heard that that was the advice presidents give other presidents is like, don't make a big decision if you didn't get a good night's sleep. So I talk about sleep. So in the book, in Motivation, we do a whole section on finding your purpose and even life and passion, and a whole area on optimizing your energy. Now you have energy to do it. I ask myself, okay, you have a purpose for something to work out or whatever. You have, or to start a business, you have the energy. In what case, if you're like doing this critical thinking, in what case won't you be motivated? Let's say you want to start a business or whatever, you're just procrastinating on starting that business. Number one, you have the motivation, you really need it, and you know why. You have the energy because you're eating the right foods, you're maximizing your sleep, you're with not energy vampires. Yes, there is. S3, what the problem is, is you're making it too big in your mind. That will keep you from being motivated. Starting a business, like where do you even start? Or getting that perfect relationship or having perfect health, that's way, way too big. So what do you do? Small, simple steps. That's what will keep people unmotivated. They could have the reasons and purpose, they could have the energy, unlimited energy, but they don't know where to start. And because they make it too big in their mind, and a confused mind doesn't do anything. Confused mind doesn't do anything. So clarity is power.

I like that.

So small, simple step, all you have to do is ask a magic question. What is the smallest action I could take where I can't fail. It allows me to give me some progress, but I can't fail. What's the smallest step? And I cite the work in here of the habit experts that you and I have interviewed, you know, Dr. B.J. Fogg or the James Clear's Atomic Habits and really my take on how to make sustainable habits because what you do repeatedly becomes that habit. But it starts with a small simple step. What's an example of that? I want people to read a book a week. It will change their life. I think if there's one thing people could that would change their life immediately, long term, it's just read every day. Reading is to your mind what exercise is to your body, even more than audio. And my podcast, and I do everything on audio, I still encourage people to read because it activates a different part of your brain. Also, and I listen to audios when I drive, when I work out, but when people are tested in terms of what they read, in terms of comprehension, what they listen to, reading the actual more and they'll understand more. You know why? It's not only does it activate a different part of your brain because it's active. Because listening can be passive, like watching a movie or anything can be very passive. You don't have to get involved, but reading forces you to get involved. But the second reason why is because usually when someone's listening to something, they're doing something else and they're trying to multitask. They're cleaning their house, they're working out, they're driving. So they're not, their attention is not fully on what they're listening to, so that's why the comprehension is down. But reading every single day is a great activity. But I don't tell people, you know, read an hour a day. A small, simple step to get someone reading is read one sentence. That's a small, simple step. Open up the book. That's a small, simple step that you can't fail. Right. And nobody's going to stop at one sentence. You know, the example Dr. B.J. Fogg talks about with tiny habits is, Hey, we know flossing is good for your longevity.

One tooth.

One tooth. And who's going to stop at one tooth? So how do you break it down? And really motivation is energy management. It's really about energy management, meaning when you have clarity and purpose, it gives you energy. When you have energy, like if you activate you eat the right foods and everything else, you have energy. And small, simple steps requires very little energy, requires very little effort output. And there's something in memory called the Zeigarnik Effect. It's by a psychologist, a woman who in Europe noticed that at the cafe she frequents that the waitstaff would remember all the orders until they were delivered. And once they were delivered, they would forget it. And the Zeigarnik Effect, which is her last name, means that the mind doesn't like open loops. So like, oh, and all of the series that you binge watch knows this because at the end they open up a loop. and you're like, one more. Who does that? Like one more. And you end up watching until like 2 a.m., 3 a.m. because it doesn't like the open loops. Well, starting something like an order, remembering someone's order, and then it delivered, it closes the loop. Well, when you start something anywhere, your mind still keeps an open loop about it, so it's more likely to finish. And that's another way to overcome procrastination, break it down into small, simple steps where you can't fail. That's the three-step formula. So I do a chapter. So this is really three books in one. It's a whole book on mindset, on how to eliminate negative self-talk, how to be able to get rid of negative beliefs that you don't deserve it, you're not capable of it, how to have optimization. So a chapter on purpose, a chapter on energy, a chapter on small simple steps. And then I added a chapter on habits and flow because the ultimate and you've had Steven Kotler and all these amazing people on here talking about flow state is when you're in the zone. Where you lose flow states is you lose your sense of self, you lose, it's effortless, and you lose your sense of time and there's no motivation required because you're just in the zone. You know that as an athlete when you're in the zone or you're on stage and it's just coming through you, right? We all have those moments. So we debunk and apply this method for a whole chapter on flow. And then finally, you could have the mindset and motivation and still be stuck in that box. Because again, let's say you believe everything is possible and that's your mindset and you're capable and you deserve it and you're motivated, but if you don't have the last M, which are the methods, then you're stuck in that box. You could have be believed that you deserve this income. You could be motivated, but if you're doing the wrong things, then you're not going to get the if you're doing the wrong marketing tactics or if you're doing the wrong things in a relationship, right? If you're using bad advice. And in here, I document the example of learning because we learned very poor antiquated methods of learning in school. It was rote repetition. To learn something, repeat it a hundred times in your mind. And the problem is it just takes a lot of time. That's not the optimal way the brain learns. The human brain doesn't learn through consumption. It learns through creation, right? the human brain does not learn by consuming, it learns by creating. And so we also learned a bad habit, a method of reading, which was subvocalization. Subvocalization is, have you ever noticed when you're reading something, you hear that inner voice inside your head reading along with you? Yeah. Hopefully it's your own voice. It's not like somebody else's voice. The reason why it keeps you reading slow is if you have to say all the words in this book, you can only read as fast as you could speak. That means your reading speed is limited to your talking speed. So how do you not your thinking speed?

How do you limit the conversation in your mind?

It's interesting, right? Because the question becomes everybody reads about 200-250 words per minute because that's how the average person talks. But do you have to say the question becomes do analyze it, common sense. Do you need to say all the words in order to understand what those words mean?

No.

The truth is no. Like when you see a stop sign, you don't say to yourself stop, but do you comprehend what that means? 95. Exactly. And just like symbols in the book, periods, punctuation marks, you don't say question mark when you read or comma when you read, you know, so the and there because of all those are sight words and you don't have to pronounce them by sound, you pronounce it, you do them by sight. And that fastest readers actually only sub-vocalize the more difficult words. And so I'm not saying you really, I know.

You just kind of skip through and just go through.

You go, you, you read all the no, you read all the words, but you don't have to say all the words. And so that sub-vocalization is my example of an old method, an antiquated method that will keep you in that box of learning slow.

So let me do an example. Here's a sentence from your book, part two, about mindset. And if I were to read this, I would read it slowly just because that's how I'm used to it. I would say, and I already get nervous reading out loud from my childhood Fears of stumbling. The deeply held beliefs, attitudes and assumptions we create about who we are, how the world works, what we are capable of and deserve, and what is possible. Mindset.

So, let me show you how to actually... So, one example, and there's a link in my Instagram for a free masterclass on reading, like a whole one-hour tutorial in real real time here. When people are reading, what I recommend is sub vocalization. The key here is first acknowledge that it's there and don't try to fight it. Not. Don't try to not sub vocalize. Because if you. You know this from your study of the mind. You can't not do anything. You can't not think of a purple giraffe because you have to do it. So the more you try not to say the words, the more you're gonna do it. Plus, you're gonna be talking yourself. Am I really understanding this? And you're not gonna understand it because you. two things going down at once. Yeah, right, exactly. And so the goal here is when you read past a certain speed, 400, there's a sub-vocalization threshold where you can't possibly talk any faster than that. But you can understand it. Oh, perfect example. When you listen to your podcasts or audiobooks, many people speak at 250, 260. Exactly, and you can understand it, but you can't speak that fast. So that's proof you could think that fast, but not understand it. And so here, one of the hacks that we teach in the book is to use a visual pacer. Like when you use your finger while you read, most people think this is an old antiquated method. They say, don't do that because that will slow you down. But in actuality, I challenge everybody to take that master class on that link and what you'll find is test yourself. Read without your finger and then read for another minute with your finger, count the number of lines, just underlining it. that second time will be 25-50% faster.

And just kind of what forcing your finger to go a little faster than you would normally.

You'd actually go regular because what happens is you don't regress. A lot of people have another bad method going back to limited methods and we want to unlimit their methods of regressing and back skipping. Have you ever found yourself rereading words or rereading 25% of our time could be wasted doing that and that's a bad habit that we learned when Kids.

Why do we do that? Why do we repeat a sentence or a word?

The same reason why we sub-vocalize because we were taught that. Remember back in school we were taught, so public speaking, when we got in those circles and we had to pass around that book and that book comes closer and closer and closer.

Fear and anxiety just comes up. I call my name.

Exactly and that's where I believe we learned that public speaking was something to be feared. And that's where it was imprinted on us and like for some people and it was good intention, but people can be sincere teachers, but be sincerely wrong. And I got that, I couldn't even read at that time. So when that book came to me, I would just look at it and it would look like hieroglyphics. Exactly, and I would do that. And I would like cry, it would be so embarrassing because everyone's looking at you and you have to perform. And that's where I think my fear of public speaking, why I wouldn't do the book report or speak on it and everything came from. But the other thing teachers had you do is, once they know you could pronounce them, and you had to say it out loud to make sure the teacher knows you're pronouncing it phonetically, right? But later on, your teacher taught you the limit with subvocalization because he or she said, all right, read quietly to yourself or read silently to yourself. And that's where you took that external voice and you're like, in order to understand it, I have to hear it. If not outside, then inside. And it's been there ever since. So this book is about unlimiting those bad habits of learning, of rote memorization, of bad habits we make about decisions. Like why are we always date, why are people dating the same people, making the same financial mistakes and everything else? It's not insanity doing the same thing over and over again. It's a bad memory and we weren't taught decision making. So like in the book, I talk about four super villains that hold us back and it's really because I talk about superpowers. Four super villains and I'll go back to the model and make this very like aha to everybody. Four super villains that are holding you and your team back, your children back, your team back, your employees back, your spouse back, number one, and they're all driven by technology. Digital deluge. Digital deluge is this information overwhelm. It's like, do you feel nowadays like you can't keep up? It's like taking a sip of water out of a fire hose. And here's the thing, people buy a book, but they don't read the book, right? It just sits on their shelf. It becomes shelf help, not self help, right? And here's the thing, Buying a book is a different skill set than reading the book.

I'm really good at buying books. Yes, I'm not that good at reading it.

I can buy books all day long. Exactly, but reading is a different skill set, but digital deluge is a real medical condition. They call it information fatigue syndrome. Higher blood pressure, compression of leisure time, more sleeplessness, and this is happening if you own a business or you have managed a team, four or five hours a day on estimate, are we spending processing information? Just think about your team, how much they have to process. A lot. Right? That means half of their salary is being paid to process and learn and read. So if someone's being paid $80,000, 40,000 is just to read something. Oh my gosh. So if I could double their reading speed, that's like, that's a huge, that's a huge amount of time. Like if it normally takes four hours to read something and you read it in half the time, two hours, what's two hours of the course of a year? That's like on a math. And we can't even do the math because that's another one of the digital challenges. But that's two, that's even if you save one hour a day, 365 hours a year. 40-hour work weeks, how many 40-hour work weeks? Nine. Two months of productivity we get back to saving one hour a day on something ubiquitous like reading. That's why this book will help you read every other book to save you time.

That's amazing.

Digital deluge. Number two, digital distraction. With every ring and ping and ding, App notification, social media alert, it's training our distraction muscles. And we are so good at being distracted. That's why so much of my morning routine that people do, something simple like brushing your teeth with the opposite hand, because it engages the opposite side of your brain, which is good for making new connections, neuroplasticity, but it's also good for making you present.

You have to focus.

Right, it forces you to be in the moment. So is it something you do every day? that little things where you add novelty where it focuses you to be here as opposed to about everything else, right? And how you do anything is how you do everything. So if you wake up first thing in the morning and touch your phone, I think you should have a to-do list. I think you're not to-do list. Don't touch your phone. Yeah, don't touch your phone first hour of the day. It rewires your brain to be distracted and also it rewires your brain to be reactive. I can't stress this enough. When you pick up your phone the first hour of the day, and a lot of people talk about this and we have videos, My video with Simon Sinek has 28 million views on just this thing on Facebook. It literally just says, don't touch your phone because it rewires your brain to be distracted and reactive because you're fighting fires, you're on the defense. Like, why are you going to check your email and voicemail and it takes you off tangent? You're not even focusing on what's most important. Like in terms of your win. Our friend, Brendan Burchard, says this exactly. You're like, you have a lot of quotes that you remember, but he says, you, inbox is nothing but a convenient organizational system for other people's agenda for your life. Boom. Wow, Brendan Burchard, your inbox is nothing but a convenient organizational system for other people's agenda for your life. So don't go on the defense. So don't pick up your phone because when you wake up, you're in this relaxed state of awareness. You're very suggestible. So you're training your distraction and your reaction. You have to be proactive. You want to be a thermostat, not a thermometer. A thermometer reacts the environment. A thermometer sets the environment. So digital distraction second, third super villain that's driven by technology that's, you know, potentially holding you back, digital dementia. Digital dementia is where our phones become an external storage device. It keeps our to-dos, right? It keeps our phone.

How many phone numbers did you know growing up?

I saw a lot growing up, yeah. How many do you know now?

One.

Like, is there one person? Is there somebody you text and call?

I know my mom's because I've I gotta write it down as like emergency contact.

Exactly. But if you don't have your phone with you or your phone is battery's dead, you can't. Now here's the thing, nobody wants to memorize 200 phone numbers. I don't want to do that. But isn't it concerning that we've lost the ability to remember one or a passcode or a conversation we just had? I believe two of the most costly words in life. Yeah, in life, our business, I forgot. Every time you say the words, I forgot, you lose credibility, you lose trust, you lose, you don't show you care about the person, you lose a sale, I can't tell you how many clients come to me saying, Look, I forgot, I called this person by the wrong name, and he was so offended that he didn't do the deal with me. I lost a million dollar commission. Like those kind of things, right? And how are you going to show somebody you're going to care for their future, their finances, their health, their family, if you don't care enough just to remember their name, right? So we do 13, 14 tips on just how to remember people's names. We covered it in the previous episode also as well. So digital dementia is where It's a real source. Dr. Daniel Amen has talked about it. Other people have talked about, don't be over-reliant on technology to do everything. Memory is a muscle and it's use it or lose it. That's why I'm such an advocate for mental fitness. I remember I walked into the office one day, I picked up the phone first thing in the morning and a woman's voice was like, I love you, I love you, I love you. I'm like, whoa, who's this? She was like, I found it. She went through our online memory course and she She was given a family heirloom necklace by her grandmother. It didn't go to her mother or her three sisters. It went to her. And she hid it somewhere in her house.

She forgot.

She forgot. For three years, she thought it was stolen. She felt so much guilt and she got so much shame from her family and she just passed on for generations. And after going through this course, and she woke up at 2:00 a.m. in the morning, ran down two flights of stairs, went behind the boiler in her basement, pulls out this crevice, the necklace. And I was like, I didn't teach you a method on how to find lost items in this program. She was like, I don't know what it is, but my focus, I'm just remembering this without even using a method. It's just, she was like, Thank you for giving me my brain back. She felt like her brain was 20 years younger, 'cause it was fit. And that's what I'm talking about. Mental intelligence is very important. Yeah, facts, figures, foreign languages, you learn how to do that in the methods of the book. mental fitness and mental health. That's also very important. Where if you're physically fit, right? So if you were gonna go up Runyon Canyon or wherever, if somebody is not physically fit, they're gonna have to use more effort, more energy because they're not trained. And so if you're an athlete, you could help them as a coach in two ways. You could show them the strategies like how to do a forehand or backhand or hit a golf ball, and you can take them into the gym and optimize their fitness, the heart rate variability, their foods and everything. So get people mentally fit, digital dementia. And finally, the last one that we talk about in the book, digital deduction. I always iterate, DDD. So digital deduction is where our phones and our smart devices are doing the thinking for us because it just literally, because it's just spoon feeding you. And I'm not just talking about fake news, I'm talking about algorithms that just give you everything, but you don't have to think. think anymore and we've lost our thinking abilities to the point where you look at a menu and you're like, I don't even know what to eat because normally an app tells me what to eat or what to watch next or what to do everything. They're seeing kids, they have lower ability to critical thinking, critical thinking abilities, analysis ability, reasoning ability because of phones because our smart devices are making us stupid. And so in the book to overcome these four digital super villains, We teach for digital deluge, speed reading and study, like how to study anything. Whether you're a student or not, students absolutely, technical material will help you overcome digital deluge. Digital distraction, we have to do a whole chapter on focus and concentration, literally how to functionally improve focus. Digital dementia, the biggest chapter in the book is memory training, like how to learn languages, how to remember names. And then finally, digital deduction, we do a whole chapter on how to think clearly, how to make good decisions, how to really solve problems, step by step, how to solve problems, how to make good decisions. Because as we talked about, you know, your life is the C between the B and the D. How do you make those choices? Who taught you how to make choices, right? Like how to see it from different angles. And so we teach that to alleviate those. So you can not only catch up, but you could actually get ahead. and that's really the goal.

I want to talk for like five more hours, but you guys just need to go get this book. Go get Limitless right now. Upgrade your brain, learn anything faster, and unlock your exceptional life by Jim Kwik. This is a resource that you're gonna wanna make sure you pick up, buy, like most of us are champions of buying books, but you wanna take action on, 'cause that's how you're gonna have to learn faster and really unlearn certain things. So you can, or what do you call it, unlimiting?

Unlimiting, great memory, yeah. Unlimiting things so you can become limitless. Because here's the thing, when you look at the model everyone drew out, when you look at mindset, motivation, and methods, where mindset crosses over with motivation, you have inspiration. So there are books on mindset. Yes. One of my favorite books, Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck. There are books on motivation, and you know, courses on motivation. Where they intersect, you have inspiration. So I'm going to give you three I's: inspiration. Where you have mindset and methods crossover in the Venn diagram, you have the mindset, everything is capable and you deserve it, and you have the methods, you know what to do, so you have ideation, but without the motivation, you're not going to do it. And where you have motivation crossover with methods, you're motivated and you know what to do, but you're still in that box because you don't just because you don't know what's possible and you don't even believe you deserve it maybe and now you're missing the mindset. So where that crosses over, you have implementation, right? Three eyes. And where all three circles come together, you have the fourth eye, which is integration. That's the limitless state because it is who you are. You are limitless because you've unraveled yourself, you've liberated yourself out of that box because you have the right mindset. you have the sustainable motivation and you know exactly the methods to get the results.

I don't know how you remember all this. I was like, is he going to remember all the different parts of his Venn diagram?

It's amazing. Yeah. In the book, actually, we have full, like, size, like, diagrams, color, everything like that for it. And people. And we do something really special right now. And you know, I know you're a big proponent champion for this. Yes. We want people to get a real big experience for. So people that want to be able to listen to this because it's not out on audio. We made a 10 day program video series for literally one day on each of these aspects. And we do one day on speed reading, one day on changing your negative beliefs, and we gift it to you when you get the book.

Where do they go to get the book?

Limitlessbook.com, limitlessbook.com, and they'll have this program on there. And they'll have all the links to all the Amazon, and then you put the receipt number in there and then you'll get immediate access to what I call Quick Start, how to be mentally limitless, how to unlock your limitless brain. And so we do one day and I coach you for 10 days. So when the book shows up, you're already speed reading, you're already remembering things, you're already fixed your mindset and you.

Know you deserve all of that. Get this book for yourself, get it for at least three of your friends, something that you want to see grow and improve in their lives, get this for them as well. thisbook.com to get the bonuses and everything else you're going to be talking about there. This is going to be a game changer for this year and many years to come, so make sure you get a few copies of this. I've been telling you to do this for years. I'm super glad you did because...

I even put you in the acknowledgments when I was saying, like, I was like, thank you so much, Louis, because everybody needs somebody. My message to everybody is this, everybody needs somebody to encourage them. to challenge them, to support them, to cheer them on. And if you haven't found that person yet, I would say be that person for somebody else, especially right now. And especially be that person for yourself.

Yes.

You know, I challenge everybody because I remember I said that learning requires action. If you want to learn something, teach it to other people. I would challenge everybody to do this action step. Take a screenshot of this episode or this video or of your notes. Tag Lewis, tag myself, and post it on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and share your big aha. Just one idea, one idea, and I will actually, I'll repost some of my favorites, and I'll actually send the book out to someone, a signed copy of the book, an advanced copy of the book, just as a thank you. But I would challenge you, if you want to learn something, the best way is to teach it. When you teach something, you get to learn it twice.

Yeah, my girlfriend is learning English right now. She's really good at English but she's trying to master it. I would say she's 70% of the way there and so she just started teaching me Spanish but she has to teach English as well to teach Spanish. So, she's learning faster by teaching me Spanish even though she's already fluent in it. She's learning English in the process.

We do a whole section in memory on how to remember vocabulary words. and foreign language words, using just even a simple tip, and we go way more in detail in the book, a visualization. We tend to remember things better that we see than what we hear. So you're much better with faces than you are with names, right? You see somebody, you say, I remember your face, but I forgot your name. You never go to someone and say the opposite. I remember your name, but I forgot your face. There's a Chinese proverb that goes, what I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand. What I hear, I forget. I heard the name, I forgot it. What I see, I remember, I saw the face, I remember going back to doing things in practice, practice makes progress, right? Not perfect, but practice makes progress. But that visualization, sometimes you could hear it and so with your girlfriend you could say the words, but they might lose it. When you see it, it helps you to remember.

She draws it all out on a big whiteboard.

Exactly, and I would say even visualize it. If you want to learn Spanish, we were talking about eggs before, whether it's a brain food or not, right? Wavos. If you just use like a Pictionary method where you said, oh, I'm eight years old. What does that sound like? Like Pictionary, you have to draw it out. Wave and O's. And so if you just imagine waves with O's in them and you're throwing eggs in them, Wavos, it creates a visualization. Like that. Mare Posa, like a butterfly. It sounds like me, Mary, posing. And what's she posing? Imagine you're taking a picture and then all of a sudden a butterfly comes and carries Mary away. So quick things like that, and obviously it will be way deeper in the book, help you to be able to learn, even if you wanted to take English words and turn them into something, you know, sycophant, sick of ant, or supercilious means arrogant, super silly ass, right? Make a picture. When you make stories like kids, you remember it because you utilize your imagination. And imagination, as Einstein said, is more powerful than knowledge. Even music, we talk about music in the study section, if you listen to classical music, specifically from an era of Baroque music, like Handel, Vivaldi, when you listen to it in the background, it actually puts you into an alpha state. We talk about brainwave states in the book, and it actually helps you go into a meditative state where you learn the language faster because your critical mind goes aside, television puts you into an alpha state, meditation puts you in alpha state. And so have you ever tried to talk to somebody when they're watching television, sports or something? and they don't hear you because they're in that alpha trans state. In the zone. So you could actually listen to certain music, their breathing techniques put you in alpha state, visualization puts you in alpha state, and you could combine and stack them to learn languages, English or any Spanish. I put classical music on, I'm breathing.

I'm gonna do it all now. Space repetition that we talk about all of this stuff. It makes things so much easier. I love this, man. I'm gonna ask you one final question. Sure. I don't know if I asked you this the last time, so I'll ask you now. It's called the three truths. Imagine you've written every book you want to write in the world. You've put out millions of pieces of content. You live till a thousand years old, but eventually the brain's got to shut off and you've got to go into the next world, whatever happens next. But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true from all the lessons you've learned that you would share with us. And this is all we would have to remember you by are these three truths. What would you say you would want to share with the world.

Okay. I would start with responsibility. I tell the story when I took Stan Lee to meet Richard Branson for dinner and we're in the car and they wanted to meet each other and I like to connect people and I asked Stan, I was like, you know, you've created some of the best, the most amazing superheroes, my heroes. Who's your favorite?

Here's a Spider-Man, right? Right.

Now his, so his was Iron Man. And when he asked me who mine was, I said Spider-Man because I posted this picture on Instagram. I had a big Spider-Man tie. And when I said Spider-Man, he said, With great power comes great responsibility. Yeah, and I still had three brain injuries and I reversed things a lot. I was like, 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 things better. And a lot of people think responsibility is something that jails them. But if you don't take responsibility for something, then you can't fix anything. So when you take responsibility for your finances or the state of your relationship and you don't blame, when I talk about mistakes, you know, we don't make, you know, we don't make mistakes. Mistakes don't make us. This is the idea here is the second thing I would say is take responsibility so you can fix it. The second thing I would say is forget about the concerns of others. Make, make your mistakes, because Here's the thing when you make mistake, just you are not your mistakes and mistakes don't make you. The three keys for making mistake, make them old. Oh, own that mistake. Don't blame other people, right? You know, apologize if you've hurt someone, you own it, fix it if you can, right? You own it, you take responsibility. And then the L and old mistakes, learn from that mistake, right? You want to make sure you learn from it because that's the point of making mistakes. There's no failure, there's only feedback. And feedback is a breakfast of superheroes, right? And if failure is not an option, then neither is success. Seth Godin said that. Failure is not an option, neither is success. And finally, the D and old, don't repeat it. A lot of people, if they learn it, they'll repeat it and they start doing the same mistakes over and over again. So I would say take responsibility so you could change things. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. Don't fear other people's opinions because they don't matter at the end, as we talked about. And when you're taking our final breaths, it's going to be how you lived, loved, lived, learned. That's what matters. And then the third thing I would say, commit yourself to lifelong learning and learn how to learn. The number one superpower, I believe, on the planet is uncovering, unlocking the human brain. It is the most powerful tool that you have to fix your life and move forward and study meta learning. and this book really is a book on learning how to learn anything. Yeah. You know, and so I would say those three things.

Love it, man. I'm really grateful for you because you've helped so many people just accelerate their life and learn things that are very challenging and hard for them. You've helped a lot of people just overcome the fear and anxiety around the struggles of their life. And I think the challenges you've faced in your life have given you a superpower to do that people and the ability to ask your own self a certain question, right? Of how can I make things better? How can I do these things? And listening to other people's questions. I think you said Will Smith was how do I make this moment even more magical? Because it's already a magical moment. You asked really good questions. And there was a question you asked me at my last book launch. I don't remember. I don't know if you remember this. Let's test your memory. If you did, maybe you might ask me a couple questions. Let's see if you I remember one that you asked me. You were in the back of the room at Wunderlust. Okay. And you asked a question. Any chance you remember?

Okay. I remember a lot of questions that I ask you.

Like I ask you. There was a specific question you remember.

I'm not gonna put you on the spot. No, no, no. I mean, I remember a number of those questions.

I asked you things like how you.

Want to be remembered. Because I've been in your shoes.

You asked a bunch of questions.

Yeah.

Which one? Which one are you? There was a question you asked me that most people don't ask, and you asked it, and it really was like, you know what? More than your brain, I appreciate it. I appreciate your heart because you really come from a powerful place of love as well. And I want to acknowledge you for your heart because I think you've talked about the brain a lot. You talk about the mind, you talk about learning, memory, but you have a powerful heart and that's a superpower for you as well. You asked about my father. You said, how is your father doing? Can you tell a story about your father? Because I never really talked about it publicly until I started to write this book and until my last book and then In the documentary, I just had come out recently, we show my father for the first time. No one really ever knew what he was like. And so, I want to acknowledge you for that question because most people ask great questions, but you asked a meaningful question. It was really powerful and I still remember it to this day. You're the only one that asked about my father and the whole book tour that I had. So, I was really grateful for that. Yeah, acknowledge you for your heart, man. You've got a great heart and your heart is more powerful than your brain, in my opinion. And that's saying a lot. So thank you for this book. Again, make sure you guys get the book, Limitless. I'm not sure if I asked you this the last time either, so I'll ask you the final question, which is, what is your definition of greatness?

Wow. Okay. I'm going to iterate really fast because it's my thing. 4 G's to greatness. I've learned a lot from you. 4 G's, growth. If you don't grow, you're dying. That's what the meaning of life is. You gotta give. And you are a giver. And I appreciate everything and even your coaching on just a lot of what we did around this book. And I call them grow givers. Put those two together. You grow so you have more to give. Because if you're just you know, go, not go getting here. We're just taking, but you're just giving. But then you don't have enough to give. You martyr, but you grow so you could give a grow giver.

Yeah.

The next, next G first. First, besides growing and giving, the next one, I would say, is grit. You know, we go through hard times and difficult times that we're going through right now, especially difficult times. They could Define us, they could diminish us. Or they could develop us. We decide, we're in a cocoon right now, like a butterfly. And while the beauty is in the butterfly, the growth happens in the cocoon. And it's in this cocooning time when we could level up our skills, our competencies, our studies, our discipline, and get really, really great. And it's harder in there, but grit gives you perseverance, gives you our ability to handle difficulty. That adversity, like we talked about, my adversity was learning. you know, sleeping, public speaking, and they become my advantages. The things I was most ashamed of, it was like, you know, coming to this country and or being born, you know, immigrants or not speaking a language or, you know, not be able to learn. Those are things I'm almost proud of right now. So it's interesting that our struggles could be our strengths. And if anyone's struggling right now, my heart's with you. And I would say that people are watching, you know, if you inspire people with your grit and grace, And then finally, the last G besides growth and giving and grit, gratitude. And you talk about this in every episode practically. And I would say that gratitude rewires your brain for positivity, peace of mind and performance. Gratitude, this thought experiment, try this. What if the only things you had in your life tomorrow were the things you express gratitude for today? What if the only things you had in your life tomorrow, wow, were the things you express gratitude for today, that if you truly want to feel wealthy, even in dark times, just make a list of all the things you have in your life that money can't buy. Think about all the people, think about your senses, any part of your health. If you want to feel wealthy, that's what you focus on, because gratitude, that's greatness for me. Greatness is like, I use the analogy of an egg, that if an egg is broken by, we talk about eggs a bunch, If an egg is broken by an outside force, life ends. But if it's broken by an inside force, it begins. It begins. Greatness begins from the inside. And you have greatness inside of you if you're listening to this right now. You have genius inside of you. And now is the time to make that choice to let it out.

Boom, my man. Appreciate you, brother. Thanks, Jim.

Margaret Fuller said, Today reader, tomorrow a leader. I love this. The more we learn, the more we develop new skills, the more we learn how to learn, the more we activate our brains to remember things and to truly pay attention to the things we care about, we will start to accelerate our learning. We'll become limitless and this feeling will bring us more confidence in our day-to-day life. That's what this is all about. It's time to upgrade your make sure to check out Jim's new book, Limitless. You can check it out in the show notes, lewishouse.com/944. And if you got value out of this, I mean, I was taking notes, I got wisdom nuggets left and right. I feel like everything Jim said was a viral video. If you got value, share this on your Instagram story and tag me @lewishouse and Jim Quick, and share with your friends. Text a friend this link, the show notes, or you can just copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this. to this and text someone, put it in a WhatsApp group chat, Facebook, LinkedIn, put it everywhere. We want to help people become more limitless. And you have the power to change someone's life. You have the power to shift someone's direction by sending them this message. You never know what someone will listen to that can change the trajectory of their life. I remember reading the Alchemist back in the day, and it truly unlocked something in me. I remember reading four hour work week. I remember reading the four agreements, all these different books. I remember listening to certain episodes on different podcasts that made me shift differently in my finances and my personal health and my relationships. You never know and you have the power to make a massive impact today by sharing this with one friend that.

You think would enjoy it.

So share it. And if this is your first time here, subscribe to the School of Greatness over on Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. And if Someone sent you here today, send them a text back, send them a video message back, call them and say, Hey, thank you so much for thinking of me and being a caring.

Person in my life.

And Frederick Douglas said, once you learn to read, you will be forever free. You know, I'm a fan of reading. I'm a fan of learning and consuming powerful information from the right mentors and teachers. So whether you like to read or you like to learn, both are great. and thank you so much for being here, learning from me, from Jim today. We hope to bring you more value in the future. We've got some incredible episodes in the last few weeks that have come out. If you haven't checked them out, make sure to go back and learn from these people like Wim Hof have come on, people like Dave Ramsey, all these incredible people. We've got some big episodes coming soon, so subscribe, leave a review, and you matter. so much to this planet. You just gotta believe and put your gifts out into the world one person at a time. You can always make a big difference by doing one act at a time or one person at a time. I love you so very much and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.

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