How to Have a Super Brain | Jim Kwik

[00:00:07] Jim Kwik is my brain guru. He literally has superpowers. So after a childhood injury gave him some brain damage, he became dedicated to turning his brain into a super machine, figuring out and exercising his brain until he can use it to its full

[00:00:26] as much as his full capacity as possible. Super memory, speed reading, what it takes to keep building his neuroplasticity so he can keep learning things quickly and on and on.

[00:00:38] The results can be found in his excellent book Limitless. Limitless came out 10 years ago and sold millions of copies, but now he has an expanded edition with a lot more information, a lot more stories, a lot more useful advice based on research

[00:00:52] and his own practices in the past few years and on and on. He has an online academy for all this and he's even gone out to Hollywood to teach actors like for instance the actors in the movie

[00:01:04] X-Men and he tells that story in the podcast. So now again, the expanded 10th year anniversary edition of Limitless has just come out and he's come on the show to talk about it and to help me improve my brain.

[00:01:21] This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show. Jim, you know the interesting thing about doing a podcast for almost 10 years is that among my guests now are all the people who were guests

[00:01:47] 8, 9, 10 years ago who are now doing the 10th year anniversary of their book. So Limitless, the expanded edition just came out. I mean, I know you've added some chapters on AI and other things but why did you decide 10th year anniversary edition instead of whole new book?

[00:02:04] Just the world has changed especially the past few years. So external reasons, post pandemic AI intensive world and also as we were talking before we started recording my world has changed. I entered my 50s.

[00:02:19] We had our first child and really doubled down my commitment and my conviction helping this generation really be prepared for the world. I feel like the original book was very timely and also timeless.

[00:02:35] I mean, you're always going to be able to need to be able to read faster, improve your memory or focus or creativity or problem solving, have good brain health and also I think people really want more momentum.

[00:02:46] This word kept on coming up momentum where they could have greater velocity with greater ease, greater enjoyment and effectiveness. And so we added a lot of new content in there, updated stories, case studies of readers and I think a lot of people could see themselves in those stories.

[00:03:04] I feel like some new research, some new tools but this will be it. This is like the most complete final version of Limitless, Limitless expanded. Well, it was particularly applicable to me in a different way than it was eight or nine years ago

[00:03:20] and I'm glad to hear you've entered your 50s because I feel it's important not just for the next generation, but for people like you and me because the brain changes. And yes, it changes.

[00:03:33] They say starting at 35, like things like memory and raw processing power start to go down and things like pattern recognition and wisdom, I guess that's crystallized intelligence versus fluid intelligence go up. But you really start to feel it in the 50s.

[00:03:52] Like how do you think your learning ability and I don't know what you call it, calculation power, your memory, how do you think that's changed as you enter your 50s? So I feel I'm still at peak.

[00:04:06] I feel like I could, a lot of stuff I do is measurable when I'm doing things, demonstrations in front of audiences that I'll memorize 50 or 60 people's names or in a lot of everything is measurable.

[00:04:18] You can measure someone's reading speed, their comprehension, you can measure their memory and then so much more. But certainly with clients, our focus point is on the hardware and the software.

[00:04:30] So yes, the book is full of methods to learn faster and focus and be more creative and solve problems and improve your enhancer memory. But also we have to take care of the hardware, which is that three pound organ between our ears,

[00:04:45] which doesn't come with an owner's manual. So I would say that about one third of our brain's performance predetermined by genetics and biology, but two thirds is in our control. I mean, some people say it's more than that and controlling the controllables.

[00:04:59] And so I feel fresh outside of a little bit of lack of sleep because it's, you know, we've been launched and the baby has given us quite a few sleepless nights over the past 10 months for sure. Baby suck, right? I wouldn't say that. I mean, it's interesting, James.

[00:05:18] We go way back. I would say that I entered even fatherhood wanting to like teach this brand new life, all these things that I've learned in the decades I've been doing this.

[00:05:32] But I find myself just observing and just watching him and probably I'm learning more than he's learning from me, meaning that presence, that curiosity, I mean, he'll go outside and just try to grab the sunlight

[00:05:46] and just see looks at everything when he comes into a new environment like everything and everyone. He's just like so curious and fascinated. And yeah, I think he's been more my teacher than I have been for him. That's funny.

[00:06:02] It reminds me of when I had a, when my baby was 10 months, my second baby was 10 months. I was going broke. I was losing my home. I was super scared and anxious all the time.

[00:06:13] And you know, I was day trading in the stock market, but it was a very, very difficult market in 2002. Market went down like 26% that year. And I was scared all the time. And sometimes I'd have to play with the baby.

[00:06:30] And you have to do 100% focus when you're playing with the baby. You can't be, it's like meditation in some sense. You can't really have other thoughts or you're useless to taking care of the baby and watching it and playing with it and so on.

[00:06:44] So I guess it taught me that to kind of control my anxiety a little bit at that time. Yeah. And be able to shut things off even if you're worrying or ruminating about something else that you have to do.

[00:06:55] You have to absolutely, it's a nice exercise in being present. So that takes up most of my, that's my meditation nowadays is being there and just, we'll talk about the different brain types. That some new research and some new content in this new expanded book.

[00:07:13] But I think it informs how we do things, especially with my wife and others. And so it's, What do you mean with your wife? Well, I mean, when you understand your brain type so that there are these four cognitive types that we've identified.

[00:07:28] Something I've been using with coaching clients in the books. The first time we've shared this publicly and it's just a quick assessment that we pulled on. It was inspired by personality types like Myers-Briggs and introvert extrovert multiple intelligence theory left brain right brain dominance and

[00:07:46] You know how we consume information visual auditory kinesthetically. And so she happens to be, I happen to be an elephant with a strong owl tendencies and she's a cheetah. And so we even parent a little bit different based on our brain styles.

[00:08:03] And it's interesting how we, it's kind of like people have their love language, right? They usually communicate if you subscribe to that model. And again, every model, it's not exactly reality. Just like the whole phrase that the menu is not the meal, the map is not the territory.

[00:08:19] But it's a nice way of creating distinctions where we lean into our strengths. Like if somebody is right handed, it does mean they don't use their left hand. They're just probably not as effective with their left hand.

[00:08:30] And when it relates to learning, sometimes if our listeners want to learn faster, sometimes they're not learning it because the way you prefer to learn your brain animal as I call it is different than a teacher's brain animal.

[00:08:43] And you kind of miss each other like two ships in a night and there's no, there's no connection. So we apply this, your brain dominance or your brain type to learning, to reading, to remembering.

[00:08:56] It's kind of like, you know how there's like personal medicine based on your genetics? You're taking a genetics test and then it kind of informs some of your health protocols. There's personalized nutrition based on like a nutrient profile or food sensitivity or microbiome test.

[00:09:13] This quiz that we created that's in the book is, it allows you to see which cognitive type you are. And it also informs your strengths and your weaknesses and that informs how you could read better.

[00:09:25] You know, it's a kind of like personalized learning based on your brain, your brain animal. Yeah, it was very interesting because I took the test. I'm a cheetah and we'll tell readers how to find the test. And I want to talk more about those.

[00:09:37] I want to get to your, I always find your origin story fascinating and you've worked with so many superheroes like in the Hollywood movies and so on. And it's interesting that you're beginning interest in how the mind works and improving your brain.

[00:09:52] It almost has like a superhero kind of origin story. I'm sure you've heard that a billion times, but you know, you started getting interested in all this when you were younger. Like what happened?

[00:10:02] So when I was five years old, I was in kindergarten class and there was this, all these sirens outside a lot of commotion.

[00:10:09] And as children, as five year olds are, we want to go, we're curious and we can't even see outside the window because we're, because of our height. And so everyone, we grabbed our chairs and the stand on them to look outside the window.

[00:10:23] And I, I unfortunately lost my balance or fortunately lost my balance. I'm not really sure yet. Then I went headfirst into a radiator that was on the windowsill and after that, you know, rush to the emergency room, this whole thing.

[00:10:37] But where it really showed up was I had processing issues where teachers would have to repeat themselves over and over again. And I still wouldn't really understand. I had sensory issues. I had balance issues, coordination issues. Did you get any kind of brain scan?

[00:10:51] Did you, did you know if there was no damage? No. I mean, I don't think it was very nowadays. Maybe they would, but this was goodness. This was 45 years ago.

[00:11:04] So I didn't go for a scan where, you know, I had these migraines every single day, every single day when I was five, six, seven, eight. It was, it was kind of like this light sensitivity took me three years longer to learn how to read.

[00:11:20] I remember when I was nine years old, I was slowing down a class and I was being teased. I was always being teased for different reasons, but this day particularly it was bad because I just really wasn't understanding. And the teacher came to my defense.

[00:11:34] I think she was a little bit frustrated because kids can be hard in general. A job as a teacher is very difficult. My mom became a special education teacher in the New York public school system to help me with my learning challenges.

[00:11:48] And she became passionate and just recently retired. But, um, yeah, it was, she said to save me, she said in front of the whole class, James, she said, leave that kid alone. That's the boy with the broken brain. Oh my gosh.

[00:12:02] You could say that label became my limit. It was one of those things where I didn't realize like as a kid you're kind of forming her identity. And then I was like, oh, I didn't know I was broken.

[00:12:11] I mean, that's a, so that became my internal self-talk and my belief systems. Did you go home and cry? Like what did you do when you went home? Yeah, it was bad. I mean, I had a lot of kind of those times because I just didn't understand.

[00:12:24] I didn't have a lot of friends and it was my superpower back then was like shrinking down, like collapsing. Even if I look at old pictures, I was always like hunched over because I didn't want to take up, I think a lot of space.

[00:12:37] It's funny that's a posture. They usually like again, children of who suffer from child abuse from their parents often have that hunched over posture. Yeah, because I think you don't want to be noticed, right?

[00:12:48] So because you don't want to be abused or bullied or a target and I also never knew the answer. So even intellectually, I never knew the answer. So I didn't want to be called on. So I was just trying to be invisible.

[00:13:00] So I would shrink down and sit all the way in the back if I could be behind the tall kid in class. I would get so nervous before a quiz. I would make myself so sick. I would have to be rushed to the, you know, the nurse's office.

[00:13:13] So this was like a, I mean, everybody has their story in minds and, you know, not necessarily more intense than anybody else's. And certainly people go through a lot more intense, but for me it was, it was very personal.

[00:13:25] I felt like I was just not good for anything. I wasn't picked for sports. So I would say, you know, because I have the broken brain. I was never did well in school.

[00:13:34] So I would say, oh, it's because I have the broken brain and that bill is a big part of my beliefs. And it never got easier in school. I mean, this was elementary school, middle school, junior high, high school.

[00:13:44] I mean, there's a number of times I almost failed high school English. So it was a big challenge. It wasn't even when I'm talking about it, buddy. Like it's just leaving my voice gets a little hoarse and kind of look at it a little, little choked up.

[00:14:13] So what did you do to kind of turn things around? Well, when I was 18, I was lucky enough to get into like a local state, you know, college. And I thought I could be a freshman.

[00:14:25] And when I heard the word freshman, I thought, wow, I meant I can make a fresh start. That was my kind of logic. So I took all these classes and I wanted to show the world, show myself that I could do it. And I did worse.

[00:14:39] And I was ready to quit. How come you think you did worse than you thought you were going to do? Because I took all these classes with the anticipation I can make a fresh start.

[00:14:47] And I did worse, I think because I think first of all, college is a lot more difficult than high school because one of the reasons why at least in high school, you're there 40 hours a week.

[00:14:59] And high in college, we are doing what 15 credits maybe it's like 15 hours a week and so much more that time is meant to be independent and you going through it. And I didn't have, you know, by myself, I wasn't I wasn't getting it to the job done.

[00:15:13] And I had a pressure. I'm the oldest of three kids. My parents immigrated to the United States. My dad was 13. He lost both his parents and didn't speak the language. We live in the back of a laundry mat that my mom worked at that many jobs.

[00:15:28] It was my dad's aunt. Why only knew as my grandmother that kind of raised me because my parents were always working. And then she started showing early signs of dementia when I was five. So I compounded to my accident.

[00:15:45] You know, she ended up passing when I was seven and it just informs like your your view on life. So I didn't understand like how an adult could call me by my father's name or she would repeat herself, you know, 30 seconds later after she just said something

[00:16:03] and that was very confusing. And I mean, when so when I was in school, I wanted to I had a lot of pressure because I wanted to just be a good role model for my younger brother and sister.

[00:16:15] I wanted to make my parents proud because they sacrificed a lot and I also didn't have the money to be in school. And so that's why I was why I wanted to quit. And when I told my roommate, a sweetmate that I was going to quit

[00:16:30] and he was like, hey, before you quit school, that's a big decision. Why don't you? Why don't you come with me to my family's home? I'm going home this weekend and get some perspective. And I think when we're stuck in any situation, being changing that your place

[00:16:47] or changing the people around helps change your point of view. And you can see things in a new light. And I did. I visited the family and pretty well off beautiful home on the water. And then the father walks me around his property before dinner

[00:17:01] and he asked me a very innocent question. But James, it was the worst question. You could ask me. It was how school, right? Every you ask that all the time to students, right? How school going and I just break down in front of this complete stranger

[00:17:14] because I was just holding all these angst and I'm naturally very introverted but I was painfully shy. So for me to be that emotional in front of somebody, I was just that it's kind of a that that was the kind of pressure I was under.

[00:17:27] And I was telling him my whole story about my brain injury and I can't learn I'm ready to quit school. I don't know how to tell my parents and then he asked me a very another question, which is interesting because often questions we kind of engage your focus.

[00:17:42] He says, well, why you in school? And and I didn't have an answer. I was a great question and so few people ask that kind of question back then. So and then nobody's ever asked that.

[00:17:50] I was just going down a track that I was just I assume you to go to school and you get your job. You do certain things. And I didn't have an answer. I was just like, I'm in school because everyone just goes to school, right?

[00:18:03] And then he was like, well, what do you want to do with that? You know, what do you want to be? What do you want to do have create contribute? And I didn't have an answer for any of those questions either because nobody's ever asked me that before.

[00:18:14] So I didn't have like a road response and I wasn't a big dreamer. I was just looking to survive. It was you know, safety is a big thing for me. And and he walks me through a little exercise and he makes me write down like a bucket list.

[00:18:30] They know the things I want to be do have share before I kick the bucket like a dream list, right? And it's interesting when I'm done, I start folding the pages to put in my pocket thinking, okay, this is actually cute exercise.

[00:18:42] I'm going to put in my pocket and he rips the pages out of my hand and he starts to read my goals and my dreams, fantasies, whatever they are to himself. And I don't know how much time goes by but when he's

[00:18:57] done it because I'm afraid the entire time I'm going to be judged right now. I'm very insecure kid teenager and he's like, he says, Jim, you are this close to everything on this list and he spreads for people listening just on audio and on video.

[00:19:11] He spreads his index fingers like a foot apart. And I'm like no way give me 10 lifetimes. I'm not going to crack this list. He takes his fingers and he puts them the side of my head and implying what's in between my brain is like this

[00:19:24] key and he takes me into his home and shows me a room that I never seen before. It's wall to wall, ceiling to floor covered in books and I've never read a book, you know, in my life.

[00:19:38] I'm a very poor reader at the time and it's like being, it's very intimidating. So it's like being in a room full of, I don't know, snakes and no makes it worse. He starts going to the shelves and pulling snakes off the shelves and handing them to me.

[00:19:52] And I look at the titles of these books and there are these biographies of some incredible, you know, women and men in history and some very early old school personal growth books like Napoleon Hill, Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of

[00:20:07] Positive Thinking, you know, Dale Carnegie's books and he says, Jim, you have to read to succeed. And I want you to read one of these books a week and then I go back to saying, have you not heard anything I've told you?

[00:20:21] I started people at events when they know I'm a memory coach, a brain coach. They always pull me aside in the lobby before I go on stage and they're like, I'm Jim, I'm so glad you're here. I have a horrible memory. I'm just getting too old.

[00:20:34] And I always say, stop if you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. They're yours, right? But that was my insecurity. And I was like, I can't do it. I have too much schoolwork. And when I said schoolwork, he pulls out this Mark Twain

[00:20:47] quote and says, don't let school interfere with your education, right? And I was like, well, that's very wise and I still can't commit to it because if my parents they're not the wealthiest, the most educated, the most spiritual or health conscious.

[00:21:01] They've never had a green juice or taken a yoga meditation class, but they're just really good people. They're hard workers. They do what they say and I can't commit to reading all these books. And then very smart man, he reaches into his pocket

[00:21:13] and he pulls out my dream list and he starts to read every single one of my goals out loud. One by one and I'm trying to, I don't know how to describe my current state so insecure. A lot of self doubt and fears. Don't believe in myself.

[00:21:31] I think I'm broken hearing your goals by another person in front of you kind of encanted out into the universe and it mess with my mind and my heart something fears because a lot of things on that list were things I wanted to do for my parents.

[00:21:47] Like what's an example? Like things they never take took trips, right? We never, we didn't do, we, they never had anything fancy going places that they wanted to go revisiting family in Asia. But they just never did that things.

[00:22:02] They even if they had the means, they probably wouldn't do it. And with that leverage though, I agree to read one book a week because I found some level of purpose and I talk a lot

[00:22:16] about that in the book in terms of things have to go from your head to your heart, your hands. Like if you don't feel something on it, feel like we do something and I felt something big there and I didn't want to, I never

[00:22:26] want to let them down. So can I ask you again? Like I, we've talked about this guy before. I mean, again, like nine years ago and I've heard you speak about this but who was this guy like super wise like this is in the 80s.

[00:22:41] Like he's, he's really, he's really into taking care of your situation. You're, you're a stranger to him too. You're just his son's buddy and like what's he doing now? Like where, where is he? I, what did he do for a living? Yeah.

[00:22:57] And I don't even know because we never had contact past past start that that mentorship really lasted that, that weekend and so I try to find them like years ago on Facebook and such, but I could, I didn't, I don't know if, I mean this again,

[00:23:14] this was, this was 30 something years ago. Yeah. So I mean, I'm hoping, you know, they're doing well, but I didn't really keep in touch with a lot of, a lot of people back, back in school. But yeah, it was just, I guess, certain, you know, we

[00:23:28] hear that the phrase when the student is ready teacher appears, it was one of those kind of, kind of Yoda, you know, Miyagi situations, but I never got to spend time more than really that conversation and knew a couple of meals while I was visiting.

[00:23:44] And then, then that was it because my life kind of took a different path because when I went back to school, I had a, I was sitting in my desk. I remember vividly, I was a pile of books I had to read

[00:23:55] like for midterms and then there's a pile of books that I promised to read and I already couldn't get through pile A. So where do I get the time? I just don't do anything else. I don't eat, I don't sleep, I don't exercise, I

[00:24:07] don't socialize, I just live in the library. And then after weeks and weeks and weeks of doing that, I end up passing out one night around 2 a.m. I've fallen out of flight of stairs, just had a pure exhaustion, hit my head again at the library, woke up

[00:24:21] in the hospital a couple of days later, lost all this weight, it was down to like 117 pounds and it was, it was, it was the darkest time in my life by far. Um, I felt literally just completely worthless and

[00:24:33] yeah, I thought I died maybe part of me wish I just, I just felt like a burden to people, right? And when I, I said, there had to be a better way and when I had that thought, the nurse came in with a

[00:24:44] mug of tea and on it was a picture of Albert Einstein and more important was a quote that shifted my just he felt like he was talking to me. It said the same level of thinking that has created your problem won't solve your problem.

[00:24:57] And it made me ask new questions like what's my problem while I have a broken brain. I'm very slow learner. I was like, well, according to Einstein, how do I think differently? Well, maybe I could fix my brain.

[00:25:07] Maybe I could learn how to learn better and I was like, where do I do that school? And then I look at the course bulletin and Dural classes on what to learn but not how to learn. So I set my studies aside because I wasn't making

[00:25:19] any traction there anyway. And I just started studying these books and it's really wanted to understand. I got really curious. I want to know this weird transition, but I want to find out like how does my brain work? So I could work my brain.

[00:25:31] I mean, how do you learn to focus or remember things? And I started studying these subjects and I saw like a there's like a speed reading book and one of my hall mates like bed one time and I asked like what's that and they didn't know what it

[00:25:46] was and they let me have the book and I read this book about the basics of scanning and skimming and then I got introduced to ancient mnemonics and some other things. Just the book limitless expanded more like based on neuroscience and how the brain works

[00:26:06] and adult learning theory, but I also had a deep dive. I was like what did people do before there were like books like printing presses right before the internet or whatever. And I started studying like I found out that they're and I know we talked about this in

[00:26:20] a previous episode this memory palace where they used to 2,500 years ago would remember things by attaching it to places that they were very familiar with and I got very fascinated about things like that and learning how to study. I picked up books on studying methods and I started

[00:26:37] going through all these remember like Kaplan and some of these study courses, Princeton review and I couldn't go through the courses but I could go through their books and and yeah, about a couple months of just doing a deep dive in this.

[00:26:51] I started to like a light switch flipped on and I started to really understand things for the first time. I started to get better grades and with that I started having greater confidence and not only do my grades improve, but my life improved

[00:27:06] and to put a bow on the story. The reason why I'm even doing this and I'm in conversation with you now is I started to tutor because I needed the money and I wanted to help people. I felt really upset that I struggled for my whole

[00:27:20] life up to that point and there were simple things I could do to make it better, but nobody showed me how to do that. So I started helping other people and at this time like what do you think was you know you were learning so much.

[00:27:33] You were learning speed reading. You were learning the memory palace techniques for memorizing. You were learning the importance of positive thinking and and so on. What do you think was the single technique if there was one or the single concept that really

[00:27:47] at that point gave you the most feelings of improvement. There were there were two. I really leaned into the speed reading and I got very, very good at it because I when you're when you struggle with something for so long and then

[00:28:01] you learn a couple of things and you get to go from way below average to average. That's a huge like gain and then part of my identity started to change and I wanted to go beyond that. So I went from a way sub reader to a normal

[00:28:20] like everybody else on average and then I want to see how far I could take it. So that I really felt because if you could triple your reading speed, you feel that automatically. Right. I've been doing this for 32 years. We have online speed reading memory courses that

[00:28:35] are very popular and we're students every country. So we got a lot of like feedback and it's very measurable too. Like you can tell it is very measurable. So we're reading speed reading comprehension. You know, we test it daily with people and

[00:28:48] and it's very empirical right and you could not only that, but if you can even double your reading speed read something in 30 minutes and normally takes an hour of study like that level of ease. It just compounds over time because if you're

[00:29:02] studying four hours a day and all of a sudden you could do that in two hours a day that just that's a game changer. Yeah. It's two hours a day over the course of a year is like 700 whatever 30 hours. Yeah. And that that's just like that's 18 40 hour

[00:29:18] work weeks. That's like four months you get back. So that was a big one and the other one was the I stuck this magician. There is this magician that's very unknown, but he was he was doing friends. We went to go see this guy perform and you

[00:29:35] know all the slight of hand stuff and that's very impressive. But he did this memory thing where he was able to memorize like a list of random words and I was like blown away because I was I've never seen that he was like my Roger

[00:29:47] Bannister right the guy broke the four minute mile and then all of a sudden made it possible for everybody else because he changed you know our perception about what's possible. And I stalked this guy because he was performing there like three nights in a row as I went

[00:30:01] to the other shows and I would like be in the lobby waiting for him to leave and this is not a big show right as I'm just talking about like 40 30 40 people and and when I grabbed them the last night, I just asked

[00:30:14] them about it a little bit and he shared some of that I heard like musicians are supposed to share their secrets, but he kind of gave me the basics of it and I was like wow and I was like can I cherish with my friends.

[00:30:26] He's like oh yeah go go go run with it. This is a he's mnemonic kind of tricks and I don't know if you know how far I took it but but that gave me a lot of confidence because I could easily remember

[00:30:38] vocabulary and remember more what I read and remember some of the key points to what I needed to present in class or remember on a test. It's kind of like a cheat code because instead of going in with notes, you have

[00:30:51] mental notes and now in this the memory palace technique it's you know you just you talk about this everywhere in the book and in our you know we went through the exercise the issue with the memory palace a little bit.

[00:31:05] This is not a problem but you have to have lots of locations if you're memorizing lots of things. So if you're going from a test to learning a language to remembering everybody's phone number you got to have different locations. So did you start collecting locations?

[00:31:20] I have I have thousands of locations that's built up over years. For people who are not sure what this is it's basically like you could use your home or your childhood home or many different homes that you've lived in. You know I've had many different apartments

[00:31:33] and New York City and studios and basically you're standing in a doorway and you're picking maybe let's say five objects going clockwise and then you say okay the microwave is the first place the listening to kitchen the second place is the stove top the third

[00:31:46] place the refrigerator fourth is it I don't know the dishwasher the fifth is a sink and then you go into next place and say okay the fireplace is number six bookshelf is seven and so on and these create like mental filing systems and folders for you to put

[00:32:01] important information. So if I wanted to teach somebody to memorize the ten keys for a limitless brain and the first one happens to be a good brain diet I put those foods in the microwave the second one was killing ants automatic negative thoughts

[00:32:12] I put that you know imagine killing ants on the stove top if the third one is exercise I imagine open up the refrigerator and people working out right and it's so simple that but even if I said that most people would remember it and you could do

[00:32:23] that for hundreds of places now memory palace is just one of the techniques there's story methods and chain linking and basic association and alphanumeric codes we teach all that that's not based on locations so you could do it in using the alphabet you could do

[00:32:39] it using a visual memory system like based on what things look like you can say the number one is an antenna number two looks like a swan number three looks like handcuffs number four looks like a sailboat and then you could go to like 20

[00:32:54] 25 whatever and then you get store information on those things right but it's basically you're at your doing you're hearing it by saying yet you're seeing it by visualizing it and then you make it kind of gluey emotionally make it sexy or violence or some kind of action oriented

[00:33:10] and when people could use your visual auditory and emotional faculties we use recruit more of our nervous system and no wonder we learn it better because the alternative is what repetition which is just boring is repeating something over and over and over again so you could

[00:33:25] do in physics there's like what three variables there's frequency there's duration and then there's intensity so if you want to work out frequency you could just do more reps if you want a duration you could spend more time on the treadmill right or you could do

[00:33:41] some kind of you know hit training where it's so intense and the benefit of doing intensity is it doesn't frequency and duration take time many of you think about sales or marketing which I know they're different but frequency is like running lots

[00:33:54] of ads right or lots of sales calls duration is having a longer infomercial or longer sales video but something to be so intense in your marketing meaning it hits people connects emotionally they could see it it becomes viral whatever and you don't have to repeat it

[00:34:12] because you just and it doesn't take a lot of time so you know it's that for me that's working smarter versus working harder and like people have done for hundreds of years they read the same way they were did road repetition even when churches started like universities

[00:34:28] and wrote learning came from wrote like a if you join the Rotary Club their symbol is a wheel is the teacher repeating a fact and that's the first half of the wheel and then the class that students repeat it back and that's the second half of

[00:34:42] the wheel and then they would just keep on going until a wheel is turning 4050 times and then you learn something but the problem is not only is that boring but it takes an immense amount of time for the world we live in now maybe

[00:34:56] that was okay and that was suffice back when we didn't have the internet and you know all the information that's coming out of fire hose nowadays but um yeah that would I would say that two of the most important skills to master in 21st century is our ability

[00:35:09] to process information and then retain it and I think our ability to learn rapidly and translate that learning action is is an incredible competitive advantage in a world that's ever changing you don't think that subsides with age like issues of memory. I think just like with our

[00:35:42] body our body slows down certainly it's just I feel like most people underestimate how much they could do as they grow older like my my my numbers are better than they ever have been. I mean granted I'm very practiced and I live this information but there's so

[00:36:02] many things you could do to stave off brain aging because it's really use it to lose it. One of the challenges that we talk about in the book is with technology it's so very convenient but if we're relying on that technology all the time it's just like with

[00:36:15] our physical body if you have to go to the bank and it's eight blocks away you jump into a lift or your car you don't get your steps in right so it's convenient but it could be crippling because our body is used or losing

[00:36:27] our brain is part of our body it's used or lose it or if you're if your apartment's on the fifth floor your office is on the fifth floor and you take an elevator you're not doing the stairs it's certainly again convenient but there

[00:36:39] has to be some kind of balance even in a world full of AI you don't want to get mentally lazy right. It's you know I talk about four supervillains of the mental apocalypse in the book and these are things that are not caused by technology but technology certainly

[00:36:53] amplifies it like you have digital distraction you know how do you maintain your concentration when you need to with your kids or at a business meeting if you know when a workflow rings and pings and dings and app notifications social media alerts and so

[00:37:08] that's why we've you know we have all chapter dedicated to focus and concentration your digital dementia which is a term in healthcare where we're relying on devices to be an external memory aid or storage of the device for us and I don't want to memorize

[00:37:23] I mean I don't memorize 500 phone numbers but how many phone numbers did we used to know? Yeah like but how many do we know currently and again I don't want to memorize all the phone numbers but it should be concerning we've lost ability to remember one phone number

[00:37:36] or pin number or passcode or seed phrase or something we just read or someone's name that we just heard like like I could still remember the phone number of my best friend when I was in fourth grade but sometimes I have a hard time remembering my current

[00:37:50] phone number like and it's interesting because it's used that are losing because we don't have to right it's the same thing another one is digital deduction and I term that just so it's I literate a lot so I want to make sure distraction dementia deduction it just kind

[00:38:06] of all match but digital deduction is my way of saying like I saw I read this thing where this generation they don't have the same ability to rationalize use critical thinking logic as a previous generation and they attributed correlated with like technology because technology is not

[00:38:25] teaching you just what to learn it's teaching us what to think right and so even when you take things like getting from here to there when I was saying before yet if you have your phone and you have your maps app open you just follow it

[00:38:38] you don't have to develop your visual spatial intelligence right because the device is doing it for you and then the last one is digital deluge which is information overload and that's why you do speed reading accelerated learning study skills because the amount of information is doubling

[00:38:55] at dizzying speeds but how we read it is the same as it always been and the last time we took a reading class we're like six or seven years old so the difficulty in demand has increased a lot but our skill hasn't met up to that demand

[00:39:07] and so you know and there's a health effect too for those of you struggling with keeping up with all this information it's higher blood pressure less leisure time more sleeplessness made a more rumination because we just can't get through our inbox or something like that

[00:39:25] and so when did you to say to yourself hey I love this so much and I'm seeing so many benefits from this I want to make a career out of this I want to help other people learn better so okay I don't really share this part but um

[00:39:41] so basically I was helping out my my sweet mates right because I was really pissed that I wasn't learning and want to help other people because they're struggling offer their advice and for the first time I started developing pride because I was good at something

[00:39:53] and I wanted to share it and then kind of feature it obviously there's a secondary gain but I also knew my friends were struggling also as well I'll show them these kind of fun things that they could do and friends was like hey you should tutor this

[00:40:06] and I'm like I've never tutored anything right who goes to me for that kind of advice and I was like how would I do that and I was had that thought there was a classroom that wasn't being used as walking past on a Thursday night and I said

[00:40:17] okay next week at the same time that same classroom next same day I'm going to just put five five people in there and teach them free for an hour or two about what's working for me and then maybe afterwards one or two of them want to be tutored

[00:40:32] and so this is my first marketing I go back to my dorm room and I take out a marker and a piece of paper I write free speed reading memory tips get better grades less time that's like my first advertising rate and I write the you know Thursday

[00:40:48] seven o'clock this classroom the next morning I make some photo copies I put it not a lot but I had on the way to class next morning I put them on bullets and boards fast forward to Thursday I just hope I'm walking to this classroom and I'm hoping

[00:41:00] just like five people show up and I turn the corner and I'm running a little bit like on time but late and there's a crowd of people outside at the classroom and my honest first gut reaction was like wow I hope whatever's going on it ends soon

[00:41:16] so I could do my thing right and I can't even get in the doorway because there's people standing in the doorway and I was like what that was like what's going on inside and it looks at the guy looks at me is like there's a speed reading class

[00:41:27] honest to God I said wow what a coincidence like like one of the odds the same classroom same night there's another speed reading class right and I go inside place is packed right all the seats are taken people standing in the back and lo and behold nobody's teaching

[00:41:43] right and it takes my slow brain all that time because you can't see something unless you believe it's there right so I didn't believe like anyway and I do a head count and there's not five or ten people there's a hundred and ten people and I freak out

[00:41:57] because remember I'm phobic of public speaking I'm always shrinking I would always make an excuse not to give a presentation or whatever my heart's being on my chest I'm 18 years old I look like I'm like 13 years old wearing T-shirts shorts I'm nothing prepared to talk about

[00:42:11] and I'm scared out of my mind so I leave because I can't I like it's different being to have a fear of public speaking and being phobic where you can't like literally couldn't talk and I go and I sit by like a fountain outside

[00:42:24] kind of get my bearings because I can't even go back to my dorm room because my friends knew I was going to be doing this and they would tease me or whatever and I hear this voice like I'm like meditate I hear this voice inside in my head

[00:42:35] and it's my mom's and she basically said wow hundred people came out you promise to help them you're disappointing them you're disappointing me kind of message and I'm doing this walking meditation back to the you know back to my dorm room and I take I stop

[00:42:50] and I take one step back to the classroom and that's why I always tell people that one step in another direction completely changes your destination you're some people called their destiny or whatever I go back to the classroom and long toys short I talk for a couple hours

[00:43:05] it just flows through me I have no idea what I talked about right but at the end when I came out of this kind of flow stream of consciousness state I was like um I don't know if I could help you but it takes about 10 hours

[00:43:18] to teach you what I know like I get paid $30 an hour as a tutor if you're interested I'll be in the soon center tomorrow at noon I answer your questions and I swear James a hundred people got up and they all left not one person talk to me

[00:43:32] and so now it's 10 o'clock something like that at night I'm in a classroom all by myself and I'm feeling like number one completely confused like what the heck happened and number two I feel so exhausted because when you face a fear that you've had

[00:43:47] literally every moment of your life it I just let's depleted mentally emotionally physically and I fall asleep on the floor in the carpet in that classroom and I get woken up the next morning by the class coming in eight o'clock the next morning and drilling in myself whatever

[00:44:04] very embarrassing go to breakfast go to class 12 o'clock comes up I remember that I set up in the student center and I was like I don't even have to go no one's going to show up but I end up going and I hope just one person believed in

[00:44:16] you know didn't think I was a complete idiot and that same crowd was waiting for me at the student center and at the end of two hours 71 of those students signed up for a program that didn't even exist at $300 a person I didn't even realize this because James

[00:44:32] I was still not even thinking like I said 10 hours $30 an hour and I didn't realize kids had this ATM card because I never I didn't have an ATM card I never even saw $300 before and they go and kids go in the student center and take out cash

[00:44:46] and the first one to hand me the cash I was like whoa what's this and you know I kind of did the math and so I'm not even 19 years old and then after two hours I have $21,000 cash that's unbelievable in my pockets and in my book bag and

[00:45:01] I would have been rich if I was 19 with $21,000 dude I had nothing you know what I'm saying like I was I was 117 pounds because I lost that I'll wait because I was just not eating or sleeping or anything and you know I use it to get my whatever

[00:45:15] pizza and Chinese food but I use it going back to this mentor just don't let school get in the way your education I use it to fund my real education I buy every audio cassette and I'm dating myself a little bit here go to every like events

[00:45:29] that I could go to to learn you know what I learned now and one of those 71 kids was that college freshman who read 30 books in 30 days and her motivation I know how she did it but her motivation was her mom was dying of terminal cancer

[00:45:44] was given two months to live and she ended up same her mom's life and in that moment I realized that knowledge is power and learning is our super power and I realized also my my mission that's really my dharma so really you've been doing this ever since

[00:45:58] like it's such a it's such a blessing to find something you're excited about and then people connect to it it's not like you know of course you built up a career over years and decades and so on but to see so much excitement in the beginning really

[00:46:14] kind of probably let you on fire and you said to yourself this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life yeah and it it's because it spread right I started doing this with students and then doing other universities and then these kids

[00:46:27] which show remarkable improvement I mean who wouldn't do better if they knew how to do these things and then their parents take note and then those parents work at law firms or accounting firms or wherever and I started to work doing programs for them

[00:46:41] and then when the internet became more you know all widely available we brought everything into an you know online academies and podcasts and YouTube and and everything else and books and yeah our mission really how'd you get noticed by like the Hollywood people like to get started

[00:46:56] in helping actors learn and memorize their lines and so on I gave a presentation at a conference and one of the attendees I remembered his name his name is Jim it's not hard to remember because it's my name also as well but remembering someone's name

[00:47:13] is really leaves an impression and because of it we stayed in touch and he was chairman of a big studio and this was in 2013 and I was doing a little bit of coaching with some actors but nothing you know wide scale he brought me in to

[00:47:28] it was 20th Century Fox he was the CEO and chairman and I go into a Friday training and it was my best training because going into that room their conference room they had all the movie posters of like Star Wars and Avatar

[00:47:41] and it just put me in this kind of really good mood and and I gave my best training and afterwards he walks me around the films lot and I've never been on a you know a film lot before and I saw you know the story

[00:47:54] I saw this poster of Wolverine and then the movie was coming out for a few in a few months and I I was like I love the X man I just can't wait to see it and he because and he picks up his phone and then

[00:48:05] five minutes later I'm in his theater with 3D glasses watching Hugh Jackman fight all these super ninjas right but then afterwards he gets me and says how was the movie I was like you don't know this but I grew up with learning difficulties out of brain injury and

[00:48:18] I couldn't read I taught myself how to read by reading comic books something about the stories and the illustration has brought it to life my favorite comic books was Wolverine and the X-Men he's like Jim I didn't know you liked the X-Men

[00:48:27] do you want to go on set I'm like what do you mean? He's like we have another 30 days of filming and the new X-Men Days of Future Past in Montreal I was like I could yeah thank you I would love to do it

[00:48:37] but what can I do for you he's like do what you did for us teach him how to speed read scripts memorize lines be focused on camera I was like I could totally do that the next morning where I went they called the X jet and

[00:48:48] on the last one on is the LA traffic and I but I get on and the entire cast is on that guy I mean Patrick Stewart Hugh Jackman and I don't even see them I see like Professor X Wolverine and I'm sitting between how true

[00:49:03] so I'm sitting between Holly Berry and Jennifer Lawrence going to Montreal and I'm you know sharing my my brain performance memory tips to the cast and crew on the plane we land the very next day the very first shot because I told him this I was like

[00:49:20] you don't know this but when I was nine years old I I read in the X-Men comic books that the X-Men school Professor X's school for these mutants were where it was in Westchester New York where I grew up and true story I told them

[00:49:34] when I was nine years old every weekend I would ride my little red Ross bicycle banana seat bicycle around my neighborhood trying to find that school because I wanted to find my my superpowers I wanted to find my super friends right because X-Men aren't the strongest

[00:49:50] but they just didn't fit in there are their their mutants right they're marginalized and I felt like I could identify with that anyway the very first shot in Montreal they shot the next day took place in the X-Men school and it was just amazing

[00:50:03] because as a nine year old my inner self my inner just watching my heroes come to life but the caveat was I spent a week there I get home there's a package waiting for me and it is this it's a looks like a TV you open it up

[00:50:17] and it's this photograph of me and the entire cast of X-Men and I mean people look at it and they can see it it's like my Facebook cover photo forever but you think like who photoshopped that Asian dude in the middle but but the better than that

[00:50:32] was the note from the CEO it said Jim thank you so much for sharing your super powers with all of us I know you've been searching for your superhero school since you were a kid here's your class photograph wow and that was just yeah this is very emotional

[00:50:47] it just kind of felt like I came full circle and by finding my powers I was able to find more of my purpose and and help other people to do the same and and where were you did you get involved in helping them learn their script

[00:51:00] like how did it go teaching them? oh yeah yeah so that's what I do with with actors um the speed read scripts because they have a lot of pages that they need to go through um remember their lines especially like you know there's a very famous Oscar actor

[00:51:16] that you know wanted to go and do Broadway but always had script you know when you're doing pre-recorded work everything could be fixed you could do it shot 20 times 30 times and everything's fixed in post but when you're alive it's a different animal so I share techniques

[00:51:32] I help a lot of Ted speakers memorize their Ted 18 minute Ted talks I help a lot of actors remember things for Badum the memory palace is very useful for remembering things like Ted talks I used to use it for memorizing uh I did stand-up comedy for several years

[00:51:48] and it's very useful for memorizing the order and flow of the different routines and jokes I had I love that wait do you still have your your club no I didn't because it was vandalized because of me after I wrote this article about New York

[00:52:05] and so I decided just sell my half of it and and it was good though I mean did you practice did you get in this right like you should practice even train like in the subway and yeah I uh I love that dude I love that so much

[00:52:18] because I knew I had a hard time with short one minors you know so I figured the subway is the best place to have a kind of aggressive audience whose own their attention spans only good for one liner so it forced me to really hone the craft there

[00:52:36] I absolutely love it but you know it's interesting because there's all these different techniques and you talk about them in in this book and I'm having a problem now where I feel like I feel like learning itself has become harder for me like maybe memories always hard

[00:52:56] unless I'm using like a very specific technique but understanding and learning new things is getting harder for me somehow like my listeners know this but I've been going on what I call a quest which is you know when I was in the 90s I was a very competitive

[00:53:12] chess master like a ranked tournament chess master and so I've been on this quest to be as high ranked now as I was then and I'm doing everything I can like I'm you know I I took a break for 25 years so I'm coming back to it

[00:53:27] but I have coaching I I took memory lessons from the world memory champion I have chess obviously chess lessons I go to nutritionist sports psychologist I really work at this like many hours a day I go to tournaments and I feel like

[00:53:46] it's the first time in my life I'm putting this much work into learning something and I just not learning somehow and I don't know what it is so I'm so learning can be difficult without a doubt sometimes if it's too easy I feel like we're just

[00:54:04] validating what we already know and certainly you're making strides and you're pushing yourself and its focus deep work I love it I love a handle on on this with with you you know we could we could start here and take it offline but I I I think

[00:54:20] I don't think I just know that there's another level it's just the I have too much experience and so many different verticals that to see in too many positive examples and sometimes we don't study the outliers we always kind of look at kind of what's in the curve

[00:54:36] and and I'm very fascinated by genius and I believe genius leaves clues part of what to be supportive besides the brain optimization which I love to go through with you all in offline because we've talked about this and in your show before in terms of diet

[00:54:52] and sleep and stress management and all those the hardware stuff yeah but um for the software stuff I think knowing your brain animal and I could customize something for you offline but it's not just how smart you are it's how are you smart so the this brain type

[00:55:10] it let me give you some examples right so can I go through the code real quick with animals are yeah okay so this was something that I used with coaching clients and for the first time I codified it and put it into the book

[00:55:21] and we released it available to the public and so we pulled from the things I mentioned the sciences and psychology create this model and this is how it's functional so let me just give you a quick summary on the animals themselves everybody takes like a

[00:55:36] you know what Harry Potter character are you or Game of Thrones character and so as a quiz we put in the book you could also get it online it's at mybrainanimal.com and it's a four minute multiple choice go with your initial gut

[00:55:49] and you get a detail personalized report based on your animal with follow-up on it on how to read how to remember how to focus based on your animal type and you'll even get further ones on how to negotiate based on your animal type

[00:56:03] parenting advice based on your animal type and so on so let's go through this so this the code COD the C are your cheetos and the defining trait of cheetos like yourself action right very very action oriented strong intuition they they they go fast

[00:56:21] so they can adapt very quickly right and they don't want to be around the bush kind of get to the point and it's they communicate that way and they buy that way and they invest that way sometimes also as well now we're not any one animal

[00:56:34] so let me say that you know you if you're right-handed doesn't mean you don't use your left hand but there's usually some form of dominance the O are your owls and they're defining trait is logic they love data they love facts and figures right

[00:56:47] they take time to process information and so just even thinking about it the careers of a cheetah and owl probably if they're in their element would be different they would they would invest differently right they would even read and remember things differently where

[00:57:02] maybe a cheetah is going through skimming and scanning and just maybe now is going more detail oriented as an example the D in code are your dolphins and their dominant trait is creativity and these are people sometimes they have a vision for their business

[00:57:18] or vision for their life maybe the other people around them can yet see they have very strong pattern recognition they think in pictures and they love usually a lot of passion behind it too right in terms of when they have something that's aspiring

[00:57:32] and then finally the E are your elephants and your elephants the defining trait is really empathy you have strong interpersonal skills these are they love to collaborate they're usually hold the ones that are holding a team together extremely loyal

[00:57:46] they want to kind of reconcile and get kind of a group consensus they learn best in groups also as well so even if you take these like for example we had our our team obviously go through this this assessment this quiz 100% of our customer service team

[00:58:02] ended up being elephants not by design but it's just you go high empathy compassion strong interpersonal skills community builders right they want to they want to feel everyone to feel supported and heard and seen my my CEO or my business partner she's a she's a dolphin

[00:58:23] she has this vision very syncs in pictures has this vision that she's moving us towards our CFO our financial officer is very very strong owl right it's all about the numbers so it's interesting how these things play out and it's interesting scarier if like

[00:58:40] he was a cheetah for instance like you want to be a super creative dolphin yeah then so when really and it's interesting because so this gives you power because it gives you some flexibility and some distinctions and also takes some judgment out of yourself

[00:58:54] because again somehow smart you are how are you smart and you can lean in your strengths and surround yourself and delegate to the people around who have who could who could compensate for for your you know lack of strength in certain areas

[00:59:06] now where this could like let me give you an example that everyone would know so if you take Harry Potter right Harry Potter is a cheetah very instinctive just in the fray of things adapts very quickly Hermione the she's very studious

[00:59:23] right she loves she fact she can recite any facts any spell right she's an owl I would say Dumbledorf is that creative visionary she runs a school right Hagrid was the one that kept the kept the kids together you know as a team loyalty is a big show

[00:59:39] he's he would be an elephant if you take something like friends Ross would be the owl scientist a professor knows a lot of facts Joey would be the cheetah just doesn't even think just does right just just acts I would say Phoebe would be the the dolphin

[00:59:56] the creative art music very expressive passionate Monica always wanted to host everything at her apartment right she's the elephant that keeps in keeping everyone together he does or James Bond star Trek Star Wars everything right but I'm pointing to these reference points is maybe start seeing

[01:00:13] that in other people and also obviously a lot of people share it we do we do this now with corporations where we charge but it's it's free here in the book but it's you know you have your team go through it

[01:00:24] and you get kind of seeing it right people on the bus make sure they're seeing the right seats and then everybody's in there in their strengths and and it leads into you can use this for negotiation you can use this for for parenting

[01:00:37] you can use this for sales I mean even when you think about communication style just like love languages you communicate in your love language well cheetah is very straight to the point right they're very direct decisive their speeches concise they're focused on action they use action oriented words

[01:00:54] they dislike this like beating around the bush you know you would take something like owls and they would communicate in their brain type they're very analytical methodical they prefer details they they want if you're persuading an owl you're going to use logic

[01:01:08] right presenting facts and figures and data if you're taking a dolphin a dolphin is is visionary and expressive so they would communicate that way they would talk about the big picture and future plans and innovative ideas they'd be very enthusiastic and elephants

[01:01:23] they would be your collaborators so they have high empathy so where that come out in their their communication when they're when they're talking to you or something they're keen on understanding and validate other people's feelings they're very they understand the perspective of other people

[01:01:37] they often use inclusive language instead of I and me they use like we and us right their patient listeners because they want to make people feel valued and seen and heard so you can use this for sales and parenting and it's interesting if you're parenting

[01:01:53] you know and or co-parenting and somebody and they're different animals because each one would would have different strengths and also blind spots also because because of it so that's interesting so are do you teach based on like this is your learning changed based on your your type

[01:02:09] yeah so so when we design these programs we're meant to be able to hit all the learning styles in terms of delivery in terms of the words that I choose to use in terms of the exercises

[01:02:21] so like dolphins really do really well with things like the memory palace because they're already visual right owls you have to make it use more basic association and logic to link two things together even with names and faces like the origin of the name

[01:02:35] or how do you spell the name or the meaning of the name right as opposed to remembering names for a dolphin they would just say Matt or they would just picture a doormat right something like that elephants learn differently

[01:02:46] because they were actually they really care about the communication and the relationship so they have that inherent motivation or remember person's name and they're paying attention because their presence they're really hearing the name also also as well and so you could use this for study methods

[01:03:02] focusing methods memory methods because under when you understand your higher brain works you could work your brain better and you can use this in sales because often just in life love languages if somebody has words of affirmation other persons like service you know and you just bump heads

[01:03:18] because you're not meeting other person's needs but you know if you need to influence and persuade or you're a coach or you have a relationship with any human being it just informs a better way to speak their language and also ways

[01:03:30] and you're not stuck with any of these animals because in neuroplasticity you could change right and you could become more logical through proper training and deep work so you know I'm really excited about this because again I feel like this is where things are going especially with AI

[01:03:44] where it's more personalized learning based on how you process information how you sort for information how you communicate information retain information and so much more Do you think AI will to a large degree replace how the current education system works? I think it'll be an adjunct

[01:04:03] I don't say it as artificial intelligence I see it more as augmented intelligence you know technology Yeah technology has always changed the classrooms everything from even when we first started having calculators or stuff like that and people thought like oh people wouldn't have to do that

[01:04:19] we're never gonna have a calculator in our pocket you know and the other days we went out and they wanted to split the bill there was ten of us this is not even a joke James there's ten of us so they take out

[01:04:31] two people took out their calculators to try to divide by ten and that was interesting but that's digital deduction That is interesting that we're so dependent on technology that we can't even do just even simple math and that I think that's a little bit concerning

[01:04:44] I mean in Yvon Harare's sapiens he mentions that there's quite a possibility that people ten thousand years ago had or I think you know we know actually that they had larger skulls than we have now and it could be that they were actually smarter in some ways because

[01:05:01] they had to remember every plant in a five mile radius they had to remember where all the dangerous plants were Yeah where the fertile soil is where clean water is where the enemy tribe is I mean you would have to remember everything because there was no

[01:05:14] there were no books right or teleprompters no internet no nothing and so while every technology has improved society and to some extent like we're not cold in the winters anymore where we can get places faster we could we know the location in every place it may

[01:05:30] it we have outsourced parts of our what was the human brain to to you know technology I see it as augmented it's a technology is like again fire is a form of early technology and it's just it's also how it's applied fire could cook your food

[01:05:45] or it could burn down your home it's just really how it's put into use for me I'm not not have a very positive outlook towards technology it'll I mean allows this to happen right like this conversation to happen and I just think that just bringing mindfulness into it

[01:06:00] my thing is when people pick up their phones out of just habit or boredom then technology is a tool for us to use but if the technology is using us then who becomes a tool then we become the tool right and so I think it could drive distraction

[01:06:15] digital depression right comparing yourself to everybody highlight real on social media want to remind people that the grass is greener where you water it sometimes on social media it's greener because the filter they're using or a lot of artificial turf on social media also as well but yeah

[01:06:31] for AI we the specific strategies we put in the book are how to use enhance your H.I. your human intelligence so for example I mentioned neuroplasticity of somebody's listening they don't know what that is you could go into a chat to you PT and say

[01:06:47] explain to me neuroplasticity in story format as if I am eight years old and that would be good foundation to build on right because all learning is taking something unknown and Lincoln is something known right taking something you don't yet know

[01:06:59] and connecting it and associated something that you do know so you take something outside of you and putting it inside of you and linking it until that becomes inside the you know I have a podcast like you and sometimes if I'm interviewing an author

[01:07:12] and they didn't send me the book and I just don't want to read digital books because I don't need another excuse to be on a screen or get lost in the mail I could go online and just say hey you know give me a summary of this

[01:07:23] of this book I can ask a hey this is who I'm interviewing give me 10 questions that are that they haven't been asked before for my specific audience and not that I use any of these things for betham right but it creates a nice create creativity partner

[01:07:40] create a partner for this and for memory AI like we're bill we have like a quick bot in our Academy and we uploaded all of our course load for like terabyte of information inside of it and so it acts just like me

[01:07:55] like so you can go in there and say as a parent saying I want to help my child with this new math or the memorizing the periodic table whatever right and it'll use it'll give you the options of the based on the techniques that we teach

[01:08:08] to make it easy for you right and this is after we're creating this now with AI is it can measure reading speed it can measure reading comprehension all the tools in here too you could go through and say feed it you could feed into an AI program

[01:08:21] not even ours and just a hey this is the toast I'm giving at this wedding build a memory palace for me so I can easily remember it or create a story format or whatever like or hey I'm learning this sales process

[01:08:34] and give kind of put your notes there and can you mind map this for me right and so could provide the tree branches of this structure for whole brain note taking and so there's so many even like I talk about retrieval practice

[01:08:46] so if you quiz you at a certain interval to test how much you actually remember because it's not just about pushing information in it's it's pulling it out right you encoded you store it then you retrieve it but that retrieval practice the quizzing yourself

[01:09:00] is a wonderful way to deepen those neural connections and reinforce like taking things from your short term the long-term memory so I'm very like bullish on non AI you know I think it's a fun thing there's no there's no part of our business that are our team

[01:09:16] that's not utilizing it in some way shape or form and I think the future would be and we're they're using now some of our our trainings and some of the top school systems in the world in Finland and South Korea I've gone multiple places and throughout Europe training

[01:09:33] principles and educators there and I'm excited the states is interesting is a different kind of environment but I do believe that it's the future is about personalization it's because because think about the opposite hundreds you know it was like the assembly line was like the model for the

[01:09:49] the school system and it was like one size fits all based on your manufacturing date your age right the day you're you know the year you're born everyone pretty much was treated the same and I don't envy teachers that because when you and I grew up

[01:10:04] you know we grew up on joysticks but now kids are they have the world's information they have more access to information than think Clinton did when he was in office right and the context switching you're scrolling through it's not just the content it's like different contexts

[01:10:19] but you know how exhausting that is to the human brain and how much brain glucose you burn through to kind of light up this part of your brain that this part that this part that this part and it's driving you to distraction because every like share

[01:10:31] comment cat video whatever you're wearing this dopamine flood and we wonder why kids can't pay attention in school I mean it's so hard like I've lectured in front of college classes and you know over the past 20 30 years I've done this and it is so hard now

[01:10:47] lecturing in front of a college class because they all have their laptops in front of them you have to really disrupt their thinking consistently like every few every few minutes you have to have a massive disruption happen in order to keep them off their

[01:11:02] their eyes off their laptops and that's why I think storytelling and adding humor and you know we do a lot of when I speak interactive exercises where I get them physically getting up and doing group exercises but I do think teachers I mean think about it now

[01:11:16] now we have unfethered access to the world's information through podcasts like yours YouTube and people will be learning from the world's best right so I see teachers more with with access to the world's information people could learn history from the best history experts in the world

[01:11:33] and AI to personalize things and I see teachers really being more facilitators you know for the experiential part for the social part for the collaboration for the experimental part of learning which is very important also as well but the school system just hasn't changed

[01:11:50] as much as the world I mean we live in an age of autonomous electric cars spaceships going to Mars right but our vehicle choice when it comes education is more like a horse and carriage it just hasn't evolved they say a rip fan

[01:12:02] Winkle the guy's slept for like decades the only thing you would wish you woke up today recognizes our classrooms and again not a slight against teachers it's just a systemic issue right the system hasn't changed as much as the world has changed

[01:12:15] well it has to be demanded by the market so people have to know like that guy told you when you were in college that you have a choice that you have to you have to actually make a decision I'm going to use this kind of education

[01:12:28] instead of this kind of education and we don't really realize or young people still don't really realize as much as they could that they have that choice because it's so ingrained in us but let me ask you like on neuroplasticity so that's the idea that

[01:12:41] you can form new brain connections as you get older previously was thought you couldn't do it now it's understood generally that that you could although maybe not as fast as when you're younger how do you enhance your neuroplasticity so the key for neuroplasticity which is again neuroplasticity

[01:12:59] is stating that your brain is more malleable and it could grow and you can make more connections like Einstein's brain wasn't bigger than anybody else's but there's parts of his brain that were just high more high traffic right

[01:13:11] it's kind of like if somebody is walking through a field and they won they're not going to change it but if they did it repetitively you would start having some inroads and some paths there and those are like your memories and your learnings that are connecting

[01:13:24] you have 87, 86 billion neurons each one it could have up to 10,000 synaptic connections so they're more potential connections in the human brain one human brain than there are stars in our universe I mean that's an immense amount of power but so you know usually the fall

[01:13:40] it gets less plastic after about six years of age 25 years of age things are more hard-coded but yeah studies show that you could absolutely get older but in some areas absolutely get wiser because you could continue with neuroplasticity and neurogenesis neurogenesis is part of your hippocampus

[01:13:58] which is you know associated with memory you could create new brain cells and how do you do that through two ways novelty and nutrition it's the same exact as building your bicep you know you build your muscles your biceps your triceps your leg muscles whatever

[01:14:15] you give it novelty you give it some form of exercise right stimulation and then you feed that muscle right with what it needs to be able to grow and so for neuroplasticity it helps to have that growth mindset because otherwise if you don't have a growth mindset

[01:14:32] you think things are fixed which is the opposite of growth like your shoe size if you think your mental aptitude and your brain performance is just like static then you're not going to do the things they get you out of your comfort zone

[01:14:45] like doing a comedy set on a subway right I feel like that life is difficult for for two reasons either you're leaving your comfort zone and it forces you to grow like people would do physically but this is we're talking about neuroplasticity with your brain your mind

[01:15:02] one stretch by a new idea never regains its original dimensions right Oliver Wendell home but life is difficult when you leave your comfort zone but also life is difficult to be staying your comfort zone too right and it's all just you've heard this before like choosing your heart

[01:15:15] being broke is hard going out there starting a business or creating is hard right working hard is hard being sick and tired is hard and doing all the thing eating the best foods and meal prep and exercising that's hard right but we choose our heart

[01:15:30] and so I would say for neuroplasticity is novelty and I think one of the best ways is listening and reading right like whatever people are doing right now they're listening to this conversation if they heard something they didn't hear before and they contemplated and they reflect on it

[01:15:45] especially they act on it your brain's not the same after this conversation it's just not right if you know something that you didn't know yesterday there was neuroplasticity that exists and I would just say that some people they're you know we hear about

[01:15:58] exercising your body all the time because you see it and I always in every photograph I'm always pointing to my brain I'm always wearing a brain shirt if you're watching this on video because what you see you take care of and you see your hair your car

[01:16:09] your clothes whatever because it's in your awareness but we don't see the thing that takes care of us you don't see your brain all the time absolutely good point I should start doing that and that's why I'm always pointing to my brain in pictures

[01:16:19] or wearing a brain on my shirt because this is the thing that we have to take care of because this is what takes care of us and I want to remind everybody that you are the pilot of your brain you're not the passenger so many people feel like

[01:16:30] they're at the effect right we're just kind of going where the weather politics or whatever you know is dictating but a big part of being limitless is regaining our sovereignty you know our personal agency and responsibility knowing that every day we can have a new

[01:16:44] we can have a chance because we can make a new choice every single day and so for what I would say for novelty is I like reading personally I think reading is to your mind what exercises to your body and then feeding your brain with the right nutrients

[01:17:00] and I'm not a nutritious I don't have a like this is not a medical doctor but be intelligent about this we are all bio diverse right bio original and so like KL might be good for some person not for the other right

[01:17:14] they might be at allergic to it can't digest it whatever but in the last episode that you and I did together I talk about some of my favorite brain foods but I what I believe by the way I'm amazed that you remember that because that when was

[01:17:25] that last episode we did together was like it was a long time ago it was but it's a bit well yeah and this is how it works but we did this thing where we memorize we put like you know avocados on our hair and blueberries coming in

[01:17:38] at your nose and all this different stuff and I walk you through my office and we linked all the different things there as like a memory palace but my point of bringing this up is I prefer people get it from their food but if you're not getting it

[01:17:49] from your food you could do a nutrient profile because if you're low on vitamin D or vitamin B your brain's just not going to be doing what it can do and you can learn all the speed reading memory techniques and you'll get gained without a doubt

[01:18:00] but if you don't eat eggs like I talked about in previous episode that eggs is a great brain food we had it on your on your neck but it's the choline in eggs so you might need a supplement and you get it in eggs you get it in

[01:18:10] in soybeans but choline is a powerful nutrient that it's critical for it leads to acetylcholine which is a neurotransmitter that supports memory supports cognitive function probably the most important supplement that people could look into is omega-3 fatty acids particularly DHA which is crucial for

[01:18:31] for brain health and development that's in spondyn salmon and salmon sardines flax seeds you know it's there but if you're not getting enough of that in your diet and you can test all these things you can test for nowadays you go to good functional medicine doctor

[01:18:46] or a good nutritionist and get your vitamin levels tested your B vitamins are essential especially a B6, B9 which is your folate, B12 vital for brain health magnesium is so critical for hundreds of physiological processes especially for your brain but you know, but Dean

[01:19:04] we can even go into things like one of my favorites is creatine and people associate that with working out a lot of athletes use it but creatine is a natural substance produced in our bodies and it's predominant in meat and fish but maybe you need to supplement it

[01:19:21] if you're a vegan but it helps to prove cognitive function because what it does it helps with especially short-term memory and quick thinking because it helps with energy metabolism so as your mitochondria your ATP is the Ukrainian you feel kind of depleted

[01:19:38] so creatine is one of the most researched supplements for not just for muscle growth but for cognitive growth I talked about in the previous episode turmeric, low inflammation but the active ingredient if you're not getting that in your diet is curcumin and curcumin is anti-inflammatory

[01:19:57] it has huge antioxidant benefits it could cross the blood brain barrier and it's been shown to lead to improvements in cognitive function especially in people who are showing early stages of patients with Alzheimer's disease and so that's something you could supplement

[01:20:12] I mean we hear a lot about mushrooms like lion's mane it's a unique neutropic that has nerve protective effects and lots of research showing that could actually stimulate the synthesis of this nerve growth factor in your brain and also could help reduce inflammation

[01:20:30] probably the most popular of the neutropics is caffeine I don't know, do you be a big coffee drinker? I usually drink a cup or two every morning yeah, I'm a little sensitive so I have to be careful with my sleep I can't do caffeine past I notice around

[01:20:44] 12 or 1 o'clock in the afternoon yeah, 12 is my max yeah then when you combine it with something called alfionine that's very powerful because the result is you get greater brain function without the jittery side effects so I'm very sensitive alfionine and caffeine actually found naturally in green tea

[01:21:02] and you've heard a lot about the power of green tea kinko biloba is another powerful one it's been used thousands of years in Chinese medicine to treat different ailments including cognitive decline but the research shows that it actually promotes good blood circulation

[01:21:18] and that's really the name of the game for you ask if I got my brain scanned and I've had my brain scanned since as an adult multiple times and blood flow because a traumatic brain injury you don't get enough blood flow in that area because of the damage

[01:21:32] and you need to get oxygen there that's why part of the protocol for TBI's is hyperbaric chambers like hyperbaric oxygen chambers to push oxygen in areas to recover and repair but kinko is wonderful for blood flow and in circulation which is amazing

[01:21:50] so in the book we talk about three dozen brain supplements and neutropics that human studies not kind of like I never talk about supplements in 30 years but I realize that some people can learn great techniques but if they're lacking in certain nutrients key nutrients

[01:22:09] it could throw them off just like everyone wants to know what the magic pill is but there's not a pill but there's a process right you need sleep you need the meds right we always talk about meds the MCS for meditation you disconnect to reconnect

[01:22:21] to get some kind of rejuvenation improve your focus the E is exercise that your body moves your brain grows you create brain-derived neotropic factors which is fertilizer for neuroplasticity the D is your diet and we've talked about your best favorite brain foods and stay away from

[01:22:36] highly refined foods processed food high sugar foods anti-inflammatory inflammation foods and then the S is sleep so those are your meds and if you're to add anything you could add Rx meds Rx the R is relationships we've done multiple episodes on the power of relationships

[01:22:54] even the largest happiness study at a Harvard University and longevity study and a lot of you in these blue zones it's the with the family right it's because the opposite is being lonely and isolated and you know that's a big mental health issue for this country and abroad

[01:23:09] so the R is relationships a positive peer group people that you know just like it you know there's hunter-gatherer you want to feel like you're supported you're in a village you have protection you're safe and then the X in Rx meds Rx is just the extras

[01:23:23] that we talk about a lot in the book on the power of cold showers or cold plunges and you know heat shock proteins coming from you know infrared saunas and red light therapy and all that extra stuff but there's so many different things

[01:23:36] that you can do to optimize your brain and your performance you know and also you almost need an extra letter for the negative thinking like your ants yeah oh well that's yeah that's a different yeah absolutely our thoughts are play a big role our mind is always eavesdropping

[01:23:51] in our self-talk and even if you find yourself saying going back to limiting beliefs like I don't have a great memory even if you had a little catch yourself because self-awareness is a superpower right you cultivate self-awareness because you can't change something unless you're aware of it

[01:24:03] but even if you say you have a great memory just add a little word like yet or you find yourself saying oh I gotta take my kid to music class right I gotta work out I gotta meditate he been changing a little word like got to get

[01:24:14] you know I get to take my son to music class today I get to work out I get to take 15 minutes and just be calm I just I think it feels like it definitely feels different for me at least because the language that we use

[01:24:26] it affects our nervous system and also what's what's possible well you know Jim it's funny you say what's possible because your books titled limitless I mean everything's possible and I really do believe that like your book has had a huge influence on me since the first time

[01:24:45] we spoke about it so many years ago I it was like 2015 or 2014 where we first look about it and I'm really grateful for all you've done I've learned so much from from your work even when there's you know times you know we haven't spoken for a long time

[01:25:02] but I'm still following your stuff and learning from you this expanded edition is incredible you had it's a much thicker book you had so much depth to it and I really encourage like this is kind of a very important journey for me that I'm going on

[01:25:17] and a book like this is exactly like the book I need for this journey and I'd be happy to talk to you offline about what's been going on and what I could do but you know I'm writing a book about the process and the whole concept of

[01:25:32] quests as well but it's just always fascinating talking to you so many incredible stories you've been through so much and you know I could see the effect that applying these practices has had on you and I read about your students and so on

[01:25:45] but of course thank you once again Jim for coming on the podcast well the last time we actually saw each other in person I was over your house for the Game of Thrones series finale Yes that was a different that was like a lifetime ago Yeah

[01:26:01] Yeah it's interesting Yeah people should take that I mentioned the Game of Thrones Game of Thrones quizzes but the My Brain Animal if I can encourage everyone to do just one thing besides get the book limitlessbook.com is to take the quiz at mybrainanimal.com

[01:26:13] and post it on social media you get some nice AI art and then tag James and tag myself because I'm curious what the dominant brain animal is of your community and I think a lot of people even if they text it to a friend or family member

[01:26:29] it'll explain a lot of their behavior that sometimes we bump heads and I feel like part of it again is having the curiosity to know yourself and then the be yourself and I want to thank you James for your friendship thank you for your amazing work your books

[01:26:44] have to be back on our podcast also as well to talk about any projects and let's talk offline and talk about this chess Yeah I have some real good ideas on this one Excellent I got your back and I got your brain Excellent

[01:26:58] Well, I look forward to it and Jim thank you so much and thanks for delivering this expanded edition of Limitless So thank you Yeah, thank you everybody