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Sam Taggart:00:19
Everybody this is Sam Taggart with the D2D podcast and I have a very special guest keynote speaker for D2DCon5, Jim quick on the show today. And this phenomenon of human being has written multiple books he has this big popular one called limitless.
He is spoken on every big stage you can think of he’s been on every podcast you can think of. If you’ve never heard of Jim Kwik, you’re probably not paying attention to anything that’s mainstream right now.
He is a brain hacker, like he is a speed reader. He teaches people like Tony Robbins, and you know, Harvard Business School, Stanford, Google, all these crazy big companies, how to be more effective in their learning styles, how to be more effective in their learning, you know, just accelerating their brain and their thinking and their effectiveness.
I had the pleasure of meeting Jim, like two weeks ago and seeing him speak and what was really cool is you just teach us good frameworks. He’s like, do this plus this plus this and you’re gonna be smarter or do this. You’re gonna be more effective. And pleasure to have you on the show. Jim, welcome out.
01:28
Yeah, so so good to be here. So I’m really looking forward to data T, it’s going to be to me amazing, it’s gonna be absolutely unforgettable. And I can say, as a memory guy, I love it. So you know, some of these speakers pretty well, like Tom, Delia and Cole Hatter and Natasha Gragnano. I mean, you know, all these people, what would Yeah, Jesse, very, very, all very good friends. So it’s like a big family reunion. So, you know, this is one of the things where part of what we have to do, as people who want to get to next level to spend time with is who you become, you know, and the fastest way to be able to fast track our success is learning from mentors. You know, people spent decades becoming great at what they do. And you could sit down in a couple of days, and learn some of those best tools and techniques, knowledge, skills and abilities. That’s the ultimate competitive advantage.
02:17
I think a lot of people I mean, I had a guy messaged me, and he says, I don’t need to go to your show. I just read everything and get everything from a book. What would you mean? Or oh, why would I already I already am doing well, what would you say to a guy like that? Yeah,
“the best are always learning and never get complacent”
02:31
my thing is, people tend to be attracted to my work one of two places, they either are really struggling and suffering, and they, they need to get things reset, and back on track. I always start with the brain, or people come to me, I lay exactly like that individual, they’re ready, successful. You know, and, and what they want is they want to maintain that advantage. You know, they want to have that competitive edge. Because the best of the best are always learning and never get complacent. And coming to an event is way different than I mean, I’m an avid reader, you know, for four years, I read a book a day, every single day, I think Leaders are readers if you’ve seen me with on social media with Oprah or Elon or, or Bill Gates, or, you know, Will Smith who did the cover quote for our book, you know, we bonded over people ask like, how did you connect? We bonded over books, right? Today, a reader tomorrow, a leader, somebody has decades of experience, and they put it into a book, right? You sit down and then learn it. And in a few days, it’s amazing. And I think there’s a difference between like listening to your favorite song and going to a concert, you know what I mean? But for that person, I think people come to the event, not only for the content, but they come for the connections, right? Well, you know, they come for the ideas, but also the individuals, you know, at an events like this, you never know that person to your left and to your right, can be as interesting as you and even bigger important in the element and leverage, then, then the person on stage, you know, and so events changed my life completely. And, you know, when you miss these kinds of gatherings, you miss a lot.
04:07
Love the Thank you. And I would 100% agree, I think, you know, it’s funny, I never had been to a conference and I through my first conference. Yeah, I had never been an event junkie, I’d never been to an event. I’d never seen an event. I and all of a sudden I had a vision and I was like, I’m gonna just throw this event. And I was like, Well, how are you gonna do that? I was like, I don’t know. You just get people to speak and then you’d invite people to come and rent a venue right? And I had no idea was most clunky. Like he had 800 people the first year this is January 2008. And you know, it’s crazy to see this thing grow and you know, the community come together. But I learned the magic of an event by throwing my own event and now I’ve been to tons of different events and I’m like, wow, this is there’s so much network and power even just meeting you at Thrive. It was like, Wow, I feel like I get to make a new friend a new connection. Now we get to meet here and we’re gonna meet January and then we’re gonna snowboard and Park City. And it’s like, it’s just like how do we build relationships that are going to be something that inspires me to be a better human and smarter and give back? And anyway, so it’s really cool. So what you see, just from getting to know you, and don’t take this the wrong way, you seem quite an introvert. Sure, so getting into public speaking events, things like that, how did this all get spirit? Like, how did this all get started you writing this book, and
05:26
yeah, um, I mean, I’ve been doing this for quite a while this is starting my my 30th year of teaching, this is my mission, I’ve never done anything else. That’s my passion, my purpose. I think your passion is what lights you up. And your purpose is how you use your passion light other people up. So my passion happens to be learning, it lights me up. And I didn’t order to be able to light other people up, I teach them how to learn, right. And so my inspiration really was by my desperation, when people see me at these kinds of events, you know, I’ll get their time I’ll do these demonstrations, or one or two demonstrations, when maybe I’ll have, you know, 50 people in an audience stand up, and then I’ll memorize all their names as they introduce themselves, you know, which is really important business etiquette, you know, networking scale, right? You know, especially for those people who are in sales, because how are you going to show somebody or to care for their business, their future, their finances, their health, their family, whatever it is, you have to offer them, if you don’t care enough just to remember, like their name, right? And so you know, or I’ll memorize 100 random words, or 100 random digits that an audience will give me and challenge me with. But I would tell people, I don’t do this to impress you, I just express to you what’s possible, because the truth is every single person who’s listening or watching this right now, or 10, says that you could do that, too. You just weren’t taught, regardless of your age, or background or career education level, your gender history, IQ, all of us could do it. It’s just we are taught how to learn. You know, school taught us what to learn math, history, science, Spanish, but there’s zero classes on how to learn, there was no class called Focus, or concentration. There is no class like on speed reading and comprehension and advanced study skills, critical thinking, there’s certainly no class on memory. I always thought a ship in the fourth armed school they do three right reading, writing, arithmetic. Obviously, spelling was unwilling alone. But our recall, what about retention? Socrates says learning is remembering, I believe, sound that to the most costly words for everyone listening here, I forgot. Every time you say that to yourself, or you think that you saved somebody else, you lose credibility, you lose trust, you lose time, you know, and I believe that, you know, when you say, Oh, I forgot, in that person’s name, I forgot that appointment. I forgot what I just read, I forgot what I was gonna say, you know, I forgot all these things. It’s just, we lose opportunity, credibility, we can lose a sale also, as well. And on the other side, memory will make you money when you can easily remember client information, product information, be able to give facts and figures give a sales script, you know, from memory, whether live in front of a person, or like a keynote, or a live present sales presentation, or even on a sales video, you know, and every use teleprompters and every use slides, it’s just it’s so much easier when you can recall them. And here’s the thing, we live in a knowledge economy, you know, and the faster you can learn, the faster you can earn, the faster you can learn, the faster and more you can learn, the faster and more we are because knowledge today is not only power, today, knowledge is profit. Nobody who’s listening to this right now gets paid solid was 100 years ago, we’re not paying for our brute strength, it’s your brain strength. It’s not it’s not your muscle power. Today, it’s your mind power completely. And so I’m all about, I don’t know, if some of some of your, you know, your community might have seen this the cover of Entrepreneur magazine just just a couple months ago, and not only is that my silly face on it holding a skull on a brain, but more importantly, the title of is upgrade your brain, learn more thing faster, focus better, I mean, these are all skills that any of us can improve with proper training. And so those are the kind of things I’m going to share at this event. And I’m so excited because you know, there aren’t a lot of events on you know, and I’m so excited to be around people and their energy and just sharing the best tips and techniques to to upgrade the number one wealth building, you know, thing in the world, which is the human mind.
09:22
I love that. And it’s like you said the more the faster you learn, the faster you earn. That’s the nugget and it was interesting as I saw Tony Robbins live years ago, and I was I always brag about how I had read less than five books ever. And I was 22 years old, you know, in a game and it was like oh yeah, I just cheated my way through high school. I just like did the whole like Cliff Notes thing and you know, I’m just being honest and it was like, I would make that my thing and I was like why have street smarts? I don’t need book smarts, right but it up and then he gets up there and he goes, Leaders are readers. And I was like, what does that mean? And I started to, you know, you read a book a day, I was like, Okay, I’m gonna have a book a quarter at least. And then I’ve moved it to a book a month. And that’s about two a month now.
10:09
That’s amazing. That’s incredible. You know, I think, you know, Read to Succeed, it’s just, there’s so many nuggets and books. And I also believe sometimes a good conversation with somebody is sometimes even better sometimes than a book because it’s very personal. You know, at events like this, you’re around people who are like minded and who you spend time with, it’s who you become, we literally are imitating the the words, the actions, the thoughts, the character, the habits of the people that we spend time with. And that’s why the, you know, these gatherings are so important, again, a collision of new ideas, new individuals, because we live in the creative economy, you know, and so, you know, being around people who energize you, that challenge you that encourage you that are rooting for you, you know, cheering for you, you know, that that’s really by feel like a lot of people are missing that, you know, there’s a lot of negativity in the world, you know, and in the news and sometimes in marketing and, you know, it makes it makes a difference, you know, positivity and performance is is contagious.
11:13
I love that. So we talked about learning, right? Learning is obviously important, whether it’s a book, an event, a podcast, whatever it is, right? So I read this book by Anthony de Mello, maybe you’ve heard of it awareness, and he talks about unlearning. What if I say the word unlearning? How does that what does that mean to you?
11:31
A big part of what I do is actually on helping people to unlearn bad habits, you know, or disempowering habits, or disempowering thought patterns, or disempowering methodologies, you know, and so like unlearning, procrastination on learning self sabotage, right on learning, old methodologies that don’t work today, like a big thing. For example, when people want to study something, like talk about their memory, they’ll just rehearse it over and over and over again, and repeat it. And so I want to get people to unlearn that, because that just takes so much time. You know, when people are clients, and we train everywhere, from SpaceX, to Google, to Nike, Facebook, you know, Harvard as as the, as you mentioned, you know, these people are on top of their game. And some, you know, the half life information is getting shorter and shorter, meaning you know, what you learn, that’s why it’s so important to plug into podcasts and plug in to conferences and events, because sometimes information gets dated, and it gets dated and outdated, more quick, more quickly. So you need to be able to unlearn bad things to be able to, you know, I always say sometimes when you subtract, you could actually multiply. And that goes for people in your life, sometimes when you subtract them, sometimes a loss is really a game. And I think some people could could identify with that, you know, same thing with ideas that are in our mind, I talked about in limitless, that through a book called the common illness, for people that you know, haven’t seen it, it’s my talks about the seven lies to learn, and that hold people back from performing at their mental best. And ally for me is limited idea entertain, that’s what life stands for. It’s a limited idea to
13:10
attend entertain. Yeah. So when people say, Oh, I’m just too old, or I’m not smart enough, like people will do this at events, invariably, you know, ddd people, somebody will grab me in private, you know, in the lobby somewhere. And they’ll say, Jim, you know, I just got, I just have a horrible memory, you know, I’m just not that smart. And always say, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep fight for your limitations, you get to keep them because so many people are making excuses for what they can do. You know, and here’s the thing, your brain is like a supercomputer. And your self talk is the program that will run. So if you tell yourself, I’m not good at remembering people’s names, you will not remember the name of the next person you meet, because you program your supercomputer not to, you know, I have this event, I’m going to do an exercise and maybe I’ll even take people right on stage. And, you know, like, we’ll take five and 10 Strangers on stage and just say, hey, you know, this is how I would remember these names. And that’s, that’s a skill you have for the rest of your life. Right? Because people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care, right? Because, you know, Maya Angelou said that people forget what you say, they’ll forget what you did, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel. But what’s the feeling we send to somebody when we forget their name? Right, or, you know, like that they’re not important, right? And that doesn’t matter what you say after that, you know, and so my goal for everybody is to upgrade the most important superpowers, you know, their focus, their concentration, their ability to read and process information that just read faster, like teach anybody to read three times faster, but really understand things better to teach them also how to remember, you know, because in military they call it a force multiplier, and force multipliers taking the same amount of input, but you get multiple outputs. So same amount of time or focus or energy or resources, but getting multiple streams of revenue. And, and those are really things I want to help people to unlock. There’s a handful of levers that open up everything with when it comes to the human brain, you know, and we’re just beginning to understand what capable of I know that some people know my story. But I had a brain injury when I was a child. And I had severe learning challenges, I cannot focus. And people like say they had focus issues. And I was I was everywhere, I couldn’t understand things, teachers would repeat themselves over and over again, I would pretend to understand, but I say I’m really understand, can I pretend you know, and I took me three years longer to learn how to read, because of my brain. And then so I remember when I was nine, a teacher pointed to me for the whole class, and called me out and said, That’s the boy with a broken brain. And I just wasn’t understanding things like everybody else. And that label became my limit. And so when I call this book limitless, limitless is not about being perfect, limitless is about advancing and who doesn’t want to advance limitless is about progressing beyond where you currently are, or believe even, that’s what’s possible. And we’re grossly underestimate, I’m telling you, we we’ve discovered more about the human brain and more in the past 10 years than the previous 1000 years combined. And what we found is we’re grossly under estimating your own capabilities, right? So many people, there’s a quote, in my book that says life is the sea between B and D. Life is simply between being the B stands for birth. So D stands for death, right? Life, see, the magic there, C stands for choice. You know, I believe that these difficult times they can define us, these difficult times can diminish us, or these difficult times can develop us. But we always have choice, we always, always decide. And so I just want to sensitize people, I do this in my podcast, I do note on stages in our courses, that there are choices you can make throughout the day, that will give you a huge advantage. You know, no matter what your background is, or personal history can be a huge advantage in the marketplace and also in your personal life as well. Love the
17:02
life is the see between B and D That’s so good. Choice. It’s the let’s talk about like, just real quick, um, quick finance. So real quick. What are some of the quicker hacks I remember you changing training on the mom or the fast method? thing? Like yeah, to unit, we talked about this whole, like, increase reading by three times or increase the retention by X amount, or this inputs get bigger results? Are there a few little hacks you could share on this podcast that helps us kind of accelerate that brain retention or learning ability?
“1/3 of your memory is predetermined by genetics and biology, but two thirds is in your control”
17:42
Absolutely, without a doubt, and no, and if people can maybe take some notes on this somehow kind of rapid fire, these are just just really great quick tips, you can use immediately to get instant results, right? You know, and so there’s certain things that move the needle, we know that 1/3 of your memory is predetermined by genetics and biology, but two thirds is in your control. So they’re the first you know, while we teach the processes, especially at the event, learn how to read faster how to remember names, you know, there’s also that’s the software, but you also have to take care of the hardware. And so there are 10 things that really upgrade our brains for greater levels of productivity, performance, and honestly, profitability as well. So in no particular order, I’ll just rattle some of them off. Number one is good brain diet, right. So immediately when you change your diet, the whole area of called neuro nutrition, and there’s certain foods that are just really good for your focus really good at lowering stress. Really good for your memory. They’re very neuroprotective foods like avocados, blueberries, I like to call them brain berries. Broccoli is good for the brain. Olive oil, cooking with olive oil is good for your homeboys. serviceberry good for your brain. If your diet allows asexually, the choline and AIDS is good for cognitive health, green leafy vegetables like kale and spinach. Your brain is mostly fat, so the fatty fish like salmon, sardines, were good for the brain tumeric and helps to lower inflammation in the morning, sometimes they’ll take some Tumeric make some fresh almond milk and like the meat, this golden milk. It’s really good walnuts, which happen to look like the human brain does as a kind of memory, you know, tip is, has very high loaded and vitamin E, which is very neuroprotective dark chocolate, you know, so there’s, like 10 foods you don’t use all along, but you get to take them throw them in this movie. You know, it’s avocados, greens, that they’re really conventionally that actually would make a coin that brain smoothies. You put the almonds on blueberries. Yeah, yeah, and except probably about the the salmon in the star Dan and Sam. Yeah. But um, yeah, I can do that and try making brainpower smoothie, you know, after you know, the, you know, in the middle of the day and so that’s wonderful refreshing. Second thing I would say besides the opposite side, you got to get rid of the the fried foods, the processed foods, you know, the high sugar is not good for your brain. Number two, killing ants is good for the brain. And I get this from my friend, Dr. Daniel, Amen is read like 40 books on the brain. He’s done more brain scans and anyone else in the country. And Kant stands for automatic negative thoughts. And we just talked about that. And you know, when you have these negative thoughts, thoughts, become, you know, our thoughts lead to our actions or actions lead to our experience, our experience leads to fear a set of feelings and those feelings feed those thoughts again. But, you know, a negative mind cannot produce a positive life, right. And so, you know, we teach techniques on how to reframe, and change those negative beliefs and thoughts that hold us back. Third thing that’s really that instantly people can do is exercise more. And I don’t mean just the three times a week doing CrossFit or Pilates or yoga. I mean, throughout the day, I mean, moving moving, that, you know, I said this phrase I’ve said for like decades, as your body moves your brain grooves, as your body moves your brain grooves like we live in a very sedentary culture or buying screens all day. They say sitting is the new smoking. And when you move your body, you create brain derived neurotrophic factors, BDNF, which is like fertilizer for the human brain. So if you want to be a faster thinker, have better memory, you know movement, what’s going to be good for your heart, it’s going to be good for your head because of the blood flow go into your brain, because the oxygen going into your brain also, as well. We know also, when people listen to your podcast, or my audio book or something, when they’re doing something rhythmic. Like they’re going for a jog or an elliptical on a bicycle on a treadmill, they’re actually retain it and understand it better also, as well. So move throughout the day, you know, you know the people with our listeners, they could be moving also as well or get a standing desk or, you know, do something some dumb, you know, learning even the act of learning how to juggle. There’s a study that Oxford University St. jugglers have bigger brains, they create more white matter, so always just challenge yourself physically. Another thing
21:54
when I was a third grade I was I’m blue Dhaba D juggling act in the talent show. So throw that that’s it now. Now I know I’m legit. Yeah.
22:08
Yeah, we just posted on Instagram and on Tik Tok some some some juggling some meat just, you don’t think people have to do like flaming swords or, you know, no chainsaws and stuff like that. But it’s something we Anyone, anyone can learn a few other things that would just be really good for the brain. positive peer group, as I mentioned, please spend time with this VB comm we have these things called mirror neurons, and we’re always inside our nervous system. And that allows us to feel empathy, when we watch sports, or we watch a movie, we can feel what they feel, it’s like we do that all the time. That’s why people who’ve been dating for a while or relationship, they tend to look like each other to have the same kind of gestures and mannerisms and, and so that’s why going to events is so important because you connect with people who are like minded Who are you know, who doing you know, the right, you know, the right set of thoughts and habits and abilities. So, you know, monitor our peer group, very important because you can be on the other side around energy vampires, people that are might be stealing your dreams, you know, stealing, you know, siphoning your energy, that could be a challenge. A few other ones think that people could immediately to clean environment is really good for the brain. I mean, so it’s, you know, when you clean your like desktop, and everything’s in a folder, you have clarity of thought your external world is a reflection of your internal world. But I would also look into like air quality even, you know, Gary, you’re right now like in paradise, right, the incredible air quality, but you know, some people have their home, you know, I just looked at this article about the, the fumes, the off gassing off a new furniture and carpets, you know, has some, you know, potentially some neurotoxic effects, you know, with the chemicals and things like that. So clean environment, clean water, clean, air clean, even lighting, you know, some people were under fluorescent lights, or eyes get very strange, you know, but people use them in offices in schools, because, because honestly, they’re cheap, you know, as opposed to having being higher quality. So all that’s clean environment. And then And then finally, the last one, I’ll just remind everyone here is Get Proper Sleep, right? You literally could sleep your way to the top, you know, sleep getting getting good sleep is probably the number one brain hack there is, you know, because when you don’t get a good night’s sleep, how is it? How’s your thinking the next day? How’s your memory? How’s your ability to focus? You know, how is your mental energy, right then when you sleep? It’s it’s where you clean out plaque that leads the brain ag challenges, you know, that could lead to Alzheimer’s and dementia when you sleep. That’s where you consolidate short to long term memory. When you sleep is where you dream. And people don’t realize this. But when you study and work all day and you’re doing your sales and study, your brain doesn’t shut off at night. It actually keeps it’s actually more active in some ways. And what is it doing? It’s being creative. It’s using its imagination. And did you know that Mary Shelley created Frankenstein in her dream? Paul McCartney created the song yesterday in his dream, a chemist created the periodic table in his dream So many sports figures drempt, like Jack Nicklaus, the golfer was in a slump by his shooting high 70s or something. And he had a dream of just shifting his grip a little bit. And the next day took like 10 points off of off of his game, you know, so your brain has his amazing ability to solve problems. But it requires that you get a good night’s sleep, you know, and so, I talk a lot, we’ve done multiple episodes on how to optimize your sleep, some may appear we sleep x, but the idea here is make it a priority. You know, we can’t change something unless we add, like, the most important thing is to keep the most important thing, the most important thing, you know, it’s not even just about time management, we all have 24 hours in a day, that’s the only thing that’s even that literally is the only thing everybody has different opportunity, different education, different genetics, different network, different income, right, but the only thing we all have, like, what, 86,400 seconds in a day. And it’s how we’re investing that time. And I don’t, you know, I’m preaching the choir for people to say this. But you know, nothing pays more dividends than upgrading your knowledge. Right? This is everything you know, and so always be always be learning. And that’s another thing for your brain. You know, there’s a study done on longevity. And there was on the cover of Time Magazine, some people might have seen it, they want to find out how these nuns were living in Haiti 90 and above. And they found out half of it had to do with their emotional faith or gratitude. The other half, there were lifelong learners. They’re learning all the time. They’re reading all the time, I mean, deep conversations with friends. And because of it, it added years of life and life to their years, they call the study aging with grace. But I would say like, you know, we have, you know, I put all the research and lemon lists, we have about 50 to 70,000 thoughts a day. And a lot of those thoughts, the problem is 95% of those thoughts are the same thoughts we had the day before. And then the before that, so if people say, Oh, well, why can’t I change my bank account or my impact on my relationships on my body? It’s because 95% of the programming is just being rehearsed over and over again. Right. And so at some point, we have to make going back to the power of choice, we have to make a choice, you know, to be able to think different, to be able to do something different to be able to experience something different to be able to feel different.
27:19
Love that he said one more time to aging grace, that adding light.
27:23
Yeah, he did a lot of study with nuns, I call them super nuns is called aging with grace and had added because of what they were doing with their lifelong learning, and it added years to their life, and also life to their years, meaning some people can live longer, but that’s not true. Not good years, you know? So we want to all had years to our life. But we want those years to be healthy and vibrant. Right life to those years.
27:51
So good. Yeah. And here’s the motivation, right? You’re talking about what’s your motivation to memorize and learn? And like, why would you need to learn that and having a pause. And I think that if people can really adopt this aging with grace, it’s like, why do I need to get smarter? Why do I need to advance Why do I need to upgrade my brain is that principle I think that’s a that’s a good deep rooted motivation to take to heart is like, I want to age with grace, like, I want to be an eight year old stoked, not vegetating out in a hospital bed.
“they shrink their lives because they’re concerned about how it’s going to look to other people.”
28:23
Like, yeah, and I’ll give everyone another motivation, I spent a lot of time in, you know, senior centers, pre pandemic, and, you know, I lost my grandmother, my hand, my accent was 500, while I was going through my learning challenges my grandmother passed and Alzheimer’s, when I was seven, so you know, having, you know, my heart goes out to anybody who’s who’s has someone, a loved one, you know, lose their memories, and they kind of feel like you lose themselves. Anyway, because of it, I spent a lot of time with senior centers, we donated 100%, of the proceeds of limitless, to build schools for kids, you know, so we have the education part, and then also brain research to help poor women, especially with Alzheimer’s, because women experience Alzheimer’s twice as much as men. But I’m so passionate about when I’m spending time in senior centers on helping them polish off their memories. And I’m learning a lot because their experience, you know, within their life is somebody lessons. But I also hear a lot of regret. You know, and here’s the thing, the truth is, when we’re taking our final breaths, and this is not like a positive conversation, but when we’re taking our final breaths, none of other people’s opinions, none of their expectations, none of our fears inside, none of it’s going to matter. To us at that time. What’s gonna matter is how we laughed, you know, how we learned, you know, how we loved what’s gonna matter is really how we lived, you know, and so when I say the most important thing is to keep the most important things, the most important things prioritize that, right. You know, so many people are they shrink their lives because they’re concerned about how it’s going to look to other people. Right, you know, maybe they didn’t, I’ll eat I’ll get this seniors, like when I did the center’s though, like they didn’t date somebody or pursue a relationship because of what others would think about that. Or they pursued a career because it was expected of them of their parents, you know, and the truth is, if that if we, if we feel, you know, our, our life, by the the opinions, expectations of others, you know, we’re going to run out of cash for sure. And so I did some training with an actor, Jim Carrey, I help a lot of actors to speed read scripts, to be able to memorize lines very quickly to be able to focus when they need to perform. And we were at his home, and we take a brain break for lunch, and we’re making the brain foods, right, guacamole and everything else in the kitchen. And I was like, you know, I talked about motivation. I was like, Why do you? Why do you do what you do? And he looked at me, he’s like, Jim, I, I act, I act like a complete fool sometimes. Because I want to give people who are watching permission to be themselves. He says, my mission in life is to free people of the concerns of others. He’s like that, that is my religion. And, you know, and that I feel like that is it part of the essence, it’s, you know, as we’re going through this path, and we’re making money, and we’re doing our jobs and everything, and we’re managing and we’re juggling everything around, I think we’re on this path to discover and develop, you know, our greatest potential, right? And the My thing is, I think part of it is happiness, and success comes from the curiosity to know yourself, curiosity, know yourself, that’s why we meditate, that’s when you can go to therapy. That’s why we journal right? You know, self awareness is a superpower. But once you have the curiosity to know yourself, the other part is really hard for some people having the courage to be yourself, right, so many people get to know themselves, or their value system, technology assessments, and, you know, their intimate relationships, that gives them a mirror of who they are. But then they’re not being who they are, you know, deep down. And so having that courage to be that person, you know, I think show up differently. You know, I think we’re on this path to, you know, that there’s a version of ourselves. If someone’s listening right now, there is a version of yourself that you haven’t met yet. And the goal is, we just show up every day, and we learn. And we work until we’re introduced to that person.
32:18
I read this thing this morning, as I’m preparing, I’m coaching a bunch of CEOs of a mastermind group. That’s why we’re up in this retreat. And I was reading and kind of studying and I have you ever heard the pig Malian effect. So I, I was just like we’re talking about or it’s called the Rosen Rosenthal effect. And it’s the psychological phenomenon in which high expectations lead to improve performance in a given area. The effect is named after the Greek myth of Pygmalion. And anyway, it just goes into the whole thing. It’s like held, it’s this, we are held to this expectation to better performance and low expectation, the lead leads to worse and it’s this, if I can help see the greatness in you, and I can hold you to this new version and the highest version of you. It’s like this element of like, progressiveness, and it aligns perfectly with exactly what you’re saying.
“consistency compounds over time and a little becomes a whole lot.”
33:13
And that’s why when I was talking about a positive peer group, and you know, coming to events like yours, it’s, it’s, we, we do rise to the level of other people’s expectations, especially our own. And we also fall to the level of our training, right. And so we rise to the expectations, you know, people that we respect hold for us and our own expectations of ourselves where I work thermostat, you know, you set a standard, you know, temperature, and then if it goes below the temperature kicks in, right? Those are expectations or standards that we have for health or relationships or income, whatever. But we also if we fall, we fall to the level of our training. Right? And that’s why the practice and the deep work is so very important. Right? Very few people see what you know, when you see on Instagram, you know, what, people are successful, they see the tip of the iceberg, right? Because we’re not seeing the hard work, the sacrifice, the discipline, the habits, the study, you know, all this stuff that that kid got people where they are and even the falls. Right. And, you know, the strongest people I know, have the you know, so the biggest challenge my going back to public speaking my two biggest challenges growing up or learning public speaking, like I was phobic of public speaking because I never knew the answers, right? I was I would be invisible. I would try to sit behind the talk kids, I would do a book report. But if a teacher asked me to present it, I would be so terrified I would lie and say I didn’t do it and other tickets, zero even I did weeks of work, because I was so terrified of being in front of group. Now life has a sense of humor, because all I do is public speak on this thing called Learning right? But it’s evidence that your struggles can lead the strengths that adversity can be advantage right. I don’t know any strong person that had an easy past. I just don’t. Right. And so I’m not saying we we have to go look for those things right life presents. Enough of those challenges emotional, physical, You know, financial and such. And I think that part of us is not just, you know, talk about these four G’s to just being happy and successful. Yes growth, which is the topic of conversation. Yes, gratitude, what you appreciate, appreciates grows, right? You know, you don’t wait for greater life to feel grateful, start feeling grateful, and you’re going to have a greater life. You know, another G is giving, because I think we’re here to grow. So we have more to give, right? You learn so you can earn so you can return and giving to others is a great way to get over the chronic stress shrinks your brain chronic fear suppresses your immune system, a whole area of science called psycho neuro immunology. But the antidote to that stress and to fear I think is contribution. Right? Yes. And but the third G, after you have growth, and you have gratitude and you have giving the 4g The 4g is grit, you know, I grit is the hard work, you know, it is the perseverance, it is the consistency, if you’re, if you’re, if you’re persistent, you could achieve it, you could hit that sales call if you’re persistent, but if you’re consistent, you could keep it or you could stay on that leaderboard, you can stay in that income bracket, right. And so consistency compounds over time, and little by little, a little becomes a whole lot. And grip can be something you can build. You know, like, here I go, and I land by coastal, but I’m in the Northeast right now. And I’m looking at the ocean i and it’s cold, and I’ll go in the ocean each morning to kind of wake up and I do my old therapy. I met Wim Hoff, back in 2012. You know, and so I think, you know, it’s amazing, great way to reset your nervous system and all that. And also, it’s it pushing yourself, it’s getting comfortable being uncomfortable, right? Because if you just do the easy things in life, life gets hard, easy thing is just to procrastinate, put things off, binge watch whatever, and no, no judgment. But we can’t. We can’t complain that right, we can’t make excuses, because you can’t be upset by the results you didn’t get from the work you didn’t do. I mean that job, let’s just call this call it real, right? This is kind of a raw conversation. But doing the hard things in life will make your life easier, right. And so part of what you could do is get yourself to if it’s difficult to get out to an event. You know, I’m not saying people should put themselves in a big financial strain or put their lives in danger. But, you know, what we put in is what we get out of something, right. And when we stretch ourself, then we put ourselves in a position where we’re outside our comfort zone. And that’s where we become limitless when we play and we practice at the edge of our limits what’s comfortable, because if we just stayed the comfort zone is a nice place to visit. But the truth is, nothing grows there. Right? And it’s comfortable just not to go to an event today. It just is right. It’s comfortable not to read that book. You know, it’s comfortable not to put in the effort. But then we can make excuses for life. Right. And so while choice has created our environment and in other people’s expectations, and experiences create us where we are, we are 100% responsible for we are today. Moving forward. Like in my office, I have a picture of Stanley, and
38:14
I got introduced to my Monterey superheroes together. One of them was Richard Branson, and the other was Stanley, right theater, Marvel and superheroes and they wanted to meet so we go to dinner. And in the car, I asked Stan, I was like, Stan, I need to know this. You created all the most amazing Avengers X Men, you know, everyone who’s your favorite. He’s like, Jim, my favorites Ironman, and I’m like, wow, he said, Jim, who’s your favorite. And I post this on Instagram. And I know, you know, many of your hub are connected there. He inspired me and Ty. And I was like, Spider Man is my favorite. And without a pause, he goes with great power comes great responsibility, right. And we all know what that is. Now, I had three traumatic brain injuries before the age of 12. So I don’t know if that’s the reason but I tend to flip things to me when I read it or hear it sometimes. And and I heard something different. I was like, Stan, you’re right, with great power comes great responsibility. And the opposite is also true. With great responsibility comes great power, with great responsibility comes great power. When we take responsibility for something, we have great power to make things better. Right. And most people think responsibility as a jailer keeps them from freedom. But I think it gives you ultimate freedom because it gives you the power to use your agency back. You know where you’re not you’re at cause again, you’re you’re you’re not giving away the blame or the excuses or complaining or you’re you’re not giving away your sovereignty, you know, to somebody else, you know, and I would say the starting point for all this if I can go back to the nine year old boy, you know, like I would say like, you know, you are responsible for your life, you know, because and then that’s the thing like who am I trying to like I got this interview the other day, saying Jim, you know, who Who do you want to make proud you know who You want to be proud and how they’re a couple people that you really do in your life that you want to make proud. And I was like, you know, like, yeah, they’re there too. And most people would think, you know, their parents or somebody or mentor somebody and, or their kids and not not to say, it’s not where my mind goes, like for me, I want to make proud and go into the future. Like, I like me spending time in the senior centers. I want, I want that 90 year old me to be proud of who I am today. Right? And going back to a nine year old boy, that moment that he was labeled, you know, in that classroom, I get a little choked up thinking about it. I want to make that boy proud. You know, and so I feel like that that’s really why we’re here is, you know, we began with the end in mind, like Dr. Steven Covey talks about the seven habits, how effective people can have that vision. And, you know, this is all you talked about motivation, you know, my motivation is like, Yeah, I’m gonna be when I’m nine years old, you know, like, I don’t have any regrets. Right? I don’t want to have an unfulfilled past, you know, and that and I guys got goosebumps saying
41:01
that. I know, I’m taking notes. That’s why I keep on my phone. I’m like, dude, like,
“That’s all about finding purpose”
41:05
I just got goosebumps. And I call I call them truth bumps. But I mean, this is, this is just life, right? I mean, once again, motivation is about purpose, right? Motivations about having a reason, and without reasons, you won’t get the rewards, right? Whether it’s motivation to remember someone’s name, most people are motivated, but that will remember the name of the person, they’re attracted to remember the person that could be good for their business, right? So there is some kind of motivation there. But we could bring motivation into our business into our sales. That’s all about finding purpose. Like when when somebody is making a sale, right? It’s about emotion, right? It’s not logic, it they justify it with logic, but they buy emotionally because we’re not logical, we’re biological, you think about dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, were this chemical soup, right. So finding their motivation, what’s most important to them in life, what’s most important, you know, in the service was one person, their health was what’s important to them in their family, right. And then, and then attaching the thing, if you get value in those kinds of areas, but determining the human motivation, you know, the largest portion of the Book, besides methodology, and how to do these read faster, learn languages, you know, memorize a deck of cards, all the fun stuff that’s in there, you know, his motivation, you know, and there are certain things that people who are motivated do that other people don’t do. Because there’s always a method behind what looks like magic. Right. And that’s really my goal is to demystify, you know, and fill in the gaps of the things we should have learned back in school, you know, and to be able to upgrade people’s learning so they can upgrade their own life, I think that, you know, it’s like, if I give you $1, you give me $1, and nothing changes. But you go to an event like this, and you learn a new idea, you share a new idea with somebody else, I’ll send them two brand new ideas, or you give someone a referral, there’s no individual and then that person gives you introduce him new individuals. And then things change, right, which which is, which is absolutely amazing. You know, because I believe it has to happen from the inside, right, I would say life is like an egg. If you think about an egg, if an egg is broken by an outside force, that life is ending. But if an egg is broken by an inside force, life begins, right things inside, things always start on the inside, right. And so my message to everybody here is you have greatness inside of you, you have genius inside of you, and when would now be the best time to let that out.
43:25
Love that. Love that. And hey, I want to be respectful of your time. I know you’ve got a ton of stuff happening. And honestly, I’ve literally pulled out I’ve got like a page of notes. And so if you are listening to this, and you haven’t taken notes, go rewatch this and make sure you come in January 14, and 15th in Salt Lake City, Utah and come to our convention, it’ll be epic. And no, so Jim, I guess one short quick as I had one weird answer, or maybe you answered it, Stanley and Richard Branson, those were the two idols of yours. But is there one person that you would call your mentor that taught you kind of this brain? You know, like, what, who do you kind of attribute a lot of your success or learning from or is it?
44:13
I mean, some of my answers would go to there. I have a lot of mentors in my life. You know, the the obvious answer for me would be my parents, I find that you know, they they immigrated to the States didn’t have any money or connections or education or those kinds of resources, but they’re just really kind hardworking individuals. And they taught me through their own example I believe the life we live in a lessons we teach. And I’m so but in that same spirit, I’ve learned so much from so many people like i i literally wake up every single morning anticipating just learning from anything, you know, whether it’s a TV show, you know, it happens to be someone I’m coaching, a podcast or a book I’m reading or an event that I’m going to be and it’s you know, everybody as their real life experience, so my my curiosity is always on peak where I’m with somebody because they know something I don’t know, you know, and I can learn something from everybody, either by their example, or also maybe as a warning, you know, maybe I don’t want to be like this or do those kinds of things to get that kind of result. So I, you know, my mentors lie everywhere from from books to podcast, movie to comic books. And I would also say, you know, sometimes your biggest lesson came from your your last mistake, you know, and then that that was your that was your mentor in the time. I just feel like we live in a seminar. You know, 24/7 this is this metaverse. It’s basically
45:39
we are a sim simulation game. For sure. I love that. Well think Hey, Jim, thank you so much for being on the show. I’m looking forward to hanging out with you and come out January. And yeah, I would
45:53
challenge everybody, right, real quick. To take an action take a small simple step, I actually have a challenge everyone to do this, take a screenshot of what you’re listening to, or you’re watching right now, and post on social media and share one thing you’re going to do for better brain, like one thing you’re going to do I named 10 dining like 10 different things you could do good brain diet, maybe we’re gonna get some dark chocolate and we’re gonna prioritize your sleep tonight where we you know, reevaluate your your positive your peer group, or maybe an assign your to sign up for DTD. Right, do su one small simple thing and just post it and tag us both. So we get to see it. I’ll repost some. So you tagged me, I’ll get to see it. And I’ll actually send out a couple of copies of limitless. This was New York Times bestseller Number One On The Wall Street Journal in 2021. It was it overtook Obama’s book being the number one nonfiction book of all of Amazon for three days. And so over 12,000 ratings on on Amazon just this past year, that it came out, and I’m just very proud of it. And I’ll give you that copy, just as a thank you for just listening to this. And so just about a couple of copies at random for people who post that and people are, let’s connect on Instagram, I put a link there just now that you can get a one hour masterclass on speed reading three part video series. It’s absolutely free 95% of everything I put out there is free. And so check it out, you know, go more than I look forward to seeing everybody in in January.
47:24
And thank you guys go follow Jim quick tag him, Jim, with a K wi K and make sure hey, take advantage of that. You know, it’s crazy. It’s happening. 95% of people probably won’t even take advantage of that. That’s the problem is why they’re not accelerating growth and learning as fast as people that you coach and teach and you’ve done so thank you so much for being on this podcast. And that’s right man. Thanks.
