Unleash Your Super Brain To Learn Faster | Jim Kwik

i'm going to be sharing with you some of my favorite strategies and states to be able to learn any subject or skill faster [Music] how's everyone feeling today so when i when i ask you a question if it feels right to you i want you to say super how's everyone feeling today super and i want to honor you for being here because i've been going to seminars and events my whole life how is it so far for everybody that was a test right a lot of people think it's your retention when people forget something let's do this for example take a right hand shake it out how many people here want to learn faster how many people want to remember more yeah watch this make a fist now put it to your chin where's your chin everybody so the number one rule the art of memory the art of learning is the art of attention the art of learning is the art of attention and really that's where observation that's where presence comes in and so i'm going to be sharing with you some of my favorite strategies and states to be able to learn any subject or skill faster how many people like that idea now in order to be able to do this let me first start by acknowledging you for being here because i believe there's a success formula and it takes two parts it takes first showing up fifty percent of success is just showing up and i appreciate your ability to show up here today because most people aren't here true or true right i mean i'll ask also ask questions that we know the answers to true or true right and so we show up here and most people don't show up and i think in life you want to show up show up for your health show up for your relationships show up for your career show up for your service but just showing up is that just going to get the job done no you have to what yeah you play full out right you have to play full out how many people here like to play by the way who are the fastest learners on the planet who i did this uh to a group of 10 000 people from 60 countries and a whole table yelled out pygmies and if anybody knows why pygmies are such great learners please tell me but children right children how fast can a child learn a musical instrument compared to an adult how fast can they learn a second or third language they learn fast right because they why do children learn quickly because why they they don't know good what else they're curious they have attention what else they have time certainly no limits they don't have the learned helplessness very good they're not thinking about the mortgage payment focus right i mean they're curious and they play a lot remember as a kid you went to your friends and you were like you want to come out and play do you want to play but later on it was we got rid of the word play and we started saying it's hang out right and then all of a sudden there's a difference right and the curiosity is important also there's a there's a roomy quote from the poet said trade your cleverness for bewilderment is that a great word bewilderment when's the last time you're in that state we're talking about genius states and superhero states when's the last time you're in that state of bewilderment i mean so who's in control of your state by the way who's in control of how you feel what's this when we defining a state how would you define a state what does it mean it's like your mood what else this is where the active part comes in here it's your emotions like a snapshot of your mind and your body how you feel here's the key do this information do this which hands out information combined with emotion becomes a long-term memory long-term memory how many people know this how many people you hear a song and they'll take you back to when you're a child raise your hand how many people it's not a song but maybe it's a fragrance or a food that will take you back decades because information combined with emotion became a long-term memory right because we're not logical we're what we don't do things logically all the time we do things what emotionally right because we're not logical we're biological we're not logical we're biological and so what i want to talk about is how to unlock what we call your super brain i'm going to talk about the states these emotional states where the best of you shows up automatically where you don't have those limits now in my breakout i'm going to talk about the strategies how to read faster how to remember names step-by-step how to learn another language those are the strategies but you always start with state everyone wants to write this down all learning is state dependent all learning is state dependent that the emotional state that you feel when you're learning something gets anchored to the learning does that make sense by the way what was the state that you felt back in school primarily how did you mostly feel in class board and the other class the other half of the class is like confused right now on a scale of zero to ten what's boredom a scale of zero to ten zero anything times zero becomes what zero and that's why a lot of people don't remember what they learned it's the emotional state does that make sense let's test this out stand up real quick stand up i have no slides for you i'm just gonna i'm gonna take you through exercises how many people like experiential learning so it gets in your body right so what we're going to do here is we're going to play some games we already said that children are the fastest learners right children are the fastest learners how many people here feel like you want to learn more in less time raise your hand raise your hand if you have books on your shelf you haven't read more than one and it becomes like lisa nichols talked about she becomes shelf help not self-help right how many people here get more than 10 emails a day how many people came here today like to have a better memory how many people forgot why you came here today have you ever done that walk into a room of your own home and just forgot why you're there anyone feel like senior moments are coming a little bit early like you're in the you're in the shower and you can't remember if you shampooed your hair and you end up doing it twice right or you misplace things how many people here know somebody maybe personally who misplaces things all the time the remote control the i the the apple remote their phone have you ever found yourself calling your own phone hoping you kept it on or maybe you lose something like your car keys or not something larger like your car you ever see the people out in the malls and they're using their like car alarm trying to figure out where they where they parked their car and so and what about names how many people here honestly you have trouble remembering people's names how many people forgot the name of somebody in this room right and so let's start with my name hopefully you remember it my name is jim quick with quick learning and i help people to learn quickly the question i always get is about my last name my last name really is quick i didn't change it to do what i do with the name like quick you could say my life and my destiny was pretty much planned out i had to be i'd be a runner back in school which is a lot of pressure when it says quick right on your shirt i have to be very careful when i'm driving because the worst name to have on your driver's license when you get pulled over for speeding is the name quick right because you're not going to talk your way out of that speeding ticket and i get to do my mission my dharma which is helping people to learn faster i think if there's any skill to be able to master in the 21st century something that's going to give you a real tangible advantage it's your ability to learn quickly and only because it's a sign of the times because digital overload digital distraction i mean so many things vying for our attention how do you get things done but when i talk about speed i don't talk about just fran i'm not talking about frantic speed like you could actually learn faster and actually have an ease a confidence a piece of mind how many people would like to have that be able to succeed but also have this level of harmony inside of yourself this clarity of thought and it's the idea how many people here read seven habits of highly effective people by dr stephen covey what's the seventh habit sharpen the saw very good sharpen the saw the metaphor here is if you have all this wood to cut and you have a saw with a dull blade when do you want to sharpen it before you start cutting the wood right because a lot of people are going to work hard is going to work a lot harder if you have a dull blade and they have to sweat and perspire and work three or four times harder when they could have sharpened their saw and so learning how to learn like vision was talking about that's you sharpening the saw because anything that comes afterwards is going to be easier right and so if that person's not working harder they're working what smarter and one of the best ways to work smarter is accessing your genius states so i'm going to test this out we said that children are the fastest learners right that they have this curiosity and they play all the time let's see how many people here raise your hand if you're willing to play now it's been shown in science the research by doing by playing more actually creates neurogenesis and neuroplasticity what's neurogenesis new growth new brain cells how many people like the idea of creating new more new brain cells what about neuroplasticity what does that mean more connections so intelligence in a way is not necessarily like einstein didn't have a bigger brain than anyone here probably it was actually less he had a smaller brain but in certain areas of his brain he had highly connectedness he did these thought experiments where he would put himself in these brain wave states specifically theta state the status the theta state of creativity that's the state that you're in when you shower how many people notice when you're showering you come up with all these wonderful ideas it's always when you can't write something down right and so that's the theta state that's a relaxed state of creativity you're inspired you come up with new ideas new things come out of you right and i actually took six showers this morning just to prepare for this presentation so you take it put you in creative state and so he had more connections in certain areas and so you could promote that by playing more and so what i'm going to ask you to do right now is i'm going to ask you to find two people in the room you do not know pair up in threes go find two people you do not know pair up in threes so we're going to go through a quick exercise and basically what i want to do we're going to talk about superheroes a lot i i grew up with learning challenges some of you know i had a brain injury when i was five years old a head injury that left me with certain disabilities teachers would have to repeat themselves three four five six times and then eventually i would just pretend i understood but i didn't mostly most of the time did not understand i had very bad focus issues i had very bad memory it took me an extra three and a half years just to learn how to read and i learned how to read by reading comic books actually late at night something about how any comic book fans here or superhero fans geeks i something about looking at the the superheroes and good versus evil and the illustrations that the idea that one person can make a difference how many people believe one person can make a difference right that they provide hope and they provide real help and when i look here i look at a room full of superheroes because i said in the beginning i said you know it's just showing up and then playing full out and so what does a superhero do they have what's the defining characteristics of a superhero they have super powers right and does how many people hire have found their unique ability their superpower you're discovering it right your unique talent your unique strength something that's unique to you but then just having a superpower does that make you a superhero you have to use that power for what for good for some kind of purpose on top of that right and so i love sharing space and time with modern day superheroes but there are also some modern day super villains right these these ideas of uh these phenomena like digital overload how many people feel like when you're learning something feels like you're taking a sip of water out of a fire hose raise your hand right and and not that just that it's it has an effect on our health also right they call it information fatigue syndrome information fatigue syndrome because everything is a syndrome right so higher blood pressure compression of leisure time more sleeplessness or even if you have a little bit of free time you can't even enjoy because your mind's still multitasking and also not just the supervillain of digital overload but digital distraction how many people feel like your mind is so distracted and you can't focus on just one thing anymore raise your hand and this is a challenge that takes away from your ability to be present your ability to be able to get things done your ability to be able to be profitable and i don't just mean financially profitable that's obvious right we live in an age where it's not your muscle power it's more your mind power it's not your brute strength it's your it's your brain strength right and so the faster you can learn certainly the faster you could earn but not just financially in all the areas of your life all the treasures of your life your health relationships your career so what we're going to do is this exercise of play and then we're going to start with this state this childhood state of curiosity and wonder and you're going to meet these your individuals the people that your new friends and i want you to decide right now who's batman who's superman and who's wonder woman go so who's batman who's super okay batman raise your hand all the batman's raise your hand very good what about superman raise your hand and where are wonder women there you go remember information combined with emotion becomes a long-term memory right and by the way who's in charge of your emotional states i am who's in charge of control you are right i remember recently i got to introduce to my modern day superheroes it was richard branson and stan lee like who's not stanley but stan lee who's stan lee yeah the co-creator of spider-man and x-men and avengers and fantastic four and we're going to dinner i remember asking stan i was like i have to know you you've created all these incredible superheroes who's your favorite and he looks at me without a blanket he's like iron man i'm like that's awesome and then he's like jim who's your favorite superhero and he had this spider-man tie so i was like spider-man and without a pause he says with great power comes and how do we all know that right it's like in our dna right so we're going on this superheroes journey together here at a-fest and i'm thinking about it i'm like and i grew up with these challenges and i have you know dyslexia and i have i flip things around in my mind and part of my issues growing up and i flipped it in my mind i was like you know with great power comes great responsibility when you're in a position of power you have great responsibility to wield that power well and the opposite is also true with great responsibility comes great power right when you take responsibility for something you have great power to what to change things it transforms things to make things better and a lot of times how many how many entrepreneurs are in the room raise your hand wow 80 of the room a lot of times based on your values entrepreneurs value things like freedom they want to be able to do what they want when they want whenever they want wherever they want raise your hand if that's you and sometimes it's hard sometimes as entrepreneurs to get yourself to do the things that you need to do how many people also resonate with that did you procrastinate like why would you put things down why would you delay things that are important that will reach help you to reach your goals and you wonder why that is i would introduce to you going back to state and strategy that those two components is probably 80 of it because most people who procrastinate are in a state of procrastination that's the feeling right or they have a poor strategy for executing getting things done and you're like jim where's this exercise why am i standing the whole time does your physiology affect your psychology yes or yes because one of the best ways of changing your state is by moving your body right because as your body moves your brain grooves as your body moves your brain groups you create more neurogenesis neuroplasticity actually you know what supports it novelty what helps you make more of these connections is novelty and nutrition just like your body right you want to build a physical muscle you give it what you work it out you give it exercise you give it stimulus novelty and then you feed that muscle with nutrition same thing with your mental muscles and so what i want to introduce you is ways of getting into these states and then strategies in the breakout that help you to specifically build these mental muscles so you have more you have more mental strength just like physically you want to be stronger you'll be faster you'll be more agile you could be there mentally also straw stronger more agile more focused also so what we're going to do here is talking about states what are the highest level of highest level states peace very good what else love what else gratitude what else joy compassion so what i want to let's pick one of them remember we said that when it comes to learning things and getting it into your nervous system information is not enough because we all know what to do common sense right we all know for both most part how many people know what they should do to make things better but there's in discrepancy but like in terms of not getting things done right and so what i'd like to offer you is this is common sense is not often common practice right so how do we get aligned with this so let's talk about joy and introducing more joy in the room and throughout the entire event how do you spread joy if you wanted to spread joy right now in this room what would your strategy be what's one thing you could do be joyful what else okay massage somebody what else hugs hugs good kisses right high fives right good so what i want you to do now is i want wonder woman to be in charge okay wonder woman raise your hand wonder woman you are the ceo of the group you are the ceo of the group and what we're gonna do is you're gonna tell and you delegate to superman and batman how to spread joy around the room and they're gonna do it for 30 seconds all right we're gonna put a countdown timer on here ready go information combined with emotion becomes a long-term memory right the state that you learn something and the mood and the feelings that you learn something in gets attached to what you want to learn also it's going to motivate you to use it more often if you learn because here's the thing learning is not a spectator sport learning is not a spectator sport i'm going to give you six keys to learn anything faster you can write these down i want you to remember be fast be fast six keys to learn any subject or skill faster now i want you to think about if you can learn any subject or skill faster what would it be outside of learning how to learn because that's kind of the that's that's what after learning how to learn what subject what are you interested in say it out loud languages very good what else computer science good what else good i mean so whether it's whether it's martial arts or it's mandarin whether it's music or marketing there's subjects that we're interested in right and we live in this expert economy and we want to be knowledgeable about things because knowledge is not only power knowledge is profit right and so how do you access those things so i want you to remember be fast and just six quick tips on how to just sensitize you now every single one of these things you're going to understand because you're studied and me as your as your super brain coach if you will i want to be a personal trainer for your brain for your mind i want to make it faster sharper and not everything i'm going to say is going to be something that's brand new but if i maybe say it in a different way and you control your state because going back to stan when i said responsibility you know with great responsibility comes great power the most important thing to be responsible for is how you feel does that make sense and who controls how you feel how many people are feeling pretty good right now yeah and notice that these kind of things it's you know why metaphorically i look at you more like a thermostat than a thermometer is there a difference between a thermometer and thermostat yes or yes a thermometer does what what does the thermometer do what's the function yeah it takes the time it reflects and it reacts to the environment is that true it just reacts the environment and we are sometimes you know we're thermometers we react to the weather if we're honest the economy to politics we react to how people treat us sometimes but is there a gap between how something someone stimulates us and how we respond do we have choice yes or yes the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat though is a thermometer thermometer reacts the environment what's the thermostat do though yeah it regulates right it helps manage it sets a standard or a vision or a goal and then what happens the environment it raises to be able to do that is there a difference yes or yes and so that's where we're going back to responsibility when we're talking about being responsible the ability to be able to respond is how you feel about things and also how you focus on things so the be in be fast stands for believe because if you believe you can or believe you can either way what you're right who said that henry ford said that right if you believe you can or believe you can't either way you're right let me let me show you what a belief is stan stand up real quick stand up you're like oh you're one of those teachers i'm telling you it's it's in your body you have so much intelligence in your body right now i'll prove it to you jump up and down a little bit and make a little fate make a little space for the person next to you if you can so if you went like this you're ideally not going to take anyone's eye out or anything like that okay now stop stop bouncing i love the energy though notice where your feet are i want to keep your feet stationary the entire time and what i want you to do is with your right hand just point forward with your right hand your other right hand sir sorry i know all right forward with your right hand and what i want you to do without moving it without moving your feet just turn to your right clockwise as far as you can go and notice where you're pointing as you take your neighbor's eye out notice how far you go notice where you're pointing notice the exact spot come back center now put your arms down now i'm going to take you through a really quick visualization exercise so take a deep breath exhale and close your eyes put your arms by your side out of your pockets by your side and breathe normally and with your eyes closed we're gonna play a game i want you just to imagine just imagine that you're raising your arm again but this time imagine you're turning twice as far two times as far like you're getting a good stretch it's pleasant feel that in your body and if you can't imagine it just imagine that you're imagining it and then again raise your arm point forward and this time no no with your eyes closed imagine just imagine just imagine just in your mind see and feel yourself turning three times as far just feel it in your body with your arms by your side just imagine turning around three times and then one more time with a smile on your face thinking what does this have to do with learning faster see and feel yourself turning four times around in your body see and feel yourself turning four times around like your gumby like you're made out of rubber great great stretch all right open your eyes now raise your arm again point forward with your right hand now turn to your right now as far as far as you can now go wow raise your hand or make some noise if you want further second time have a seat have a seat now some of you went further some of you went 25 percent further some of you went 50 percent further yes raise your hand if you went further a second time now here's the magic question right that you know i'm going to ask you even before i ask it were you physically capable of turning that far the first time like nobody took a yoga class and my eyes were closed right you're physically capable of it where was the block or the limitation if there was one where was it in your mind right in your mind and you're like jim i didn't have a belief on how far i could turn how many beliefs do you think we have millions and zillions of beliefs right because here's what you want to write down all behavior is belief driven all behavior is belief what some of you went 25 50 further with no anything remember vision was talking about how it's not just it's not working hard but it's you when you're in a certain state a mind you could just go further and it's effortless how many people have experienced this state of flow before that's data flow where you lose track of time where your attention is right there and you're in the moment and it's the your stu the level of challenge is really matching your level of capabilities and you're stretching yourself and you're in that zone right like that athletes talk about that stephen toddler talks about in the rise of superman and stealing fire and so on how many people are familiar with steve's work by the way i'm just curious this context okay so how do you get into those states one of the ways is just believing that you can because if you believe you can or believe you can't either way you're right because all behavior is belief driven some of you went 25 50 or more what if you could go 25 50 more in your business that effortless what if you could go 25 50 even more in your body or in your relationship did you work harder the second time when you turned the second time yes or no no because it's a state right so behavior so belief let me give an example i'm going to play this game with you we're going to do this together collectively i need some mic runners here please there's a couple mac runners how many people here talking about memory because memory forgetting is a state when it comes to learning let me give you a distinction here a lot of people say oh i have a bad memory right they always like i have memory or i have focus or i don't have focus or i have creativity i don't have creativity i want you to scrap that creativity is not something you have it's something you do focus is not something you have focus is something you do energy is not something you have or don't have it's something you do memory is not something you have it's something you do and what's the benefit of turning it into a do as opposed to something you have what's the benefit you have control over it because you could put it into a process it becomes a strategy because there's a strategy for reading faster there's a strategy for remembering names there's a strategy for having focus and it's a verb not a noun right and so the goal here when we're talking about this memory for example a lot of people believe here let me shake this up a little bit there's no such thing as a good or bad memory there is no such thing as a good or bad memory there's just a trained memory and an untrained memory does that make sense now here's the thing i grew up with these learning challenges i had all these difficulties all through school all through elementary middle school junior high high school i had all these challenges at the age of nine i remember a teacher looking at me thinking i wasn't either smart enough to l to understand what she was saying or wasn't paying attention she was talking to another adult and she said that's the boy with a broken brain and i was like at nine years old right and so those kind of identity issues those beliefs does that make a difference yes right and a lot of people believe that they can't do certain things they could just never remember names so i could teach them a strategy but if the belief is not changed what happens it's not because it becomes self-fulfilling i remember running a marathon and i preparing for it i read a chapter of one of the books and it was on the psychology of running a marathon right the mental part and it said this verbatim word for word because i'm a memory expert it said your brain is like a super computer 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 programmed your super computer not to isn't that interesting what i always tell people is this you have to monitor your self-talk monitor your self-talk if you go around people tell people oh i have a horrible memory i'm not smart enough i'm getting too old fill in the blank first of all if you fight for your limitations you get to keep them does that make sense a lot of people like oh i'm so forgetful i'm so busy which that whole busyness really bothers me like where people so you how are you doing i'm just so crazy so stressed so busy it becomes like a badge of honor that people wear all the time and then what do you start reinforcing being busy right but here going back to this your self-talk is the program that will run so you want to be mindful right and stand guard to your mind because your mind is always eavesdropping on your self-talk your mind is always eavesdropping on your self-talk and so going back to this i want to play this little game because how many people here you your memory is not quite as good as it used to be raise your hand honestly now how many people here let's take numbers how many phone numbers did you used to know growing up how many phone numbers shout it out how many phone numbers when you're younger all of them right pretty much how many phone numbers do you know right now one one two right and so is there how many people here have a number you call all the time but honestly if you don't have your phone on or with you or battery said you honestly do not know that number you call it every single day almost or text it or whatever and so the challenge here is this the two super villains that we're talking about it's digital overload too much information too little time the amount information is doubling at dizzying speed but how we learn it how we remember it has that changed at all if anything there's been a decline the amount information is doubling like this your learning abilities in terms of your reading memory every flatline that gap creates the stress that you feel on an ongoing basis right how do you catch up how do you keep up how do you get ahead you know underneath that velocity right and that acceleration the other thing that i talk about supervillains not just digital overload because we're going to talk about that in the breakout is digital distraction digital distraction right how many people i'll tell you the worst habit because i'm going to talk about this later the worst habit and you're gonna you're gonna hate me for saying this the first hour of the day is touching your phone the worst thing you could do the absolute worst how many people are guilty of doing this though right because you have that addiction to it and i'll tell you there's a reason why you don't want to do it i'll give you two reasons because i don't want to talk strategy too much i'm going to talk about it more tomorrow the strategy the reason why you don't do it is when you wake up talking about brain wave states we're talking about superhero states your brain cycles through different brain waves beta is when you're most awake this is you're in beta most of you right now delta is when you're asleep hopefully nobody's in delta right now theta is right above delta that's the state of creativity we talked about like when you're in when you're in the shower right you're so relaxed almost in and out of sleep you're you know and then information you're so creative right you're very inspired in between theta and beta when you're most awake is this state called alpha how many people are familiar with alpha states all right it's a state you go in when you meditate states you go into when you do deep breathe breathing state you're also in when you watch television how many people have ever seen somebody watching television you're trying to talk to them but they're watching their favorite show their sports or whatever it is or maybe you're guilty of it or two and honestly that person is not hearing you you know that you're talking to them but they're so in trance right television programming it's programming them they're in such trance they're in an alpha state and the alpha state is where your conscious mind is set aside and you're not filtering it's information is coming in alpha state is a great state to learn in though great state to learn facts great state to be able to learn foreign languages also great states to learn uh information like giving presentations and scripts one of the ways we work with actors putting into an alpha state so they're in this relaxed state of awareness where their conscious mind set aside and information is just flowing in like television and you could control those states because you have a responsibility once you learn the strategies behind it and so when we're coming back to to memory i want to play this quick game you you actually i'll give you a third villain well he's talking about the first villain super villain we're talking about superheroes you're a superhero the super villains that are taking away from your joy your productivity or peace of mind digital overwhelm digital distraction i'll add a third one i wasn't going to say digital dementia digital dimension this is a real medical term right now this is the idea that we're outsourcing our brains to our smart devices we're so reliant on our smartphones that our smartphones are making us stupid does that make sense that i mean it's convenient i don't want to i i don't want to memorize 500 phone numbers right nobody wants to do that but we've lost the ability to memorize one like if i give you a seven digit number now how difficult would it be you find that kind of difficult to memorize like a phone number that you used to do years ago yes or yes because we've our if i take my arm i put into a sling for six months does it stay the same would even grow stronger it would what it would atrophy and grow weaker same thing with your mental muscles if you're relying on your phone to keep your schedules your to-do's do simple i went out to dinner with 10 people uh recently there was a 10 of us and three people at the end pulled out their phones to divide the check the bill by 10. right and we've lost that ability to use our men we've lost the ability to be able to do certain things and so what that's what digital dementia is um i was talking to dr daniel amen who wrote change your brain change your life right raise 40 million dollars on public broadcast he was saying yeah digital dementia hey i got something for you jim he's like gps relying on gps a third-party piece of technology to tell you when and where to turn when you normally know that or not know it is actually getting people aren't going to the doctors get checked out when they would have memory lapses if they didn't see that well now gps like they didn't have the gps they would have memory lapses and we'd go get checked out and we're not getting that early detection on it just because of that so how do you keep your brain active so smart devices could be extremely convenient but they could be crippling also so it could be a balance yes or yes all right so we lost the ability to memorize a number but i want to try to memorize a group number together today let's try to do it let's try to re-awaken that memory and everything i talk about everyone asks like oh you know i have such a horrible memory can you improve my memory when somebody says i want a better memory can you help me with my memory for me it's equivalent as a memory coach somebody's saying oh i just wish i was better at sports right i want to know what sport specifically so like apply it because there's different memory techniques for remembering names or languages or giving speeches without notes or facts figures numbers but let's talk about numbers because this be a great mental exercise let's go around and just raise your hand and let's give a group number one number we create together as a group for all of us to try to memorize and notice what i want you to do is i believe one of the most important things to be able to get good at is self-awareness i ultimately think the expert is not the person on stage who's the expert you are right you are the expert on you and what i think is in terms of i think self-coaching and self-knowledge is really most of it you know and so i think you could learn i know you could learn better by looking at yourself and seeing what works for you does that make sense and so let's see how we go about remembering things now let's raise our hand and just let's come up with let's let's try to remember a string of numbers maybe 10 or 20 numbers and we'll do the best we can you can write them down and then let's see if we can memorize them together right so raise your hand let's do it two at a time so instead of saying one seven just say 17 and then just two digit number 88 88 so everyone writes 88 right all right we got the game here we're going to keep on going until we get to a threshold and we see if we can memorize these numbers yes 54 54. i'll repeat it so so you guys you guys hear it also as well 54 35 35 very good 35 21 20 21 21 if we're having trouble coming up with numbers i have to take this in a totally different direction 99 what's that 99 99 bingo 99 how many by the way how many have we had so far single digits just this can be given 10. does everybody have 10 i want to make sure we're all on the same page here all right um something over here 66 11. okay 11 66 66 11 and 66. 23. raise your hand so 23 23 number 23. okay quick i'm sorry 13 13. how many it's a lot of numbers right 77. hold on hold on one second so it's 13 let's count 13 after that also as well what's that 77 77 how many numbers is that by the way 20. we're doing pretty good how how many do you remember so far do you think let's do a few more let's do a few more for the heck of it go ahead i'm sorry 30 38 or 39 let's go with 39 39 and before that was 77 is that true very good we're on the same page 39. let's do a couple more yeah here 42 42 good 42. let's do three let's do like three three more zero six zero six okay two more quick 13. 13. did we do 13 already that's okay let's do it again let's do it again 13 is great and then last one 42 again 42. very creative okay now i want you to do this close your eyes and just write down as many as you remember right now last one was 42 right i mean no one close your eyes close your paper and then just write down as many as you remember in order yes definitely in order it's the only way it kind of works all right let me let me try to do it okay let me let me try to do it with you and you guys you guys could check right and i'll look here so you know nothing is being broadcast here all right i'm gonna do single digits all right i need some energy here okay eight eight five four how we doing so far three five two one yes nine nine one one six six two three one three seven seven how am i doing good three nine four two zero is that good so far one three four two now i don't do this to impress you i i do this more to express to you what's possible because like this exercise that we did when we turned like this um let me give you an example um what did what did roger bannister do in 1954 the four minute mile throughout human history nobody could run a mile in less than four minutes why they didn't believe that they could in fact what was the belief back then it was impossible you would die your heart would ex the human heart was not capable of running a sub form in a mile it would explode in your chest now that was the belief would that keep you from running a form at a mile like i'm a runner that'll keep me from running period right and so it's interesting how he actually was able to do it is he actually visualized himself crossing the finish line and seeing it says 359 because he knows what you know as superheroes and he's doing these thought experiments that success is an inside out game right that in order to take the invisible and make it visible just like a thermostat right you visualize things here and then you make it out here he knew it had to happen here first because all behavior is belief driven now that wasn't the interesting to me thing to me just like when you did the turning exercise that's what he did the equivalent the interesting thing is what happened the next couple years nobody could do it for thousands of years one person does it what happens yeah dozens of people started breaking the formula mile now in that year was there big advancements in shoe technology and nutrition and training methodology no what was the change a change in belief like i remember when i was a child i was in a at a restaurant and we had a waiter go around and take everybody's order 20 people busy night halfway through he was taking my order i noticed something funny he wasn't writing it down have you ever had a waiter a waitress like that and i was like there's just no way i was very skeptical i'm gonna send stuff back doesn't mean this is gonna be a disaster but when he came back he got every single thing perfect the salad dressings the beverages how we wanted the meal cooked i mean the desserts everything perfect now is that a standout skill or is that a standout skill yes yes yes he was like my roger bannister he did something i never thought was possible and opened up possibility inside my mind perceived limits right you don't know how far you could turn just like we talked about what vision was talking about and just like with this i do this demonstration not to impress you to express upon you what's really possible i grew up with learning challenges you know with difficulties how about how about this how many people want to see me memorize this backwards recall it backwards yeah that's how much energy i'm getting here let me try to get most of this list backwards all right now i'm just using here actually let me try this two four are we are we good also make sure everything's in the right and the right thing three one six zero two four is that good nine three seven seven three one three two six six one one nine nine one two how are we doing um five three four five eight eight so what if you could get in these kind of states and have strategies to be able to do things that you need how much more productive could you be as a coach as an expert as a speaker as an entrepreneur as a parent as a student by having these kind of strategies what really upset me is when i struggled my whole life with like my whole childhood life until i was 18 where i hit a wall i literally when i became a freshman in college i was lucky to get into i was like i want to make a fresh start and i was like i want to make i'm going to show my family i want to make them proud i want to show the world myself that i was good enough and smart i could really do this so i worked really hard and i did worse and i was ready to quit school and i was living in the library i wasn't eating i wasn't you know sleeping i wasn't doing anything that that was good for me nothing in wildfit all the things i should be doing to be to you know to build my superhero strength end up passing out in the in the library late night and i fell down a flight of stairs i hit my head again and i woke up in the hospital two days later and at this point i was way i weighed about 117 pounds i was wasted away like i thought i died maybe part of me wished that i had and also when i got out i was like there has to be something better for me here like what do i do and the nurse came in at that exact moment and brought a mug of tea and on the t was a picture of a genius a true genius the opposite of what i felt i was at the time it was albert einstein and it said this quote that you've all heard in some iteration the same level of thinking that's created the problem won't solve the problem the same level of thinking that's created the problem won't solve the problem i was thinking what's my problem i'm a really slow learner how do i think differently maybe i can learn how to learn right and i was this like i picked up a course bulletin to look at classes and they're all classes at school on what to learn math history science spanish right all important subjects but what to learn how many classes were on how to learn no classes i mean classes on where's your class on creativity and problem solving and thinking right where's your classes on reading faster and having better focus and concentration or improving your memory i always thought it should be in the fourth r in school they teach you three r's reading writing what arithmetic what about remembering what about recall what about retention because their socrates says there is no learning without remembering there is no learning without remembering so be is believe believe you can't believe you can't now the e i'm gonna go through these really fast is exercise exercise and what i mean by this is i mean physical exercise because your brain primarily the primary function of your brain is to control your movement as your body moves your brain grows stand up real quick stand up quick quick quick watch this i want you to do this i want you to take your your right elbow and just put it your left ear left what knee good and then your left elbow to your right knee and vice versa or if you can't reach that far just tap these are cross laterals right i want you to do this take your left hand and just massage your right ear lobe and then your right hand and massage your left ear lobe and squat down inhale exhale come up go down inhale exhale come up one more time inhale exhale come up shake out your body all right have a seat they call that super brain yoga right how many people are familiar with educational kinesiology brain gym super brain yoga so as your body moves your brain grooves that's exercise so if you want to change your state exercise and movement is key i'm going to go through the rest really fast the f a s t if you want to learn any subject or skill faster the f is to forget forget and what do i mean by that a lot of people don't learn faster because they feel like they know it already i'm going back to chronological age it's not chronological age it's really the age of your mind and your heart a lot of people don't learn because they haven't empty their cup does that make sense that you hear all these cliches but there's there's truth in every cliche that your mind is like a parachute it only works when it's what it's open so this is the beginner's mind right so you want to forget about anything else than what you're learning here temporarily the a in fast so that's the curiosity state right um the a in fast stands for active active and the reason why have you get up and shout out and do all these things it's not for me trust me i like i know the answers to most of the questions and everything is the active part is learning is not a spectator sport learning is not a spectator sport you the human brain and the mind doesn't learn consuming information it learns through creating and from creating it your mind doesn't learn based on consumption it learns through creation or co-creation this in this state does that make sense so you have to be active you take notes you ask questions you do you participate in it how many people believe what you put in is what you get out right so you're active the s in fast stands for state so this is emphasizing the state that all learning is state dependent all learning is state dependent i never want to learn in a board state right most people like when they read they're in a board state how many people you read a page in a book get to the end just forget what you just read and you go back and you reread it and you still don't know what you just read because you're in that board state how many people use reading as a sedative like you have this token book that's been inside your bed for an embarrassingly long period of time but if your state that you have associated to this activity called reading is falling asleep or a zero anything times zero is what zero and people wonder why they don't remember what they read so control your state finally the t in fast and be fast stands for teach teach i recommend that throughout this entire gathering and beyond you learn with the intention of teaching it to somebody else does that make sense if you had to re if you had to teach this to somebody when you got back home your team your family your friends would you learn it differently yes or yes would your focus be better yes yes would you ask better questions would you take better notes right so you learn with the intention of teaching to somebody else all right so the b stands for what let's do this fast be fast b stanford believe believe you can't believe you can't you're right the e stands for what exercise as your body moves your brain grooves the f stands for what forget beginner's mind your mind's like a parachute only works when it's open the a stands for what active is learning is not a spectator sport the s stands for what state all learning is state dependent finally t is what teach because when you teach something you get to learn it twice let me close with this this is how i use this once and so i think children going back to childhood this is you're the fastest learners right and you could access that at any time because you have an inner what child you do have an inner child how many people believe they have an inner child a child inside there that is a genius that can learn that maybe needs to hear some words from you every so often right and so a few years ago i'll close with this a few years ago i because i remembered someone name someone's name it led to business that how many people believe remembering names is important because if you forget someone's name what's the communication you're sending them that they're not what important how are you going to show somebody you care for their business their future their finances their health if you don't care and just remember them right and so i remember someone's name it lit this business for 20th century fox and it was for the chairman and i was training him in his executive team on a friday and i go there and because i was in state because i saw all this avatar like like memorabilia and i saw this movie poster with star wars i was like a kid right so i gave my best training ever and afterwards they really felt it he was like gave me a tour of the whole place and everything and i saw this movie poster of wolverine i don't this for me is a big deal a move ring coming out i was like wow i can't wait for that film to come out and he picks up the chairman picks up the phone and five minutes later i'm in the fox studios with 3d glasses watching hugh jackman fight all these super ninjas right and i'm in my bliss on a friday afterwards he comes to me and says jim how was the movie i was like it's great thank you so much i tell my story how i grew up with learning disabilities i taught myself how to read by reading comic books my favorite comic book were the x-men wolverine and the x-men and not because they were strongest is because they didn't fit in because i felt like i didn't fit in growing up as a kid does that make sense with this disability and the boy with a broken brain and the highlight of the comic books for me was when i read that the school for the gifted for the superheroes was in for the x-men was in westchester new york and that it's a suburb of new york city and that's where i grew up so when i was nine years old i used to ride my bicycle all around the neighborhood trying to find this school because i wanted i wanted to run away i wanted to find my my superpower something that i was good at um and i want to find my super friends because when you're the boy with a broken brain you don't you don't connect with a lot of people because you don't feel like you have a lot to offer right so i used to do that i'm telling him this story the chairman he's like jim i know you're like superheroes do you want to go to comic-con now what do how many people are familiar with comic-con right tens of thousands of people getting together san diego dress up like like you know superheroes i was like when is it he's like today friday saturday sunday now notice my mind i go from a nine-year-old to a 99 year old because i'm like i'm in l.a i'm gonna get to san diego on a friday right there's many lines there'll be traffic i have nothing to wear i have all these meetings in la and notice like the critic that comes in right because sometimes we have to get out of our own way and mentally i just became an old person in my mind and then i was like he's like jim you want to go i'm going tomorrow and he was like oh i was like oh you're going tomorrow i'm going to go with you so he picks me up saturday morning and instead of driving down there we get on his plane and i swear to you on that plane is the entire cast of x-men and they're going to surprise comic-con right with their presence for the new movie that's coming out and i spend the entire like i go on there and i'm i don't i see wolverine and and patrick's like you know professor x i'm seeing between jennifer lawrence and holly berry going to comic-con right and we spent the entire day amazing we come back here's here's here's the lesson we come back and chairman was like how was it i was like the best day ever thank you so much he was like he's like am i something else for you i like i don't want anything else what can i do for you he was like they really loved you how would you like uh to go to montreal they were filming the last 30 days of the new movie i'm like oh wow i've never been on film so i would love to do that but what can i do for you and he says jim just do what you did with us just share teach them how to speed read scripts memorize their lines faster be present and focus on set and i was like i could totally do that sunday morning we're on what they call the x-jet and we're going to montreal and i'm brain training these amazing individuals that inspired me like growing up right and i got to see like on set it was actually taking place at the school and i got to see my real-life heroes come to life in front of me as a nine-year-old boy now when i got home there was a package waiting for me open up i don't know if you could put this last the slide on please i open it up and there's this photograph um on the screen there's a photograph of me and the entire cast of x-men and even better than halle berry and jennifer lawrence everything that's on there was the note from the chairman it said this jim thank you so much for sharing your super powers with all of us i know you've been looking for your superhero school since you were a kid here's your class photo [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the the the lesson that that everyone gets different lessons out of this for me is is me being that childhood vulnerable state that allowed something like that to happen and the what i would leave for you is this homework if you is it okay if i give you some homework is this movie what's called days of future past it takes place in the future and it's there's armageddon i mean it's the most dreaded future you could ever imagine and professor x sends wolverine because wolverine has healing abilities with his mind sends him back in time as like the communicator to talk to his younger self so professor x sends wolverine back in time to talk to the younger version of professor x to tell them something so that way the future gets changed does that make sense so my question for you is this if you could go back to that child inside of you that younger self and right now tell them something that they need to hear what would that be if you could go back and pass on a message to your younger self what would it be and if you were to go in the future one year two years five years ten years ahead in the future i believe you have wisdom inside of you i believe you have greatness inside of you and genius that you're not even even tapped in those states if you were to project 10 years ahead of time and look back on this day right now what does your current self need to hear from your future self i have a quote that i get quoted on more than anything else it talks about an egg and stress that your egg is like your life 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 thank you very much [Applause] you

Channel: Mindvalley Talks

Views: 125,855

Rating: 4.9051604 out of 5

Keywords: the science of learning, how to be smarter, how to retain information, best way to learn, how the brain learns, how to learn anything faster, how to learn faster, how to learn anything fast, brain food, healthy habits, Human brain, How to improve memory, Brain power, Growth mindset, How to focus, growth mindset vs fixed mindset, whole brain teaching, how to focus on yourself, jim kwik, limitless book, limitless, 10 Mind Tricks to Learn Anything Fast!

Id: GSs0pWRICJg

Length: 57min 27sec (3447 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 21 2021