Jim Kwik on How to Learn Faster and Forget Less by Unleashing Your Inner Genius

if you realized how powerful your mind was you wouldn't say or think something you didn't want to be true and because all thoughts become things and it's not to say that if you have one bad negative thought it's gonna ruin your life any more than eating that doughnut we talked about wood but it's the consistency of it yeah because our thoughts are that powerful our imagination is so powerful so here's the thing entrepreneurs leaders salespeople we all want to create consistent repeatable and scalable ways to grow our business and our income and we want to do it better faster and more seamlessly why so we can actually enjoy our lives take vacations and spend the quality time that we want with the people that we love how do we do all this without spending a fortune or running ourselves ragged that's the big question and this show is dedicated to the answer hey thanks so much for checking out today's podcast today I'm talking to Jim quick now if you know that name you know that his story is absolutely fantastic and his insights are nothing shy of genius this is a young boy or a young man who when he was five years old had a traumatic brain injury and spent the next 15 16 years being known as the boy with a broken brain well could you imagine being told that at 5 years old you got a broken brain and it took you 3 or 4 years to learn to read where all your peers had already had it down and this guy has transformed himself from a broken brain to someone that movie stars politicians entrepreneurs people come to him and they say Jim how can I improve my memory like Jim can do seminars and memorize a hundred people's names in the room and in this interview he tells you how he's also the guy that if you want to speed read you want to absorb more content you want to learn faster you want to retain that information and be able to pull it out in a moment's notice which by the way makes you a fascinating individual to spend time with and a much more attractive salesperson and sales leader so I'm super pumped if you've never been exposed this guy you are in for an absolute treat we went full form we literally said to each other hey how much time 45 minutes to an hour and I think we've finished at two hours so buckle up listen in digested in your own time and welcome to my interview with Jim quick Hey hey Jim thank you so much for joining us today I am so grateful so pumped rich is out of his mind just you know over here like rich is like we're getting Jim quick in the office on the podcast so for the for the few people out there that don't have contacts for you would you take a minute and just kind of like who is Jim quick yeah Jim Jim is a it's Jim is really grateful to be here first of all I love hearing your incredible team I love your energy not only your vitality but your presence you know I respect not only what you do but the manner you do it Jim is a former struggling student and who is will work his his butt off to be your brain coach yeah literally for everyone listening I am you know it's interesting when people see me live on stage and I know it's familiar ground for you I I do this dead these demonstrations and I just posted one on Instagram today where I am memorized like a roomful of people's names yeah or the audience will give me some daunting list of words 100 and 100 words hundred numbers and I'll memorize them forwards and backwards but I always tell people I don't do this to impress you I really do is to express to you what's possible because the truth is like many people shares that this is available to all of us mm-hmm if you know the challenges we weren't taught yes you know we weren't taught how to remember names how to read faster how to have better focus how to think more clearly how to solve problems you know school was a great place to learn as you know what to learn but not as I how to learn exactly I think if there's if there is a skill to really get good at in the 21st century it's our ability to learn faster because the world is changing so fast but the reason why I know it's available for all of us is because I grew up with learning difficulties at the age of five I had an accident in kindergarten writing class a really bad fall yeah and I had a traumatic brain injury and I was never the same my family said I am I was put in special classes teachers would repeat themselves four or five times yeah you know I would pretend to understand but I didn't really stand anything yeah I had poor focus my mind was everywhere I had trouble remembering things it it took me extra three years to learn how to read you know it which is really traumatic as a kid when you're a member those circles back in school those reading circles we're gonna pass around a book and you have to read out loud yeah every time that book got closer and closer and closer I was just like palms are sweaty it's stressing I mean it's what I like now it was like I think actually that's where a lot of public speaking comes from those reading circles sure they think about it no one was really great at it but now we learned early on that you know we're vulnerable and um when all eyes are on you so I would when the book came to me I would actually just look at it and it would stop it's just stare at it it feels like you know eternity and I would just pass the book on because I didn't those words didn't mean anything at the age of nine I remember in class the teacher pointed to me in front the whole class and said that's the boy with the broken brain and you know talk about negative thoughts you know parents have to be adults any adult has to be very careful with their external words because they become a child two internal words yeah so I know we've talked about this these this negative chatter we have in the critic we have inside of our mind you know we were not born you know with those things inside there we're blank slate but it got imprinted on me and I remember how it manifested was every time I did badly on a quiz or test which was all the time every time I was in picked for sports which was all the time it would be I would say it's because I have the broken brain that became my inner dialogue but when I got became here when I turned 18 I wanted to make a fresh start I was a freshman in college and I wanted to show the world show myself that I could really do it make my parents proud they had dead immigrated here you know that you know that story we didn't speak the language we live in the back of a laundromat didn't have them they'd have the money didn't have the education and how many kind of resources or anything like that or know anybody but um so I want to make him proud and I did worse and I was ready to quit school because I didn't even have the money to be in school and I thought there was just something wrong with me and when I was ready to quit have friends like hey I'm going home this weekend to see my family why don't you come with and get some perspective and this word perspective when we're talking about accelerated learning I know we're going to talk about how to have focus and remember names and and and you know master your day it's some perspective it helps have a different point of view when you change people when you change place and so I go and the family is pretty well off father walks me around his property before dinner and ask me a simple question and that's another thing perspective the power of questions and he asked me a question which was the worst question he asked me at the time he says Jim House cool which is like you know it I just start bawling because I have so much pent-up pressure and I tell my whole broken brain story and how I was gonna quit school and disappoint my parents and I was really lost and he's like Jim well why you in school another question right what do you want to be what do you want to do what do you want to have what would you like to share and honestly tell him I didn't haven't I didn't have an answer because no one's ever asked me that question before sure and it's interesting in our life when we ask a new question we get new answers and I I go to answer how many pauses and he reaches in the back pocketing takes out a notebook and he takes out a couple of sheets terrorism out and makes me write down my answer and another principle of success is just writing these things down right writing out our dreams and our goals and I've never done that before and when I'm done I fold up the sheets to put in my pocket and he grabs him out of my hands and I'm freaking out because I wasn't expecting him to see I mean these are intimate things I've never even thought of myself or shared with anybody and he's reading my my darkest dream is deepest dreams you know everything you know and when I say darks but like hidden you know yeah this is shared with somebody and when he's done he looks and he's like Jim you are this close to everything on that list and he spreads his index fingers about eight inches maybe a foot apart and I'm like there's no way give me ten lifetimes I'm not gonna crack that list yeah and then you'd appreciate this telling me goes like this he puts his fingers to the sides of my my head meaning what's in between is really the the bridge garlicky and he takes me into of his home that I've never seen before you would love it it's ceiling to floor wall-to-wall covered in books yeah like I've never seen a library in somebody's house before yes and keep in mind I'm never finished a book cover to cover I'm phobic of like yeah it's like walking through me yeah I mean from an early day right I was traumatized like a lot of us were struggling you know we don't know why we're struggling in certain ways why we don't make the calls or we procrastinate or he self-sabotage but for me um you know it's like walking through a room full of snakes because I'm so scared of lecture and he starts what makes it worse he starts going the shelves and starts grabbing these snakes and handing them to me and I'm looking at these titles and you'd appreciate this this is biographies of some incredible men and women in history you know and a lot but we're talking before this interview you know a lot of that generate a lot of that real like the golden era of like the Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie horse and norman vincent peale right and and so I was he says Jim I want you to read one book a week and I'm like are you kidding me how is that guy have you not listed like I'm fighting for my story no I have a broke leg granny I'm late and I always tell people people come to me all the time they're like Jim I have a horrible memory or Jim I'm getting too old or Jim not smart enough and I always tell people if you fight for your limitations you get to keep them right if you argue for your limits they're they're yours yes and I'm arguing for my story and I want a writer and I'm fighting for what I can't do he's like and he's I was like and I say you know I have all died came and do this I can't keep all of my schoolwork and he looks at me he's like Jim don't let school get in the way of Education and this was over 25 plus years ago so I didn't realize was a Mark Twain quote at that time yeah but he's like I was like that makes sense and then I came back I like still I can't fight because I commit to it I'm gonna do it and I cannot do it and very smart man he reaches into his pocket and what does he pull out he pulls out my bucket list and he starts this is I get like goosebumps I call him calm truth bombs he starts reading my bucket list out loud yeah and when you hear so weird like it's hard to describe but when I started hearing my goals my dreams my fantasies in some other person's voice and can sit out in the universe it messed with my mind my heart my my spirit something fierce what was the reaction the reaction from for you for me yeah I was like I was hearing like I've never even verbalized my own goals before because I didn't have that I didn't know where I was going or who I was when I need to be able to do what I need to be to be that person but um but when I heard those things it really you know a lot of the things on that list when I think about it and where things I wanted to do for my parents things that they could never afford or they would never even if they could they wouldn't do for themselves and with that motivation or that leverage call it what you want you know I think it's important in learning you know why going back to purpose yes you know and being clear about that and I I was never in my life but hearing those things I agree to read one book a week because I wanted to help my family and then now fast forward I'm sitting back at school and I'm sitting at my desk and I have a pile of books I have to read for midterms and then a pile of books I promised to read and I already couldn't do anything with that one pile and so what do I do you know where do I have the time I just I don't eat I don't sleep I don't work out I don't spend time with friends I don't do anything it's good for me I just live in the library and it's not very sustainable right I'm just like wasting away and one night late at night I end up passing out I was sure of exhaustion and I fell down a flight of stairs and I hit my head again and I woke up two days later Tom in the hospital and I don't know if anyone's having this appearance where they just blocked out or passed out or but I woke up and I didn't even know where I was and I thought I'd died and maybe part of me you know wished I guess I didn't know like it was everything was hard in my life you know I would I thought it was unfair I would work three times harder than it's not like I was lazy I would work but I wasn't getting I wasn't getting the results everybody else was getting and and the questions I was asking was not very empowering was like why why am I so you know stupider and why am I so slow and all these things and I would come up with those answers which weren't very empowering but I woke up in the hospital bed I lost all this I was down 117 pounds I mean I was always when I say wasting away yeah I was hooked up to all these i B's it's dehydrated and I thought there has to be a better way when I had that thought the nurse came in at that exact moment and brought me a mug of tea and on the teacup was a picture of Albert Einstein like a genius right the the opposite of what I thought I was and had one of his quotes and we've all heard it in different iterations in different forms but basically it said the same level of thinking that's created your problem won't solve your problem and again I mad made me ask a new question I was like what's my problem I was my problem really is I'm a very slow learner and I was like okay well how do I think differently about it I was like well maybe I could learn how to you know learn faster or learn better and I asked that new question I was like well how do I do that and I was like out school so I asked the nurse for a course bulletin for next semester's classes and I look at all the classes and they're all classes again on what to learn and what to think but not how to learn and how to think yeah you know math history science I mean important classes but not classes on how to study how to listen how to be able to have empathy and social intelligence and connect with somebody and you know process information take notes all that stuff and so I put my studies aside and because I wasn't doing very much good anyway and I just start studying this act of studying like I wanted to solve this riddle this puzzle how does my brain work so I quark my brain how does memory work so I could work my memories hit that first question one more time I think that's so I mean that's it's wild right because we live in an age where everyone who's listening or watching none of us are paid for completely for our brute strength it's our brain strength yes right nobody is paid for their their muscle power today maybe an agricultural industrial age but not it's not our it's not our muscle powers our mind power yes right then the faster you can learn the faster you can earn because knowledge is not only power its profit yes right and I own just me financial profit that that's obvious right but I mean all the treasures of our life and so I wanted to solve this riddle of how does my brain work so I could work my brain better because our brain is our most valuable wealth-creating asset period right and yet it doesn't come with an owner's manual No right and it's not necessary you sir friendly no and then today's day and age especially they do we live in we're all struggling with these these metaphorical supervillains we have digital overload too much information too little time like we're drowning and it taking a sip of water out of a firehose right now second thing I think a lot of entrepreneurs or you know listeners or listener can relate to it's not only digital overload but there's digital distraction obviously I mean we cannot maintain our focus in a conversation or you'll read a page in a book get to the end and just forget what you just read or you'll meet somebody get their name and they the name just disappears because we have no focus or attention and then after digital overload digital distraction there's this thing called digital dementia I mean have you heard of this new term it's in healthcare it's basically where we're so dependent and reliant on our smart devices it keeps our calendars it does simple it shows why to do list it it's a simple math for us it keeps all our phone numbers I mean just goes on and on Siri how do i exactly youtube though and so exactly and our mutual friend dr. Daniel aim and you know change a brain change your life the brain doctor he's like you know Jim you know the mention of GPS if you're dependent on a piece of technology to telling you tell you when and where to turn you're not going to doctors to get checked out when you would have memory lapse yeah you know that's that's digital dementia it's like your brain is like a muscle but it's use it or lose it but we're using here are smart devices is doing a lot of that for us it's not that I want to memorize 500 phone numbers but we've lost the ability to remember one you've lost the ability to remember conversation we lost the ability to remember what we're gonna say or what hotel room number were in and those kind of memory lapses I believe in business especially I think two of the most costly words in business or I forgot you know I forgot to do it I forgot to bring it I forgot what I was gonna say I forgot my speech I forgot that meeting I forgot that name it just goes on and on and on okay every listener know it's gone okay Jim are you gonna help me solve these things good you just basically exposed every problem that the listener and everybody those are the stuff right now these are the things that are holding us back that we don't realize are taking energy away from us yes taking our focus away taking our productivity it's stealing like our our profit yes all the time and it's not just a profit it's our joy it's our happiness it's being in the moment it's having eye contact with someone's connecting with their spouse with their prospect with their friends like we're you know I mean I carry my phone because I you know cuz I need it right right but like I don't look at it in the morning like I do my thing in the morning then I start my day right like it's like like and most people like oh I couldn't even imagine doing that right right like they get the photos like okay start the day here we go I love that because it's so how do we help them okay actually no no you got to finish okay so that how did you how did you finally solve this so here's the thing I asked it started with a question yeah you know we're talking we're talking about fundamental principles yes of just elite performance right we're talking about perspective we're talking about the power questions we're under we're talking about with that bucket list understanding our our motivation like what's most what our values are you know and then when we're thinking about so for me I was asking this question how does my brain work and I so I could work my brain so I set my studies aside and I really started studying this thing called meta learning you know meta learning it's like the science of learning how to learn yes I think it's the one thing we should all been taught back in school because it's just the world is changing so fast and you always have to retool and rethink and it's so competitive and how do you catch up keep up you know get ahead nowadays and so I started studying adult learning theory multiple intelligence theory I started studying you know it wasn't just the latest neuroscience which I'm really excited about neurogenesis neuroplasticity all our ability to create new brain cells and new connections but there's also not only the newest most modern you know studies out of these great I believe schools it was also like the ancients like what did people do before they were like there was a smartphone like what do they do before they head was a printing press yes like how did they pass on historical information through generations around campfires and so I started studying the ancient Greeks like what did what did those poets do to be able 2500 years ago what did ancient civilizations do you know you know Native Americans how did they remember things and so and so my goal and after I started learning this I started studying speed reading and mnemonics I started training with magicians I mean I really wanted to pull from a whole Gestalt of you know different methodologies and and in trainings and about 60 days into a time a light switch just flipped on and I started to understand things like really for what I felt like the first time yeah I started have better focus I started to to process information and not only process it but retain it and also apply it you know what a concept I believe the the biggest lie and the personal develop in an industry or an even performance training is this thing that we grew up with with learning saying that the saying that says knowledge is power right you know it's it's not completely accurate because knowledge in itself is not power as the potential to be power but it only becomes power when we apply it and people think that if they just buy a book or a course or whatever because the truth is all the books podcasts videos coaching programs none of it works unless we work bingo right and then it sits on the shelf and it becomes shelf help and not self-help and people think they get points you know just for getting all those books to write that down yeah but it's true I mean it's one of those things and I you know I know one of the tactics right now my challenge for everyone listening is learning is not a spectator sport now you got to get off the bench you got to do the work you know and so if knowing you know there's this cartoon GI Joe Oh everybody was added with knowing is half the battle but if knowing is half the battle the other half is is applying an action yeah and so my challenge for everyone listening is to ask yourself how can I use this you know and there's three questions because we're talking about questions are the answer to take knowledge and put it into action I just did this a podcast episode on this I ask yourself train yourself relentlessly to ask these three questions number one how can I use this so this is dealing with your head right now these are is is your creative juice like how you learn something which we're gonna talk about how to remember names how to learn faster ask yourself how can I use this the second thing I would ask yourself is going from your head into your heart why must I use this yeah because a lot of people they know what to do but they don't do what they know because common sense as we talked about it's not common practice and so like why must I use this and this is the drive right this is your values and this is what's gonna get you up like who's counting on you I listen to your recent podcasts like who's counting on you to like be your best version of yourself that's a superhero version of yourself right like so that's your why which is the second age which is at the heart and then the when you go from there to your hands head heart hands which is really the implementation you're regularly where you going from information to inspiration to implementation the sort of question you ask is even after you ask how can I use this why must I use this is when will I use this obsessively as well I think one of the most downplayed like the most powerful productivity performance tool we have is our calendar yeah but most people you know they'll schedule their doctor's appointments or client appointments or investor meetings but they'll never schedule the things that they their workouts their journaling their meditation right all the other personal growth that they have to be able to do because in you know this in order for your for your business to grow your income to grow you we need to grow right at the source and so ask yourself when will I use this so how can I use this why must I use this and then when will I use this and all it sits in your calendar it says it's not going to happen right it's just not is at the cornerstone of what I talk about is if it's not in your schedule it doesn't exist I love that so much I mean that's it like so okay so I got a backup just for a because when you have that moment the month like I felt like like a mutual friend tom bill you write like the it's neo in the matrix and when he finally realizes I can jump beyond fly I can stop bullies like you had that moment but you earned that moment because you did the work yeah can you speak to that cuz because I think people we want that like that that aha moment like right but if I don't do the work the AH doesn't show up yeah I mean the true life-changing I'm gonna speak to that yeah I can this is so that when I said there's three eyes you have information which most people have in their head they have inspiration to use that and then and this is why I love your show because it has it has both right you you inspire people but just somebody just inspire all the time people be motivated but not know what to do and if you just instruct all the time people have a lot of information but they're not inspired to use it so you need you need a balance and a blend so you have the information in your head you have the inspiration in your heart and then you have the implementation in your hands and when you have those three eyes I feel like then you could go to the the fourth eye which is really the goal for me it's integration yeah you know it becomes you maybe it's who you are and and during those 60 days of studying meta learning and speed reading and mnemonics and adult learning theory and neuroscience there was a point where it just integrated and I just you know you know where I realize where I had this like power where I could stop bullets I was in a huge lecture centre I don't talk about this but I was in a huge Electra Center you know still freshman year it's a few hundred people there and back then you know there's no there's no internet I want date myself but I remember those like overhead projectors and they had yet there's like like kind of roll them out and yes and so the teacher was putting notes on there you know for everyone to watch you know look at and take notes and the teacher professor put something on there and you know handful of seconds later I started laughing out loud no I we talk about superpowers a lot and the reason why I talk about superheroes a lot is because I couldn't read but I taught myself how to read by reading comic books yeah something about the illustrations a story good versus evil hero's journey brought the words to life and that's how I learned how to read and also God intent behind the words yes very much so you see the anger the smile the POW that we you know absolutely intention behind the words which adds so much it makes it easier to read it does easy to learn completely and I really think you know when we're talking more I never in talk about celebrate learning using all of that and makes a difference using all your senses and understanding Drive and motivation and so he puts a slide on the projector and a few seconds later I just start laughing because it growing up my superpower was really being invisible because when you do yourself as the boy with a broken brain you know and I don't think it came from this teachers mal-intent I just you know yeah I don't feel like it was it was so I own that but it's I I didn't want the attention you know I don't want to be seen or heard maybe I do deep down but I didn't want the spotlight and so and I laugh out loud and and I mean you know people look and they've seen me and they probably never paid attention to me in the whole school year and then people are like looking at me weirdly and then about 15-20 seconds 30 seconds later there was this ripple where everyone else started laughing and what we're laughing at was this slide it was like a big like a riddle joke yeah that he put on there but because I had these quote-unquote superpowers that I was developing I read it and process it really fast you know and that's when I realized I was like wow I could you know just like neo stopping bullets kind of fast and so when I got 260 days into it my grades just skyrocketed and not only my grades but my life you know what I mean that was that was the one thing that was my kryptonite that was holding me back my you know kilise heal and and when I had that moment I was actually I was cheering and happy for myself but I was also upset I was really angry because like I suffered and struggled for decade and a half my whole academic school elementary school middle school junior high high school you know it was like cry was it was always on me it was always not even just the elephant in the room the elephant was like on my shoulders that I was just disabled or challenged and everything and it affected every area of my life and and I was upset that there was simple ideas tools techniques you know capabilities I could have learned that would have made this so much easier yeah and it made me did not even understand why they didn't teach just in school how to learn you know and so I started to I started to help friends and I started a tutor because that was like my mission right because I couldn't keep this to myself anger into positive action exact exactly because I believe that you learn and then from your learn you earn then you have to return yes you know and then so I was getting all this benefit but shame on me if I know some thing that can help somebody who's suffering like I did all those years in my entire life practically and I don't share with people and so I started tutoring and one of my very first students she was a freshman and she in college she read 30 books in 30 days Wow now um that not not we're not talking like the old like no I'm not talking cliff notes I'm not talking about the skimming scam the traditional speed reading has long been associated with skimming skipping words get a gist and you know that's not like I trained world leaders and CEOs of major companies and had docked the best doctors at you know the Cleveland Clinic and all the it seems that you need to take any men to smell the content to have context to make it you don't want your you don't want your doctor get the gist of what she's reading know right and so I train people to read but she uses it so this young lady read 30 books in 30 days and really absorbed it and I wanted to find out you know I believe genius leaves clues that if somebody's successful genius is completely trainable right and they're doing other things so when I do things on stage I read a book a day and I do these kind of mental feats you know there's always a method behind what looks like magic if somebody's an incredible salesperson there's a method always if that person's conscious of it or not there's doing something other people aren't doing yes and so you follow that recipe get the same kind of results and so I didn't want to find out how she read 30 books in there I know exactly how she did because I taught her I wanted to find out why yes because I liked matters yeah it doesn't matter like I was doing this training a little while ago in Silicon Valley and when I was done Bill Gates comes up to me and I was like if you could have any one superpower what would it be and he was like Jim the ability to read faster you know the leaders are readers and Warren Buffett was like I probably wasted 10 years of my life reading slowly and maybe it's 500 pages a day you know still I mean leaders are readers and when I'm talking about trying to get people just to read and that's a thing until we like to and so he and but I want to after I asked him that about his Supra we started talking about the future of Education and Bill was like talking about from technology you know now that classrooms don't have four walls like people are watching this all around the world right and learning and and I was talking about from from a theory Adult Learning Theory meta-learning and so this group that was gathering around listening to conversation they were like you have the tools and the other theory is anything missing to change education and we talked about it some more and we came up with the same conclusion motivation yeah like understanding human motivation what drives people to do what they do why do they why do they work out why do they not work out why they procrastinate why do they buy why do they do anything right and so um so I wanted to find out this young lady's motivation and I find out that her mother her mother was dying of terminal cancer and was given two months to live sixty days and the book she was reading were books on health and wellness and alternative medicine everything because she was determined to save her mom's life that's a lot of Drive you know going back to like why I read through you know I was reading killing myself reading a book a week was just how do I help my family right and so I understood I was like wow said prayers good luck with that six months goes by I don't hear from her all of a sudden I get a call from this young lady and she's crying and she's crying cry she just won't stop and when she's done like I find out they're tears of joy that her mother not only survived but is really getting better doctors don't know how they don't know why I'm they called it a miracle but her mother attributed a hundred percent he advice she got from her daughter who learned it from all these books and at that moment that's when I realized that if knowledge is power then learning is our superpower that knowledge is power learnings are super power Reid the ability to read fast to be able to focus in number times yeah if knowledge is power learning is your superpower and it's a super power we all have inside of us you know I always tell people that your life is like an egg that if an egg is broken by an outside force life ends but if it's broken by an inside force life begins and all great things begin on the inside and everyone listening to this watching this you have greatness inside of you you have genius inside of you and I love this conversation because it's all about how do you let it out and if you're struggling you're suffering you're overloaded with all these it's not completely your fault because we weren't taught we weren't prepared we live in a world of autonomous electric cars and spaceships that are going to Mars but our vehicle choice when it comes to learning in education it's like a horse and buggy yeah you know they say a Rip Van Winkle the guy who slept for decades if you woke up today the only thing you'd recognize in our world are schools you know and this is not a slight against teachers my mother became a schoolteacher because she didn't know how to help me a special education teacher it's just because teachers are some of the most committed caring and passionate individuals that I know but it's a system issue you know that the system hasn't changed as kids and so in seven trillion dollars of the GDP the GDP of the US and 1.2 trillion dollars is on education yeah think about how pathetic that is yes and so you know it's as whoever's listening this that's why we're such big advocates on on self education and self empowerment and you know but they're the purpose of education and self growth is not learning just for learning sake it's for application and I feel like when people understand why they're learning something they're more likely to retain it and use it and so when that happened I just found my my mission you know because I wanted my my goal is really because I grew up with a broken brain when we're talking about my purpose and my purpose really is to make better brighter brains to light them up they say we use a very small percentage of our potential we use all our brain but in terms of its potential and its efficiency and effectiveness is very different and and so my goal is no brain left behind you know that's that's my purpose for being here I've done this for over 25 years and I'll be doing the next 25 years and you know I just want everyone who's listening if there's opportunity you know get one insight one idea just to be able to have you know have positive attack on your brain because your brain controls everything yes you know and that that's really my goal and say this first of all we could end right now and there's a lot of value just in that conversation right I mean we all we all hear stories of other people's issues and how they overcome them and it inspires us right to say me too right okay he did it she did it I can do it too the thing that I wrote down and so funny we had all these questions that I might forget all that so I want to talk brain optimization right how do I intensify my superpower I want to talk about specifically the elimination of ants which I know falls under brain up but I want to separate that and really hit it hard and then I want to get some super learning tips around memory retention remembering a name right remembering names which every one of these clients needs or so so you yes what do you want let's go into this um really an optimization let's do it yeah so give me give me like what are five things I should do set and I know you I've watched you know ten ways to do it yeah give me like the top five yeah I will and so this is you know and I love I love this format so it's turns to total master class so everyone is listening listening to is you're true you're driving you're you're you're at the gym or you're listening at night whatever it is as best you can take notes on this please because everyone knows there's a learning curve but there's also a forgetting curve they say the the science is saying that within two days 48 hours we lose 80% of everything that we learn because you know learning is remembering Socrates said that we're not taught it should have been the fourth are back in school reading writing arithmetic and and remembering you know retention so here here's some of them that the most powerful keys to really optimize your brain and again this is your wealth this is your wealth tool more people upgrade their phones I mean think about how often you upgrade your phones your you know your your operating system you on your computer you wait all these updates but what are people updating their brains you know their answer running on dos right now and they feel it because they feel slow compared the way the world is and so everything here is meant to you don't have to work harder it means you certainly working hard is definitely a big part of it but you want to be you know like sharpen the saw Steven Casas right you want to work smart and so the essence of this is all right number one a good brain diet all right let's start with the food that you eat yep because what you eat matters especially for your gray matter and so this isn't an area that most people aren't familiar with it's called neuro Nutrition and I did I did three shows on this and neuro nutrition is because your brain actually requires different nutrients than the rest of your body yeah and most people are not feeding their brain and they're wonder why their their brain fog they wonder why they're slow to think they're wondering why their reaction time is you know where it needs to be and so some of the some of my favorite brain foods just how does give you some I recommend everybody talks to their functional medicine doctor do you get your blood work done exactly see you know you tree and profile and then also you know your your biome you know maybe certain foods that you're eating could be creating the the challenges that you're having us and you don't that people don't know because that's your gut is your second brain yes and there's there's a huge connection between the two and so but so do that but as in general the the genius you know brain foods you have avocados right the good fats you have blueberries I call them brain berries you know and those antioxidants are very neuroprotective you have broccoli yeah which house has high levels of fiber also as well olive oil which I love olive oil after that if your diet allows eggs her very very very powerful green leafy vegetables very good and I would hope when I'm going through this like you can make your your grocery list for next time you go to the you know your grocery store you go food shopping these yours like your superbrain foods if you will but also rate yourself on a scale zero to ten when I talk about these five things how well are we doing so from there you have you have numbers I would say number seven in our wild salmon if you had a life your diet allows sardines are really good caviar is extraordinary a very high in DHA need the omega-3s that are very important from there I would say tumeric yeah the spice that golden I make in the morning sometimes I'll make this golden milk which has like tumeric pepper which helps to absorb it about 500% better a little bit of honey and some almond milk heated it's wonderful it's the lowers inflammation and really inflammation is the name of the game because you want to balance out the inflammation in your body because that leads to a lot of challenges and degenerative diseases and then from there I would say walnuts really good yeah walnuts and almonds notice a walnut also it looks like a human brain exactly which is what I said that same thanks because that's eating little brains exactly okay and so you're eating it's it's it's interesting also that the brain getting I don't get meta here yeah but it's the brain named itself which is kind of cut in staying also so also as well but there's certain foods that actually look like the organ it's serving and I don't know if this is science but it's definitely good mnemonic memory strategy like for example you cut a carrot and it looks like the human eye and carrots are good for your eyes you cut a tomato and it looks like he has four chambers like the human heart and so certain foods so you can remember that really easily because walnuts look like human brains and finally another one dark chocolate yeah what's good generally for your mood has to be dark chocolate now milk chocolate yeah tends to be good probably not as far in case you guys are good good brain diet and so flip it for a first I gotta just say so here's my here's my breakfast every day to eggs alright so I do I do take my pan out I put ghee butter in oh right then I throw like the biggest handful of spinach in it right I throw broccoli on top Wow do two eggs I open up a can of olive oil sardines put the olive oil in my dog food right serve my dog is just in seventh heaven put the balance in right and then cook it up and put a half an avocado on top I love that so alright and I that photo and people are like sardines and I'm like and I'll just tag brand of it hashtag brain for the exactly brain food right exactly and people because people wonder when they when they have challenges but I could see what we're talking about we're talking about the hardware you know and after this we could talk about the best strategy yes which is the software but you can learn you know I could teach somebody how to read three times faster or remember names but if their hardware is not in line hundred-percent and the one is if the brain is foggy there's matter how much information you take in exactly I do these conferences and I'm like guys maybe you shouldn't drink while we're at the conference we're trying to improve our brains and move forward and like you know some people like a conference is a release for right right away from their day to day their with their buddies and they party and I'm like this is not the time to be partying right it's side note flip it yeah five or six foods to avoid yeah this is on the opposite side which we're avoiding our processed foods you know generally things that like fat food or they call it fast food I think fat food yeah that's what I can I mean they people call it pretty much the s you know standard American diet the sad diet exact you want avoid processed foods really what's really bad are the probably processed oils yeah because they you know they did that really messes it's not only creating havoc on your on your heart but whatever's good for your hearts gonna be good for your your head and that's why exercise this is you know one of those five things and so yes I believe that you should all have a to-do list but it's also a not to do list yes of the things you know you say no too good so you cease yes to great which is checking your phone in the first hour of the day we talked about that but also the foods that you want to be able to avoid yeah and because it did it was just slowed you down and it's not that eating one donut is gonna ruin your life but it's the consistency compound of that absolutely absolutely because consistency compounds and so that's the good bread that's a good brain diet number two I would say I'll be ready just covered just mention it exercise yeah and it's so simple now notice that a coach doesn't always tell you something brand new but tell us to you about what you need to be doing and you know with this because it's common sense but we're not doing it so on a scale of zero to ten how's everyone doing with their not just exercise I'm not just talking about going to the gym three times a week because that that's I'm talking about movement because the primary reason we have a brain is to control our movement that's the primary reason and here's what science is showing us it's not just a mind-body connection there's a body mind connection that as the body moves your brain grooves as your body moves your brain grooves but here's the thing you've all heard you know we're all sitting behind these boxes eight hours a day and it's really tough because sitting yeah sitting is smoking exactly right they smoke sitting is the new smoking yeah and your body is meant to end so what I would recommend so what's the optimal time to be able to work to be able to study science is saying is suggesting it's about 25-30 minutes it's they called the Pomodoro Technique that after about 25-30 minutes our focus and our attention or concentration there's a dip and obviously when we start losing our focus and attention we start losing the understanding of the retention everything that comes after that so this is cascade effect and so what Pomodoro Technique is basically saying is take your phone and set an alarm to go off every twenty five thirty minutes and then when you hear it go off you don't take a thirty minute break you take a five-minute break and what do you do you do deep breathing right because prime your brain see this is the thing your brain is only 2% of your body mass but it requires 20% of the nutrients and oxygen and so deep breathing a lot of people they have brain fog and I'm talking to people listening to this you're suffering the thoughts aren't coming as clear as you want them you're forgetting simple things you know the mental energy you're suffering from decision fatigue right you can make a good decision and part of it is we're just not oxygenating and the reason why is like when people read even you know they get so tired he's reading us a sedative they get tense exactly and they count how many more pages they have left it's not a pleasant process and a lot of it some of it is just their posture when they're reading they're like slumped down and when you collapse your diaphragm people don't realize this but the lower 1/3 of your lungs absorbs 2/3 of the oxygen and so you want to be able to keep your posture up and so the challenge is most people aren't getting that oxygen so deep breathing is one thing to do they're in a five minute break you know number two I would say hydrate because going back to you know we're talking about you know good brain diet water is just if you just ain't hydrated will improve your reaction time and you're thinking 30% just staying hydrated but most people aren't hydrated because then some are super dehydrated absolutely yeah you could lose actually he doesn't hydrate you in case you guys are wondering it definitely does not and then the first thing first thing in the morning you know I try get people just to drink water because you could lose up to a pound of water through respiration and perspiration at night do you recommend lemon water I like Ike I love lemon water completely and so I'll do that or I'll pad some apple cider vinegar into it or some kind of like little sea salt but um so water and that's one also you know have a whole morning routine you know these 10 things I do every morning everybody has their own morning routine my mind specifically are to jumpstart my brain you know I get it in a right way so drinking water and I test when I take my probiotics you know for my second brain if you will but going back the third thing I do during my brain breaks so a five-minute brain break after 25 minutes study session a work session I I move I hydrate and then I I'm sorry the last one is I move and going back to exercise as your body moves your brain grew and so it's not just working out again three or four times a week in the gym it's actually making it a practice you know taking a little walk I mean there's a reasons why Steve Jobs who we were talking about before this conversation he would do these walking meetings write creativity your focus is so much better you're grounded building yeah instead of engine setup sitting down all the time and that's you know and since it takes these kind of changes but here's the thing when it comes to habits we've all heard this first you create your habits then your habits create you you create your habits a meditation of working out of eating the best foods ever and then those habits creates you back but it doesn't just create your habits it's there's meta-level where you create the habit of showing up for yourself yes you know what I mean and it's not just your habits of behavior your habits of thoughts it's your habits of feeling so instead of just having a to-do list and not to-do list well you know how about to feel this like what am i wanted what are three things I want to feel today yeah you know what about it to be list like a lot of people get too stressed out and they they're in crisis mode and they go in fight-or-flight which is not good for making good mental decisions or you know using your cognitive capacity when you're in fight-or-flight cortisol and adrenaline just literally chronic stress shuts down your brain but what I would say is like you know what are we doing to be able to alleviate that stress and also be able to just get get centered right I feel like a lot of times people are and I tweet us out the other day it's just you know we feel good maybe it's you're not burnt out or tired just because you're doing too much maybe you're doing too little the things that matter but yeah the things that make us come alive the things that spark our fire if you will and so movement is really key and so not just isolated sometimes in the gym but it's getting the habit of moving all the time because as your body moves your brain grooves we're doing these weekly challenges on Instagram right now where we're challenging people to do little things that challenge like brush your brushing your teeth with the opposite hand yes you know which is actually shown you like think about it you know when we have all these people taking pictures of themselves first thing in the morning with their opposite hand brushing their teeth but number one it forces presence so for those of you who have trouble remembering names you're the art of memories the art of attention and being present with somebody and really serving them and being being with them but a lot of people they're always elsewhere but with your brush to move to the opposite end you have to be present and it also trains you also on top of it there's these cross laterals when I'm saying as your body moves your brain grooves that using one half of your body actually stimulates the other half of your brain and so that gives you mental exercise and then the other reason I had people brush their teeth with the opposite hand is not only does it make you present and focus not only is it training your brain your opposite side of your brain but the third thing is getting used to doing difficult things like everybody and as I love your work because you do the deep work yeah and most people are trying to avoid that they want the evil the pill right but now they don't know it's it's it's not a pill it's a process and here's the thing it's just how you do anything is how you do everything and when you do get yourself to do difficult things you you know you build that grid or that resilience whatever you want to call it and so it shows up when you have to do that sales call yeah when you have to have that unpleasant presentation you know a presentation or that conversation with somebody you know so you build that up and so but I'm coming back to the power movement so number one good brain diet number two move you know move and even just brisk walk and also when you're listening to podcast like this it's been shown that if you do if you're walking when you're listening to it or you're on elliptical you're doing something rhythmic you're gonna encode it better so you're gonna remember it better also as well after that man come narrow it down to five like what's gonna though so we're big yeah if everybody just acts on completely eat the right food for your brain yeah and then follow the movement pattern yeah I love the 25-minute work yeah and stop hi Joe but I I have the other five here are the other three here we go so after that what I would say but it's gonna move the needle give you a force multiplier like in the military where Zaman input gives you multiple multiple outputs is this what they call a focal point is what's or the lead Domino if you will you hit that first domino and you have this ripple of cascading effect you know most of your life positively what I would say another one is positive peer group dude like what's great for your brain is just it's not just your neurological networks at your social networks and you know it has less to do with your biology because here's the thing this is the truth research is saying conservatively people say oh I'm too old or oh this runs in my family clear whatever genetics and biology it's only about one third of that potential two-thirds of it is what we're talking about now it's your lifestyle and we have direct influence now some people believe with epigenetics that we have a hundred percent influence on everything on how our genes express itself depending on that you know some people suggest that some of these genetic challenges or like Alzheimer's like that's like in our genetics loads the gun but our lifestyle determines whether we fire it or not right and so that makes a big difference so one third so there's no such thing as a good or bad memory there's just more of a trained memory and an untrained memory if you do the work and so good brain diet and then after that movement the third thing I would say positive peer group because who you spend time with is who you become and we've all heard that before that if you spend time with nine broke people all the time you're be careful hearing me number ten right and the reason why from neuroscience perspective is you have these things called these things called mirror neurons and they're in your in your nervous system these are your empathy your imitation neurons it's when you watch sports so you watch television or movie you could feel what the character is feeling and it's that's why kids also learn so well they imitate you right and here's the thing it's not your biological networks it's it's like whether you someone smokes or has a habit that disempowers them it has more to do with your social whether your friends friends do that yeah and so you're mirror neurons the reason why I become the people you spend time with and yet to be careful and protect yourself is because you start adopting and adapting their their habits their same behaviors their same attitudes their same thoughts their same thought patters and that's why a world exactly and that's why we become those people and so I would say on the other side and we all know this we could be around you could do all the great techniques to eat the best food ever you could be moving but if you have some energy vampires in your life and it's and sometimes it's our it's our family you know sometimes it's our friends people like why are you reading all the time like well you know why are you going to all these conferences listen to all that exactly exactly you're leaving fine exactly and and part of it I believe it can be sincere but they can be sincerely wrong you know family could love you they have some kind of secondary gain they don't want to lose you they don't want you to help grow them so much jobs in a bucket man exactly like don't don't cook too good exactly or they know once you get hurt or whatever whatever it is but but it's because we give them the power to do so and we could choose whether or not we do that and we talk about expectations and other people's expectations of us you could go broke buying to other people's expectations and opinions right that that's and you could become wealthy in the right peer group exactly wealthy health mindset relationships empathy abundance money the whole like the whole game all of it and the reason why this I believe if you're you know people are listening this right now you're amazing and I don't say that to just puff you up I say it because you're self-selecting you're doing the work exactly you're listening right most you're staying aware most people do not show up for for stuff period and certainly the other most people don't take that information and play full out but when you do what other people don't do you could have a life that other people can't have you know that's what's reserved for you and so I would say going back to you know other people's opinions it's just like when we're taking I spend a lot of time in senior centers I lost my grandmother to a timers and I don't just spend time in senior centers just to improve their memory you know I hope the caregivers and such because things that I could do but more I love first of all the wisdom because there's so much wisdom and I believe we can learn something from anybody especially people have been on this planet you know for longer than we have and so I respect that but when they share these stories it's also polishing off their memories too but also you hear these things call regrets you know and it's it's interesting because you know the biggest regret people have you know across everywhere is just they live they somehow lessen their life or didn't do certain things because of what other people would think yeah you know and I'm saying that when when we're taking when we're taking our last breaths none of other people's opinions none of our fears none of it matters what matters is how he lived how we learned how we loved and work backwards from that you know create your great day from that like what are the three things that are most important to me and how do i how do I celebrate that you know and what would have to happen today in order for me to come back you know at night somebody asked me how my day was I was like I crushed it today today was awesome like who's counting on you to play your a game right now and go you know and because when we're in that box then in our coffin there's not a lot of room for possessions but then you could bear when we have the cars and I look great you know the toys but there's certainly not a lot of room in there for regret it's you know home the - the - yeah you're born the day you die and that - is with all the memories and experiences you had yeah right my sons turning 18 in a couple days I'm like dude do you want anything for your birthday and he's like just some more memories dad Yeah right this experience toughest toughest stuff he's like let's go jump out of an airplane or something like let's just do something - that's why agreeance life that's why Tom I really I really love when people talk about memory it's and it's not just about learning facts figures formulas I mean that that's all amazing yes the humor of all of the client formation be able to gives you and then they feel like you care it's amazing but you know three areas it's not just mental intelligence its mental health and its mental fitness yes I want people to remember things that are most important time like three L's especially number one you got to remember your life because your life is worth living it's worth remembering but most people don't remember those moments most people don't remember that for breakfast now right and so I won't worry about or the 15 great things that have happened this year exactly they have a tendency they remember the the dragon that got you know that killed them or the deal that got away or the anger and their relationship at the moment yeah but I'm like well did you have any victories along the way like well yeah I went to the gym everyday and I lost two pounds and I feel better and I correct a bunch of deals I'm like but which ones taking up all your mind power exactly I mean what if you just like every single day just put like wrote a little note to yourself and at the end of day like one little thing you're grateful for and put it into like a fish you know but jar or something dad yeah at the end of the year yeah that's 365 things that you're just like here's it great the CRA's gratitude I did a whole Thanksgiving episode on how gratitude realized her brain in four ways getting intense and gratitude and it's it's interesting because what you appreciate appreciates so you do this thought experiment and just kind of close your eyes and and just ask yourself what if the only things in my life tomorrow the only things I kept tomorrow are the things I express gratitude for today you know that would get your priorities really that would dial you in because here's the thing like we've all yeah I think gratitude is the ultimate emotion because we've all won the lottery you know life a tweet with just the fact that we're listening right now everyone you want you won the lottery if you're alive listening this right now you won the lottery already yeah and so they there's this they're just saying that says gratitude is riches and complaint is poverty you know it's many when you feel great a lot of people you know they could have a lot of stuff but if they don't feel like they're their blessed and they they're Greg grateful for it they don't have a lot but you know there's a lot of people who don't have a lot of resources but they're really grateful for things that they have and they live with that vibrancy and so I would love to tell me the three L's life so first thing is remember your life a second you know is remembering your loved ones yes because those are the people that make life worth you know those magic moments you share we have people that the the family and friends that are also family family family yeah yeah yeah that become friends I become so close there you have your family in those moments and then finally a third L are your lessons you know going back a lot of people we've all heard this phrase and we've all said it before and sanity's doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different results maybe it's not insanity maybe it's just a bad memory you know you're repeating problems like we you you date the same kind of person you eat the same kind of food you eat all that make the same answer mistakes all the time because you're not remembering the lessons yeah and I would say life remember your life remember your loved ones remember your lessons because mistakes and you know you and I we've talked about this a lot in to our to our students you know mistakes we make mistakes you know and mistakes don't if necessary define us but defines us how we how we respond to Toria are we owning and are we responsible for it are we meeting I associate exactly are we learning from them all I always tell people when you make a mistake because this is what keeps people from doing things one of the things that keep people from procrastinating but it keeps them for a Senay ting is they they don't what they're fearful what other people would say and you look at a child and they'll fall fifty hundred thousand times before they learn how to be able to walk but they don't give up and they still they don't say oh I'm not gonna walk but it we tweet what happens we go through one course and we try a salespersons presentation doesn't work and we're like oh guy that's it you know I don't wanna look bad and that keeps us I do this training a lot here in Hollywood helping actors speed read scripts memorize her lines and I remember as Jim Carrey's and I was helping him with the project and we were in in his kitchen making brain food ROC molding and everything else and I asked him this question I was like why are you going back to motivation why do you do what you do and he looks at me he's like Jim I act like a complete fool on camera so extreme because I want people who are watching I want to give them permission to be themselves yes and I and he calls it he wants to free people from the concerns of other people and it's interesting because going back to the biggest regret people have is they're so concerned and so we play small and I always tell people make mistakes because it's a fear of making mistakes and looking bad make mistakes old so mistakes number one o stands for own the mistake own it to be responsible for it don't blame other people and if you if you could fix it fix it if you can apologize if you hurt somebody who pologize for it I'll own it the L in old I like acronyms obviously the L stands for learn from it because that's what mistakes are there for right it's it's not people always think failure is the opposite of success but we know that failure is part of success it's absolutely part of it and part of it is when we make mistakes we get feedback that allows us to change course and we learn from it and then we grow so make sure you learn from that mistake well what a little and ask yourself what are the lessons here and then the the D and old once you own it once you learn from it the D is don't repeat them yeah because if you make a mistake once it's a mistake but if you make it again and again and again it's a choice yes right so that's why exactly so don't don't don't repeat them make sure you and that's what I'm saying going back to remember what you want to remember your life your loved ones in your lessons is when you learn a lesson don't repeat it and use it to be able to help other people so that's going back to positive peer group so number one the five things good brain diet number two move number three be conscious of who you spend time with because on the opposite side if you around people that inspire you that are achieving they're playing a high-level yeah because here's the thing it's the thermostat man they yeah metaphor I I live my life by it yes it's the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat a thermometer on the wall just reacts the environment yes that's that's a crappy life if you're just reacting all the time and we as human beings we react something into the weather we react to the economy sometimes we react to the politics we react to how someone treats us but to the degree we're successful and I don't just mean financially I mean just happy and joyful is to degree we maintain agency yes you know we have that sovereignty in that power and that's a thermostat a thermostat is different than a thermometer thermometer reacts the environment thermostat sets it it sets it it sets a standard it sets a goal it sets a vision and then the environment raises to be able to meet that and that's why if you're listening us right now I'm willing to bet you identify more with the thermostat than a thermometer because you wouldn't be listening to how to be able to learn faster and improve your sales and be able to be a better you know just human and more productive if you felt like you're just reacting to things you know you are doing the work and so I would say positive peer group is really important and finally the LAT the last two I would say to really optimize your brain I'll say sleep yes because people don't realize this from a cognitive standpoint three reasons why you want to prioritize sleep we all know how we feel the next day if after we got a bad night's sleep right you can't think you can't make a decisions you can't focus but when you sleep three things that are important for your brain number one it consolidates short to long-term memory so that's actually if you have long-term memory issues check in with your sleep the second thing is the reason why you wanna sleep is cleans out black it cleans out plaque that leads to brain aging to degenerative checkout challenges that we have and so that's that's sewage system gets kicked on when we're sleeping but the third reason you want to sleep this is kind of fun when no one ever talks about its your dreams and so part of my daily routine the very first thing I do every morning is remember my dreams now the reason why is because we will will spend about 20 years of our life sleeping three to five years completely dreaming and that's a lot of years and here's the thing what we know with the latest brain science is saying is that if you're a student you're learning all day or you're an entrepreneur and you're solving problems your brain doesn't shut off at night if anything in some ways it's more active and people don't realize that and what is it active doing it's actually not only consolidating short to long-term memory but it's coming up with solutions and ideas and people don't realize this but so many inventions works of art literature music came from dream states so Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein in her dream Paul McCartney came with the song yesterday in his dream why is how created the sewing machine and his dream chemist came up with the periodic table in his dream you know Jack Nicholas you know he was shooting about 75 and he didn't know was going in for extended period of time and he had a dream one night and all he changed his grip and he could see it and feel it and the next day shot 64 you know so like our dreams are very telling do you know that Napoleon Hill came up with the title thinking Grow Rich from a dream really but he intentionally activated it he said to his unconscious mind tonight is the night tomorrow's the deadline you will find me the perfect title for this book I just got goosebumps it was literally how I see it I mean I call them truth bumps yes like that's amazing yes right but you know that's I think that's the missing thing is that most people don't recognize you can tell your brain I want you to work on this tonight mm-hmm I mean free people like how do you get up at 4:45 in the morning you're four o'clock in the morning how do you do it I'm like before I go to bed I tell myself I wake up at 4:00 a.m. alive excited and full of energy I'm gonna sleep well the night I would have four deep REM cycles you don't mean I I'm telling myself that's like that's my evening shut down a little like a little T chill and then tell my brain what to do I love that like do you I did I do yeah when I wake up first thing in the morning the first thing I do in my daily routine might things as I remember my dreams yeah but I did a whole episode on six different things you could do to remember your dreams and the D stands for decide most people would never make a decision that's why most people don't remember names they never decide oh I'm gonna remember that person's name yes it's important to me now it is exactly and a real decision as opposed to like a preference or an interest I'll be nice I remember their names but if you if you decided and then the the are well I won't go through it the a actually is affirming exactly what you're saying affirming the night before that you're in a dream and you're gonna have these kind of dreams and solve these kind of problems it's amazing if people realize how powerful their mind was it's it's incredible so I would say prioritize sleep and there's so many different sleep packs out there you know like my friend dr. Michael Bruce is a sleep doctor and he talks about five different things on my show to be able to optimize your sleep number one and it's number one through five number one is one schedule meaning always go to sleep ideally the same time and wake up at the same time even on the weekends don't sleep in yeah like literally keep on the one schedule number two no caffeine past 2:00 p.m. number three no eating three hours before bedtime number four no working out full within the last four hours before you sleep because you're stimulating yourself and number five is give the son a high five first thing in the morning so when you wake up ideally watch the Sun come up because it balances out your circadian rhythm circadian rhythms in this conversations about a mind yesterday whoo he's so into this that he now wakes up to the sunrise and now he lives in Portland he says basically as the Sun Goes Down at 7:30 and he said we turned all the lights off in the house and we light candles and he's like and we go to sleep you know you walk around you pull out all the candles and he's like and we go to sleep it at nine o'clock he wakes up at you know 4:30 5:00 o'clock in the morning everyday like and he's following the circadian rhythm right extremely powerful and then and this guy is a genius Brander marketing guy like super out and that's no I'm saying genius leaves Clues no matter what hysteria of geniuses if it's artists technology it's fashion what have you you know as a journalist whatever it is it's just they're their patterns yeah and that's really what genius for me is is pattern recognition and seeing the you know sale you see things other people just don't see yes and then when you point them out it's like oh now I now I see that and then you can never look at it the same way or act the same way around it all of our clients listen this we talk about R&D writing in the traditional corporate America they're like no you mean like you know no no no ripoff and duplicate right ripoff fine find the patterns that are working right we say run plays Network mm-hmm and stop doing dumb right like in fact we run plays at work find like Jim runs a play it works he's super healthy he's got a great life story oh I'm gonna run that play exactly your honor I mean like over and over and over and get used to that used to running place at work and that's the fastest way to accelerate is you have a mentor have a coach to be able to be able to guide us through that process and so sleep optimize it and then another thing so we're always talking about to do when not to do you know the food seat and if it's not teen and that and everything else what I would say is for this is don't look at screens late at night yes because the blue light that's emitted off of a laptop off of an iPad off of your phones it it tricks your brain into thinking it's still daylight and you cease the production of melatonin which helps you to relax and be able to fall asleep or if you're gonna do those things like use flux or iris or something soles yeah whoo light out of there go back and white screen exactly or where the the blue blocking classes or something like that and you know and so all those things are really important so what I would say is that's number four what's five with number five yeah let's talk about let's talk about the one we were in transition did you mention let's talk about killing ants yes perfect automatic negative thoughts and that's a term by our mutual friend dr. Daniel Eamon yep so it's nucleus Oh answer killing ants is clinically proven to be good for your brain and yes what's an ant again automatic negative thoughts and so this is that critic inside that was just like oh you know I have the eye the broken brain I'm not smart enough I'm not good enough yeah and you know I the reason again is if you fight for your limitations you get to keep them I I believe I growing my last name release quick I didn't change it to do what I do my father's name is quick my grandfather's name was quick my life was pretty much planned out you have to be careful when I'm driving because you know you don't get pulled over speeding because you're not gonna talk not got shirt away Asher quick you're going 90 right I had to be a runner back in school so I run which is a lot of pressure when you name is quick yes um but I was remember was preparing for a marathon and I was reading a book on the preparation the training of it cuz I've never done it before and I was looking at one of the chapters was the psychology that I was very interested in because I'm a runner so I could I feel good there but I didn't what was the mindset and it said this in the first paragraph verbatim was on memory expert it said your brain is like a supercomputer and your self talk is a program it will run so if you tell yourself you're not good at remembering names you will not remember the name of the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to here's the thing man that is so powerful it is your brain is like a supercomputer and your self talks the program will run so if you tell yourself you're not good at remembering names you will not remember the name the next person you meet because you program your supercomputer not to and what I always tell people is this if you realized how powerful your thoughts your words your self-talk was you would it if you I figure that if you didn't realized how powerful your brain and your mind was you wouldn't say or think something you didn't want to be true and I'll say that again because that that's yes that's worth posting yeah tagging us both in it is just if you realized how powerful your mind was you wouldn't say or think something you didn't want to be true and because all thoughts become things and it's not to say that if you have one bad negative thought it's gonna ruin your life any more than eating that doughnut we talked about wood but it's the consistency of it yeah because our thoughts are that powerful our imagination is so powerful they did this studies it's crazy I was doing a talk in Sardinia it's one of the Blue Zones these handful of zones around the globe that have the most Centurions people leaving a hundred and above and I'm still going to talk on longevity and I quoted a study done by dr. by Ellen Langer out of Harvard University in 1979 she was spending time at senior centers much like and she was like this is this is not a really vibrant place to live your last days and she did an experiment where she took the eight of the gentlemen out and put him into a redecorated monastery so it wasn't 1979 she decorated as if it was 1959 and so these gentlemen got out of the van and they a lot of them had canes and they were they were kind of struggling to get into there there but they were told this I want you to super ten is nineteen fifty-nine again so when they walked into their living quarters they had television shows black-and-white television shows from 1959 that covered Time magazine was from 1959 with that current news they took all the mirrors out of there so they couldn't see themselves and they were told for just the next week just pretend live in 1959 and before they put him in there they tested their biomarkers they tested their their senses their since a sight their since a hearing to test their focus their memory they test is that they tested their strength or physical strength they took a picture of them before they went in and then at the end of seven days they came back and it was this like it was like that movie cocoon they were just like is so interesting when they came back they tested them theirs they were physically stronger they had better eyesight they had better sense of hearing and cognitively they had better focus and a better memory after just seven days of living in that environment listening to that music and that's how powerful your mind is and they also took the second picture of them when they came out and a lot of them came out they did they weren't using their canes or anything so it's like it's like this it's amazing you could look at the studying that because they've replicated this and in London in the UK they replicated in South Korea but they took pictures of them and they showed the focus group before and after photos and they said which one's the older photo you know and they all thought it was that the most recent photo because they actually looked younger also as well and that's the power of our thoughts that's the power of our imagination and what I would say is you have to you control this right and it's never going to be perfect so the goal is not perfect is just progress just like with our diet it's never perfect so P so many people are so stressed out with their diet it cancels any positive effects it's having because they're so you have so much anxiety around same thing with your thoughts you know your thoughts keep them as positive as possible you want to be able to kill those hands now how do you go about doing that it's really the question right so a couple of tools and we've all heard these things before so I'm just gonna encourage you to do that sense to common exactly so here's one of those here's the ways so meditation is a powerful tool I meditate twice a day for 20 minutes a day and for me it's not about becoming all Zen and going to different astral planes nothing about that it's about me separating me it's a training that allows me to know I'm not my thoughts because people think that meditation is my meditation coach Emily Fletcher just has a book called stress less that she accomplished more I had her in my show and she's like meditation the enemy of meditation is not thought you know we you can't shut off your thoughts any more than you could shut off your heart beating that your brain that's what it's meant to do just like your hearts meant to beat so people don't meditate because they have this objection saying oh no I can't do it because I'm all these thoughts no but you have thoughts you're working that's and that's what's supposed to happen the enemy is not thoughts the enemy is actually effort and so this the goal here is for you to surrender and just see these thoughts come in and seeing them leave because it helps you realize you are not your thoughts and so there's a gap between stimulus and response where there's an infinite amount of possibility and so meditation helps you to be able to separate you from those negative thoughts another thing that I would recommend is something that I call Abra a really simple technique Abra again four letters a B R a the a stands for okay we have a negative thought or you have some kind of pain or discomfort in your body the a is you acknowledge it because a lot of times pain in our body or thoughts get louder and louder and louder yes we're resisting it and so you this this part of yourself is trying to amplify the pain or it's like a lot of time so when I take cold baths like I take cold showers I take ice baths I hate the cold I hate the cold but I do it in the morning because I want to get myself to do difficult things I want to be able to lower inflammation my body yeah and that's cold therapy right and it's just sciences you hit your knee on the coffee table you put ice on it because reduces inflammation it reduces swelling well we have swelling inflammation in our bodies that keep us from feeling joy and keep us from performing so cold showers or cold baths allow me to do that but I like when I'm in an ice bath you know with wim HOF and everything it's I hate it but then also I feel like I'm in more pain and suffering because I'm trying to suppress it but when I acknowledge it I'm like okay then it doesn't have to scream yeah you know to get my attention and so I feel like a lot of our negative thoughts acknowledge them because what you resist persists right if you know the same thing with sales or anything else that people just fight harder and you know our unconscious will fight for those things also as well so so the a and a bruh stands for acknowledge it don't fight it and the B stands for breathe because the way you are you're autonomous you're this neurons nervous system that we have right and we have this parasympathetic sympathetic kind of stayed and you want to spend as much time in parasympathetic because that's your rest your digest or repair your recovery most people are just amped up all the time which is really hard for them to be able to sleep and be able to perform and that's my meditation all these things are helping you to down regulate and de-excite your nervous system breathing is very powerful tool because it's something you do consciously and unconsciously so it's unconscious you always do it but when we add conscious attention to it it allows us to bridge that gap between the conscious and the unconscious if you will metaphorically and so breathing so what I would do is like I have a negative thought oh I'm not gonna remember any names I wouldn't I wouldn't fight it I would acknowledge it you know I wouldn't try to not think about it because if I try to think about anything about it more and then I would just kind of breathe into that space where I feel like that thought is or that pain is all right because breath is that powerful tool and then the the R is I'll actually release and what I mean is when I'll breathe into that area of my body or that thought I'll now exhale I'll release it so I'll inhale limitlessness I'll inhale possibility on liminal inhale you know grace or wisdom and then I'll exhale limitations I'll exhale those complaints I'll exhale like anything that's holding me back in the process so that's where the release comes from if has some kind of pain in my body I'll breathe into that area and then I'll just release it out and finally the a and Abra the last day stands for a line and a line really is coming back to your truce because a lot of times when we're in pain or we have negative thoughts we're not integrated and aligned we're not completely congruent and I would align back to what usually whatever the opposite is to what I was thinking or feels our line back to my true neighbor what you want exactly back and then back to what I want him back to what at what I am what I truly am into in terms of who I really am that's that's not buried underneath the opinions and expectations and all this other this other junk right and so but my point and even just bringing this up on a scale of zero to ten you know going back to this how good is your diet how much scale is your tent how much are you moving on a scale of 0 to 10 how much are you getting you know deep sleep you know 0 10 how good is your peer group yeah you know and then finally is 0 to 10 you know how many you know how positive is ours our thoughts and what's going on in there I just think of I remember dr. Jose Silva Silva mind control method like I was so young like I got this audio program sent to me from Nightingale Conant hey Tom check out this program and and I obsessed over it they drunk monkey metaphor like you know you would never let a drunk monkey loose in your house like like why would you let your thoughts just go run free right like you have to learn to control them the thing that I've used forever is stop right just you know like yeah negative thought negative just stop and people are like I think about walking down the street talking to himself and I'm like the good news is now we all have headsets in so no one cares right but in the old days it'll be like stop and I was just telling my mind okay I've had enough of that time to move on right and then get back to what I'm committed to and it's great because you're breaking that that regular pattern exactly you're interrupting in so that's really powerful even a word like yet it's very powerful yes you know I don't have a great memory and just adding this word yet because it maintains the bus the possibility of it words have as you know they really affect our brain race and how we process information even when people were going back to gratitude people say all the time all you know I got to pick up the kids they got a workout really got a meditator I really got internal I gotta make those sales calls but you changed her got to get mm-hmm one little letter from a no to Annie also I get to pick up my kids today I get to work out I get to sanity I get to make these calls and effect these two lives in the positive way and it feels just different and emotion when we're always coming back to it the key all learning a state dependent and the key is a lot of times you know if you want a long-term memory information is forgettable but information times emotion becomes a long memory and that state really makes a difference just like people don't they don't buy logically they buy emotionally right and they justify logically because we're not logical or we're biological for everyone right think about dopamine oxytocin serotonin endorphins all these neuro transmitters work this chemical soup and and how do we access that I mean ourselves and others a little great way of doing is just through what we're talking about power of imagination the power of asking the right questions you know that's how we elicit these these feelings and I would always come back to head heart hands if there's if you're if you're self sabotaging if you're procrastinate you're not doing something with your hands even though you know it in your head you know check in with that second age which is your heart going back to start with why simon Sinek yeah why why are you here what are your but the conversation you when i are we're having before this conversation about what's most important to you in life what's your purpose exactly no were you on this planet exactly and who do you need to be today to be you know to be able to to achieve that you know right now and I would challenge everybody to ask themselves those claim questions so let's go let's hit the last one and then I'm gonna nail you with those five questions I said Yale like that's like I mean it was a positive way so so we started this this journey by saying hey I wanted and she introduced you guys as a gym quick I've been obsessing over him for a couple years finally got on inside the studio so pumped this has been like I'm like you see me I'm taking notes like I'm like oh that's another marker perspective yes shelf help versus l fell the three things we want to talk brain optimization you crush that the elimination of ansan on point let's give them some super learning tips around like retaining more information memory blankie whether it's maybe it's just name I have clients that literally can drive through a community and go I sold that one to this person that person that loved it like they know every person and every big shout-out the Tim Smith every house every person even if he didn't do a transaction with him he knows the backstory of every one of them right like how did it get to that cuz that when you meet with a client is so out there like you're the all-knowing knowledge broker exactly you're the only person to work with when you have that base of information and knowledge because it shows two things it shows your competency and it shows your caring yes because then it goes hand in hand when somebody remembers not only you know all these different listings but they remember you they remember your spouse's name your kids names your birthday it just shows that they care yes that they're invested yes people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care and we've heard this so many times but when we forget somebody's name like what's the message we send to somebody that they don't matter right and that's not necessarily the case but we just we haven't learned how yeah and that's it so let's go into this let's do yeah how do we do names let's let's unpack this three keys for remembering anything and when everyone just remember em om and these are the foundations have you've watched videos of me on YouTube or Facebook or listen to a podcast some of this is a little bit of repetition but here's the thing that keeps you from mastery you know it's saying I know this already you know what I mean oh I know I should eat good food I know I got to move and work out or I know I gotta watch my peer group and I know I gotta sleep but that's what Rob's you from like the things that you want in life the goals the the desires the fulfillment its hidden in the things that you're just not doing right and that's the thing when you get yourself to do if you're just doing the easy thing with just procrastinating then life is hard but if you're doing the hard things in life life gets a lot easier so do the difficult things so here are some things three keys for a better memory if you're ever forgetting something one of these three things is missing usually the M most people say they have trouble remembering names uh I would guarantee you 95 percent of people listen his conversation would say yeah that's me I meet somebody got their name it just disappears as soon as the handshake breaks name just falls right through the ground yeah or if it's not a long-term short-term issue it's a long-term I'll be at the gym somebody tapped me I'll turn a season when I recognize but for life of me I don't know who that person is yes right so we know the name is a sweetest sound to a person's ears right and people Maya Angelou said people will remember what you say they won't remember what you did I'll always remember how you made them feel right so go let's get to this you'll have trouble remembering names if you listen to this you might agree with that but let's say there was a suitcase here of two million dollars cash for you or your favorite charity tax-free if you just remember the name of the next stranger you meet Tom who's gonna remember that person's name every s-seem person on the planet exactly so why is every single person listening now a memory expert all the sudden because as your brain coach I'm gonna call you on your BS it's not true that you can't remember names right because you just did you know you can remember because here's the thing you don't remember all names but you certainly don't forget all names no and genius leaves clues so find out the method behind the magic and you just usually remember names because the M is you're motivated so that's the M and mom you're motivated remember your name because you remember people who could be good for your business you remember somebody who's exactly you're attracted to you there's motivation that's there and so my thing is if that's if it's there when you remember name why not install that so why not install it using the tool of questions questions are the answer ask yourself why do I want to remember this person's name I literally like when people see me do this in front of an audience I'll have a lot of all these people stand up and then sit down when I call their name but ask yourself why do you want train yourself because if you maybe it's to show the person respect maybe is to make a new friend maybe it's to do some business maybe it's to practice these things that I learned on this podcast because if you can't come up with one reason what's gonna happen he won't because reasons reap results going back to the reasons starting with why if you don't have a reason you're not gonna get the results so ask yourself simple so that what's the technique when you're meeting somebody ask yourself take a moment why do I want to remember the person's name and you bring in tension there the oh and mom stands for observation observation a lot of people they blame their retention it's not your retention it's you paying attention yes and the art of memory is the art of attention and I'm you know this is I remember the second time I met got to meet President Bill Clinton and we were at a charity event we only met one time a couple years before and was very brief but I was sitting down at my table his first one there signed at this table then to the right of me sits Forest Whitaker and I'm such a big horse with your girlfriend and next to him was Richard Branson and then Ashton Kutcher Ashton Kutcher's twin brother and and then no even had a twin brother and then President Clinton's right next to me and I'm like I'm I took a picture of that just yeah I had to put it on Instagram because people are like who photoshopped that Asian dude but I fight the post there up there and that's all most people were saying but when I sat with him he remember my name yes I was really impressed and I was just like okay so he knew who's sitting at this table so somebody fed him that information then he picks up on the last conversation we had and I was just like okay nobody nobody was listening to that nobody fed him that information and here's the thing you know when he's talking to me I was like you know a memory guy yeah I was like how do you do this what are you doing he's telling me this story about his grandfather in Arkansas gathering the the children living room and would tell stories but afterwards he would do something different he would really deeply like quiz every single one of them to see if they were paying attention and and I was interesting when he's telling me all this I was noticing he was talking to me it was eerie feeling in a positive way but also a little bit scary because he was like focused right on me you know when you go to events sometimes you don't have that person's focus you could tell they're looking over your shoulder and they're like out here like who's more important in this or in this room as well yeah or if they're not looking around they're inside their own mind yeah like they're not listening they're waiting for their turn to speak or they're thinking about how they're gonna reply and respond and we know Stephen Covey seven Habits Highly Effective People another habits seek first to understand then to be understood yes and not so much about being interesting but more interested about somebody and I noticed he was just fixated on me when he's telling me these stories and he has this very powerful presence right and I think his incredible you know he's got charisma he's got great connector he's a great communicator but I think it's incredible memory and his powerful presence with people comes from being powerfully present with people I'll say it again that his incredible memory as powerful presence comes from being powerfully present and that's something that's not reserved to him or anybody else like we could just be press hope you learned skill exactly and that's something that comes through in tension yeah and then just think about what I'm talking about the M and the O motivation observation motivation is just caring about a person and to remember them observation is just being present with them I mean this is just a good recipe for being a good human being yeah right and so that's what I feel like you know without even getting to the last M stands for the mechanics but going back to presence it's just listening to the person right if everyone just mentally wrote the word listen in their mind and did this little brain exercise move the letters around its bell is another word perfectly listen spells were silent and I was just saying just be silent with somebody just be be there with somebody and that those two things if people even in sales if people feel motivated like like they know what I mean their their motivations they feel like they that person cares for them and that they're present with them I mean that's like more than half of it yes the last M stands for the mechanics and those are the the tactics those are the strategies those are the skills on how to learn in our language how to retie three times faster how to remember names how to do all these things so one of the things I do in business is I talk about to remember names is be suave be e suave and so the B I love acronyms obviously cuz remember back in school we learned like ROYGBIV wars the Great Lakes our homes later on Ontario Michigan Erie Superior so very memorable be suave so next time you're at your next event or you're meeting somebody for the first time and you're looking in the mirror checking your makeup or checking your you know your outfit and what you're wearing say I'm gonna be suave and then the B stands for believe because as we talked about if you believe you can and believe you can the way your right Andrew Ford said that and so believe that you can do that this is possible right the e is exercised and I don't mean prac physical exercise but although we talked about that people who are meant more physically active do better mental acuity test people are more physically active they'll have better focus and creativity all these and memory and so on what's good for your hearts good for your head again but I mean exercises in practice because practice makes progress practice makes permanent right and so I would say practice this because the bad news is it takes effort the good news not as much as you think I mean I'm very good at remembering names but after the first 60 days of doing this yeah I don't get you know what you know how to park a car once you know how to build a type you know how to do that pilot it's a skill like anything and so that's my thing is there's no such thing as a good or bad memory there's a trained memory and untrained memory and this is just you doing skill acquisition grace Oh 2130 66 days whatever whatever you buy into to to create a new habit there's ways of accelerating that that would that we teach but the idea is consistency because consistency compounds and little by little a little becomes a lot just do a little bit each day and then you get you get better and better and better and then that's where the speed and the confidence come see there's a psychology there's a confidence confidence loop that the more confidence you if you could play like Tiger Woods you'd be more confident and then you play more you get more confident and so on so that's positive momentum so I would say exercise meaning practice these strategies the suave s as you say the name you meet someone for the first time and you say Tom it's great to meet you the reason why you say it is you want to make sure going back to the O that you observed it correctly yes because it lot lots of times or at networking functions or at a wedding it's loud you don't want to say goodbye Todd when the person's name is Tom right you want to get corrected upfront so you say the name the you in suave stands for username now you want to use it not abuse it so because tom is so great to be here today Tom what do you want to cover today Tom if you want to live here because I'm no exactly you're like cheap memory track exactly so you want to use it three or four times in the context of the conversation because the repetition does helped you get that auditory memory right so you want to use it the a and suave this is a powerful one is it has ask because what's everyone's favorite subject themselves exactly it's not entrepreneurship and it's not property is it's just it's not travel it's themselves yeah and this is a great tactic a usable practical tactic you could do when you meet somebody who has a name you haven't heard before yes so you meet someone named off saw you meet someone named ridiger you made me even heard before what can you ask about a person's name what's the origin of that yeah exactly what's the origin where you from yeah where you from how do you spell it who you named after you know what does it mean yes I remember I was doing training for the country's largest life insurance company and it was about 100 something people in the room and the training director's name was nan kita and then keep that and I was like wow that's a beautiful name how do you spell it where's where is it from I was like what does it mean and she paused I was like what does it mean and she she looked at our co-workers and she says it means graceful falling waters and I was like yeah and I and her coworkers huh her co-workers have the same kind of reaction right and and based on that I was like wait a second how long have you worked here in at nikita's she was like four or five years with valadis people yeah a lot of good friends here at my wedding I'm like that's interesting I was like City audience I was like raise your hand if you knew that's what her name meant I'd have a hundred something people how many people raised their hand I'm guessing zero yeah nobody knew that's what her name is and if a name is the sweetest and that was like a 10-year client I'm not saying was just but that just remembering somebody's name again it's like thinking about theme we talked about information times emotion is a long-term memory thinking about the emotion associated with your name it's probably one of the first words you learn how to spell think about what that your parents loved you how much love and cheering you got for him to be able to do it you know kind of crappy right but you still get you do you attach that emotion to your name and so I would say going going back to this ask about a person's name you know and especially if this name you haven't heard before and that's the sweetest sound to the ears and they'll love it then finally the V and the e and suave the V is visualized and what I mean by that is I bet people are listening to this that they're better with faces than they are with names mmm you go to somebody you say I remember your face but I forgot your name you never go to somebody say the opposite you never go someone say I your name but I forgot your face now why didn't you make any sense right but here's the thing we tend to remember what we see because visual cortexes is larger in our brain there's a Chinese proverb that goes what I hear I forget what I see I remember what I do I understand what I hear I forget I heard the name I forgot the name what I see I remember I saw the face I remember the face and what I do going back to exercise practice practice makes the progress right and so knowing that if you tend to remember what you see then try seeing what you want to remember and this is an easy mnemonic like fun game you'd play when you meet somebody you take their name and you pretend it's pictionary remember I think you try to get the person to say the word without just by making pictures or sound like you've drawn a year so if a person's name is mark you just imagine for a split second when you're you know hand shaking their hand that you're putting a little check mark on their forehead and you're like Jim that's so childish but who really are the fastest learners kids kids I mean there's no playful right but and that's a key for learning is that play that curiosity and they ask questions they have the sense of they have a sense of wonder right and children you know when I said play the other day so I got play anymore because I grew up I'm older I was like no no actually I think youyou Groller could you stop playing you know because it's a mindset so you have to be playful here and use the power of your imagination because that's really you know one of our ultimate superpowers because especially where jobs are going I mean like jobs or one two three A's artificial intelligence this is like not even disputed our official intelligence can take a lot of jobs Automation yeah I think about all the software and then computers are able to do and then Asia meaning like it's being outsourced yes right and so what makes us inherently valuable as human beings is the power of our mind and I would double double down on things like creativity your ability to solve problems yeah I would double down on things like strategy right and I would tell down an imagination these imaginations what you know like you and many of your listeners have done you take the invisible that's in your mind and then you make it visible yes all right I mean that that's leadership and using the power of imagination and having vision you know shared vision and a culture it's extremely powerful so I would say that you know these kind of things we're talking about are exercising your creativity exercising your imagination action sizing your strategy because these are yours here here's the biggest takeaway alright biggest takeaway in Finn's conversation here are life changes when you take nouns and you turn them into verbs meaning we hypnotize ourselves with our language by our self-talk saying things like oh I don't have focus today I don't have I don't have motivation I don't have creativity right exactly but these are things that people say that they they are they have but these aren't things you have these are things you do and go you don't have energy you do energy you do things that give you energy the thoughts of physiology and foods you don't have motivation you do motivation you don't have focus you do focus you don't have creativity you do creativity you don't even have a memory you do a memory literally you create new connections and reinforce connections and you you encode it you store it and then you retrieve it there's a process and so Michael is always showing people the process of how to do these things but you can never do those things if you believe they're static and are fixed you either have it or you don't you wake up and say oh I hope I have Drive today or I hope I have you know like creativity so I could write and make videos today that doesn't make a lot of sense now and so the goal is when the benefit of turning into a verb it keeps you agency and gives you your sovereignty back because it gives you the power to do something you know as opposed to being on the effect and your your back up being a thermometer again yes and so going back to this for visualization what you're doing is you're taking someone's name like Mike and all of a sudden you take a split second just imagine them jumping on the table singing karaoke on a microphone right and it's really silly but it's just like that's what uses our senses or imagination and when we remember it better than something else and even if when it doesn't work it still works because it gets you to focus number one on the person and go and it gets you to focus on the name and Association because you know exactly yes because here's the reason here's the villain in this in this scenario you all you have to overcome what I call the six second rule six second rule is somebody tells you something or like their name you have six seconds to do something with that information otherwise you're your short-term memory your working memory is just going to discard it yes right so by trying to take that name turn into a picture it forces you to look at the person and forces you to think about you know originally on that done that observe that person so that gives you an original observation on that and so with person he was Mary you mean Mary imagine she's you're getting married or imagine she's carrying two Lambs like Mary hello Lance I meet someone named Bob and I think like a lot of persons per second bobbing for apples you know I meet someone named rich and he says God like dogs kind of money in his pocket right it's hot Tom you know so everybody has something for Dave I David I use a slingshot because of the animated lion they've been biased right so I have that these kind of some things Carol imagine them Christmas caroling or something like that and so it gives you something to do and then when you're at an event and you see the 20 people you see all these images and when you're saying goodbye to this woman you're like oh she was wearing the the bride's dress or she was worried she was wearing you know she was carrying the the the Lambs what's her name Mary and then once you know the information he made me her work with Mary you've had a couple meetings you know her name's Mary then the picture disappears yeah because they're means to an end it was just meant to hold it there to keep hearing your your imagination creativity or strategy here and then once you know the end result then the picture disappears you know it's the overcomes six-second role so that's V so person's name is to visualize personname is John you could picture whatever you think of when you think of John but finally the e and suave stands for end and what I mean by that just like how the beginning you say the name in the beginning you won't you end with the name meaning if you could walk into a room of 20 strangers and leave saying goodbye to every single one of them by name then who are they all gonna remember 1,000% you yeah absolutely and that's in it he's so cool yeah what is it about that guy I love her and that that makes you unforgettable of course because right because that's the other thing it's not just it's not just what you know yes you can learn faster using the strategies yes and and yes you want to be an expert at your field and yes in your market but it's also who you know but it's not just who you know it's who knows you and that's what means but being unforgettable you know showing at a level of caring at a level of presence at a level of skill mm-hmm I'd add an e to all of your a's on the superpowers of humans going forward and that is empathy the and but the so let's let's wrap it with this has been insanely great we're like how much time she's gonna take it's like it's gonna take as long as it takes right since perfect I before we got started that I've had a lot of mentors I know as you have as well and one of my mentors is this guy named Mike Vance who I've talked about a lot I wrote about him in my second book he he was the one that when I asked Mike man you you worked with Walt Disney you you you were friends with you talked to mother Teresa once a month and that call usually was right after a call with Jack Welch right so he was you know talked like you're talking a neutron jack and then you know like take over the world and save the world like in an hour right he he was side by side with Steve Jobs from the origin of Apple all the way through until Steve's death arguably a Walt Disney called on the most creative man in the world like like he said like wow that is his superpower and like coming from a guy like Walt Disney like that's that's pretty insane made him his his business card at Walt Disney when he was there was he's in charge of ideas and people might just come up with good ideas help people like how much how much fun would that job be right for a person like Walt Disney when I met with him I was at a transition of my life it was 2001 it was pre 9/11 and I was just in this place like like what am i doing you mean like every every listeners been there before like I've been working I've been working I've been working IBM raising a family but like like the outside looked successful but inside I wasn't feeling right right so so I checked all the boxes of quote-unquote success but internally I was in conflict so I reached out to Mike and I said hey you know I'd love to come see you and many people have heard this story before right listen to all these questions in my journal and I only got to one question I said Mike you you you work with Mother Teresa you you know you helped Steve Jobs you work with Jack Welch what he was in the 2-2 division of GE though it's the way he described it you were Walt Disney's right-hand guy you invented the salad bar you you coined the term think outside of the box like you I mean you did all these insanely great things like what did all those people have in common and he said Tom they all answered the five fundamental questions and they lived by him Wow and I literally the flip flip flip ever made you heard hold I'm like is it what are the five questions I it took me a year and a half to really get clear on the five but I want to challenge you cuz you're just an extraordinary dude so you ready is everyone gonna do this with us to everybody everybody that's nursing has to answer these questions question number one why are you on this planet what is your purpose okay so I grew up with as the boy with the broken brain so my purpose is to build better brighter brains it really is and it's not 1 million dollars it's 1 billion brains no brain left behind yeah and I really do believe that our passion is what lights us up so what lights me up is learning but purpose is how we use that passion to light up other people and so that's look teaching people how to learn how to learn I love it question number two hehehe oh it's it's and it's like you would have like first of all everyone listening he knew the answer if you're sitting here right now and you have not taken the time to figure out why in the world am I on this planet it is so mcwho many people have said you know like you know the biggest most important thing in life is what your purpose is like why are you on this planet like Buddha and I totally you know destroyed that version of his quote but everyone knows the second question he said to me was what do you value like what are your values so if I said you just Jim what I taught up 5 6 7 to 8 w value love and in order my values are what I value most in life love growth contribution adventure those are like four solid four meow so love I'll do anything for my family and my friends yeah because I believe that's that's why we're here is that connection that we have growth I want to be able to grow because the next value I have is high more to contribute you know and that used to be little reversed because I was I put contribution over you know other things and then I hadn't realized that I was I was martyring myself I know my cup was empty yeah so I grow so love family friends you know our our community growth and then so I have more to contribute and then the last one I added recently just the past couple years is adventure meaning I wanna have fun in the process ya know this is something that you know we're here and my message you know for people is just you know we have one life you know we're we're here it's just like why aren't we running towards our dreams like we're on fire yes you know and so there there's an urgency to that but I also want to enjoy that process also as well great question I love it okay question number three he looked at me and he giggled and he said they all know what their god-given talents are they're like they all know and I would say you know for you like it's pretty obvious like what's your superpower Jim yeah so it's it's kind of interesting because while it's learning and teaching those weren't I mean I think they're inherent in all of us I agree but they were definitely earned like III people realized how much work I put into it but I really think when it comes down to it I think empathy is really strong like that's my I believe that there's a gift in every struggle yeah and me growing up my two biggest struggles were learning and public speaking like I would do a book report but if a teacher asked me that presented from class I would give my heart and soul in that book report but I would be so terrified again in front of a group because I was when you feel like you're broken he'd become very introverted and shy or just closed down yeah and I didn't wanted the spotlight so I would actually lines hand into the book report and after the class left I would throw it out in the trash along with everything else so learning and public speaking were my biggest challenges which is the universe has a sense of humor because that's what I do every day of my life is public speak on this thing called learning yes but I have learned to ask myself when I'm when I'm broken sitting in those classrooms on a five six seven years old I didn't like to see people suffer and so I would say my the gift if there was something that was there early on was empathy meaning I could feel what other people are feeling because I know what it feels like to not be good enough to feel like you're broken and I can identify suffering and what drives me to do even though I'm paying you know sometimes painfully shy and I'm very introverted I do what I do because I if I know something that could help somebody with their suffering then shame on me for not helping though and so I feel like a moral obligation to do that and do this work and that became my life's work yes I would say I would say empathy and that led me to learning and teaching and everything else like that that's beautiful question number four he said to me I remember I said so what are all these people have in common he said they all decided exactly how their life was going to be the impact they were going to make right and you know the story of Mother Teresa like she was invited by the church we want to shower you with gold and put you in you know robes of silk and she's like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing I'm like I'm not going right like all that you if you read her biography and all everyone that wrote about her so his thing was so Jim it's 20 years from now how is the world experiencing you oh hopefully I'm still here you better be you better be and what I would say is the ripple effect I believe to raise the collective intelligence and wisdom of and potential I believe the ultimate quest that we're all on is to to reach to reveal to realize our fullest potential I think that's why we're here so if I could be a conduit for that the reason why I focus on the mind is because I feel like we're in the Millennium of the mind that we have all the answers in us already and that if somebody is I mean with technology it's amazing Tom that somebody there could be a child listening to this right now and they can be in a third world country listening us on their phone and they could be they can learn a couple of things and they can become the next Nelson Mandela yes Malala yeah you know Elon Musk or whatever whatever and they could solve some of the big challenges Mother Teresa and they're inspired to do so I like that kind of world because I believe in the butterfly effect 20 years from now like all of us you know butterfly flaps its wings here and create a tsunami halfway across the globe because of systems and complex systems and this ripple effect and I believe everyone who's listening right now what an amazing as us all flapping our metaphorical wings well we could do over 20 years in terms of making this planet a better place and I feel like when I talk about superheroes a superhero is somebody who's not only discovered and developed their super powers and I believe we're all have superpowers not shooting lasers out of eyes and leaping tall buildings but we have unique abilities we have talents we have skills but just having a superpower doesn't make you a superhero you have to use that power to serve and so I feel like everybody was listening our modern-day superheroes and we just have to step up to be able to do what we can to make the world a better place because we grow so we have more to be able to contribute so in 20 years I would love to be part of that one just one more butterfly that had made it that made a difference that's beautiful man that's so beautiful the last question I asked or he asked me was he said they all basically decided who they wanted to be and he's like we each like we remember there was the first time I saw somebody write down be do have mm-hmm right versus the do have be right old model the world he said everybody thinks I got to do a lot to one day have a lot so someday they could be happy or be satisfied be successful whatever and he said if you just start with the right being choice yeah he said I don't know he said I don't know if any of them were like conscious to it like in the moment that they were deciding this he said but you know the story of Walt Disney you know the story of Steve Jobs these are all super well documented at a certain point they flipped the switch just like you did you had this moment you're like I'm not that kid with a broken brain so the question is is there anything different in terms of who you would be 20 years from now than you are today I think the UM that's a great question and I remember if we had a coke this whole conversation a lot of it was power of questions all right life and seek and you know a skinny shell we receive what I would say my answer would be I feel like the wee reason we have struggles is it helps us to reveal who we really are that it's not about necessarily adding more things it's kind of getting rid of the the noise that's not that's not us meaning that people talk about post-traumatic stress and it's real and I've had you know a number of spear as you know we all have had loss and challenges but challenges could change us in a positive way there is actually something called post-traumatic growth people don't realize this but a lot of people I'm sure could relate that you've went through some really hard times you want to wish it upon anybody but you also wouldn't change it because you found a strength you found a meaning you found a life's purpose or a mission for yourself and you're better off because of it and I feel like we're always going to have challenges and that difficult times they could define us they could diminish us or they could develop us mm-hmm and ultimately the through line is we decide always and so I feel like that who I want to be that I'm working for every single day putting the work for is not only doing things to be we all know what to do right and those who I would say is a lot of people feel burnt out or they're tired because they're doing too much but I feel like we're it is because again we're doing too little the things that light us up that spark our fire and what I would say is for me it's a revealing process and that who I want to be 20 years from now is still the same core person but with less of the stuff because we're all in this journey and life just like learning sometimes is messy yeah you know and so I want to I think we have to clear this noise and just really reveal who we truly are at a core and I think a lot of us will come back to that place and find that that we're home I don't want to get like - like metaphysical about things but I feel like you are who you are and our decisions every single day you know lead us to that and you know in addition to waking up with your to-do-list wake up with to be lists and when you're going through crisis don't ask yourself what I need to do at this moment ask who do I need to be at this moment maybe it's to be creative be committed be confident and I feel like the universe will make room for you for sure dude you are a blessing I am so grateful for you this interview has been like I mean I could have like 25 pages of notes and I just want to say from all of everybody in my community right obviously they're gonna know where to follow you and they absolutely should do that I just want to thank you I just want to thank you for moving through your issues and then being a voice of reason for so many people on the planet that gets stuck and and and now see that there is a possibility right I was talking to a buddy mind before I got here and I said hey man like what was your win this week and he said on Sunday I did a twenty mile bike ride with a blind woman right she's in tandem with her partner and she's like Dan like tell me where Catalina is right now and he's like it's over your right shoulder and he said it was just that question from this woman who's by the way former military had a massive brain injury went blind and she said ham he's like why are you asking about Catalina and she said she said because I'm gonna paddle from like you know Santa Monica to Catalina next weekend amazing and he was just like dude like that's the world like that's what's possible for people and I tell that because you bring out that possibility others and for that I'm grateful I appreciate you I started this conversation saying appreciate what you do but not only what you do but the manner that you do it and I also appreciate everyone who's listen all the way to the end here because that says something yeah about them I feeI no I don't believe a lot in a lot of coincidences but I feel like there's a reasons that like attracts like and that we're all in this path together and are really the nature of what we do is about transcending it's about ending this trance trance end and this trance this mass hypnosis through marketing and media that says somehow were broken to somehow that we're not enough you know through feeding these lies and so I feel like who we are is so much more than sometimes what we're demonstrating and because we buy into that same thing and then my my message to everybody is you know I was outside kind of meditating right before I came in it's a beautiful day out I was looking at this burden in this tree and I'm like wow and I'm I'm not really great with Heights but I'm like if I was up there I'd be really nervous and scared if I was up in that tree and I realized that that bird it's calm and it's confident not because it places its trust in the tree branch but because it places his trust in its own wings yeah and I'm here to say everybody you listening to this you have wings you know and as entrepreneurs sometimes we jump off and we have to build those wings on the way down but unless that they're there and that we have greatness we have genius inside and you know now is the time to be able to let that out because the world needs it 100% all right guys there's just so much here I hear this with like 500 people I would challenge everybody else here here's here's what I would challenge it allows your coach I would challenge everybody right now to take because you have to take immediate action because knowledge is not power its potential power yes I would take a screenshot of this episode or of this video and I would post it but the reason why you posted is because when you teach something the ultimate accelerated learning technique is learn to teach because when you learn something you you could write it down you take notes and you ask questions but when you have to teach it you have to know it even better yeah when you teach something you get to learn it twice yeah and so when you post it the reason why is what I love to see is sharing just one nugget just just one idea you got from this conversation no or one new action that you're gonna take because of it and then tag Tom tagged me mine is at Jim quick kwi kay so he spelled it right and I'll reaction repost some of my favorites also as well Sam all because I love I believe that you need to be active because you know 20th century education where we're sitting in class being lectured to it's very passive it's like but though the human brain doesn't learn through consumption it learns through creation and creativity so I would say create something you know new and own it so you can integrate it take a screenshot tag us both and then post in the description your big aha I want to know that something around brain optimization something about ants something about super learning and memory any one of those things and by the way again I also great when you share it you're throwing that pebble into everybody else's pond and creating a positive ripple effect right everybody needs these skills in this time all right so I love that thought so dude I could I could spend all day schedules oh thank you so much everybody listening and watching we love you thank you so much remember always your strategy matters and now more than ever your passion absolutely rules if you want more information about this episode including my show notes mentions links and everything else make sure you visit Tom Perry comm slash podcast that's Tom Perry comm slash podcast thanks again and talk to you soon you

Channel: Tom Ferry

Views: 124,022

Rating: 4.8855195 out of 5

Keywords: tom ferry, jim kwik, kwik learning, how to learn faster, brain memory hacks, how to remember names, jim kwik speed reading, learn anything faster, learning is a superpower, how to remember more, change your life, jim kwik motivation, tom ferry podcast, high performance habits, how to remember what you studied, best studying tips for college students

Id: OOGIFR_-aoo

Length: 121min 57sec (7317 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2019