85: Jim Kwik | How to Unlock Your Brain’s Secret Superpowers

Transcript for Jim Kwik | How to Unlock Your Brain’s Secret Superpowers (Episode 85)

Jordan Harbinger: [00:00:00] Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFillippo. Today, we're talking with my good friend, Jim Kwik. Jim is an expert in speed-reading, memory improvement, optimal brain performance. He is the CEO of Kwik Learning -- very convenient name there. He's been a memory trainer for the past couple of decades, and you'll see him on Instagram with everyone from Will Smith to the cast of X-Men to the president of friggin’ Uruguay or whatever. Today, we'll learn why gym considers learning and memory a force multiplier. In other words, it's a foundation upon which all other learning is grounded. We'll also discover why and more importantly, how we can control our mindset and influence our internal states for optimal learning and recall, and we'll learn that learning, memory and recall are not obsolete but far from it. Even in this day and age with technology and internet in the palm of our hand or strapped to our wrists and by the end of this show you'll have more control over what you learn, how you learn it, how quick you can access it, and how you feel about the process.

[00:01:00] By the way, if you want to know how I managed to book and keep relationships with all these awesome, amazing people that I have on the show, I use systems. I use tiny habits and those are available in part for you for free at our Six-Minute Networking course over at jordanharbinger.com/course. I broke everything down in to some small videos there for you to check out, jordanharbinger.com/course. And don't forget, we've got worksheets for today's episode so you can make sure you solidify your understanding of the key takeaways here from Jim Kwik, that link as always in the show notes at JordanHarbinger.com/podcast. All right, here's Jim Kwik.

[00:01:36] First things first. People always go, is Jim Kwik really his name? That's not his real name, right?

Jim Kwik: [00:01:42] That's the number one question. Yeah. I didn't change it to do what I do. It's my father's name, my grandfather's name. You could say my life, my destiny was pretty much planned out. I was a runner back in school.  A lot of pressure also, when it says Kwik right on your shirt. Man, I get too many speeding tickets because the worst name to have on your driver's license when you get pulled over for a speeding is the name Kwik because you're not going to talk your way out that ticket.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:09] They don't cut you a break?

Jim Kwik: [00:02:10] No, it's so bad. And they'll make a joke about it too, but obviously it drive safely and stop texting. Everyone's pet peeves -- stop texting. And I compare it like even driving with reading faster and how when you go slow, you could be doing lots of different things, but if you're going fast, you can only focus on some myth about reading that if I ask people to read faster that their comprehension go down. But in actuality it's better, because you have better focus. But I'm going off on tangent, and I get to do my mission, which is teaching people how to learn faster, focus faster, think faster, remember things faster, read faster. Because I feel like the most important asset we have in today's fast pace, you know, knowledge economy, it's so competitive, is our time. Right? You know, it's time is the one thing we can't get back and how many people feel like we're losing time, we're losing ground. We can't keep up.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:02:58] Yeah. Every day.

Jim Kwik: [00:03:00] Exactly. And it just gets worse and worse, right? You know, there's digital overload and there's this digital distraction. The amount of your to-do list is growing and there's so much competition and how do you catch up? How do you keep up? How do you get ahead? And that's really the nature of my work. It's taking neuroscience, apply it towards personal development, apply it towards personal productivity and performance. Because you know, we use such a small, you've had neuroscience on your show, we have such a small potential of our brain mainly because I feel like your brain doesn't come with an owner's manual. It's not very user-friendly and nobody shows you. You’re not taught how to use it back in school. They teach you like what to learn, you know, math, history, science, Spanish. But very little classes on how to learn.

[00:03:41] Like how,  Jordan,  do you focus? How do you concentrate? How you become an active listener? How do you make social connections? How do you sell problems? How do you know all of these things? How do you read faster? Remember more?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:03:51] Yeah, you sit down, you be quiet, you listen to the teacher. And then when she gives you a handout, you do it. And then when you're done early, you sit there.

Jim Kwik: [00:03:58] Yeah, and you know, we all grew up with this 20th century education that prepared us for 20th century world.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:03] Or to manufacture things on an assembly line and something.

Jim Kwik: [00:04:07] Which is really, you know, not a great practice. So the world has evolved so much. You know, we have autonomous electric cars and spaceships that are going to Mars, but our vehicle of choice when it comes to learning or education, it's like a horse and carriage. It's like horse and buggy and it's just outdated and you know, I believe that there's good intent there, but just system-wise, it just hasn't evolved as much as the world has evolved. There's so much demand now and I feel like we just aren't prepared. And so that's why I love your show because you're giving people real-life skills, real insights, instructions, distinctions that could really help love people level up. Level up their learning level up their life.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:47] That's the idea. And also the idea behind your show, Kwik  Brain, where we learned a lot of brain hacks and things like that, which my wife Jen has been pouring through in the past couple of days.

Jim Kwik: [00:04:56] And we appreciate that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:04:58] Okay. Knowledge is power. We've all heard that. But learning is a superpower. What do you mean by that? How is learning a superpower? You kind of alluded to this earlier.

Jim Kwik: [00:05:05] I mean, we've all heard the phrase -- Knowledge is power. Because nowadays, we're not paid for our muscles, you know, power. We're paid for our mind power, right? And nobody who's listening is paid for their brute strength. You're paid for your brain strength. And the faster you could learn, the faster you could earn. But where I came up with that understanding was years ago when people have seen me on YouTube or on stage, I know you and I have shared the stage many times together

Jordan Harbinger: [00:05:31] And we'll do again on Thursday.

Jim Kwik: [00:05:32] Yes. And it's great. I love what we do because we get to be around people who are just interested in growth or interested in growing so they could be more, do more, have more, and also share more. But I do these demos, you know, I'll have a bunch of people stand up and, you know, I'll memorize their names and in real-time or they'll give me a hundred digit number, a hundred words, and memorize it forwards and backwards.

[00:05:54] But I always tell people, “I don't do this to impress you. I do this more to express to you what's possible.” Because the truth is, every single person listening to this could do that and a whole lot more. It's just we weren't taught, if anything were taught a lie.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:06:05] Yeah. It's funny because you say, “Oh, anybody can do this frontwards and backwards.” Because Jen, I think she was watching a video of yours where you stood up and you said something like, “All right, just throw out some numbers.” And then she's like, “Okay, maybe that were…” and then you went forward and backward and she was like, “I can never do this”. Jen or maybe I said, I could never do this. I remember one of us or both of us said, “I can never do this.”And I know you so I sort of know the answer to this, but were you always good at this? Because a lot of people will go, “Yeah, he has a photographic memory or something like that. Of course he can do it, he's Asian.”

Jim Kwik: [00:06:37] That’s the Asian? Yeah. What I would say is no. Actually, I grew up with learning challenges and that's why I know it's possible for everybody.” At the age of five, I had an accident, a head trauma brain injury. I had all these sets of learning challenges, put in special classes. I had very bad focus, a very bad memory. I couldn't understand things, people would explain. Teachers would explain things four or five times. I would pretend I understood but I definitely did not understand. And it actually took me an extra three, four years just to learn how to read. I mean, I really, it was very severe and…

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:13] This was a head trauma that caused this? Were you, I almost said were you smart before this? You're smart now, but before that, were you so called normal?

Jim Kwik: [00:07:22] I mean I was five years old. I could tell you that my parents, after the accident, the way they describe it is I wasn't the same, right? I mean, your brain is very resilient, but it's also very fragile. And I've had a number of traumatic brain injuries just, you know, and that's just being a kid and, I can understand…

Jordan Harbinger: [00:07:45] What were you doing?  I've had several close…why?

Jim Kwik: [00:07:48] I mean, it's just funny because with, not-funny-haha, but it's right now it's so important for kids to get out there and to be active and your brain develops as your body develops and the move and such and they're taken away swings. They’re taken away like seesaws and everything out from the park because it's too dangerous. Yeah, it is.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:08] Like, “Oh, leave that.”

Jim Kwik: [00:08:10] Part of me believes it because you know, that could have prevented my injuries potentially. But then also on the other side, I feel like kids growing up on iPads and smart phones, they're not active. And I think it's daunting a lot of their growth, especially their neurological growth in terms of the brain development because as your body moves, your brain grooves, and play is such an important tool and resource for kids. It says, you know, we stop playing when we grow older. But I think it's actually the opposite. I think we grow older because we stopped playing.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:08:41] Interesting.

Jim Kwik: [00:08:42] And playing is so important, you know, especially when we're talking about accelerated learning and you know, rolling up your sleeves and getting involved and being curious and having that fun state. And so I struggled all through school. At the age of nine, a teacher pointed to me, talking to another adults and gave me this label and said, “That's the boy with the broken brain”.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:02] Worst teacher ever.

Jim Kwik: [00:09:03] Pretty much. I mean, that person would get that award because it's crazy because parents or anybody who has a relationship with a child or maybe you were a child at one point…

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:14] Most of us were.

Jim Kwik: [00:09:15] Yes, your external words become the child's internal words. And that's why you have to be very, very careful. Meaning that after that, that became my self-talk.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:26] That was your identity.

Jim Kwik: [00:09:27] It was. It was for the longest time. I would do bad on a test or bad on a book report or I wouldn't be picked for the team, you know, for in sports. And I would just say, “Hey, I have the broken brain”, and that became my self-talk.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:09:40] You think teachers let you get away with that because they're like, “Ah, he's got these close head things. Or I can spend the extra time to…”

Jim Kwik: [00:09:47] Yeah. I mean I think part of it becomes self-fulfilling also. I think we mold to the expectations. It's one of these kind of interesting like we sometimes mold to the expectations of other people. You know, especially people we hold in high regard and, you know, whether they have initials after their name or they're wearing a white coat or they have some kind of certificate and so we all have people that like that and we all get affected. My thing, with everyone listening, is one of the ideas I want people to just own for themselves and they've heard it in different iterations. But maybe just hearing it a different way is to the degree you want to be successful and happy and fulfilled is that you identify more with a thermostat than a thermometer.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:27] What do you mean by that?

Jim Kwik: [00:10:28] So like if there is, let's say there's a thermometer on the wall in this room, what's the function? It reacts.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:36] To the temperature of the room.

Jim Kwik: [00:10:37] Exactly. Just literally its own. It's the only thing it does is it reacts to everything. But a thermostat is different. A thermostat sets a standard, it sets a temperature, it sets a goal or a vision. And then what happens in the environment.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:10:50] It changes.

Jim Kwik: [00:10:51] Exactly. And I think that to a degree we're happy as to the degree we feel like we have control and that we're not just reacting to things. Now we're all human beings. We react sometimes to the weather and to how customers are treating us and such. But to the degree, we could have the locus or location of control inside that we feel like we're more cause is to degree. I feel like that we have responsibility for the way we feel and what we actually do.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:111:15] What if we find that we have an external locus of control. There's a lot of folks listening right now that are thinking, “Yeah, I should retake the internal locus of control. Wait a minute, how do I do that? I'm 24 or 34 and I worked for this boss and working sucks and he's a jerk and my relationships aren't going well.” And then they list all these things that aren't actually the external locus of control. And they're like, how do I regain control over that? Because we know we can't brute force this stuff, right? We can't say like, “Fine, I'm going to tell my boss how to treat me.”  “And tell my relationships to shape up. I'm going to make sure my friends are nicer to me.” And like that's not going to happen, right?

Jim Kwik: [00:11:52] I mean I think you could, we don't necessarily have control, but you know, you know better than most people. Like how much influence we have over our external environment, you know, especially social influence. And you know, the dynamics between the two. And so you know, how people treat each other and how you could, you know, persuade or influence or teach other people by these influence principles. But I would say that let's say that it's not a matter of resources, it’s this matter of resourcefulness. And it's easy to say, right?

[00:12:23] It's become cliche. But you know, I do believe that there's a difference between someone who dabbles and something and somebody becomes more of a master-type, meaning that it's so easy when we're talking about this and how we kicked off this conversation about knowledge is power. I actually don't think knowledge is power. I really feel like it has the potential to be a power. It only becomes power when we apply it and we use it. But the thing is, a lot of people could listen to podcasts, they could read books, they could go to another conference but just having books on your shelf, you don't get credit for that. You don't even get credit necessarily for reading it. You get credit for applying. And I think that the same thing to be said is for people who listen to these same thing over and over again, and they're like, “Oh, that's common sense.”

[00:13:06] But when, you know, being a coach, I like to tell people like that I could call you on your stuff and then it's, you know, how people be accountable and common sense is not always common practice.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:13:17] I agree, you know, It's funny. On that same note, I have this networking mini-course similar to your quick learning and quick recall course, the free version online and will link to that, by the way, in the show notes, yours and mine. And, people go, “Oh, I'm checking out your Six-Minute Networking course.” Where I go through a bunch of habits for networking, best practices and one out of like, I don’t know, 20-25 people will go, “Yeah, yeah. You know, before I had kids, or before I had this new thing going on, I did a lot of that.” And I'm like, “So you know this, but you don't practice it?”

[00:13:49] And they're like, “No, I mean, I used to do all this.” I'm like, “Really, you did all of this?” Because this took decades for me and some of the superconnectors that I know to formulate this into best practices. We work on this every day. We have software reminders, we have things we have to keep each other accountable. But some dude, who look like is on Instagram, he’s like, “Yeah, yeah, I pretty much know most of this stuff.” I'm just like, “I'm pretty sure that that's not true.”

Jim Kwik: [00:14:14] Right. And I think that also the problem is that sometimes our ego gets in away from our learning. You know? One of the ways to learn faster is just to temporarily suspend your ego and say like, you know, what else is there like your mind, another cliche, right? And your mind is like a parachute, it only works when it's open. But the thing is, we hear it so often, and they're like, “How do we actually apply that?”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:34] “Oh yeah, I’ve got an open mind. I’m good. I’m good with my open mind.”

Jim Kwik: [00:14:37] Exactly. And you know this because your trainings and your speeches and people like, “Oh, I've been in marketing for 20 years”, and when you have a conversation with them, some of these people really don't have 20 years experience in sales or whatever it is. They have like one year of experience that they've repeated like 20 times.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:14:51] Yeah, good point.

Jim Kwik: [00:14:53] I guess there's no innovation. There's no growth in it. Because people go to what's safe sometimes and you know, the way to improve your brain power is through novelty and nutrition. That's what fosters neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, these new connections. But you know, we have all these thoughts a day. The challenges, they say what, 50, 60, 70,000 thoughts a day depending on the…

Jordan Harbinger [00:15:11] Geez! I have not heard that. That's a lot of thoughts.

Jim Kwik: [00:15:15] Yeah. I think we're giving a lot of people a lot of credit.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:15:17] Yeah. Especially me, I'm like, “I'm up to 17 and it's already like four PMs.”

Jim Kwik: [00:15:22] But they say that the problem is though, when they do an audit of it is 95% of those thoughts are more of the same thoughts they had yesterday and the day before that. And that's why we have the same results because you know, our thinking becomes our behavior, which becomes our results. But we're repetitive so there's not a lot of big innovation, if you will, because our thoughts and the questions that we're asking. But going back in terms of the external environment, what I would say to be able to own this more is, is choose what has influence over. You see, it's funny because like one of my favorite books is a book called Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

[00:16:01] I mean, I mean it's really a classic. It's one of the books that I always recommend. People, you know, on Instagram all the time are like, you know, “What books do you read?” You know.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:16:09] That's a lazy question, isn't it? It's a lazy question. I knew you'd agree with me on this because people are looking for a book that they can buy. And then either not read it all or read part of. And they're like, “Yeah, yeah. So I got the number one from Jim Kwik”, and then they turned to like Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank and they're like, “What's your favorite one book?” So then they might even, even the most go getter gunner out of all of them, they read all those and they're like, “Yeah, I pretty much absorbed like all the main stuff from all these top people.”

[00:16:36] And you're like, “No, I'm not just the…if there was one book I didn't write that had everything that I wanted you to know about life, I've got a serious problem.” If everything, if all my wisdom is contained in a book that I didn't even write, we got issues.

Jim Kwik: [00:16:50] And seriously, I mean, and also people are always in the mentality is that they always want the silver bullet. They're like though it's a one thing that's going to give me that photographic memory or it'd be able to do that. But there's so many different things, just like, you know, whether it's relationships or it's health or it's, you know, social influence. There’re so many different things at work and so we really have to do the work. But when it comes to what I was saying is that, the resources are more inside of us than outside.

[00:17:17] And you know, this is just through personal experience because for anyone who has an excuse that they don't have the money, they don't have the time, they don't have the network, they don't have the education, whatever it is -- there's somebody who does or doesn't have that, that's succeeding, right? So I mean it's like really it's being more accountable to ourselves and not buying into those excuses. And that's self-talk as part of it is this self-talk we have, “Oh, I'm just too this or I'm not smart enough or I don't have the…” and your mind is always eavesdropping on your self-talk. Like, I remember I was preparing to run a marathon, you know with the name like Kwik again…

Jordan Harbinger: [00:17:50]  Yeah, you got to keep it up.

Jim Kwik: [00:17:52] There’s this book I was reading and one of the chapters on the preparation was the psychology of running a marathon because that’s a certain mentality, right? And I remember it, it said this verbatim -- because I'm a memory expert.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:18:05]  Yeah, we'll hold you to it.

Jim Kwik: [00:18:07] Word for word, 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 computer not to, right? And it's a simple metaphor about your brain being a supercomputer and your self-talk being the program, but there's a truth to it. And because there is a biology to our belief that thoughts become things, literally. Everyone who is listening to this, your brain is going to be different because you listened to this conversation because in order to be able to process it, you have to make you millions of your brain cells are lit up and making new connections and it's forming.

[00:18:46] You know, Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “A person's mind once stretched by new idea, never regained its original dimensions.” I mean, it's making permanent changes and that's why it's so important to really talk in a way, what I would say is the rule is, “Don't say anything you don't want to be true.”

Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:04]  Oh, interesting.

Jim Kwik: [00:19:05] Don't say anything that you don't want to be true.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:19:07]  Does that dovetail at all with your concept of automatic negative thoughts? I've read about this a while ago.

Jim Kwik: [00:19:12] Yeah, this is actually a term that I borrowed from Dr. Daniel Ayman who is a famed brain doctor. He's done over 100,000 brain scans and he wrote a famous book called Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. He raised like $40 million on PBS, was a really big hit, but he has this idea of killing ANTS -- automatic negative thoughts. And you know what I believe is that your mind is always eavesdropping on your self-talk.

[00:19:39] You know, if you think you can, if you think you can’t -- either way, you're right, Henry Ford said that. And all of these principles are timeless, right? But how often are we [indiscernible][00:19:46] this conversation? Are we really conscious of the thoughts that we have inside? And so one of the starting places I would have one when we're talking about a thermostat or thermometer, is to monitor your self-talk because so many people have, if they're going through and they really auditing, that's why I think meditation is powerful. I think journaling is so important because that self-reflection is very powerful because it gives you insight in terms of who you are. I think self-awareness is a superpower is the idea where I believe that in order to be able to advance in anything, whether it's in your learning or in your life and your level of happiness, you want to be curious about who you are, like be curious enough to know yourself and then also have the courage to be yourself. You know, once you know yourself being that kind of person that could live that truth as opposed to what everyone else, the Joneses, your parents, whatever you got imprinted on it. And I'm not saying it necessarily easy, but this is like the human condition to be able to fully express

[00:20:48] yourself. You know, without these kinds of limits that we picked up when we were children or through our teachers or education or through marketing, you know, everything. I feel like a lot of the work that you and I do at a high metal level is this idea of transcending, you know, think about the word transcend. It's like ending the trance. There's this like massive gnosis out there that says, “You're broken.” You know, that you're not good enough and we'll fix you and everything. And my thing is, being labeled “the broken brain” is I feel like people aren't broken, they're just not shown how to be the best version of themselves. So if you're struggling and you're overloaded and you feel like you know you're hitting these walls, then you know, this is great because you're listening to this and you're self-selecting yourself.

[00:21:31] The fact that people are listening to this conversation right now, it means they're amazing. Because it's just showing up in general because most people don't show up and then they just literally floating through this river at the effect of everything. And how can you ever be happy when everything is just, you know, leaving its mark on you?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:21:47] Yeah, that's a good point. I think The Jordan Harbinger Show audience is really big on frameworks, on practicals, mental models. So the more of these types of things, the better at something that I've read from you or maybe I heard it from you in a video now it's all blending together. Of course. Because my memory maybe needs a little work but you say that it's not a failure of retention. It's a failure of attention, which makes perfect sense to me and that I don't usually have trouble remembering something if I actually took it in properly in the first place.

[00:22:19] But I don't often do that because especially when I was in school, it's like, “Oh, okay, well I'm on AOL instant messenger at the same time.” And then that's popping up and I’m reading. But also I have my chats going and then cell phones came into play and forget about it. And you even have a shirt on that says, “I missed my pre-internet brain.” I don't know if we can ever get those brains back.

Jim Kwik: [00:22:41] I mean eventually I think we’re in a half like little nano technology inside of us and we're going to be all connected inside. But yeah, I think there are three forces that if you're listening to this, whether you're an entrepreneur on any of it, a lot of entrepreneurs that are building businesses and scaling and you know or anybody who wants to be able to grow. I feel like the things that are holding us back weren't there as much in previous generations because it's driven by this digital age, this digital economy. So three, I always talk about superheroes a lot because you know, we're friends.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:14] Yes, you are quite the fan of, where's that green Hulk? Because I always see those.

Jim Kwik: [00:23:19] Yeah. So yeah, in our social media, on Instagram and stuff like that, I have a 10 foot Hulk.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:23:24] Oh, that's your Hulk. Oh, I thought that was just somewhere that you happen to frequent and take photos.

Jim Kwik: [00:23:30] No, I have a Hulk and I have an Ironman and I have a life-sized Spiderman. The reason why I love this so much because they're metaphors like superheroes, well, first of all, I grew up with these learning difficulties, right? So I couldn't read as a kid. I taught myself how to read by reading comic books late at night. So my parents gave me comic books and inadvertently, that's how I actually learned how to read because something about the stories of coming from struggle to strength, going, you know, that one person can make a difference. It just brought the words to life. And so they're really a metaphor for in a lot of my favorite super heroes and much like most people’s superheroes, you don't realize it, but they had the biggest challenges, you know? Like for example, the most famous superheroes, they're all orphaned. I think about Spiderman, Ironman, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman. I mean, you know, they start from like, you know, with these challenges and going through struggles, lead to our strength. I mean, we hear it about all the time about post-traumatic stress and the challenges there. What people don't hear on the other side is there's this post-traumatic growth and people could search it online.

[00:24:41] It's this idea where that, and some of you can identify with this, you've went through big difficulty or adversity on things we'd never wish upon anybody. But on the other side of it, there was meaning. You found strength, you found a purpose or mission and you know, that's what I went through with my injury. But going back to superheroes, I feel like superheroes or the modern-day superheroes, many of you who you are listening to this would qualify. You're on this path, you're discovering your superpower and you're developing it. But just having a superpower doesn't make you a superhero. You have to use that power enough to express it in some way.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:25:20] Otherwise you're like, what's that Will Smith movie where he's like a homeless guy, but he has superpowers. But he's just a total burnout deadbeat. You know what I'm talking about?

Jim Kwik: [00:25:31] There's a bunch of them. I mean this is a common theme where somebody has super powers, they have a gift. And when I'm talking about super powers, I'm not talking about leaping tall buildings, two lasers out of your eyes. I'm talking about everybody has some kind of unique ability. They have some kind of talent. They have some kind of strength or skill set or knowledge and just having it and keeping to yourself doesn't qualify you as a “superhero”, kind of cheesy but using it for good because those who use it for bad becomes super villains. But I think there are three super villains right now and talking about modern-day superpowers, I feel like when I listened to your show, a lot of your guests are imparting super powers, like modern-day superpowers -- influence, persuasion, negotiation, right?  Be able to leadership, building teams, productivity and so on.

[00:26:16] And so I think speed reading is superpower. I think, you know, having laser focus is a superpower. I think having a stellar bulletproof memory is so important nowadays. But there are three supervillains.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:25] I was going to say, who are the supervillains? By the movie was called Hancock. You remember that?

Jim Kwik: [00:26:29] No, I haven't seen that.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:26:30] Oh man! Will Smith is like some bum. He is an alien or something, right? But he's a bum, literally homeless guy and he just constantly blows things. And then something happens where he's kind of called to account and he has to protect people, but he just doesn't care. He's not interested. He's lazy and you know, it'll be like, there'll be a car stuck in the road and he'll just take a whole freight train and derail it and like everything will spill out. And they're like, “Really? Is that how you're handling this?” So he just misuses his abilities really the whole time.

Jim Kwik: [00:26:58] And notice when we watch a movie like that, I'm hoping, you know, not to spoil it for everyone who hasn't watched it, but that there's some kind of redemption.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:05] I can't remember, but I am sure that I think at the end he's like, “Oh,I just didn't have enough responsibility, you know, I'm called to..,”

Jim Kwik: [00:27:12] And that's the keyword. You know? And when it comes to, because superheroes take responsibility because with great power comes, you know, great responsibility.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:27:20] So who are the three supervillains?

Jim Kwik: [00:27:20] So as supervillains in the digital age, and I think everyone can relate to one or more of them that its holding us back is number one, they're all digital. They're a digital overload. Like there's too much information, too little time. We feel like we're drowning information. I mean, just think about all the sources that's coming from, but we're starving for real practical wisdom. And that's why, you know, I enjoy podcasts and good deep reading because everyone's looking for the knowledge that they could apply, right? And you know, with your show, with our show, you know, for our show, it's every episodes like 15 minutes and they get like one brain hack for busy people who want to learn faster and be able to achieve more. But we're looking for those nuggets that we could apply right away to get results, but there's too much information. And so I think accelerated learning is an important superpower. The second one, I would say is digital distraction.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:08] You said digital distraction? Yeah.

Jim Kwik: [00:28:10] Yeah. Digital overload is the first one.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:28:11] Now, whose memory is all messed up? Digital overload, digital distraction.

Jim Kwik: [00:28:16] It's just like, think about it like app notifications, social media alerts. I mean the world, especially with our smart devices. There's this number of videos that people clip for me on stage and interviews talking about digital distraction and how the harm it take, you know, what checking your phone first thing in the morning, right? And like literally. Millions and millions of views on these things because everyone could identify with it. And I'll give you the quick of it “real fast” is when you wake up first thing in the morning, right? We've all heard the term, the idea where if you want to win the day, you got to win the first hour of the day. And specifically though, when you wake up in the morning, your brain is in these alpha data states, very creative, very impressionable.

[00:28:59] They're brainwave states, but we're very suggestible. And if the first thing you're doing is grabbing your phone, this is the harm that you're doing right now to your brain and you’re conditioning it. You're rewiring your brain for two things. Number one, you're rewiring it to be distracted, right? Every single time you get a like a share, a comment, watch a cat video, whatever you're doing, you get this dopamine fix, right? Which floods the motivation learning centers of your nervous system, which makes it addictive, right? So you're training your brain just to be able to not focus at all because you're putting your focus everywhere and you're re-rehearsing that. But the second reason why you don't want to pick up your phone when you're so impressionable first thing in the morning, is because you're also training your brain not only to be

[00:29:42] distracted, but you're training your brain to be reactive. And this is just as detrimental. Meaning that if the first thing you're doing, like how do you build a quality life, business, future, every aim, whatever your focus is. If the first thing you're doing is reacting to everything that's going on -- reacting to the news, reacting to text messages and social media messages and emails and voicemails, right? And my friend Brendan says that your inbox is nothing but a convenient organizational system for other people's agenda for your life, right? Like all of a sudden, and you know this because how many people are listening to this has ever woken up, check your phone the first thing, and you got a message and just ruined your whole day, right? Because you're in that very impressionable state. And what I would say is to have a quality life, going back to being more of a thermostat and having control at versa thermometer, being reactive to everybody else is wake up and have a vision for your life.

[00:30:35] Do things that reinforce like what would make a day win for you, like work backwards, you may imagine you’re coming back at the end of the day and someone asks you how was your day? And you're like, “I crushed it today.” You know, “I won today”, and like what had to happen or had happened and design your life going back from there. And I don't think you could have a quality day, much less a quality life if you're just reacting to other people's stuff for you. And so like for me, I don't check my messages until I wake up.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:31:01] I know you don't have a habit. I'm like, “Hello, is this thing on? I’ve been texting you for three weeks.”

Jim Kwik: [00:31:05] And here's the thing is that with your to-dos. Like everyone has hundreds of to-dos, you know? And I don't think that builds a quality of life either. But for me, I think about, “Okay, what are the three things personally and professionally I need to accomplish today, that those things would make it a win no matter what.” And then I look, I write those three things down first thing in the morning and I get one of those. And they might not be huge things, right? But if I don't check my messages until I get one of those things done, right? And then so at least I have some momentum towards something more positive. So you have digital overload, digital distractions, stop checking your phone first thing in the morning. And then the last digital supervillain I would say is digital dementia, meaning that our memories are nowhere where it used to be, you know, before our smart devices and technology and what digital…

Jordan Harbinger: [00:31:51] Because you don't use them?

Jim Kwik: [00:31:53] Because here's the thing, like with what, this is a new term in healthcare -- digital dementia, basically states that we are outsourcing our brains, our memories to our smart devices. And because your memory is like a muscle, it's use it or lose it, but we're not using it as much. So here's an example. Your phone keeps what? It keeps your to-dos. It does simple math for you. I remember I was out to dinner with 10 friends and the bill came, three people took out their smartphones, they find a calculator to divide by 10.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:22] Yeah. That sounds about right.

Jim Kwik: [00:32:24] Yeah. And here's the thing, it's like we've lost like our mental muscles. If you take your arm and put in a sling for a year, would it grow stronger? No. Would it even stay the same? No. It would grow weaker. It would atrophy, right? And same with our mental muscles. Like for example, how many phone numbers did you know growing up?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:41] Oh, tons. And I still know them.

Jim Kwik: [00:32:43] Yeah, those numbers, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:32:44] I can still call my now old best friend's parents. No problem.

Jim Kwik: [00:32:48] Exactly. And so I think everyone could identify with that. But how many phone numbers do you know now? Like recent numbers?

Jason DeFillippo: [00:32:57] You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Jim Kwik. We'll be right back after this.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:33:01] This episode is sponsored in part by HostGator. The world has gone mobile and that means your website has to as well. It's hard to make a website look great on a desktop, computer, and a phone, and a tablet at the same time. Hiring a designer and programmer to make it for you is time-consuming and obviously expensive and that's why we recommend HostGator's website builder. You can choose from over a hundred mobile-friendly templates, so your site's going to look great on any device -- smartphone, tablet, desktop, whatever, and you can create a professional-looking and feature-packed website. And the best part there is no coding. HostGator also gives you a ton of add-ons so you can do things like increase your search engine visibility without being an expert in SEO or integrate with PayPal and allow customers to buy directly from your website. You also get a guaranteed 99.9% uptime and their support team is there to help you 24/7 365. If you're not completely satisfied, you can cancel within 45 days for a complete refund. HostGator's also giving our listeners up to 62% off all packages for new users, go to hostgator.com/jordan right now to sign up. That's hostgator.com/Jordan.

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Jordan Harbinger: [00:35:30]  When Jen and I first met, probably a couple of weeks in, I said, “We have to quiz each other every time hang out, every few hours on each other's phone numbers because otherwise I will never memorize your phone number and if I lose my phone…”

Jim Kwik: [00:35:43] Yeah, or the battery dies or anything like that. You lose. And that's the thing, that's digital dementia. It's not that you want to memorize hundreds of phone numbers, nobody wants to do that. We've lost the capacity just to memorize one and it's not just phone numbers -- pin numbers, pass codes, you stay at a hotel and you can't remember what room that you're in, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:36:01] That literally just happened to me. I texted Jen, I was like, “What room are we in? Are we on the third floor or the sixth floor?”

Jim Kwik: [00:36:07] Or conversations that you have with somebody, or the things you need to do. I believe two of the most costly words in life or in business are I forgot, I forgot to do it, I forgot to bring it, I forgot that meeting, I forgot what you said, I forgot that name. I mean all these things. And here's the thing on the opposite side, and we know this, you're like, “Jim, why do I have to have a great memory? I could just search for it online.” But here's the thing, if you forgot half of what you know, how productive are you? Like if you lost half the information of what you know about your industry, if you forgot half the words you know, half the people you know, half of the anything, you wouldn't be very functional, right? But here's the thing, on the opposite, it's also true that if you can increase your ability to do that -- to learn faster, think faster, remember more, you know, the faster you could learn, the faster you can earn. That's what I mean that if knowledge is power, learning is your superpower.

[00:36:56] Because today, knowledge is not only power, it's profit, you know? And I don't mean just financial treasure, that's obvious, right? Because we live in this knowledge economy and we're paid for our expertise. But I mean, all the treasures in our life, you know, our health, our relationships and everything. I mean, I came up with that idea in my mind when one of my very first students, when I finally fixed my brain, right? I read all these books on neuroscience, adult learning theory, multiple intelligence. I took all these courses on speed reading and memory enhancement. I trained with magicians. I mean they're just wild. I traveled all around the world to Russia to learn like the different ways of learning languages and poetry and everything. And then I started to teach because I got really upset. I'm like, “I suffered for decade and a half in school because I didn't know these things and  I just wanted to teach everybody so they won’t struggle and that's really my mission.”

[00:37:45] My mission is, you know, that the best, “the boy with the broken brain”, I don't want to leave any brain behind, no brain left behind, literally. I want better, brighter brains because if we could elevate the collective intelligence of the world, like who knows? Like somebody's listening to our podcast in some like remote village, you know, in some third world country and they become the next, you know, Malala or Elon Musk or whoever, right? And so I really believe that the greatest asset that we have is found between our ears. And so, but one of my very first students when I started teaching it, she was a freshman in college, she read 30 books in 30 days. Could you imagine like read it, understood it, retained it.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:38:28] I mean, if I had nothing to do but read, I could, I definitely, I could bet you I could do that same thing. But as a kid? Hell, no.

Jim Kwik: [00:38:33] Yeah, but she read it and you know, I mean, I wanted to find out not how she did it because I taught her how to speed read it. But I wanted to find out why. I'm very, just like with you being a student of psychology and wanting to know, you know, human motivation, why people do what they do. I found out that towing back to knowledge, right? We were talking about this whole meta level, how people learn stuff, but they don't apply it so they don't really understand it, right? Unless they could do it. And I wanted to find out, she was doing it and I was like, “Why are you doing this? Like most people don't complete anything, much less, do this.”

[00:39:09] And I found out that her mother was dying of terminal cancer and was given two months to live. And the books she was reading were books on health, wellness, energy, alternative medicine, functional stuff, and basically books to save her mom's life. And I was like, “Wow. Two months.” I was like, you know, good luck and prayers and everything. Six months later, I haven't heard from her. I get a call from this young lady, she's crying, she's crying. And when she finally stopped, I found out, Jordan, there were tears of joy that her mother not only survived, but is really getting better. Doctors don't know how, they don't know why. The doctors called it a miracle, but her mother attributed a hundred percent of the great advice she got from her daughter who learned that from all these books and that's when I realized that knowledge is power. Learning is your superpower. It’s superpower we all have.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:39:51]  Even if it's a coincidence, it still seems to have some sort of placebo effect or otherwise, which is great and who knows? Maybe she did stumble upon something, but I still think the skill is useful, but unfortunately, well, I should say fortunately, hopefully we don't need that type of motivation -- one of our closest loved ones dying in order to begin this type of journey. I have noticed also that some of the most successful people in the world, presidents, CEOs of companies, these charismatic types, they're really good generally with memory -- names, events, personalities, things like that, seem to be the natural or not natural, but at least cultivated qualities that a lot of these people have. There's all these stories about like Bill Clinton going, “Hey Bob, is it? Yeah, that's right. How are your kids? They’re still playing tennis?” And the person's mind just explodes.

Jim Kwik: [00:40:43] It’s mind blowing.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:40:44] Because, “How does he remember? We met once, three years ago, and he remembers my daughter's play tennis or something.” And you hear those stories all the time. Some of them probably urban legend, but others not. Others based on, and I don't know maybe he has a naturally good memory, but there's plenty of stories about folks like that and they're probably cultivating this to some degree.

Jim Kwik: [00:41:02] There is, I mean I believe that again, for anyone listening to this, we all have that same kind of potential and it starts really with making a decision. But the facts and the science is basically saying that one third of our memory for example, is pre-determined by genetics and biology, but two-thirds is in our control. So we have high levels of influence to be able to access like how things get expressed. And I believe there's no such thing as a good or bad memory as much as there is a trained memory and an untrained memory. Again, like I just think it should have been the fourth hour back in school. They teach you three hours reading, writing, arithmetic. But what about remembering? What about retention? What about recall? Right? Socrates says “There is no learning without memory.” And so yeah, obviously, for a lot of these successful individuals to go to med school, law school, I mean they have to have a trained memory at some point to be able to memorize all these important facts and figures and everything that makes them be able to do what they do. With Clinton specifically, his is for real. I remember the second time I got to meet him, we were at a charity event and I got assigned – there’s 2000 people,

[00:42:06] I got assigned to a table and I sat down and I was the first one there. And then afterwards, like I posted this on Instagram because no one would believe this, Forrest Whitaker sits right next to me and I'm a big Forrest Whitaker fan. And then Richard Branson is next to him and then Ashton Kutcher sits next to him. And then Ashton's twin brother, who I didn't know he had a twin brother. And then 20 minutes into dinner, President Clinton sits right next to me and he remembered my name. And honestly, I was like, “Okay, he was fed my name,” right? Obviously, security, like that is Mr. Jim Kwik, because he didn't want to know who's at the table and everything. And then he remembered the conversation we had like X amount of years before. And I was like, “Okay, nobody fed them that”, and then I was just like, you know, “President Clinton,” I was like, “you know, I'm the memory guy”, I was like, “what memory technique are you using?” And he tells me this long story about his grandfather in Arkansas talk with all the kids in the living room and telling stories. But afterwards they would actually, he would quiz each of them to see if they're really paying attention or not and all this. And I noticed something funny when he was talking to me, and maybe you've experienced this before, maybe you've experienced this for other people. When he was talking to me, I felt like I was the only one in the world. You know what I mean?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:43:21] Oh yeah. He's famous for that.

Jim Kwik: [00:43:23] Yeah, and it's like a lot of people more important in that ballroom, there's a lot more people that certainly at that table that are more important than I am, but he's like looking right at me like no one else exists. And you could tell like sometimes though when we were talking about networking, when people are out networking, they're not really paying attention. They're like looking over your shoulder and who's more important and all that. And here's the thing, it's just like people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. We've all heard this, but one of the ways of showing that you care is being present with people. And I really do believe that his incredible memory, like regardless of your political ideology, President Clinton, I think most people agree, is a great connector, great charisma, great communicator. He's got incredible memory, powerful presence. But I think his incredible memory and his powerful presence comes from being powerfully present with people.

[00:44:11] You know what I mean? He has that incredible memory, powerful presence. People come from being powerfully present with people that he's not looking around. He's not in his own mind because you know this, just through watching people, a lot of times they're not even listening. They're like thinking about how they're going to respond or they're waiting for their turn to talk and, one of my favorite books growing up was by a mentor of mine. Dr Stephen Covey wrote Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and one of the habits of the most effective people that his research found was, they seek first to understand than to be understood. They seek first to understand someone and then to be understood by them. And that's the thing. It's just like he's just listening.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:44:54] But it goes back to what you said before about it being about attention and not retention.

Jim Kwik: [00:44:55] Exactly. And I think like what makes you such an incredible host is like when you ask questions, your guests could feel that you really want to know what those answers are, right? And nothing, going back to sales, nothing sells like sincere interest in somebody.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:09] Only I could fake sincerity. I haven't made.

Jim Kwik: [00:44:55] Exactly, but that's the thing. So people are even from an ego’s standpoint are trying to be interests, you know, interesting and talk about how amazing whatever it is. But I think more is just being interested in somebody else and you can tell, you know, people like you, people like President Clinton, they're very interested and they're asking those questions and they really want to know what those answers are. And so, you know, and I felt like really understood and I feel like who could be more present with people, all of us, right?

[00:45:38] And that's a quality of memory. if you want a lot of people they say, “Oh, I have…” you know, they blame their retention, but it's not your retention. It's your attention. The art of memory is the art of attention.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:45:48] So how do we focus on let's say, remembering or retaining names more effectively? Because we sort of touched on this a few times. I think names are great because you're right, there's a lot of people, myself included, I used to say, “Oh, I'm bad with names.” Then one of my friends, her friend said, ‘You know what, that's just a crappy excuse. It's letting you off the hook. Chelsea.” And I remembered that because I thought that's so true. When I was younger, I wasn't bad with names. I’m bad with names now because I'm not fricking listening half the time. I introduced myself and the person says, “Hi, I'm Gabriel.” And I'm like, “Whatever, next.” And then two seconds later Jen's like, “Who is that?” I go, “I have no idea.” Who is that? He just told me, I cannot ask.

Jim Kwik: [00:46:29] Yeah, I'll give a couple of just really big distinctions and you don't have to use all of this, but any of them is better than nothing. So really rapid fire. I focus first on MOM, right? MOM, and this is the basis. And I like these elements because I feel like if you're forgetting anything, 95% chance one of these three things are missing. So let's say somebody has trouble remembering names. Okay? So you're listening to this right now. You have trouble remembering names. You admit it. And let's say there's a suitcase of $1 million cash for you, your favorite charity, tax-free, it's all yours. If you just remember the name of the next stranger you meet. Who's going to remember that prison's name?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:47:10] Yeah. Every single person.

Jim Kwik: [00:47:11] Every single listener is a memory expert right now. And notice, as your brain coach, you know, I'm going to call you on your stuff. It had nothing. If we're truthful and honest, it had nothing to do with your capability or your potential, it had everything to do with whether or not you wanted to or not. So the first M in MOM stands for motivation. Motivation. And that's going back to even why this young lady read 30 books in 30 days. She was motivated. And I remember I was doing training up in your neck of the woods, up in a Silicon Valley. And afterwards, Bill Gates comes up to me and I mentioned these names, not to drop names, but they're strategic because they’re triggers for your memory.

[00:47:50] Because if I mentioned, you know, Bill Smith feel like, “Oh, zap,” but if I mentioned Will Smith, they’re like next time you see a Will Smith movie, right? You're like, “Oh, no”, but it reminds you of the lesson that comes from it, right? It paints a picture.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:48:03] And Jim Kwik, right?

Jim Kwik: [00:48:05] Right. And then our next time you're flying Virgin or whatever, It’ll remind you of the lessons and such, and superheroes. You think about the Hulk and everything. There's stories behind it. But afterwards, we have this deep conversation about the future of education. And Bill Gates was saying, you know, talking about technology. And I was like, “Okay, that's important.” And I was talking about theory, meaning adult learning theory, accelerated learning, brain neuroscience. And then somebody listening is like, “Is it just tools and theory? Is there anything missing?” And we talked about it some more and we're like the same, we came with the same exact conclusion -- motivation. You know, like a lot of people we talked about, they know what to do but they don't do what they know. Right? And so what's the difference is understanding the psychology of what gets people to take action. Motivation -- motive for taking action, right? For action. And so going back to motivation, how do you make this practical? When you're meeting somebody for the first time, ask yourself, even though if you're not getting the million dollars, ask yourself, why do I want to remember this person's name? Maybe it's to show them respect. Maybe it's to make a new friend, maybe it's to do some business, whatever it is. Maybe it's to practice these things. You know, I learned, you know, in this episode because if he can't come up with one reason, what's going to happen? He won't remember nothing.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:16]  So even just to be, to appear more charismatic or friendly or create a better impression on the people that work around you.

Jim Kwik: [00:49:22] And if you could come up with one reason, it exponentially increases your success remembering that name because here's the thing, the reasons are important. The intent matters. Reasons reap results. Just like with life, you know, like one of my favorite books and other books are all my favorite, right? Start With Why by Simon Sinek, right? I believe there is a success for me, goes through your head to your heart, your hands, that in your head you could have thoughts and set goals. But if we ever, have you ever set a goal in your head but not acted with your hands? All of us have, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:49:52] You mean, I set a goal in my head and not done a squat to get there? Or you’ve ever, with my life? Yeah.

Jim Kwik: [00:49:58] So everybody could identify with that, right? We take one step forward and two steps back. We self-sabotage, we procrastinate, we put things off. Why aren't we acting in accordance to what's in our head and with our hands? And I would say, they check in with the second H, which is your heart. You know, what does it symbolize? It symbolizes feelings. It symbolizes emotions. We know that people are not logical, right? You don't buy logically, you buy emotionally, right? You don't fall in love logically fall in love emotionally. Like all our behavior is fueled by our emotions and so we're not logical. We're biological, right? Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins. I mean we're this chemical soup and so tap into those that fuel and ask yourself why. Get to the emotion part of it because that's really the key to even improving your memory. Information itself is boring.

[00:50:47] You do not remember data information, you just don't. And a perfect example of this is, think about high school. If we were to be quizzed right now, if people quiz you like, “Jordan, what are the elements of the periodic table?” You know what I mean?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:01] I got a few, but that's it.

Jim Kwik: [00:51:02] Exactly. Because here's the thing, what was the emotional state we felt mostly in school?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:07] Boredom.

Jim Kwik: [00:51:08] Boredom. Exactly. And on scale of, so here's a key into long-term memory and my long-term memory, if anyone wants to know the secret to long-term memory, here it is. Information combined with emotion becomes a long-term memory. Information alone is forgettable, but information combined with emotion -- good or bad, becomes unforgettable. And you know this, because everyone knows where they were. You know if they're alive, listen to this, you know, 9/11, right? Because emotion, you know, added to information becomes a long-term memory.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:36] That's why people say things like, “It feels like it was yesterday.” Because the memory is strong.

Jim Kwik: [00:51:40] And even when people say, “I know it by heart”, you know we're talking about that heart again, the emotion or you know. People, it always comes back to that. So like even, and you know it because let's say there's a song, can you listen to a song that could bring you back years?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:51:56] Yeah. I mean, Ice, Ice Baby is still on YouTube, right?

Jim Kwik: [00:51:59] There you go. And it brings back all these memories, right? Because information plus the emotion or maybe it's a fragrance or maybe it's a food, you know, food you could eat or smell and it can take you back to when you were a child. Because information combined with emotion. So how do we add more emotion at things to make it more unforgettable, if you will? So ask yourself, “Why do I want to remember this?” It makes it more emotional.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:19] So if you want to remember someone's name, remember the way they smell.

Jim Kwik: [00:52:21] Exactly, actually smell is very powerful. It's the most powerful of the five senses.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:52:27] For memory? Why is that? Do you know?

Jim Kwik: [00:52:31] I mean, I would think because as a Hunter Gatherer, it's everything always comes back to what survival, replication, everything. As a Hunter Gatherer, you need to be able to smell for protection of poison or bad food that could, you know, kill you or something to a nature. But I'm using that, there's actually certain smells that actually stimulate olfactory, that stimulate memory, like focus, lemon and peppermint, very good for it. I actually a really good brain hack is, they did this study where they took individuals, they submerged them underwater with breathing apparatus and had them memorize long lists of words and they took them out of the water and then quizzed them to test them and see how many words they remember and then put them back underwater to see

[00:53:13] how many they remembered back underwater. In which environment do they remember more? Underwater, by far, right? Across the board and by far, and so why do you think that is?

Jordan Harbinger: [00:53:24] Context?

Jim Kwik: [00:53:25] Yeah, context. Because the context is really the key to the kingdom, if you will, because the context, the environment that anchored and linked to the actual information. Now how can you use this in your day to day? Well, let's say you have to study for a test, it always is better if you study in the room that you have the examine. What if you have to give a TED talk or a speech, you know, in front of a group of people? It always helps to prepare in that environment. Just like how actors prepare on stage, you know, that they're going to perform it.

[00:53:54] And now you're like, “Jim, that's not very practical. I can always, you know, study in this room or prepare in this meeting room or whatever.” Well, then you could take, you can merge these two tactics together. The olfactory, you could actually take the environment with you by [indiscernible][00:54:06] your sense of smell. So what if you were, you know, let's say you and I had to give a talk, which we do like in, you know, two days, right? And we wanted to be able to study and rehearse it and practice it. If we were to go through our notes and actually have a unique smell, like let's say a certain lip balm or essential oil or a certain chewing gum that's distinct that we could smell. We use that while we're studying. And then when we need to prepare, when we need to perform, then we actually access that same smell.

[00:54:35] We wear that same cologne, same essential oils, that same lip balm whatever it is, then we're going to access more of those memories.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:41] That makes sense. So since we can't take the rest of the environment with us, we create an element of that environment that is portable.

Jim Kwik: [00:54:48] That we take with…

Jordan Harbinger: [00:54:49] So you grabbed the mint-flavored or scented Chapstick, rub it under your nose, study at a Starbucks for a couple of hours. When you change Starbucks, it doesn't really matter because you got this mint stuff with you. And then when you take the exam on goes…

Jim Kwik: [00:55:00] Or perform and it'll be accurate.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:55:03] Cool!

Jim Kwik: [00:55:04] And then that is just conditioning, right? So that's the M in MOM, it is motivations. Tapping into your motivation, asking yourself why? Because reasons reap results and rewards. The O in MOM stands for observation and we already covered this. The art of memory is the art of attention is the art of observation.

[00:55:18] Like President Clinton -- To have a powerful memory, to have a powerful presence means being powerfully present. Just listen, right? Everyone could remember a name. It's one word. It's two words, right? But what I would say is if you just listened now like, but they don't teach listening techniques. How do you do that? I would just write down the word, listen or type out the word listen. Just imagine in your mind's eye, scramble the letters is kind of a brain exercise, mental exercise and it spells another word perfectly silent. So what I would say is to be a better listener, it starts by being quiet, right? And like, because if you're talking to yourself, if you have a conversation going on inside your head, thinking about what you're going to say and everything, you can't listen to two conversations at once.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:02]  That was a tough habit for me to break as a host. “What am I going to ask next? Okay. He's saying this, all right, so what am I thinking? Oh, let me just trail off”, and then I go, “Crap! What are we talking about?”

Jim Kwik: [00:56:11] And that's the thing, like the art of attention is a myth. Attention is just like a muscle. Just like we talked about, you know, you're exercising in the wrong way in terms of distraction when you check your phone first thing in the morning or late at night, you know, for coming from the blue light and you know, that inhibits melatonin production, all that stuff. But I would say is, so many people need to break up with their phone. I'm not saying just get rid of it completely because it still lets us to be able to, it’s very convenient, right?

[00:56:37] But I would say is, your phone is a tool, right? It is there as a resource for you. But when you're picking it up out of habit or out of boredom or you're just sitting at a dinner table and you have it, even having it on the table, it really elevates stress and everything.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:56:53] Tell me about it. My stress level always goes out with my phone in hand.

Jim Kwik: [00:56:56] Exactly. So the purpose of a phone or smart device is to use it as a tool because the opposite is also true. That if it's using you, then who's the tool?  Seriously. So the O in MOM stands for observation, meaning be silent and just listen and you'll remember the name. And then finally the last M in MOM stands for mechanics. And not the person that fixes your car, but the tools, the techniques, the strategies on how to remember names, how to give a speech without notes, how to read faster, how to have better focus, how to learn our language, how to learn a musical instrument, whatever it is,

[00:57:28] there are real strategies because when our students and our podcast listeners, they’re able to do what I do, you know, like memorize decks of cards and they’ll do all this things as well as I do, if not better, because there's always a method behind the magic. I believe at a high level, one of the principles of quick brain is that genius leaves clues. Genius leaves clues. If somebody excels in some area, I don't mean like IQ genius, that's the last thing I'm talking about. I'm talking about if somebody is excellent in their field of expertise, then there's clues. They didn't just happen to just show up that way, that they're doing other things consciously or unconsciously that other people aren't doing. And then if you learn those things, you can get the same kind of results. And really what I'm talking about is taking nouns and training yourself to take a noun and turn it into a verb.

 

[00:58:17] So what do I mean by that? I'm saying that if you want to be a leader and a successful entrepreneur or a parent or you know, whatever it is, influencer, what I would say is, get out of this thing that everything is static. Meaning that so many people say, “Oh, I wish I had energy or I don't have motivation or I can't write today. I don't have creativity today. I don't have focus.” You know, you don't have focus. You do focus. You don't have a memory. You do a memory, you don't have motivation, you do motivation. You don't even have energy. You do energy. You don't have love, you do love. And one of the reasons why, the reason I bring this up is when I talk about there's no magic pill, but there are magical processes, step-by-step. So you don't have energy,

[00:59:02] you could actually do things that give you energy. You don't have a memory. There is a step-by-step process for actually remembering something, but the problem is when we make it static and we make it a noun like something we have, then we're at the effect. Then we are a thermometer again. I hope, you know, like even writers and I know if you've had some amazing writers and New York Times best-selling authors here, the ones that I find that you get into flow, they don't just hope they wake up and they could like not not have writer's block or whatever it is. They have a process, right? And I feel like a genius…

Jordan Harbinger: [00:59:32] They have rituals to like, pick up and I make one cup of matcha tea and then I make another cup of…

Jim Kwik: [00:59:38] Exactly, because those are the things that they could do to help create an environment where that flow, and that focus.

Jordan Harbinger: [00:59:43]  It's the lip balm. It’s just always weird stuff with writers.

Jim Kwik: [00:59:45] Exactly. Actually, I train a lot of athletes to get in flow and focus. You know, whether they’re race car drivers or tennis players or what-have-you, and the same thing, they all bounce the balls, turn amount of times or when they're about to hit the ball or shoot, they all have their rituals. But those becoming coated, you know, and those habits are very important because first you create your habits and then your habits create you. The most popular downloaded episode we did were my morning routine, the 10 things I do every single morning to jumpstart my brain. Everybody has theirs, Oprah has theirs and Tony has theirs and everybody has theirs, right? But mine are specific to my brain. I want to activate my brain.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:00:19] Can you give us an example? We'll link to those in the show notes, but can you give us a couple?

Jim Kwik: [01:00:23] Just a few of them in no particular order, like I'll wake up in the morning and I'll remember my dreams. Like I have a six-step process for remembering my dreams, they're like, “Jim, who cares about your dreams?” Because one of the reasons, see people don't realize this, when you're learning all day or you're trying to solve problems as an entrepreneur, some problems in your life, your brain doesn't shut off at night. If anything, it's more active.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:00:45] I hear you.

Jim Kwik: [01:00:45] Your brain, like literally, is more lit up at night and more active. And what is it doing? It's consolidating short to long term memory. It's integrating what you know, it's coming up with solutions, but when you wake up, you forget all your dreams. So you have all that knowledge and that wisdom and insight is lost. In fact, a lot of things in human culture are actually created in dream states. So for example, Mary Shelley came up with Frankenstein in her dream. Yesterday, the song Yesterday, Paul McCartney came up with a dream. The periodic table came to a chemist in his dream, right? Elias Howe created the sewing machine in his dream. Like, what are we dreaming about late at night that we’re just forgetting about? So remember your dreams and just having the intent to remember your dreams. There's a whole process people could listen to it. But what I would say is just have the intent of deciding, ‘I want to remember my dreams’ and that'll help. And then there's journaling and all kinds of things. The second thing I would say is, once you get out of bed is to make her bed. They’re like, “Jim, what was that to do with my brain?” Right? Well first of all, clean environment is important for a clarity of brain. It is.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:45] Although they say, you got to let your sweat evaporate off the bed, otherwise you're creating dust-mite reproductive territory.

Jim Kwik: [01:00:52] And that's a totally different conversation.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:01:53] So maybe make your bed after you do something else and let it air out.

Jim Kwik: [01:01:56] Let it. That's an important distinction. Nobody wants to have dust mites. So making your bed is important because number one, clean environments. You know this, when you clean your laptop or your office or whatever, you have clarity of thought, right? Your external world's reflection, your internal world. But the other reason is, at a high level, at a meta level, how you do anything is how you do everything. And you're training yourself, right? And so how you do anything, you're training yourself to be excellent first thing in the morning and you're starting your day. You know this also, there's a science to momentum, either positive or negative, like people get spiraled down. You started eating that jelly donut as you start now, we're going to start just binge watching this. It just goes down, you know, down, down. But also success has momentum also, you could build success, breed success. So why not make your bed? How long does it take? A minute? Two minutes? And you start with excellence. And you could build on that. So you start with a win. And the other reason why is when you come back at night, you come back to your bed, you come back to success, right? So you're going to go from full circle.  The third thing you could do to jumpstart your brain is brush your teeth and you're like, “Jim, that's so obvious.”

Jordan Harbinger: [01:03:04]  Well, I have evolved. I spent a lot of years not jumpstarting my brain, if you know what I'm saying.

Jim Kwik: [01:03:09]  And I would say I have a little twist on it. I would encourage people based on the research is to challenge yourself to brush your teeth with your opposite hand. And what this trains is two things. Number one, it trains presence because in order to do it, it's going to be at first it can be a little uncomfortable. So it will train you to be in the moment, just like with your attention. Most people are trying to think of the future and they're in the past, be present. So doing something uncomfortable gets you there. Also what I would say is by using your opposite hand, it stimulates the opposite side of your brain. We know through science that one part of your brain, half of it controls the other half of your body.

[01:03:46] Meaning that if, God forbid, somebody you know had a stroke or head trauma on the left side of their brain, if there's paralysis, it'll manifest on the right side of their body. Right? And so we know that there's not just a mind-body connection. There's a body-mind connection that using your body in certain ways could actually stimulate your brain also. So use your opposite hand. This was research done by Dr. Lawrence Katz, who worked with seniors wanting to find out how to keep their brain alive. And he came up with all these exercises to be able to, and they're very simple exercise like brushing her teeth with the opposite hand, eating with the opposite hand and so on. Another thing you can do, hydrate. You know, because you could lose up to a pound of water at night.

[01:04:27] Even just you talking about sweating. Like perspiration and respiration that freeze all those dust mites? And so your brain and your body is about 70 plus percent water and so hydrate, you lose a lot of water when you see…

Jordan Harbinger: [01:04:38] A lot of people just drink coffee in the morning and they think they're covering that base, but it's a diuretic, right?

Jim Kwik: [01:04:44] So I was true at one point, so I would focus on hydrating. And at that point, also I'm taking my probiotics. Meaning that your second brain is your gut. They call that your second brain high, second highest concentration of neurons and nerve fibers. And so I would say is to take your probiotics and because that feeds you, that's your second brain and make sure you take care of what's there. After that, take a cold shower. [indiscernible][01:05:11]  cold therapy.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:05:14] Brutal.

Jim Kwik: [01:05:15] They’re like, “Jim, I love you this whole episode, up to this point.”

Jordan Harbinger: [01:05:17] How long of a cold shower?

Jim Kwik: [01:05:19] So here's the thing, I believe for me, cold therapy works really well. I encourage people to do their own research and test on themselves. But we know anecdotally, you hit your knee on a coffee table, what do you do? You put ice.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:05:34] Coffee table. Oh sorry, put ice on it.

Jim Kwik: [01:05:36] You put ice on it. And what does it do? It reduces swelling and reduces inflammation. You know, while your body and your brain has inflammation and some research suggests, medical doctors say that it's the beginning of all disease, right? When you have inflammation in your body and the goal is to lower inflammation and one of the ways of doing it is cold, right? And so some people do ice baths, right? We know a lot of athletes, they do ice baths to lower inflammation.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:05:57] Tim Ferriss loves his ice bath. All those weirdos.

Jim Kwik: [01:05:59] All those cryotherapy where you’re going in with your underwear and gloves and ear muffs and into a -240 degrees for two or three minutes. But the cold shower [indiscernible][01:06:10] also as well. And also the other reason why you want to do a cold shower is because I remember you said, how you do anything is how you do everything. You could train yourself to be more resilient. I think, you know, part of it, a yes, you know, there's a number of Gs for success. There is growth mindset, right? Carol Dweck’s work The Growth Mindset, but there's a second G, giving, right? Because you grow seeing more to give, right?

[01:06:35] The other G is gratitude, right? Because I believe what you appreciate appreciates meaning like when you wake up in the morning…

Jordan Harbinger: [01:06:41]  There are all kinds of bumper sticker.

Jim Kwik: [01:06:43] When you wake up in the morning and you go through a gratitude exercise, morning routine, I did an episode on Thanksgiving, how gratitude rewires your brain. Literally, four ways of getting to instant gratitude but, literally, what you appreciate appreciates meaning grows. And so taking time because you can have everything in the world, but if you don't appreciate it, you don't have anything and somebody could have nothing and appreciate the little they have and they have like everything, right? And success breeds success. You create more from that. And so what I would say is, but another G besides growth, besides giving besides gratitude, the fourth G in this mindset would be grit.

[01:07:19] You know, like resilience, not giving up, perseverance, right? And consistency. Because just like if you're persistent, you'll get it. But if you're consistent, you'll keep it. You know, there's a bumper sticker.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:07:32] Yeah. You're matching, I'm not going to ask you about that.

Jim Kwik: [01:07:35] At Jim Kwik, but that's where the memory comes in, right? We spoke at an event together actually. It was Thrive.  And yeah, and then Les Brown, somebody asked a question, it's like, “How do you remember all those quotes from the stage?” And he's like, “Dude, met Jim Kwik 20 years ago”, but these sayings are really important because they stick with you and there are a lot of life lessons here. But grit is so important. So how do you build grit, you put yourself in uncomfortable positions.

[01:08:00] And I think taking a cold shower is very uncomfortable, right? But it's not risky to your health, right?

Jordan Harbinger: [01:08:07] That’s true, it's like the easiest outside your comfort zone.

Jim Kwik: [01:08:09] Exactly. But if you could get used to comfortable, being uncomfortable, I feel like that's where we expand. That's where we grow. That's where we become better. I mean, if you really want to get to the next level of your life or your learning or whatever we're talking about, you want to be able to play and practice at the edge of your comfort zone, at the edge of your limits, pure out. And so like you would expand it, your grit, take cold showers and you'll get more comfortable being on stage. You'll be more comfortable doing the diff, making that cold call or talking to that attractive person that yet you want to build a relationship because you get yourself to do hard things.

[01:08:47] Here's the thing, I believe that if you procrastinate, put things off, you do the easy things all the time. When you do easy things, life is hard. That's just true. You put easy. If you do it, you just do the easy things. You don't work out, just watch TV, whatever it is, then life becomes very hard. But if you do the hard things in life, life gets easy. You know, if you do the hard things, again going back to habits. First you create your habits, then your habits create you. Great habits of meditation, having a brain power smoothie, doing your deep Wim Hof breathing, taking your cold showers, brushing your teeth. You do the hard things, then life gets easier.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:09:17] And if the hard things really are just cold showers and brushing your teeth at the opposite hand among other things, I mean, we still have it pretty easy.

Jim Kwik: [01:09:23] Yeah. These are good problems.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:09:24] Keep it less than cushy. Your course has a ton of things like this. And this is the free level of a course. It's called Kwik Recall, right? And Jen was like, “Yeah, he's got this really interesting course. It's called Kwik. Uhm, I think its…it's a, it's Kwik Recall!” And I went,” Oh, how good could it possibly be if you couldn't remember the name?” She eventually remembered the name.

Jim Kwik: [01:09:50] So what I would say is the best way to get access, everything that we have is just go to kwikbrain.com and I know you'll put it in the notes. The only thing you'd see about the spell it right, it's K W I K like a Kwik-E-Mart. And then like Simpsons or something -- Kwik Brain. And then we'll actually give you three of the bonus videos on how to remember names. So we talk about MOM, the mechanics where the last M and I'll teach you how to actually remember names. Walk into a room, meet 20 strangers, leave saying goodbye to every single one of them. We’ll also teach you how to give a TED talk without notes and all these fun things. And then you'll have that instant access to our podcast because that's the best way. It’s bite-sized brain hacks for busy people.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:10:25] And I’ll be on there too.

Jim Kwik: [01:10:26] Yes, you definitely want to listen to that episode. So every episode it's like, “How do you remember names? How do you give a speech without notes? How do you learn a language? How do you change your habits? How do you improve your focus? What are your top 10 favorite brain foods?” And literally I record most of them on my phone. You know, people will put, we have a private Facebook group and people post questions and I just literally, instead of typing the answer out every single time I just pick up my phone, hit my voice recorder, answer it, we upload it, it's an episode and people would get the podcast there. So just search my name on your podcast app, K W I K or go to kwikbrain.com and then I would say, as a walkaway, as a takeaway for everybody, I believe if you want to learn faster, the best thing you could do is to teach other people. I really do believe if you learn with the intent of teaching, then you get to learn it twice when you teach somebody else. And the challenge, everybody who's listening to this episode, I challenge you to do this one thing, to take a screenshot of this actual episode, post in on social media -- Facebook, Twitter, maybe it's on Instagram, tag Jordan, tag myself and post in the comments or description, your big aha. And we covered a lot of things in this conversation and I hope that people took a lot of notes. We did a whole episode on proper way of taking notes, which I think it's a must listen to episode.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:11:39]   We keep people lazy. We make worksheets for them, and downloaded in the show notes.

Jim Kwik: [01:11:43] And so people, what I would suggest is to go through it and write your big aha and share it on social media. Because when you teach it, you'll own it more and you're more likely to and to employ it. And so take a screenshot, tag us both and then while you're there, ask any burning questions you have because I know you and I are very active in social media. So other on Twitter, Instagram or wherever, follow us there and then ask your big question. And, because questions really are the answer. There is no stupid question.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:12:11] Jim, thank you very much, man.

Jim Kwik: [01:12:12] Dude, this is great.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:12:16]  Well Jason, I'd love to banter with you at the end of this, but I want to be ‘Kwik’ about it.

Jason DeFillippo: [01:12:20] I see what you did there.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:12:22] Yeah, I bet you did. So great big thank you to Jim Kwik. Of course, and if you want to know how I managed to book all these great guests, manage my relationships with all these busy, amazing friends that I have, I use systems, I use tiny habits, no surprise there. I've outlined a bunch of those for you for free, over at our Six-Minute Networking course. Check that out. Jordanharbinger.com/course and I know a lot of people are like, “Oh why should I network? I don't need anything. I'm happy in my job.” The number one mistake people make is that they postpone this. They don't dig the well before they get thirsty. You cannot make up for lost time with relationships and networking.

[01:12:57] Once you need relationships, you're too late to build them. So these drills are just a few minutes per day. Do this habit, ignore it at your own peril. This is the stuff I wish I knew 10, 15 years ago. It is crucial. Jordanharbinger.com/course, and speaking of relationships, tell me your number one takeaway here from Jim Kwik. I'm @JordanHarbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. I'm on IG a lot these days. I like it. I get the comments there. I do some videos there and don't forget, if you want to learn how you apply everything you heard today from Jim, go grab the worksheets at JordanHarbinger.com/podcast. They're just linked right up in the show notes. This episode was produced and edited by Jason DeFillippo. Show notes are by Robert Fogarty. The worksheet today was by Dan Fox. Booking, back office and last minute miracles by Jen Harbinger and I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful, which should be in every episode. So please share the show with those you love and even those you don't. Lots more in the pipeline. Very excited to bring it to you. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen and we'll see you next time.

Jordan Harbinger: [01:14:03]  Before I forget, I want to invite you to our new flagship program, Advanced Human Dynamics. This is going to be a three-day, insanely hands-on scenario and behavior change, body language and nonverbal communication profiling, dark psychology, influence and persuasive communication, counter influence, counter manipulation, awareness and prevention techniques. Very 007, we've got a lot of military and intelligence personnel that we've been teaching this too. Personal value development, interpersonal relationships, the secrets behind reaching out to and connecting with influencers and potential mentors in your industry as well as business and personal relationship development. As you're aware, most people go to events, they forget everything, not this one. This event, we are focusing on behavior change for the majority of this and we've got activities afterwards to hammer things on home. This event aims to be one of the best and most powerful educational experiences of your personal and professional life. So reach out to us at advancedhumandynamics.com, you can email me jordan@advancedhumandynamics.com or give us a call, (408) 805-5520, that's (408) 805-5520 I'm looking forward to seeing you there.