[00:04:51] Clay Finck: Welcome to the Investors Podcast. I’m your host, Clay Finck. And today I am joined by Jim Kwik. Jim, such a pleasure 

[00:04:58] Jim Kwik: to have you here. Thanks for having me on, Clay. Thank you, everybody who’s taken some of your time and your focus to join us for this episode. We’re going to get real brainy on this one, I know.

 

[00:05:08] Clay Finck: Today we’re going to be chatting about your book. I just discovered you just released your expanded version of a book called Limitless. I got to say, I really enjoyed going through this and super excited to dive into this because we have a lot of readers in our audience, Jim, and A lot of our listeners are part of the value investing community in the Warren Buffett School of Thought.

[00:05:29] Clay Finck: And it’s really just a journey of continuous learning, learning about the world, learning about new businesses, learning about history, the list goes on. And there are just so many practical takeaways in this book. So super excited to dive in. So the first question here I had for you, Jim, towards the start of your book, you talk about how school is full of classes telling you what to learn, but not very often is someone teaching you how to learn.

[00:05:52] Clay Finck: So talk to us about this idea of learning how to learn. 

[00:05:56] Jim Kwik: So growing up, people seeing the final product in terms of they’re familiar with my work, they know I read every day. And for four years, I read a book a day. I do these mental feats on stage when I speak at like Inc. 5000 or these investing conferences.

[00:06:11] Jim Kwik: And I always tell people it’s funny. I didn’t start out this way. I grew up with a traumatic brain injury when I was five. I had learning disabilities. I at focusing. I couldn’t read for three years. Talk about the power of reading. That was very frustrating and embarrassing. When I was nine, I was slowing down a class being teased for it.

[00:06:27] Jim Kwik: And teacher came to my defense. She pointed to me in front of the whole class and said, leave that kid alone. He’s the boy with the broken brain. And and that really that label became my limit. And it’s interesting, my teachers back then, this wasn’t just. Elementary school, this was middle school, junior high school, the number of times I was about to fail high school English.

[00:06:44] Jim Kwik: They would have been surprised if I read a book, much less wrote books. And I always thought it was interesting in school, they teach you what to learn, like math and history, science, Spanish. But there was literally zero classes in me growing up on how to learn those things. And I realized that when you point to somebody, like maybe it’s your child or a teammate, say, Hey, you got to just really study and prepare for this or focus or remember this.

[00:07:06] Jim Kwik: That’s like going to somebody saying, play the didgeridoo or the ukulele, who’s never had any kind of training or a class on how to do that. And I always think that if there’s one skill to master in the 21st century, whether you’re an investor, an entrepreneur, Anybody really. It’s our ability to learn rapidly, our ability to learn rapidly and translate that learning into action is the ultimate competitive advantage and obviously you mentioned Warren Buffett.

[00:07:33] Jim Kwik: He reads five and I validated this. I had an opportunity at one of his annual shareholder meetings to play bridge with him actually at a mall during one of the breaks. And he really does read 500 pages a day. I don’t know if he’s currently doing that, but today knowledge is not only power, knowledge is profit.

[00:07:49] Jim Kwik: If somebody has decades of experience, and they put it into a book and somebody can sit down in a few days and absorb and read that book that you can download decades of wisdom into days, which I still believe is the number one advantage somebody could have today because the faster you learn, the faster you could earn.

[00:08:06] Jim Kwik: And yes, it’s a whole area of science that we write about in Limitless Expanded called meta learning. Meta learning is the art and science of learning how to learn, learning how to focus, learning how to not only read faster, but understand more, learning how to remember. things, learning how to think critically about a subject, be able to retain it.

[00:08:25] Jim Kwik: And also speed of implementation is so very important in a fast paced data driven world nowadays. And so I believe our brains are the number one wealth building asset that we have. And if you want your bank account to grow, your business to grow your brand to grow then we need to grow yet.

[00:08:42] Jim Kwik: Your brain doesn’t come with an owner’s manual. And we weren’t taught how to use it in school, and it’s not very user friendly. So that’s why I wrote Limitless Expanded to be an owner’s manual for her reader’s brain. So very practical, where we take very heady neuroscience and meta learning skills and make it very fun very simple, and something that they could incorporate very easily into their day to day life for greater productivity, greater performance, greater peace of mind, and certainly greater profitability.

[00:09:10] Clay Finck: In reading your books and listening to some of your talks, you open up people’s mind to what is possible. You mentioned some of the stuff you’ve done up on stage. I believe it was 30 numbers where you had the audience members just say the numbers and then you essentially memorize them right off the bat.

[00:09:25] Clay Finck: And then you said all the numbers backwards. I was just blown away. And you tell some similar stories in your book and It reminds me of one of the things that Preston on our team always mentions when I tune into some of his chats. And he says very often, be careful what you tell yourself because you may just realize it.

[00:09:42] Clay Finck: And that’s what I’m reminded of when I read your book of so many of us just tell ourselves these stories, or we have these limiting beliefs where people tell themselves, I’m just not a great reader. I’m not a great public speaker. The list goes on some of the things we tell ourselves. So talk to us more about this idea of trying to reframe and rewire the way we think and the beliefs we have and open ourselves up to what it is we can set out to achieve.

[00:10:08] Jim Kwik: No doubt, Clay. The first 25 percent of the book is based on our mindset. The significant part of the book is on methodology, how to read faster, how to improve your memory, how to remember names and faces in business, client information, product information, statistics, everything. But I realized that common sense is not common practice.

[00:10:24] Jim Kwik: A lot of your listeners have probably forgotten more about personal growth and success investing than most of their friends and family will ever learn. But are they implementing it? And I think part of it, if we self sabotage, if we take a step forward and maybe two steps back, it’s because we really have to get our mindset right.

[00:10:41] Jim Kwik: It’s the foundation for everything. The classic books. You think about thinking we’re rich and how to win friends and influence people and psycho cybernetics, these classics all talk about the power of the mind. And so we give people various practical strategies to reframe their limiting beliefs, because I believe all behavior is belief driven, that if your listeners want to create a new result in their life.

[00:11:01] Jim Kwik: right? Maybe it’s a new level of wealth. They need to do a new behavior. That’s obvious, right? But in order to do that new behavior, you need a belief that says that’s even possible. At events where they know I’m a memory coach, often they’ll pull me aside in the lobby before I go on stage and say, I’m so glad you’re here.

[00:11:17] Jim Kwik: I know you’re a brain coach. I have a horrible brain or I have a horrible memory. I just, I’m not that smart or what you’d fill in the blanks, right? And I always say, stop. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them. If you fight for your limits, they’re yours. Our brains, we’ve discovered more about the human brain in the past 20 years than the previous, probably 2000 years combined.

[00:11:37] Jim Kwik: And we found is we’re grossly underestimating our own capabilities. And our mind is always eavesdropping on our self talk, right? That old Henry Ford quote, if you believe you can or believe you can’t, either way, you’re right. And that’s the power of our mind. As an example, I believe our brains are this incredible supercomputer and our self talk and our belief system are the programs that will run.

[00:11:55] Jim Kwik: So if you tell yourself, I’m not good at remembering people’s names. You won’t remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to, right? And so even if you say, find yourself in simple check, like the awareness of the fact that we have this negative self talk, and I’m not saying be totally positive, right?

[00:12:13] Jim Kwik: Either. I think it’s important to be realistic, but if you have one negative thought, it doesn’t ruin your life any more than eating that donut ruins your life. But if you ate that donut. 20 times a day, every single day, then there’s going to be a consequence. Same thing with the reinforcing beliefs, because most beliefs are exactly that.

[00:12:29] Jim Kwik: They’re BS. There are belief systems, right? And and so I believe that your brain is incredible super here. So you say, I said, camera, whenever you remember the name of the next person you meet again, you could just check yourself. You’ve signed yourself. I’m not going to remember names. Just. Add a little word at the end when you catch yourself being negative.

[00:12:46] Jim Kwik: Like a word like yet. I don’t, I’m not great at rumor aims yet. And it just keeps the possibility open for all of us. 

[00:12:53] Clay Finck: You mentioned one of my favorite quotes from you or favorite ideas is that all behavior is belief driven. And it also reminds me of an interaction you shared that you had with Quincy Jones, where you asked him about his problems and his struggles in life.

[00:13:07] Clay Finck: And he told you that he doesn’t have. He doesn’t have problems. He has puzzles. And that’s very much the way I view the investing world. And many aspects of my life is it’s so much more helpful when you think of it as a puzzle and not something that’s just like a total burden. 

[00:13:21] Jim Kwik: Yeah.

[00:13:21] Jim Kwik: It’s just another way of reframing beliefs. We do an annual brain power conference every year. And Quincy at this event was in the audience and I couldn’t help but pull him on stage impromptu because he’s. One of the most amazing music producers of all time. And when we’re having this fireside chat in front of this audience, and we had in the audience, we had the founder of WordPress.

[00:13:43] Jim Kwik: It was a very, it was interesting group of attendees. I was asking him, I was like, everyone knows about your successes. We are the world and thriller and all these. And, but I wanted to know about your problems. And exactly. He said that, he said, I don’t have any problems. I’m like we were human.

[00:14:00] Jim Kwik: We all have problems. And he’s no, I have puzzles. And think about the association. They’re like words that we choose to use, have an effect on our nervous system and problems. Just for me, at least it just seems like this is something that’s daunting. I have to deal with it. It’s something that’s negative, but a puzzle.

[00:14:17] Jim Kwik: Who doesn’t love a good puzzle? And the thing with a puzzle, it could be fun, and there’s always a solution, too, also, as well. So a challenge to audit our self talk, even when you say things like, Oh, I gotta read today, or I gotta work out, I gotta pick up my kids, even changing a word, got, to get.

[00:14:35] Jim Kwik: You change that O to an E. I get to work out today. I get to meditate. I get to take some time off in just 10 minutes. Just be quiet. I get to study and learn from these amazing financial wizards or what have you. It just changes our attitudes about something. Often the problem is not the problem.

[00:14:53] Jim Kwik: Often the problem is our attitudes and assumptions we have about that problem. And so I feel like that, again, coming from the place where our minds are number one wealth building asset, everybody listening to us right now, it’s not like it was hundreds of years ago, like an agricultural age or The dawn of the industrial age where it was your brute strength that was your value to society.

[00:15:12] Jim Kwik: Today, it’s your brain strength. It’s not your muscle power. Today, it’s your mind power, but when’s the last time we’ve upgraded that incredible wealth creating device? We upgrade technology all the time. Everyone always rushes out to get the new iPhone or update their apps or new television or computer.

[00:15:27] Jim Kwik: But when’s the last time we upgraded the most important wealth technology that has created all the other technology in the world? And yeah that’s why I’m so passionate about this. I feel like there’s, if there’s a gap, Clay, between where someone is listening to this and where they want to go, I feel like a big part of that if they’re watching us on video, I’m spreading my index fingers like a foot apart, I think a big part of that is here.

[00:15:48] Jim Kwik: I’m putting my fingers to the side of my head, meaning in between, is really, I want people to know their brain, and we give people really easy ways to understand their brain, but I also want people to really trust their brain, and love their brain again, and use their brain most important. 

[00:16:03] Clay Finck: And part of figuring out this puzzle is creating a level of motivation that, gets you to want to go out and solve the puzzle.

[00:16:12] Clay Finck: And you put together this really insightful framework that I found really useful. You refer to it as P times E times S3. So walk us through what this means. 

[00:16:23] Jim Kwik: So the second section, the first 25 percent of the book is all on mastering your mindset. In reframing these limiting beliefs that hold us back, the second 25 percent is all about the second M.

[00:16:33] Jim Kwik: We go from mindset to motivation. Because if anyone’s listening to this, Limitless, which is the title of my book, it’s not about being perfect. It’s about advancing and progressing. But if you feel like you’re in a box, And you feel stuck. You’re not advancing or progressing beyond what you’re currently demonstrating.

[00:16:47] Jim Kwik: That box is three dimensional. So the three forces that contain that box and the other same three forces that will liberate you and give you freedom, financial freedom and freedom of expression, freedom of look, the things that you want in life lie outside that box. So the first dimension is mindset.

[00:17:04] Jim Kwik: The second dimension is motivation. So let’s make this very practical. If people want to read. We know leaders are readers. If people have seen pictures of me with Gates or Elon or Oprah or whoever, I know this is themed around studying billionaires, which has been a big focus of my work, because I believe genius leaves clues, is let’s say they all read.

[00:17:25] Jim Kwik: Because if people have asked me how I bonded with them, connected with them, went deeper, is we bonded over books. Because you read to succeed, right? And we talked about the power of reading. I think I’m preaching to the choir. If you’re not reading every day, you’re not motivated, talk about this formula.

[00:17:40] Jim Kwik: Then you need P times E times S3. You need three things in place, or if you want to motivate somebody else to invest in your company or your idea or to influence them, they need three things to be motivated. The P stands for purpose. And purpose for me is not something in your head, it’s something in your heart.

[00:17:55] Jim Kwik: I believe when we’re talking about mindset, that’s your head. Purpose the more we’re talking about motivation is the second H which is your heart. It goes from head to your heart to your hands, but if you’re not acting with your hands, i. e. you’re procrastinating, you’re not motivated, which is the theme of this question, then you have to check in with the second H, which is the heart, which is the emotions, right?

[00:18:13] Jim Kwik: The symbol of emotions, because we’re not logical. We are more biological. Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins, these neurotransmitters, these are, these is what make me feel, us feel certain things, and so you need to, it has to go from your head to your heart, and so what I mean by that is, without reasons, you won’t get the reward, even if you want to do something simple like remembering people’s name.

[00:18:35] Jim Kwik: And you want to be motivated to remember someone’s name, which is so important to business, right? How are you going to show somebody, I think it’s the number one business etiquette and networking skill there is how are you going to show somebody you’re going to care for their future, their finances, their family, whatever you have to offer them, if we don’t care enough just to remember their name, right?

[00:18:50] Jim Kwik: It’s finding purpose. That’s where you ask yourself, why? I’m going to mention a number of books, which I’m sure your readers have. My question is, You have them on your shelf unread and it becomes shelf help, not self help because a lot of people are really good at buying books, but they don’t read it.

[00:19:03] Jim Kwik: Limitless Expanded is the one book, the testimony we get all the time on Amazon. And for the original book, we did over a million copies sold in just three years and 18, 000 ratings for reviews. The reviews though, it’s always Hey, this book helped me with all the books. Because if you can learn how to focus, read faster, understand what you read, retain what you read, it’s like a lead domino.

[00:19:22] Jim Kwik: We have our own podcast called Kwik Brain and it’s all about those lead dominoes. We recently had Jay on who wrote, co wrote The One Thing and he talks about the lead domino, that one thing you hit and all the dominoes fall into place. And that’s the nature of becoming more limitless. But it really starts after your mindset.

[00:19:39] Jim Kwik: Finding purpose. And so if someone’s not reading on a regular basis, do they have not only they know in their mind they should, but a lot of people don’t do it because knowledge is not power. It’s potential power. Only this power when we feel the emotions to have the impetus to do something about it.

[00:19:54] Jim Kwik: And so what are all the benefits that come? So start with why by Simon Sinek is the book I’ll recommend in this subject. But what are all the benefits that come from following through on this thing? Or what are all the consequences of not following through? Thank you. I remember years ago, there was a big boxing match.

[00:20:10] Jim Kwik: It was probably the biggest one in history at that time. It was Mayweather versus Pacquiao. And I feel a little mixed with some of these sports because I love seeing people who are just top mental performers, right? Because it’s not just their physical training, it’s their mental training.

[00:20:26] Jim Kwik: And I got a call from Sylvester Stallone. I’m gonna drop a few names. Cause I find that sometimes if I talk, if I just talk about John Smith, like no, one’s going to really know who that is. It won’t stick in your mind. But next time his documentary or a Rocky movie or whatever, they’ll just are expendables.

[00:20:40] Jim Kwik: It’ll just bring back the story. That’s a memory aid. And he says, Hey, do you want to watch the fight together? I’m like I can’t make it to Vegas. He was like, no, you want to come to my home? I’m watching it. I’m like, yeah, I totally want to watch it with Rocky. Who knew the woman to do that? So we’re sitting, I’m sitting on the couch.

[00:20:54] Jim Kwik: It’s me to my left is Sly and to his left is Arnold Schwarzenegger. And if somebody took a picture, Clay, of that couch, people would be like, who photoshopped that Asian dude, like on that couch. Cause that’s literally what it was. But afterwards I was like, Hey, I went to Arnold and Sly. I was like, what does it take to be like, I think we’re at 300 million dollars and what does it take to be the best of the best?

[00:21:14] Jim Kwik: And Arnold said, Hey, the difference between a champion and an amateur is a champion is willing to push past the pain period. And I was like, wow, that’s very, that makes sense to me, right? To build your body or bank out, you have to do certain things that other people won’t do. And when you do what other people won’t do, you’ll get.

[00:21:30] Jim Kwik: They’ll live a life other people can’t live. And then I had this life choice I had to make. And I was asking, cause I’m very familiar with Sylvester Stallone’s origin story, how he created Rocky. And he was, he couldn’t even pay the bills and he had to sell his dog and he was living in the library.

[00:21:43] Jim Kwik: And I was like, I presented my situation. And he was like, And I was like, what do you think I should do? And he said, Hey, Jim, will the gain be worth the pain? And I’m like, wow, will the pleasure be worth like the discomfort of going through and doing what you need to do? And if the answer is yes, then you do it.

[00:21:59] Jim Kwik: And and I thought that was interesting because that’s coming back to purpose. So when I say P, I feel like people need to find out what the pain and the, and also the pleasure that they’ll gain. from doing it or not doing it and really allowing them to feel. And then if you feel all the benefits from reading that book in advance, then I feel like you’re more likely to follow through.

[00:22:17] Jim Kwik: Even a simple question like, who’s counting on me? If your values are like family or something, like in your value structure, we talk about that in the book, how to find your purpose and what’s most important to you in life and the kind of probing dominant questions that you ask. And if it’s family, then link that act.

[00:22:31] Jim Kwik: to your family, like who’s counting on you to be at your best and play at your A game. So that’s purpose. But then I realized, Clay, that somebody could have limitless purpose and still not be motivated because they need the E, P times E times S3. And the E stands for energy. I realized that if people aren’t reading, maybe it’s because they had a big processed meal and they’re in a food coma or we have a 10 month old and I’m not getting a whole lot of sleep of late the past X amount of months.

[00:22:56] Jim Kwik: And maybe I’m just depleted and I’m not really motivated to work out. So exhaustion will make us procrastinate more than anything, and that’s why in the book we talk about ten keys to have like limitless mental energy for people who suffer from mental fatigue and brain fog, how to optimize your sleep, what are the best foods to give your brain energy and the best nootropics, how to manage your stress and so much more, and then finally somebody could have limitless purpose and limitless energy and still not follow through because maybe they need S3.

[00:23:26] Jim Kwik: S3 stands for small, simple steps, because I realized that not only lack of purpose will lead to procrastination, or if you lack energy, you’ll procrastinate, but also if that thing we’re going for is too big or too abstract or too too intimidating for something that we’re not used to doing, we’re not going to do it.

[00:23:43] Jim Kwik: So the best thing you could do is to break it down into small, simple steps. So maybe reading. for 30 minutes a day is too hard of a task for someone who just it’s not part of their lifestyle. And a small simple step is opening up the book or reading one line in a book. If you want to get your kids in our podcast recently, we had one of the top biological dentists talking about beyond brushing, which you could do for good oral health, at least good brain health.

[00:24:06] Jim Kwik: We’re talking about flossing and we’re talking about how do you get your kids to floss? That might be too big for somebody who doesn’t do that. Maybe flossing one tooth is a small, simple step because nobody’s going to stop with just one tooth. You’re not going to stop by reading one line. You’re going to continue, or if you can’t get yourself to go to the gym, working out is so good for your brain.

[00:24:22] Jim Kwik: And I can go through all the science and the research, and maybe that’s too big for somebody who’s just not in the habit of doing it. Maybe putting on your running shoes is, or getting yourself to the gym is a small, simple step. And so that’s the limitless formula. Purpose times energy times small, simple steps allows you to be motivated when you need to, because you don’t have motivation.

[00:24:41] Jim Kwik: You do. It’s a process of purpose, energy, and small, simple steps. And also if you want to motivate somebody else. Because we know people don’t buy logically, they buy emotionally, tap into that purpose. And then do they have the means and the energy, the capital? Capital is a form of energy, right?

[00:24:55] Jim Kwik: To move forward. And maybe they don’t invest in you because you have to break it down into small, simple steps to make it so easy and frictionless for them. And how you find your small, simple step. And this is the kind of the magic question everyone could write down. What is the tiniest action I could take right now that will give me progress towards this goal?

[00:25:13] Jim Kwik: Where I can’t fail. And I ask myself this Clay, like a dozen times a day, every single day, whenever I feel stalled or I feel like I’m not being productive, I ask, what is the tiniest action I could take right now? Operative word now, that will give me progress towards this goal. I’m going towards the goal as opposed to somewhere else where I can’t fail.

[00:25:30] Jim Kwik: It’s so small and simple. It takes very little energy. And I can’t mess this up. And so I think it’s a magic question that we could ask ourselves on a daily to really unlock new levels of motivation. Thank you. I wanted to comment 

[00:25:43] Clay Finck: on the purpose aspect. It reminds me of on the show, we talk all about just having that long term mindset.

[00:25:50] Clay Finck: And it’s in our head, we know what it is we want to go out and do and achieve. But I think being in touch with that purpose really anchors you into Okay, why am I taking these small, simple steps? Because it’s so easy to just skip the little things today and sacrifice of that longer term.

[00:26:09] Clay Finck: And I think that purpose is like really powerful in anchoring you and why you need to do what it is you need to do today. 

[00:26:18] Jim Kwik: I agree. There’s this marshmallows test that they did. That’s very famous in terms of they took kids and give them the option said in this room, they say, Hey, you can have this marshmallow now, or you could wait a little bit longer and then you’ll get two or three marshmallows.

[00:26:33] Jim Kwik: And they followed those kids that didn’t have the state regulation of the impulse control. They just wanted the quick fix right now, as opposed to just waiting, just like they would with an investments kind of longterm vision. And they follow them through and. But by far the more successful ones were the ones that could delay gratification.

[00:26:49] Jim Kwik: I believe with this, where no matter who’s listening to us, whatever age or stage you are in life and also in business and finance, that a long term approach is so important that you shouldn’t sacrifice what you want now for what you really want in the future. And it’s always some kind of a balance, but it’s a choice.

[00:27:06] Jim Kwik: Like in Limitless, there’s a quote that gets tweeted a whole lot that says, Life is the letter C between B and D. Life is C between B and D. Where B stands for birth and D stands for death. Life, C, choice. And we always have these choices that everyone who’s listening right now, your life is a sum total of all the choices you made up to this point.

[00:27:25] Jim Kwik: Good, bad, or indifferent. What are you going to focus on? What are you going to feed your mind? What are you going to feed your body? Where are you going to live? Who are you going to spend time with? All these different things. So I believe these difficult times, they can distract you, or these difficult times, they can diminish you, or these difficult times, they can develop you.

[00:27:39] Jim Kwik: We ultimately decide with the choices that we make. And I’m a big believer that Even if you can have your job and then work your side hustle or investments in the evening because you have to feed your business until it feeds you back. And so it’s always a kind of a allocation resources where you can put your time your talent, your treasure at that given moment.

[00:28:00] Jim Kwik: And yeah, but just like. Compounding, which is just absolute magic investing. It’s also little by little, a little becomes a lot. So when you’re reading something each day for 30 minutes, you’re compounding, right? You’re getting like 1 percent better every single day and 1 percent compounded over the course of a year.

[00:28:16] Jim Kwik: It’s not a little bit. It’s a lot. If you took 1. 01, which is 1%, times 1. 01 and did it 365 times over a course of a year, you would get 37 times multiple, which is just improving some area, maybe your health, your happiness, your, and obviously doesn’t equate just like that. But the idea of what compounding and exponential thinking and actions could do, it’s seems like magic to everybody else, but there’s always a method behind what looks like magic.

[00:28:45] Clay Finck: In the motivation section, you also have a chapter on flow. It’s one of those things where people know what flow is, but a lot of people don’t know, seem to know like how to achieve flow, how to stay in it. So since you’re the brain expert, talk to us about flow. 

[00:28:59] Jim Kwik: Yeah. So flow is a state and I guess many people could relate to it’s where you feel your best and you perform at your best.

[00:29:08] Jim Kwik: And some people will call it they’re in the zone. If you, and the markers for it are three things. You lose your sense of self, your ego, you’re just you’re not really thinking about yourself. You lose your sense of time. You don’t know if five hours or five minutes pass by, there’s this time distortion.

[00:29:23] Jim Kwik: And it also feels almost effortless. And one of the ways of getting into these flow states is to just look at your, it’s the challenge and the capabilities that have to be in a certain ratio. Meaning if something is too challenging and your capability is too low, right? So you have high challenge, low capability or competence, you’re not going to get into flow because you’re going to be stressed because the challenge is much bigger than your capabilities.

[00:29:48] Jim Kwik: And if you reversed it and your challenge is so low, but your capability is so high, you’re not going to get in flow because you’re going to be bored. You’re going to be checked out because it’s just too easy. And so it’s this balance where you’re stretched. And so it forces you to focus and be alert, but it’s not so stretching and stressful that it puts you in that kind of like anxiety, fight or flight kind of response.

[00:30:10] Jim Kwik: But a flow states is the state again, whether it’s your work or whether you want to get in state of like in your playing a certain sport or anything else, it’s or maybe you’re surfing, you just lose a sense of time. You lose your sense of self and you’re just in the moment.

[00:30:26] Jim Kwik: And that’s again, not only where we’re feeling the best, so I can be very healing in general, but also it’s where you’re performing your best. And just like with motivation, the purpose of the book, because we have chapters on habit design and flow states and motivation is that we don’t have to wait and just hope it happens.

[00:30:43] Jim Kwik: We could actually design it. So my, the principle behind this with our teaching is get in the habit of taking the nouns in our life and turning them into verbs. Where you don’t have motivation, you do it. You don’t have focus. Like people say I hope I have focus today so I could do what I need to do for work.

[00:31:00] Jim Kwik: You don’t have focus, you do it. You don’t even have a memory. There’s a process for remembering and the benefit of taking the nouns in your life and turning them into verbs is it gives you your power back. It gives you your agency back because if you ever are stalled or you’re not making progress, you could say Hey, I don’t have to hope because hope’s not, it’s a horrible strategy, right?

[00:31:19] Jim Kwik: But then you could say, Oh, how do I do this? How do I remember this? Or how do I focus better? And then it just opened. You don’t even have energy. You do it. There’s a process for generating more energy in your mind and your body. Thank you. FLO is a wonderful place. That’s why we wanted to document a lot of the research done on from Mihaly Mieczek and his work.

[00:31:39] Clay Finck: And I just wanted to bring it present in the book because part of being limitless is accessing those states. Yeah, you Just made me realize. Why I liked your book so much, it’s just so easy in this world to just be a victim you have all these pressures and it’s just so many pressures you have to fight and you’re thrown into the world and you have to figure a lot of stuff out on your own and then you run across a book like this and you just have a tool to add to your toolkit and add all these frameworks for if you want to achieve flow state, then here’s a framework to do that.

[00:32:11] Clay Finck: And there’s just so many examples of reading, learning. 

[00:32:16] Jim Kwik: And again, how we open the conversation, a lot of these, I really think every chapter in this book should have been taught back in school, how to reframe your limiting beliefs, right? How to motivate yourself, how to find more purpose, how to have more mental energy, how to access, how to change your habits or break limiting habits or how to access flow.

[00:32:34] Jim Kwik: That would have been a fun class to take and certainly more practical because you could apply it towards everything when somebody can learn how to learn. Thanks. They can focus, remember, read, understand. They can apply it towards money, management, marketing, medicine, martial arts, Mandarin, music.

[00:32:48] Jim Kwik: Everything gets so much easier when you can learn how to learn. 

[00:32:52] Clay Finck: I’m reminded of a story. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates were once together, and they were asked to share one word that was most essential to their success. And they both wrote down the word focus. And we all know that you need to focus if you want to succeed or achieve whatever it is you want to achieve.

[00:33:10] Clay Finck: And I’m just reminded that technology has made it more and more difficult for us to focus with the notifications, the emails, the social media, the list goes on. So talk to us about how we can improve our focus and improve our concentration muscle. 

[00:33:28] Jim Kwik: I’ve had this conversation with Bill Gates. We’ve had the opportunity to meet a number of times, share stages, and I ask him about, always about the power of reading and how it’s a wonderful way to just learn from other experts, right?

[00:33:40] Jim Kwik: The shortcut, everything. And focus is definitely a big issue, even when it comes to reading. If you ever read a page in a book, got to the end and just forgot what you just read, and you reread it and you still don’t remember what you just read, a lot of it’s not our memory, it’s our paying attention.

[00:33:53] Jim Kwik: Because sometimes people read so slowly that when you’re reading, and we have the largest online accelerated learning academy in the world and where we teach this and we have students in every country, so we have a lot of data. We actually found that the faster readers actually had better comprehension because they had better focus.

[00:34:09] Jim Kwik: Because when you’re learning too slow, you’re feeding, let’s say you’re reading and you’re feeding this amazing supercomputer, right? 86 billion neurons, and each one has upwards of 10, 000 synaptic connections, more connections than there are stars in this universe, right? We’re feeding this incredible supercomputer, one word at time.

[00:34:31] Jim Kwik: Metaphorically, we’re starving our brain. And if I was to talk that slowly during this conversation, people would lose their focus. Their mind would wander somewhere else or they would fall asleep. But that’s what they’re doing when they’re reading. They’re reading too slowly. And so we talk a lot about focus.

[00:34:44] Jim Kwik: There’s a whole chapter dedicated to it. And it’s interesting because I don’t know, Clay, but when you were a kid, do you ever play with a magnifying glass on a sunny day outside and maybe burn like leaves or something like that? And so they can burn like not other toys or ants or stuff, but you could burn like leaves or stuff.

[00:34:59] Jim Kwik: But that point that’s doing the burning is very sharp. It’s very it’s very bright. And it’s interesting, the words that we choose to use going back to the vocabulary when we’re talking about earlier about got to get, or counting the word yet, when we use the word sharp and bright to describe people who are smart, they’re intelligent, but maybe they’re not smarter or more intelligent, maybe they’re better focused.

[00:35:20] Jim Kwik: And that’s the power of focus. And one of the things people could do to improve their focus, think about your brain as a, it’s mostly a deletion device. And what I mean by that is there’s a billion stimuli you could pay attention to at any given time, especially with our phones. Every ring, ping, ding, app notification, social media alert is driving us to distraction, right?

[00:35:39] Jim Kwik: What we decide to let in, there’s like a gatekeeper. And that gatekeeper is a part of your brain called the RAS, reticular activating system. It lets in the things that are important to you. And it’s really driven, one of the tools to access more of it is by asking better questions. As we talked about. The power of questions and how questions can lead to better answers.

[00:35:59] Jim Kwik: And when you ask a different question, you’ll get a new answer. And so when you ask questions, a lot of times it shines a spotlight on something that you weren’t really paying attention to before. And so I have something in the book called your dominant question theory, where we have about 60, 000 thoughts a day.

[00:36:15] Jim Kwik: And a lot of those thoughts come in the form of questions that we ask ourselves. And it’s my theory that there’s one question that we ask more than any other question. in a day. And some of it is conscious, some of it’s unconscious. So for example, a friend of mine looked at it and said her dominant question was, how do I get people to like me?

[00:36:34] Jim Kwik: How do I get this person to like me? Now, people listening, they don’t know this person. They don’t know what they look like or what their job is or where they live or anything, but you would know a lot about a person. If a hundred times a day, they ask myself, how do I get people to like me? Because she’s signing a spotlight on answers.

[00:36:50] Jim Kwik: So what would you guess Clay is like? Some of her, the facets of her personality. What would you think her day to day? And if somebody was just obsessed with how do I get this person to like me? 

[00:36:59] Clay Finck: Yeah, it’s a very external viewpoint, very worried about what’s going on externally. 

[00:37:05] Jim Kwik: Very much and her personality changes depending who she’s spending time with because she wants the person to like them. And she’s ends up. people pleasing, she’s a sycophant, she’ll, she’s a martyr, people take advantage of her all the time, and you know all this stuff about her, and you only know one question that she asks herself, her dominant question, and so my question for everyone who’s listening, obviously, is, what do you think your dominant question is?

[00:37:29] Jim Kwik: What do you think the question that is that you’re asking all the time, like when you’re stressed, or in certain situations, or even when you’re calm, what’s the question that always comes up and percolates up to the top? And for me, growing up with a traumatic brain injury, I had migraines every day when I was a kid, I thought that was normal.

[00:37:45] Jim Kwik: I had balance issues and I never knew the answer. So my dominant question was like, how do I not get noticed? How do I become invisible? Because I don’t want to be called on in school, right? And I don’t want to be bullied out in the school yards. And that informed my behavior. I was shrinking down and collapsing.

[00:38:01] Jim Kwik: I would always sit behind the tall kid in school. So that dominant question, I would get answers. And people are asking like, why am I so dumb? Or, why does this always happen to me? Learning to get a certain quality of answer. As opposed to for me, my questions shifted over time. It was like, I have a broken brain, so I started asking, how do I fix this?

[00:38:19] Jim Kwik: I’m a very slow learner, how do I learn better? And I started getting answers, and answers. And even when you read something going back to focus, if you read something and forget what you just read, are you asking enough questions about what you’re reading? Because if you did, you would say, oh, there’s an answer, there’s an answer, there’s an answer.

[00:38:35] Jim Kwik: So I do believe that it’s not just about time management, it’s about mind management, and part of mind management is controlling not only our negative self talk, but also the questions that we ask. on the repeat. And so it might be fun for people to just meditate and think about the questions and just be self aware when you’re facing a challenge.

[00:38:53] Jim Kwik: Where does your mind go? What do you ask yourself? Because that’s what thinking is. It’s just always asking and answering your own questions. 

[00:39:00] Clay Finck: And another tip you shared that I found quite useful, you talked about how your mind is pretty good at remembering the beginning and end of a reading session. And we forget quite a bit of.

[00:39:13] Clay Finck: what’s in the middle. And then you also combine this idea of our concentration tends to wane anywhere between 10 to 40 minutes into a reading session. So I found it helpful just to have sort of the science and framework to back up. Oh, we should probably read in like a 25 minute session, something like that, give or take, depending on the person.

[00:39:32] Clay Finck: And we’re able to take advantage of that retention curve and then naturally give our brains a break when the distractions and the concentration start to fade away. 

[00:39:43] Jim Kwik: So it’s there are three things that Gerbal mentioned the science because everything we want to anchor it back into the brain science because this is obviously what’s doing all the thinking and learning is our brain.

[00:39:53] Jim Kwik: So there’s something called primacy and recency. And primacy says that we tend to remember things in the beginning of something. So if I gave you a list of 30 words to memorize, like people have challenged me or a hundred words or a hundred names, you probably remember the first few, that’s primacy, prime, like one first, right?

[00:40:10] Jim Kwik: Recency says you tend to remember things at the end of something. So if I gave you a grocery list of 30 things, you probably remember the last few things too, the things that are most recent. Or if you went to a party and met 20 strangers, probably remember the first people there and the last people that you met there.

[00:40:24] Jim Kwik: All right, primacy recency. What does that mean? It’s the challenges when we’re studying. I don’t know about you back in school, but a lot of people crammed, right? They didn’t study for weeks and then they six hours straight without taking a break. The problem with studying for six hours straight is you remember things in the beginning and at the end, and then there’s a big dip in the middle.

[00:40:42] Jim Kwik: And so how you pick up that retention and understanding in the middle is you take a little brain breaks, like maybe every. 30 minutes, maybe max every hour, right? And what you do is you create more stops and starts. You create more primacy and recency, and that allows you to do it. And the technique is called the Pomodoro technique.

[00:41:01] Jim Kwik: The Pomodoro technique is, and I actually, Pomodoro means tomato, actually. So people watching this video have a tomato cooking timer. For the kitchen. And I just set this when I want to do like focused work. I’ll set it for 45 minutes or 40 minutes. And then when I’m done, then I’ll take a five minute brain break.

[00:41:18] Jim Kwik: And what do I do during that brain break? I’ll do three things. I will move my body because I think they say sitting is a new smoking and we’re sitting all day behind screens and all the blood is pulling to our legs as away from our brain, which was where we need it. You move your body. I also will get some fresh air.

[00:41:34] Jim Kwik: Because sometimes we’re tired when we’re talking about leaders or readers. Some people don’t read because they put them to sleep. And part of it is their posture. It’s like when they’re reading something, they’re collapsed. And the lower one third of your lungs absorbs two thirds of the oxygen. So a lot of people are just getting exhausted because they’re not getting enough.

[00:41:49] Jim Kwik: air and oxygen to their blood flow to their brain. And then finally, I will hydrate. You’ll notice like if you’re watching this video, I’m just always drinking because your brain is 75 percent water. And on our podcast recently, we had a neuroscientist nutritionist, Dr. Lisa Mosconi, and she was like, even a 2 percent dip in your hydration, you’re like you’re dehydrated, just 2 percent could affect your cognitive performance.

[00:42:11] Jim Kwik: And just staying hydrated could boost your reaction time, your thinking speed upwards of 30%. So it’s so very important. So I’ll do that for I’ll move, I’ll do some deep breathing exercises and then clear the mental cobwebs. And then I will to hydrate and I’ll come back refreshed and I’ll start another Pomodoro another 25, 30, 40 minutes of dedicated work and focus.

[00:42:34] Jim Kwik: And I feel like my energy levels are really peaked throughout the day. 

[00:42:39] Clay Finck: I wanted to talk more about reading. Our listeners generally just love reading. Obviously there’s the benefits of what you learn and you talk about also just the extreme benefits it gives to our mind and our body and our longevity.

[00:42:55] Clay Finck: You think about how retirees once they retire, many of them just have this tendency to wither away because they aren’t keeping their brains active. And I pulled this quote from your book where he said, reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. So I’d love for you to expand more on this and expand on the benefits of reading.

[00:43:14] Jim Kwik: I’m a big, obviously fan. I didn’t read a book throughout school, all through high school never came close to finishing a book. And so again my teachers would have been surprised if I read a book, much less wrote a book. What I would say about reading is the through line.

[00:43:31] Jim Kwik: As your show talks about with all these successful investors and entrepreneurs, that if for them, their business to grow, that they need to grow, and I think it’s the best way. So reading is to your mind would exercise your body. What I mean by that is the reason why everything is possible for all of us is this thing called neuroplasticity.

[00:43:48] Jim Kwik: Neuroplasticity is the phenomenon that says that our brains are malleable like plastic in a good way. That when we’re exposed to new ideas, a person’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. Oliver Wendell Holm said that. And so I think reading is a wonderful way to get new ideas, new facts, new insights.

[00:44:08] Jim Kwik: And your brain cells that fire together, they wire together. And so when you’re reading something, so you grow through, your brain grows like your body grows. If you want to build a muscle, you give it two things are required. You have to give it novelty and you have to give it nutrition, right? You give it novelty, you work it out, you exercise it, and then you give it.

[00:44:26] Jim Kwik: nutrition so it could nourish, right? What you nourish flourishes. The same thing with your mental muscles. And I’m not a big fan of a lot of brain training apps, like matching colors and shapes, because I don’t see the, it’s not shown to be able to actually go from that to other things that you need to for your work or anything else like that.

[00:44:47] Jim Kwik: That’s why we focus on areas that are highly relevant and measurable, like remembering names or learning a language or improving your business vocabulary, giving speeches without notes, remembering client information, product information, reading three times faster, because all that stuff is measurable, right?

[00:45:00] Jim Kwik: You can measure someone’s reading comprehension, their focus and everything. But going back to the power of reading, it gives you those, that novelty constantly. And I’m a big believer also in doing nonfiction and fiction. When I first learned these skills, I was reading every nonfiction book you could imagine.

[00:45:12] Jim Kwik: And over the years, I really, I started studying research and just also personal satisfaction from reading fiction reading. Fiction reading, where nonfiction you learn through information, fiction you learn through imagination, and fiction reading actually has been shown to improve your EQ, your emotional quotient, it builds higher levels of empathy, and fosters curiosity and perceptual positions, because you get to, through the narrative of fiction, you get to see things from other people’s point of view, which is so important in business and so important in life.

[00:45:42] Jim Kwik: The big challenge, though, is people aren’t scheduling their reading, and I think, to read a book a week, Let’s so we triple everyone’s reading speed with better comprehension through our academy. And you could still read a book a week which is 52 books a year when the average person is reading two books a year and somebody’s reading 50 books a year.

[00:45:59] Jim Kwik: That person’s reading 50 books has just a clear advantage. I don’t think anyone would debate that because once you know something, you can make better decisions because you’re based on, it’s like this gap between, yes, there’s some people who have and those who have not, but there’s also the gap between those who know stuff and those who don’t know.

[00:46:14] Jim Kwik: And those who know stuff can make better choices. With their finances, their investments, their health, whatever. And so one of the things I would say is when you’re reading something, you’re building these new connections is to, you also have to schedule it because one of the most important productivity tools we have is our calendar.

[00:46:30] Jim Kwik: And so people will schedule investor meetings or zoom meetings or. PTA meetings with for their kids, but they’re not scheduling their personal growth. And I also think you don’t have to just schedule like you’re learning, but you should also be scheduling your execution. I think for every hour someone spends listening to a podcast or reading a book or an audio book or something else, they should spend an equal hour.

[00:46:52] Jim Kwik: applying what they learned and get in the habit of learning something, saying, how can I use this? Why must I use this? When will I use this? And then things really take care of itself. The one stipulation I would say is I do all my nonfiction reading during the day and my fiction reading at night. Cause I, when I’m at night and I have a whole evening routine, millions of people could see it on YouTube.

[00:47:11] Jim Kwik: I’ve viewed it. It’s just, I want to get in that sleep, parasympathetic rest and digest so I can restore and then be. Refresh the next day and I don’t wanna read nonfiction ’cause it gets me in my kind of my executive brain and I want to get more in that kind of relax. And so fiction reading does that really well for me.

[00:47:28] Clay Finck: I’ve met a number of people that consume a lot of audio books, especially at High speeds. Do you have a view on reading versus audio books? 

[00:47:38] Jim Kwik: Yeah, I do. And again, I’ve been doing this for 32 years. So we have a lot of data. Most people actually, if they’re reading properly, they’ll get more out of reading a book and then they will listening to it.

[00:47:49] Jim Kwik: And one of the reasons why is a lot of times when people are watching TV or listening to something, they’re not active. In doing it, but reading, you really have to be active. And so we don’t just teach speed reading. We teach smart reading, but that aside, a lot of times when people listen to a podcast or listen to an audio book, when they’re tested, they don’t do as well if they read the physical book, usually because one of the obvious kind of the elusive obvious is usually when they’re listening to something, they’re doing something else.

[00:48:14] Jim Kwik: Like they’re working out and changing plates or working on their treadmill, or they’re driving, so they’re multitasking or they’re cleaning the house. They’re doing something other than just listening to that book. But if you’re reading a book, you’re not driving.

[00:48:27] Jim Kwik: If you’re reading a book, you’re not working out and doing you’re bench pressing and stuff. So one of the reasons why, if you’re going to listen to an audio book. And you’re doing it for the study and the information. It’s best to just not multitask and just do that one task.

[00:48:41] Jim Kwik: But it’s interesting that people could, going back to your point, they can listen to it at faster speeds. 1. 25 or 1. 5 or 2x. Because we can understand that fast, but most people can’t read that fast. But I’ll tell you why, though. It’s because of something called sub vocalization. You ever notice, Clay, when you’re reading something, you hear that inner voice inside your head reading along with you?

[00:49:02] Jim Kwik: Hopefully it’s your own voice, it’s not like somebody else’s voice in there. If you have to say the words in order to understand them, that means your reading speed is limited to your talking speed, but not your thinking speed. Now the question becomes, do you have to say computer or New York City in order to understand what those words mean?

[00:49:18] Jim Kwik: And the answer is absolutely not. It’s like when you’re driving and you see a stop sign on the corner, you don’t say to yourself stop. Nobody listening says to themselves stop. But do they understand what it means? 100%. So 95 percent of what you’re reading every single day are like that stop sign. They’re what they call sight words by sight, you don’t have to pronounce them by sound in order to understand them.

[00:49:38] Jim Kwik: And so like leaders are readers, which is a big theme of your show. John F. Kennedy, President Kennedy was a very fast reader. He was said, the average person reads 200, 250 words per minute. He was said to read 600 to upwards of 1200 plus words per minute. And he also is on record as having one of the fastest speeches in American history.

[00:49:56] Jim Kwik: But if he could talk at 300 words per minute, but read at, let’s say a thousand words per minute, there are 700 words per minute. He’s not pronouncing because, and think about most of the words, like it’s like reading something you don’t. pronounce like the punctuation marks. You don’t say when you’re reading question mark or semi colon or period or exclamation point, but you understand what they mean.

[00:50:15] Jim Kwik: They’re symbols, all those other words. And they’re, but because of this they’re all these symbols. So we don’t have to take the time to pronounce those words, but we had to do it back in school. When we first learned how to read because the teacher needed to know you’re pronouncing the words correctly, so you had to read out loud, but then the teacher said, okay, class, read quietly to yourself or read silently to yourself.

[00:50:36] Jim Kwik: And that’s where you learn. If I had to say it out loud, if I’m not saying it out loud, I have to whisper it or say it inside my own head. But that’s why people are such poor readers because the last time they upgraded their skills, we took a less time you took a reading class, most people are six or seven.

[00:50:50] Jim Kwik: So the demand has increased a lot, the difficulty has increased a lot, but how we’re reading it is exactly the same as when we last were trained. And that’s why I feel like you’re not born with the ability to read. And so how do you develop any skill? You do it through proper training. 

[00:51:06] Clay Finck: Earlier, you mentioned the idea of reading a page and not remembering what it is you just read.

[00:51:11] Clay Finck: And I think another issue is just people read books and tend to forget so much of what they just read, which is, I feel like is normal to some degree, just because there’s so much content in a book. So what do you usually teach in terms of retention and increasing retention? 

[00:51:27] Jim Kwik: I’ll give you two quick tips.

[00:51:28] Jim Kwik: And obviously the book goes way more into detail and obviously our courses are 21 to 30 days. So it’s the difference between a tip and a training, right? You get a little tip to move the needle a little bit. Training is where it’s just much you know how to type, you know how to type, right?

[00:51:42] Jim Kwik: It takes just a few weeks, 15 minutes a day. But if you want greater comprehension and speed, first use a visual pacer and ask everyone to test it. Don’t trust everything I’m saying. Pick up where you left off, put a little mark in the margin where you left off of your latest book. And then read, set your timer to go off in 60 seconds, and then when you’re done, the alarm goes off, put a little mark in the margin, and then count the number of lines you read in 60 seconds.

[00:52:06] Jim Kwik: So that’ll give you a base rate. Now, when you pick up where you finished, I want you to do, just continue reading for 60 seconds, but this time, underline the words with your finger. You don’t have to touch the screen on your ebook, or you don’t have to touch the paper. Just going margin to margin.

[00:52:20] Jim Kwik: Don’t skip anything. And count the number of lines you read in the second 60 seconds. That number, right? is usually 25 to 50 percent greater. And that’s not a small amount. Improving anything 25, 50 percent is a huge amount because time is money and reading takes time. And the average person, the reason why we do all this training at Facebook, Nike, Google, SpaceX, these companies is the average person reads four hours a day just to keep up.

[00:52:44] Jim Kwik: Think about everything you read in the media or emails or research, whatever you have to read, right? You can just double your reading speed. Save two hours a day. Goodness, two hours a day over the course of a year, even if you save one hour a day over the course of years, 365 hours. If you divide that by a 40 hour work week, that’s more than nine weeks you get back every single year.

[00:53:03] Jim Kwik: Two months you get back every single year on something ubiquitous like reading. So that’s why reading is such a needle mover, not just to exercise your brain, not just for learning new information and knowledge that you could turn into profit, but to save you time. But going back to this, using your finger while you read, just going left to right or a pen or a highlighter or a mouse on a computer, our eyes are attracted to that motion.

[00:53:21] Jim Kwik: It helps us to focus. And because we have better focus, we have better comprehension. Literally, people using their finger will say, I feel more in touch with my reading. But the second thing, going back to the power of questions that will help your comprehension, is to ask more questions. Even when you’re reading something, the three questions I ask myself all the time is how can I use this?

[00:53:37] Jim Kwik: If I’m listening to this podcast, I’m like, how can I use this? How can I apply this? Why must I, going back to motivation and purpose, so I could feel it, all the benefits. And then, when will I? And I’ll put it into my schedule, in my notes, and I’ll put something in, saying I’m gonna apply this one idea with the team on this.

[00:53:54] Jim Kwik: day and time. And so if you want greater speed, use your finger while you read. If you want better comprehension, ask more questions. That’s why even when we do like test prep, people read like pages of paragraphs and then reading comprehension questions at the end. But what if you ask those, what if you read those questions first and then you go through and you’re like, Oh, there’s an answer.

[00:54:13] Jim Kwik: There’s an answer. There’s an answer. That’s why every single chapter of Limitless, it’s not just teaching you accelerated learning. It’s doing it. Every chapter opens up with three questions. So it gets you priming that reticular activating system, so it’s yours, you’re looking for those answers when you go through it.

[00:54:29] Jim Kwik: And then we do at the end a summary of it and how we can apply it and throughout every page or every other page there’s something called Kwik Starts, my last name, Kwik Starts, something you do in 60 seconds to apply it. Because we want to get it ingrained, so it’s not only a book on accelerated learning, it’s a book that’s actually designed and written to learn faster, just because that’s how our brain works.

[00:54:50] Clay Finck: I know you work a lot with organizations and working with groups, but I believe you’ve also worked with investors and wealth managers as well. I’m curious if there’s anything that stuck out in working with them that seems to be a common theme because each group or each profession’s kind of gonna be a unique bunch.

[00:55:07] Jim Kwik: This is a new chapter in the book is all about cognitive types and it’s a new model that I introduced. I’ve always used it with our one-on-one clients for years. And this is the first time we’ve. It opened it to the public and this is an interesting thing that allow everybody to have greater productivity and performance throughout the year because I realized after three decades of as a brain coach, everybody learns a little bit differently, right?

[00:55:32] Jim Kwik: And just like with our diet, everyone’s a little bio individual. Some people certain foods and they thrive on it. Other foods they’re not because of their microbiome. So just like there’s personalized medicine based on your genetics. like a test for your genetics, or there’s a test for your microbiome that would inform personalized nutrition.

[00:55:48] Jim Kwik: We created a personalized assessment for your brain type. And we realized that there are about four buckets, and I use animals for each of these. And you could see the leaders, kind of these individuals that are big investors, they run big companies, or they’re founders, what animals they exhibit. So I’ll just make it really simple.

[00:56:06] Jim Kwik: Remember the word CODE, C O D E. Maybe you can see yourself in one of these. They’re the animals. So the C stands for cheetah. So this quick assessment, you can go to mybrainanimal. com. You can take it for free with the release of the new book. We’re just making it available complimentary and you’ll get personalized instruction on how to read faster, improve your memory, make better decisions, hire better, parent better based on your brain type.

[00:56:30] Jim Kwik: Okay? Mybrainanimal. com and you’ll get a whole track, a follow up in terms of based on your brain type. So the first animal, the C is the cheetah. And the defining characteristic is they are fast implementers. Okay, so these are people who are known for their speed, their agility they’re quick to make decisions, they have very strong intuition, they adapt very quickly, they thrive in fast paced environments.

[00:56:53] Jim Kwik: The O in code are your OWLs, and their defining trait is logic. They love data, they love facts, they love figures, they love research, they’re very studious. The D in code are your dolphins, and their defining characteristic is creativity. And so these are individuals that are great pattern recognizers.

[00:57:11] Jim Kwik: These are often your founders that have a vision for something maybe other people can’t yet see. Like a Walt Disney. The E, finally, are your elephants, and your elephants, the defining trait is empathy, and they have high EQ, and they’re very compassionate, they’re very loyal, these are your community builders, these are individuals that support others, they want you.

[00:57:32] Jim Kwik: people to feel seen. They want them to feel understood and feel valued, right? So once you take the quiz, you’ll see what your primary and secondary is. Doesn’t mean you don’t have other characteristics, but it’s just if you’re right handed, doesn’t mean you don’t use your left. It’s just, you’re more productive with your right hand.

[00:57:46] Jim Kwik: But often somebody, if you’re trying to learn something, often your brain animal is different than the teacher’s. brain animal, and it’s like you’re two ships in a night and you pass each other. You don’t even recognize the other ones there. There’s no connection, right? It’s like love languages. If you’re familiar with that, if somebody used words for affirmation and their partner happens to be acts of kindness they’re speaking a different language.

[00:58:08] Jim Kwik: And so maybe they don’t feel valued or recognized or the communication is different. So going back to answer your question, a lot of these leaders, they’ve leaned into their brain animal. If I was to like, even our team, we had everybody on our team take this assessment in four minutes. 100 percent of our customer service team, they’re elephants.

[00:58:27] Jim Kwik: They have high levels of empathy. They are community builders. They’re very supportive and loyal. Our CFO, our financial person is an owl, just loves the data and loves the numbers, right? Our CEO, my business partner, she’s a creative dolphin. She’s a visionary. And so it’s interesting if you go through this, you can even look at friends.

[00:58:45] Jim Kwik: If you watch the television show friends, it would be like the owl and the show would be Ross, scientist, professor, loves a lot of research. Cheetah would be Joey who just acts, doesn’t think about it, just acts, right? Phoebe would be the the dolphin, the creativity. the creative one. Monica would be the one that just always brings people together at her apartment.

[00:59:04] Jim Kwik: She wants to host everything. She’s the elephant if you go through it and not everybody is one thing but there is definitely a dominant trait. Jeff Bezos could be the fast cheetah, right? Cheetahs are known for their speed and their agility. He’s quick decision making rapid the rapid growth of Amazon reflects these characteristics.

[00:59:20] Jim Kwik: Elon would be, I would say is more of a creative dolphin dolphins symbolize creativity and intelligence and work in creating groundbreaking companies that he can envision. Rockets that are going to Mars. Warren Buffett, 100 percent would be a logical owl wisdom, logical thinking, his investment strategy are highly analytical.

[00:59:39] Jim Kwik: They’re based on long term predictions and body a logical owl, right? Zuckerberg could be achieved. So you can go through, but if people fall on the, and then once you know your brain type, cause here’s the bottom line, Clay, it’s not how smart you are. It’s how are you smart? It’s not how smart your kids are, your team is, it’s how are they smart.

[00:59:58] Jim Kwik: It allows people to design their life and takes the judgment off of others because they’re just working from their brain type and they’re communicating through their brain type. Like cheetahs, even their communication styles and their parent, they’re very fast to the point. They don’t beat around the bush, right?

[01:00:12] Jim Kwik: Because they don’t want to waste time, cheetahs. Owls speak in a more logical, linear fashion. They’re very organized with their thought. They take more time before they make a decision because they want to get all the facts. right? Creative dolphins would think you can communicate more in pictures and in visions, and they would read that way too.

[01:00:28] Jim Kwik: A dolphin would read for and imagine everything that they’re reading. An owl will take more time and be more deliberate. A cheetah would skim and scan, getting through the information. An elephant would read as if they’re more empathetic. They want to see what the author’s point of view is and see things from other people’s perspective and and have high level of empathy.

[01:00:47] Jim Kwik: So it informs. Everything. Parenting, hiring, managing your team. And so that’s a big part of this new book, Limitless Expanded, where we show you different ways to apply it towards your wealth towards your health, towards your learning, obviously, and and so much more. 

[01:01:04] Clay Finck: Jim, it was such a pleasure reading your book and having you on the show.

[01:01:09] Clay Finck: I read it over the past week and in preparation for this conversation, but definitely going to be revisiting it and giving it more of a in depth deep dive. So thank you for joining me. Really appreciate it. For those in the audience that want to get connected with you and check out the book, where should they head?

[01:01:25] Jim Kwik: Thank you. If you go to limitlessbook. com. or anywhere where you buy books. We’re donating the proceeds, the author proceeds to charities. Built schools. For the last book, we built schools in Ghana, Guatemala, Kenya, also Alzheimer’s research in memory of my grandmother who I lost when I was a child also.

[01:01:40] Jim Kwik: So it’s just, I believe part of the process is you learn to earn to return. And so I would challenge everybody actually take a screenshot wherever you’re consuming this right now. And. Tag us both in it. I’m at Jim Kwik, K W I K, and share your brain animal. After you get the book or you go at mybrainanimal.

[01:01:57] Jim Kwik: com, you’ll get some AI art for each animal. It’s if you’re watching this on video, we have we have the, we have the cheetah and we have the different animals represented, but you could post it and tag us so we get to see it. And then I’ll repost some, and I just don’t want to thank you.

[01:02:12] Jim Kwik: But yeah, social media, limitlessbook. com, mybrainanimal. com. 95 percent of what we publish out there is absolutely free. We’re on a mission to build better, brighter brains. No, no brain left behind. So this is a fun conversation. I appreciate it, Clay. My final words really are that there’s a version, I’m talking to the listener, that there’s a version of yourself that’s patiently waiting.

[01:02:32] Jim Kwik: And the goal is we show up every single day until we’re introduced. And so every single day, small, simple steps, little by little, a little becomes a whole lot. I love it. 

[01:02:44] Clay Finck: That’s a good place to end it. Thanks so much, Jim. 

[01:02:46] Jim Kwik: Thanks, Clay.

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