Speaker 1: If we're to fast forward five years and everything in
Speaker 1: your life was exactly the same, would you be happy?
Speaker 1: And I think most people would say no. Right, So
Speaker 1: change is inevitable, but growth.
Speaker 2: Is not.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 3: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 3: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 3: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 3: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 3: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 3: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 3: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 3: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 3: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 3: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 3: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 3: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Jim Quick,
Speaker 3: and internationally acclaimed authority in the realm of brain optimization,
Speaker 3: memory improvement, and accelerated learning. With over thirty years of experience,
Speaker 3: Jim has dedicated his life to helping people tap into
Speaker 3: their brain's full potential. From overcoming learning challenges. After a
Speaker 3: childhood brain injury, Jim embarked on a journey with the
Speaker 3: mission to leave no brain behind. Through his teachings, Jim
Speaker 3: inspires others to unlock their ener genius, empowering them to
Speaker 3: live a life of greater power, productivity, and purpose. Jim
Speaker 3: is the host of the podcast Quick Brain with Jim Quick. Today,
Speaker 3: Jim and Eric discuss his book Limitless Upgrade Your Brain,
Speaker 3: Learn Anything Faster, Unlock Your Exceptional Life.
Speaker 2: Hi, Jim, welcome to the show. It's good to be here.
Speaker 1: Eric, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to have you on. We're going to be
Speaker 2: discussing your book, Limitless Upgrade your Brain, Learn Anything Faster
Speaker 2: and Unlock your Exceptional Life. And it will actually be
Speaker 2: the expanded edition because you've added to it recently, and
Speaker 2: we'll be talking about that. But before we do, let's
Speaker 2: start like we always do with the parable. In the Parable,
Speaker 2: there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild. They say,
Speaker 2: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 2: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 2: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 2: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 2: and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and they
Speaker 2: think about it for a second. They look up at
Speaker 2: their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins, And
Speaker 2: the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 2: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 2: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 2: you do.
Speaker 1: I like that a lot. I just got goosebumps. I
Speaker 1: haven't heard the parable for a little while, but the
Speaker 1: way you expressed it, I call them truth bumps. So thanks,
Speaker 1: thank you for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great phrase.
Speaker 1: I like the one you feed because I'm a brain
Speaker 1: guy helping people improve their brain, and I believe what
Speaker 1: you nourish flourishes. And we always have a choice. There's
Speaker 1: a quote in my book Limitless Expanded from a French
Speaker 1: philosopher that would be relevant to this. He says life
Speaker 1: is a letter C between the letters B and D,
Speaker 1: where B stands for birth, d stands for death. Life
Speaker 1: ce choice. That we always have a choice, including what
Speaker 1: we're going to do, who you can spend time with,
Speaker 1: or our focus is what things mean. And we always
Speaker 1: have a choice of which one we're going to feed.
Speaker 1: And yeah, whatever you nourish is going to flourish for sure,
Speaker 1: including it especially now, because I believe if you perceive
Speaker 1: these as difficult times, and certainly history has had difficult times,
Speaker 1: but without even comparison these difficult times, they could diminish you.
Speaker 1: These difficult times can distract you, or these difficult times
Speaker 1: they could develop you. And we decide, and we always
Speaker 1: have agency because we always have a choice. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that parable.
Speaker 2: So interestingly, what you just said there was where I
Speaker 2: was going to start the interview is a recent quote
Speaker 2: that you posted on Twitter. Difficult times can define you,
Speaker 2: diminish you, or develop you. I love that idea. Talk
Speaker 2: to me a little bit about how to use difficult
Speaker 2: times for our growth. So let's just pick a difficult time.
Speaker 2: I mean, the world is challenging. I tend to agree
Speaker 2: with you. I think the world has always been challenging.
Speaker 2: I mean, the history is brutal, you know. But let's
Speaker 2: look more internally. Let's talk about somebody who has let's
Speaker 2: say lost someone really precious to them. You know, maybe
Speaker 2: if someone died or a breakup happened, or think sort
Speaker 2: of great loss in which there is real grief and
Speaker 2: sadness and there's also a recognition in it that there's
Speaker 2: a way to grow from it. Talk to me about
Speaker 2: what's the right way to orient towards that in a
Speaker 2: way that's human right, that doesn't deny the and things
Speaker 2: that are happening, but also doesn't allow us to get
Speaker 2: stuck in them and allows us to use that energy
Speaker 2: for positive growth.
Speaker 1: Sure, I will offer just one perspective, and so I
Speaker 1: think everybody's a little bit different. Everyone's been through Let's
Speaker 1: say the content is different of our past and script
Speaker 1: and stories, the three areas that I focus on for change,
Speaker 1: which I assume somebody is looking for some kind of
Speaker 1: change in terms of a result or how they feel
Speaker 1: or a behavior. We control what we can control. And
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert on grief. I say, obviously, obviously
Speaker 1: everyone has experienced their own share of it in different forms.
Speaker 1: So there's maybe some context for listeners who aren't familiar
Speaker 1: with my work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, please.
Speaker 1: As a brain coach, I never knew what a brain
Speaker 1: coach was. Growing up as a kid, right, I wanted
Speaker 1: to be like Batman or Spider Man. I grew up
Speaker 1: with learning difficulties. I had a pretty traumatic brain injury
Speaker 1: when I was five, we hear a lot about post
Speaker 1: traumatic stress. We don't hear a lot about post traumatic growth.
Speaker 1: People who come through difficult times, times that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: wish upon anybody, and some people come out of it
Speaker 1: feeling that they wouldn't change what they went through, even
Speaker 1: though it was the hardest time, the most difficult, in
Speaker 1: their darkest time in their life. And again, who am
Speaker 1: I to say?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Everybody has their own path, and I feel like sometimes
Speaker 1: some things we can only learn in a storm, are
Speaker 1: in a difficult situation. So because of my accident, I
Speaker 1: had learning difficulties severe. I couldn't focus. Remember, I had
Speaker 1: processing issues. Teachers would repeat themselves five, six, ten times
Speaker 1: and I would pretend to understand, but I understand anything.
Speaker 1: Took me years longer to learn how to read than
Speaker 1: the other kids. When I was nine, I was slowing
Speaker 1: down the class. I was being teased pretty harshly that
Speaker 1: day because I was bullied all the time. But that
Speaker 1: day the teacher came to my defense and pointed to
Speaker 1: me and said, leave that alone. That's the boy with
Speaker 1: the broken brain. That label. Then all the kids started
Speaker 1: calling me broken, right, that was kind of like the thing.
Speaker 1: So I struggled all through school, elementary school, middle school,
Speaker 1: junior high, high school. You know, just it was unfair
Speaker 1: because I felt like I worked three times harder. My
Speaker 1: parents had immigrated to the United States. My dad was thirteen.
Speaker 1: He had lost both his parents, And I don't want
Speaker 1: turn to stop story, because everybody has their story, right.
Speaker 1: They couldn't afford to feed them, so he came here
Speaker 1: to live with his aunts. And we live in the
Speaker 1: back of the laundry mat that my mom worked at,
Speaker 1: and everybody has their own thing. And I realized that,
Speaker 1: you know, growing up, we didn't have a lot of
Speaker 1: resources as people would define them. We had no money,
Speaker 1: no education, no contacts or whatever. But you know, I
Speaker 1: realized coaching the people I've had the honor to be
Speaker 1: able to work with, that it's not just about resources.
Speaker 1: It's about our internal resource fulness, and that the three
Speaker 1: things we could always control. As you control what you
Speaker 1: can control, who you control the control. If people feel
Speaker 1: like that, they're in a box, because limitless is not
Speaker 1: about being perfect. Limitless is about progressing. Like we want
Speaker 1: to mature and we want to progress and get wisdom
Speaker 1: and feel good and you know, b do have share whatever.
Speaker 1: But if you feel like you're not progressing. You feel
Speaker 1: like you're in a box emotionally, like you feel stuck
Speaker 1: or financially or happiness or learning whatever, you're not making progress. Right,
Speaker 1: So that box is defined by the three dimensions that
Speaker 1: contain it. Right, it's three dimensional, and these are the
Speaker 1: three same three forces that will liberate you out of
Speaker 1: those states or those situations. The feelings that you're feeling,
Speaker 1: and the three things I feel like are the big
Speaker 1: levers for people. That's practical is our mindset, our motivation,
Speaker 1: and the methods. It's our head, our heart, and our hands. Right,
Speaker 1: it's what we think, what we feel, and what we do,
Speaker 1: and those are three things we could always control, and
Speaker 1: so we can't control our past.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because my two biggest challenges growing up
Speaker 1: were learning because I was the worst in the school.
Speaker 1: And the second was public speaking because my superpower and
Speaker 1: I talk about superpowers because I eventually taught myself how
Speaker 1: to read by reading comic books and those stories really
Speaker 1: kind of brought it to life. The words was learning
Speaker 1: in public speaking because I never knew the answer, and
Speaker 1: so my superpower was like shrinking. I mean, I was
Speaker 1: really good as a kid taking up a little space.
Speaker 1: Like even my physiology, I was just like always like
Speaker 1: slouching and didn't want to be seen sitting behind the
Speaker 1: tall kid in class was being invisible, right, And life
Speaker 1: has a sense of humor, because what do I do
Speaker 1: for a living? I public speak on this thing called
Speaker 1: learning every single day for thirty years. But this is
Speaker 1: just an example of how a challenge led to change,
Speaker 1: a struggle became a strength, right, And I really do
Speaker 1: believe post traumatic growth talks about they wouldn't wish it
Speaker 1: upon anyone, and yet they wouldn't maybe even change it
Speaker 1: for them selves because going through it, they found and
Speaker 1: discovered something. Some people would call it a gift. Some
Speaker 1: people would say I found a strength, I found a trait,
Speaker 1: I found a mission, I got cleared down a purpose.
Speaker 1: I found out more about who I am or whatever
Speaker 1: that is. And so I just feel like adversities in
Speaker 1: some cases not all cases, but it's really what we
Speaker 1: choose to believe is our truth. Adversity it can be
Speaker 1: an advantage forget it really raw. I don't know one
Speaker 1: strong person eric that had an easy life. I just
Speaker 1: don't because it requires muscles and it requires effort, and
Speaker 1: I don't know anyone who's given everything that I would
Speaker 1: really find that interesting I want to spend time with
Speaker 1: because they never had to go through the things.
Speaker 2: That's a great answer to kind of get into those
Speaker 2: three areas, And I want to go into those three
Speaker 2: areas in a second. But what do you feel as
Speaker 2: you look back? Were there any sort of pivotal moments
Speaker 2: that launched you in a different direction. Now, I'm not
Speaker 2: a believer that like a single moment changes our life,
Speaker 2: because if it's not followed by a whole lot of
Speaker 2: continued behaviors, it doesn't really mean anything. And epiphany is
Speaker 2: no good if it doesn't lead to action. But I'm curious,
Speaker 2: how did things start to change for you? When did
Speaker 2: you start to say, oh, wait a minute, I'm not
Speaker 2: a broken brain person. I can learn. I can you
Speaker 2: tell me a little bit about some of those experiences.
Speaker 1: Probably the one that had the most impact on me
Speaker 1: and really create an inflection in terms of why I'm
Speaker 1: doing this now. When I was eighteen, I was lucky
Speaker 1: enough to get into a local state college. I purposely
Speaker 1: picked a place that I didn't know anyone was going
Speaker 1: there because I knew that I was affected by how
Speaker 1: people saw me, and it's really hard to change when
Speaker 1: people see you a certain way, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: You know, they're used to you, and they reinforced that
Speaker 1: identity I was perceived. It's not so smart and broken,
Speaker 1: and I want to get away from people who thought
Speaker 1: I was like that, so I could try to recreate myself.
Speaker 1: And I thought freshmen meant I can make a fresh art.
Speaker 1: So I took all these classes and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to finally do this, and I want to
Speaker 1: make my parents proud. I want to show the world,
Speaker 1: show myself that I could be successful, be smart, you
Speaker 1: name it, right, be better. And I to all these
Speaker 1: classes that I did worse because you know, it's just
Speaker 1: so much more difficult. And I was ready to quit
Speaker 1: because I didn't have the money even to go to college.
Speaker 1: And I have a younger brother, younger sister. I'd rather
Speaker 1: had them have the money. And yet I'm also torn
Speaker 1: because I want to be in a good example and
Speaker 1: my parents work really hard many jobs, and I just
Speaker 1: want to make their sacrifice just mean something. So I
Speaker 1: had all that angst, right, and I'm layer that over,
Speaker 1: like my belief about myself and how I think I'm broken,
Speaker 1: and I really wasn't doing very well at all, even
Speaker 1: though I was working three times harder and putting in
Speaker 1: the effort and the discipline. It's not because I was lazy,
Speaker 1: but I just didn't still into as well as people
Speaker 1: that worked a fraction of the effort. So anyway, a
Speaker 1: friend says, hey, before you quit school, that's a big deal,
Speaker 1: and you tell your parents, why don't you come home
Speaker 1: with me this weekend. I'm going to see my family
Speaker 1: get some perspective. So I think one of the things
Speaker 1: that helped me was when you change the place you're
Speaker 1: in or the people you're with, it gives you another
Speaker 1: point of view, right, And so I agree to do that,
Speaker 1: and the family is pretty well off. I have a
Speaker 1: nice home on the water and different than I grew up.
Speaker 1: But the father's walking me around his property before dinner,
Speaker 1: and he asked me a very simple question, but innocent question,
Speaker 1: but the worst question you could ask me at the time.
Speaker 1: He says, Jim, so how school? And I am again introverted,
Speaker 1: very shy, insecure, and I have all this pressure and
Speaker 1: I start bawling in front of this complete stranger, like
Speaker 1: crying because I can't even contain it, like this is
Speaker 1: the first person. I just feel like I had so
Speaker 1: much ankst and I just tell my whole story about
Speaker 1: my traumatic brain injury and school's not for me. I'm
Speaker 1: not smart. I don't know how to tell my parents
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quit school, and I have all this pressure.
Speaker 1: And he's like, Jim, well, he asked me a question.
Speaker 1: He's like, well, why you in school? And honestly, I
Speaker 1: didn't have any answer, Eric, because nobody's never asked me
Speaker 1: that question before, Like, I just you know, you go
Speaker 1: to school. That's what you're supposed to do, right, You
Speaker 1: could go to school, get a job, whatever, right, And
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know. Well, He's like, well, Jim,
Speaker 1: what do you want to be? What do you want
Speaker 1: to do, What do you want to have? What do
Speaker 1: you want to contribute to the world? And I didn't
Speaker 1: have answers to any of that either, because nobody never
Speaker 1: asked me those questions. And I realized, besides perspective going
Speaker 1: the new place people, that asking a new question will
Speaker 1: give you a new answer in life, a new focus
Speaker 1: or focal point, and it'll draw your spotlight of attention
Speaker 1: somewhere that maybe wasn't at before, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what I want to be and do have.
Speaker 1: He makes me write down a list, like a dream
Speaker 1: list or a bucket list things I want to accomplish
Speaker 1: before I kicked the boocket, right. And when I'm done
Speaker 1: with this exercise a few sheets of paper, I start
Speaker 1: folding it to put in my pocket and he rips
Speaker 1: it out of my hands and he starts to read
Speaker 1: my dream list right. And again, I'm a very insecure
Speaker 1: kid and there's a this person who's obviously pretty successful,
Speaker 1: and then of course I have the normal reactions like
Speaker 1: I don't want to be judged, and what is he
Speaker 1: thinking and all that stuff. And he looks up and
Speaker 1: he says, Jim, you are this close to everything on
Speaker 1: this list, and if you're not watching this on video,
Speaker 1: I'm just spurning my indexed fingers like a foot apart.
Speaker 1: I'm like, are you insane? There's give me ten lifetimes.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to crack any that list. And he
Speaker 1: takes his fingers and he puts the things side of
Speaker 1: my head, meaning what's in between is the key. And
Speaker 1: he takes me into his room of his home that
Speaker 1: I've never seen before. It is wall, the wall, ceiling,
Speaker 1: the floor covered in books, like it's a library in
Speaker 1: somebody's house. And remember I've never read a book, right,
Speaker 1: and so now it's like being a roomful of snakes.
Speaker 1: So I have a lot of anxiety and I'm very intimidated.
Speaker 1: But what it makes it worse is he starts going
Speaker 1: to shelves and grabbing snakes and handing them to me.
Speaker 1: And I look at these books and they're these biographies
Speaker 1: of some incredible men and women in history, some very
Speaker 1: early personal growth mind books like Norman Vincent Peel, The
Speaker 1: Power of Positive Thinking, Thinking grew Rich and Dale Carnegie,
Speaker 1: Napoleon Hill, all these books, right, And he's like Jim,
Speaker 1: he said, you have to read to succeed, and I
Speaker 1: want you to read one book a week. And I
Speaker 1: can't commit because that's my word. You know, my parents
Speaker 1: raised me a certain way. I'm like, I can't do that.
Speaker 1: I have all his schoolwork. And when I said schoolwork,
Speaker 1: because I was like, I mean you've heard anything, I'm saying,
Speaker 1: like I have a broken brain. I'm very slow reader.
Speaker 1: I said schoolwork. He pulled out this Mark Twain quote
Speaker 1: and he says something like, don't let school get in
Speaker 1: the way of education.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's very insightful, and I'm still not
Speaker 1: going to read all these books. And then, very smart man,
Speaker 1: he pulls out my dream list, my boocket list that
Speaker 1: he still has, and he starts reading every single one
Speaker 1: of my dreams out loud. And I don't know, Eric,
Speaker 1: it's just hearing your dreams in another man's voice out
Speaker 1: in the ether. You know. It just messed with my
Speaker 1: mind and my spirit something fierce. And honestly, a lot
Speaker 1: of things on that list were things I wanted to
Speaker 1: do for my family, things they can never afford, or
Speaker 1: even if they had money, they wouldn't do it for themselves.
Speaker 1: And so with that leverage, and that's another key. So
Speaker 1: you have perspective, you have different questions, and also what
Speaker 1: drives you, Like these are things that gave me purpose.
Speaker 1: So I agree to read one book a week.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I tell people, if you don't have any reasons, you
Speaker 1: won't get results. Right. That pretty much sums up motivation.
Speaker 1: If you don't have a reason to remember someone's name,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna remember that person's name. You don't have
Speaker 1: a reason or real reason that you're feeling that remember
Speaker 1: what you read you're not going to remember it right.
Speaker 1: And so with those reasons, I go back to school
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting at my desk and I have pilot
Speaker 1: books I have to read for mid terms or whatever,
Speaker 1: and a pilot books I promised to read, and I
Speaker 1: already couldn't get through pile a. So what do I do.
Speaker 1: I don't eat, I don't sleep, I don't work out,
Speaker 1: I don't socialize. I just live in the library for
Speaker 1: weeks and weeks and weeks. And one night in the library,
Speaker 1: I pass out at two am, fell down a flight
Speaker 1: of stairs. I hit my head again, and I woke
Speaker 1: up in the hospital like two days later. And at
Speaker 1: this point I'm down to one hundred and seventeen pounds.
Speaker 1: I mean like I lost like forty whatever pounds, malnourished,
Speaker 1: hooked up to all these ivs, and it was the
Speaker 1: darkest time in my life. I thought I died, and
Speaker 1: part of me maybe wish I did, because I just
Speaker 1: felt like I was nothing, and you know, I couldn't
Speaker 1: do anything. It was just a waste. And when I
Speaker 1: was having those thoughts, a nurse came in and kind
Speaker 1: of interrupted me with a mug, and I drink tea
Speaker 1: and I had a picture of Albert Einstein. He's a
Speaker 1: pretty smart person, and a quote that said, the same
Speaker 1: level of thinking that has created your problem, it won't
Speaker 1: solve your problem. And it made me think, you know,
Speaker 1: a new question, was like, well, what's my problem? My
Speaker 1: problem is I have a broken brain and I'm a
Speaker 1: very slow learner. It takes me eight times longer to
Speaker 1: learn something than everybody else. Well, then, Corden Einstein, how
Speaker 1: do I think differently about it? Well? Maybe I could,
Speaker 1: I don't know, learn to fix my brain, learn how
Speaker 1: to learn better. I was like, okay, where do I
Speaker 1: do that school? You know, so that's the only place
Speaker 1: I know where to learn, right, So I asked for
Speaker 1: the nurse for the course bulletin for next semester, and
Speaker 1: I started looking at all these classes, you know, hundreds
Speaker 1: of classes turn the pages and all classes on what
Speaker 1: to learn math, history, science, Spanish, but zero classes on
Speaker 1: how to learn those things. And then I got really frustrated,
Speaker 1: and I said, I want to put my studies aside
Speaker 1: because it's literally not making any difference in my grades,
Speaker 1: studying or not. And so I started studying these books.
Speaker 1: You know, that really tapped into more of what our
Speaker 1: potential is right. And then I started to get very
Speaker 1: curious when I started seeing what the mind could really do,
Speaker 1: and I started studying like things like speed reading, ancient mnemonics.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know what cultures do before there were
Speaker 1: printing presses, how they remember things right. And I learned
Speaker 1: all these techniques and I was consuming in it because
Speaker 1: I was like obsessed with it for like two months,
Speaker 1: and all the light switch flipped on and I started
Speaker 1: to really understand things for the first time. And I
Speaker 1: can't explain it to somebody. It's like trying to explain
Speaker 1: to somebody what a flower smells like that's never really
Speaker 1: smelled a flower before, or taste something that's It's just
Speaker 1: it was just different. And my grades obviously improved my confidence.
Speaker 1: My life got better. Now I'm here today with you
Speaker 1: in my fifties, is because all the suffering I went through,
Speaker 1: I could detect suffering. It's hard because all I did
Speaker 1: as a kid was just watch people, and I would
Speaker 1: know what it felt like to be bullied or struggled
Speaker 1: or whatever, and I could see it in other people.
Speaker 1: And so I wanted to help other people that were
Speaker 1: having trouble with their learning and I started to tutor,
Speaker 1: and one of my very first students, she was a
Speaker 1: college freshman. She read thirty books in thirty days. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to find out not how I taught her
Speaker 1: how to speed read. I want to find out her purpose,
Speaker 1: going back to motivation, her reasons. And I found out
Speaker 1: her mother was dying of terminal cancer. Doctors gave her
Speaker 1: mom just two months, like sixty days to live. In
Speaker 1: the books she was reading were books to save her
Speaker 1: mom's life. And six months later, I get a call
Speaker 1: from this young lady and she's crying profusely, and when
Speaker 1: she stops, I find out their tears of joy that
Speaker 1: her mother not only survived, but it's getting really better.
Speaker 1: Doctors know how or why. They called it a miracle,
Speaker 1: but her mother tributen one hundred percent to the greater
Speaker 1: device she got from a daughter who learned it from
Speaker 1: of these books. So long story. I realized in that
Speaker 1: moment that acknowledge is power. Then learning is our superpower,
Speaker 1: and it's a superpower we all have. It's just we
Speaker 1: aren't taught how to be able to do these things,
Speaker 1: you know, And so I use this, you know, for
Speaker 1: our podcast, our books. We have the large online platform
Speaker 1: for accelerated learning, and we have students in every country
Speaker 1: in the world, and we have a lot of data,
Speaker 1: and I could tell people, regardless of your age, your background,
Speaker 1: your career, education level, financial situation, gender history IQ, everyone
Speaker 1: could improve that there's no such thing as a good
Speaker 1: or bad brain. There's a train brain and an untrained brain.
Speaker 1: And with a little bit of effort, you know, and
Speaker 1: a little bit of mentoring, everybody could just have an
Speaker 1: easier life because there's enough stress and struggle in the world.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I just wanted to tell people that we've
Speaker 1: discovered more about the human brain in the past twenty
Speaker 1: years than the previous two thousand years, and we found
Speaker 1: as a gross lander estimator our own capabilities and all
Speaker 1: of this is possible.
Speaker 2: Thank you for sharing all that, especially those difficult moments.
Speaker 2: And what a gift that man gave you. You know, what
Speaker 2: a gift that man gave you to see you and
Speaker 2: take the time and believe in you. Thanks for sharing
Speaker 2: all that. I want to move to the title of
Speaker 2: the book for a second. I'm not trying to make
Speaker 2: an argument here, actually, but when I hear the word limitless,
Speaker 2: my brain goes that's no, we're not limitless, Like I
Speaker 2: can't play in the NBA. Like that's not going to happen.
Speaker 2: So it's not like I can do anything. And I
Speaker 2: don't think that's what you mean by limitless. Tell me
Speaker 2: a little bit about what you do mean by limitless,
Speaker 2: to open that up a little bit.
Speaker 1: So limitless is again, it's not about being perfect. It's
Speaker 1: about advancing and progressing beyond what you are currently demonstrating
Speaker 1: or maybe even believe is possible.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: And so I believe that we're all on this path
Speaker 1: to reveal and realize more of our potential. That's my
Speaker 1: personal belief. Because if everyone wanted just everything to stay
Speaker 1: the same, my question would be, if we were to
Speaker 1: fast forward five years and everything in your life was
Speaker 1: exactly the same, would you be happy? And I think
Speaker 1: most people would say no, right, So change is inevitable,
Speaker 1: but growth is not right. And so I would say
Speaker 1: that limitless is about redrawing the borders and boundaries, the
Speaker 1: limits of what's possible for us to be do have
Speaker 1: feel in our lives and so I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of this lies in the power of our brain.
Speaker 1: I'm always wearing a brain on my shirt or pointing
Speaker 1: to my brain and pictures because I feel like what
Speaker 1: you see we take care of. You may see your hair,
Speaker 1: your scan, your car, your clothes. It's in our constant awareness,
Speaker 1: so of course we're going to more likely take better
Speaker 1: care of it as opposed to our brain, which we
Speaker 1: never see. We never see a thing that takes care
Speaker 1: of us, and so I always just kind of put
Speaker 1: it on my clothes or wear it on my sleeves,
Speaker 1: point to it, because that's when we remind people it's
Speaker 1: an incredible gift that we have that we're born with
Speaker 1: right between our ears, this three pound matter. And every
Speaker 1: creature in nature, even if you model nature, has some
Speaker 1: kind of superpower. Some could breathe underwater, some are super
Speaker 1: fast or super strong, and we're not any of those things.
Speaker 1: But because of the power of our mind, we can fly.
Speaker 1: Because of our power of our mind, we can go
Speaker 1: underwater right or we can be super fast. It's its
Speaker 1: form of technology. A lot of people went out to
Speaker 1: buy the new iPhone this year. They went out and
Speaker 1: they upgrade their apps or they're whatever. There are other technologies,
Speaker 1: but when the last time we took time to upgrade
Speaker 1: the technology that has created all other technology, and so
Speaker 1: I'm a big advocate for greater mental health. A big
Speaker 1: part of that is greater brain health. When you have
Speaker 1: less stress and you're sleeping better, and you're eating foods
Speaker 1: that don't make you more anxious and stressed and could
Speaker 1: actually be protective to your brain, and when you're moving,
Speaker 1: you just feel better. There's all all these things that
Speaker 1: are common sense but not common practice. I feel like,
Speaker 1: again going back to the choices, that life is the
Speaker 1: sea between B and D and choice is how important
Speaker 1: it is. You know, the choices we make every single day.
Speaker 1: You know, what are we going to start believing, What
Speaker 1: are we going to think that day? What are we
Speaker 1: going to feed our minds, feed our bodies, who we're
Speaker 1: going to spend time with. All of this makes a difference.
Speaker 1: Everyone wants to know, like what's the magic pill. I
Speaker 1: haven't found that. I don't think there's a magic pill,
Speaker 1: but I think there's a process that we all have
Speaker 1: to go through. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like that, And you know, to sort of reframe
Speaker 2: limitless for me in a way that was helpful instead
Speaker 2: of pulling out scenarios that are unlikely to happen in
Speaker 2: my case, right like playing in the NBA. What I
Speaker 2: can totally get on board with, and I would say
Speaker 2: underlies a lot of my overall life philosophy, is that
Speaker 2: there's always a positive of step, a positive direction. We're
Speaker 2: never done, you know. So we may not know our limits, right,
Speaker 2: but when we set them obviously incorrectly, they do become
Speaker 2: our limits. And there's always a way in which we
Speaker 2: are able to keep moving, keep growing, And in that
Speaker 2: way we are limitless, right, Like if we don't apply
Speaker 2: it to outside standards, right, if we're not applying am
Speaker 2: I able to do X, Y or z? But am
Speaker 2: I able to, according to my own potential keep moving
Speaker 2: forward in a positive direction?
Speaker 1: That is being limitless, right, And you know mentioned and
Speaker 1: not comparing yourself to external things in your environment or
Speaker 1: people or what you see on social media, because there's
Speaker 1: a form of digital depression that comes from just seeing
Speaker 1: the highlight reel of everybody else, you know, as opposed
Speaker 1: to and comparing you know, our chapter three against somebody's
Speaker 1: chapter twenty in terms of some area of development. And
Speaker 1: I just feel like if we make a comparison, maybe
Speaker 1: we compare ourson selves to who we were yesterday. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're going to make any kind of comparison rather
Speaker 1: than to another person. The truth is, the grass is
Speaker 1: greener where we water it, and online it's greener because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of filters people are using or artificial turfs,
Speaker 1: you know that they have. Yeah, I think kindness is
Speaker 1: important because we never know the battles that other people
Speaker 1: are having, because we only get to see a lot
Speaker 1: of the kind of the highlights and the good stuff,
Speaker 1: so that, you know, I appreciate the real and the
Speaker 1: raw conversations that you have in your show because I
Speaker 1: feel like people don't feel like they're alone.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that kindness obviously needs directed back to ourselves
Speaker 2: because we know our own battles, but we often don't
Speaker 2: really give ourselves credit for how difficult they might be.
Speaker 2: I guess would be the way to say it, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think part of self care, you know, besides
Speaker 1: everything we put in the book, we talk about the
Speaker 1: best brain foods, how to have better nights sleep, how
Speaker 1: to be able to learn fast, all this stuff, so
Speaker 1: we know self care is not selfish, right, And part
Speaker 1: of self care is looking in the mirror and just
Speaker 1: just like loving the person that's looking back at you
Speaker 1: who's been through so much but is still standing right,
Speaker 1: Like if you're watching and listening to this right now,
Speaker 1: Like if I was asked, everyone, do you remember that
Speaker 1: time where you couldn't survive?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: I think maybe some of your your community could relate
Speaker 1: to that, a time when they didn't think they could survive. Well,
Speaker 1: if they're listening to this, then they certainly did, you know,
Speaker 1: and my perspective is they will again. Right. But self
Speaker 1: love is so important, you know in this process. You know,
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we have to kind of love ourselves
Speaker 1: like we would love somebody else, by giving us them
Speaker 1: attention and being kind to them. You know. Sometimes we
Speaker 1: feel like we beat ourselves up because at some secondary
Speaker 1: level we're going to fall more likely like follow through
Speaker 1: the next day. But studies on compassion self compassion show
Speaker 1: that when we're kind to ourselves, we're more likely to
Speaker 1: follow through, you know, on the things that are important
Speaker 1: to us. So, I mean, life is messy, So let's
Speaker 1: just get that clear, right as the success happiness is
Speaker 1: probably not a straight line. I don't know many people
Speaker 1: have had that kind of experience. Certainly I didn't. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of hills and peaks and valleys without
Speaker 1: a doubt and we do the best we can with
Speaker 1: what we can. And I think the most important thing
Speaker 1: is to keep the most important thing the most important thing,
Speaker 1: meaning that it's not so much about time management as
Speaker 1: it is mind management. And for me, the most important
Speaker 1: thing is like everyone has a to do list, right
Speaker 1: to get through the day. A lot of people do,
Speaker 1: but I think it's important to have things like to
Speaker 1: feel list. Like when you're facing a difficulty or demand,
Speaker 1: or maybe you're having a spirited debate with a family member,
Speaker 1: you don't ask yourself, what do I need to do?
Speaker 1: Most people that's what people do, but maybe we say,
Speaker 1: like who do I need to be at this moment?
Speaker 1: My favorite question? Yeah, new question, you get a new answer.
Speaker 1: And if you choose like hey, I want to be compassionate,
Speaker 1: then the doing takes care of itself. Right, it's organic,
Speaker 1: it's very natural. But having it to b list, I
Speaker 1: think it's important. And it sounds like kind of like
Speaker 1: maybe hoky for some people, but they say to two
Speaker 1: most powerful words in the English language or the smallest
Speaker 1: I am is whatever you put after that is you know,
Speaker 1: it determines your identity and your life direction. So I
Speaker 1: feel like I thought Miam was I am broken? And
Speaker 1: over time I started changing those questions where I was
Speaker 1: like Okay, it was like I'm broken, so how do
Speaker 1: I not be seen. There's this Japanese art form called
Speaker 1: kinsuki where an emperor in Japan had this treasured like
Speaker 1: teapot and one day broke it and sent it back
Speaker 1: to China to have it fixed, and when it came back,
Speaker 1: it was just all they did was like put these
Speaker 1: these staples to hold the pieces back together, and it
Speaker 1: was very unsightly. So he goes to his craftsman locally says,
Speaker 1: you got to fix this, and when craftsman really does
Speaker 1: something different, takes out the staples and actually uses this
Speaker 1: like gold kind of embalming, kind of fluid, so like
Speaker 1: really highlighted those places where it was broken and made
Speaker 1: it beautiful. And the idea behind this philosophy is in life,
Speaker 1: sometimes we feel like we want to hide and we
Speaker 1: have shame around the things where we have wounds or
Speaker 1: cuts or we were suffocated, and it really depends on
Speaker 1: the meaning we put to it. Right, some people look
Speaker 1: at it like I have this and I'm some kind
Speaker 1: of shame or deformity around this, and I'm talking about
Speaker 1: like a metaphor like can be emotional. It could be
Speaker 1: whatever they went through and other people say like, hey,
Speaker 1: that this is you know, my scars. I wear proud
Speaker 1: because I was stronger than what I was facing, you know,
Speaker 1: and I survived. And I think whoever's going through difficult
Speaker 1: times right now, I feel like that we inspire people
Speaker 1: with our grit and our grace that even if they
Speaker 1: won't acknowledge it, that people see that, you know. So
Speaker 1: I definitely wish people the best on that path. And
Speaker 1: I think that the goal here is we show up
Speaker 1: that there's a version of ourselves that I feel like,
Speaker 1: deep down we know is patiently waiting. And the goal
Speaker 1: is we show up for ourselves every single day until
Speaker 1: we're introduced. And part of that showing up for ourselves
Speaker 1: is just realizing that we're human, that we make mistakes.
Speaker 1: You know. I think self love and self care is
Speaker 1: not selfish, but you know, part of self care is
Speaker 1: forgiving ourselves, you know, for things that we did the
Speaker 1: best we could at that moment of time, and we
Speaker 1: can't change the past. We can make a mistake and
Speaker 1: we all make mistakes, right, but mistakes don't have to
Speaker 1: make us right. I feel like if we learn from it,
Speaker 1: that we can grow from these things, that they become
Speaker 1: stepping stones to the person that we know we are.
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Speaker 3: to day routine. That's why we send brief text reminders
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Speaker 2: You introduced one of my all time favorite questions, which
Speaker 2: is essentially who do I want to be in this situation,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever situation I find myself in, Who do
Speaker 2: I want to be? Long time ago, my son's twenty
Speaker 2: five now. He was two and a half three at
Speaker 2: the time. His mom left me for another man very suddenly,
Speaker 2: and I was really hurt and angry, and you know,
Speaker 2: it was a very difficult time. But that question who
Speaker 2: do I want to be? Through this was really a
Speaker 2: beacon to me of here's who I want to be.
Speaker 2: I want to be someone who isn't bitter, who isn't hateful,
Speaker 2: who is forgiving. And I'm not saying I did all
Speaker 2: that perfectly. I didn't, of course, but it gave me
Speaker 2: a direction. And I can look back on that time now,
Speaker 2: and I can look back on that time with my
Speaker 2: ex and we would both say, yeah, bravo, right, like
Speaker 2: you really handled that in a way that I can
Speaker 2: feel very proud of all these years later. And so
Speaker 2: I just think that question who do I want to be?
Speaker 2: Can be used on really big situations. It can be
Speaker 2: used on who we are as a person, but it
Speaker 2: can be used on really little situations like you talked
Speaker 2: about too. It's a discussion with a family member who
Speaker 2: do I want to be I'm sitting down to dinner
Speaker 2: with my family, who's the person I want to be?
Speaker 2: Do I want to be connected and paying attention? Or
Speaker 2: do I want to be distracted by work? So I
Speaker 2: love that. I'd like to pivot to something you say,
Speaker 2: which is I am, and then whatever you put after
Speaker 2: that is really important. And we've talked about limiting beliefs
Speaker 2: very little bit here. We talked about if I put
Speaker 2: after I am broken, then I'm going to be consider
Speaker 2: myself broken. And you also talk about identity. Right, Our
Speaker 2: identity is very important in our ability to change who
Speaker 2: we are, right. I think probably James Clear put it
Speaker 2: in his book. Maybe I don't remember the first time
Speaker 2: I heard it. It was the idea of it's very
Speaker 2: different to say, if you're trying to quit smoking and
Speaker 2: somebody offers you a cigarette, to say, I'm not a
Speaker 2: smoker versus I'm trying not to smoke right now. Right,
Speaker 2: there's an identity change there. But the thing that I
Speaker 2: always find really tricky about this is that we don't
Speaker 2: tend to be able to lie to ourselves. So, for example,
Speaker 2: if I want to be a physically fit person, someone
Speaker 2: who takes very good care of myself. Right, I could
Speaker 2: say I am physically fit, I am whatever word you
Speaker 2: want to use there, But if my behaviors aren't there,
Speaker 2: how do I hold that identity enough that my behaviors
Speaker 2: will eventually catch up and be able to use that identity?
Speaker 2: Because identity, I think can be used in negative and
Speaker 2: positive ways, but I'm often not sure how to handle
Speaker 2: the gap between the identity I want to have and
Speaker 2: the actual behaviors that are happening.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's unpack that. So if people want
Speaker 1: to change, imagine building that's made up of different floors.
Speaker 1: So most people, let's go to the second floor, want
Speaker 1: to create some kind of behavioral change. They want to
Speaker 1: stop smoking, they want to start eating these brain foods,
Speaker 1: they want to read every day, or they want to meditate.
Speaker 1: Whatever the behavior is, right, they want to change that,
Speaker 1: and they try to put energy and effort towards that
Speaker 1: behavioral change, and not usually that successful, right, And if
Speaker 1: it doesn't stick, there's there are reasons because there are
Speaker 1: other floors in that building. If you go one floor
Speaker 1: up on the third floor, I want you to imagine
Speaker 1: that if the second floor is behavior, the third floor
Speaker 1: is capability. So Let's say somebody wants to read more. Right,
Speaker 1: I always talk about leaders or readers because of my
Speaker 1: mentor people have seen photos with me with Elon or
Speaker 1: Oprah whoever that people ask how we bonded. We bonded
Speaker 1: over books, right, because you read to succeed. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing. If you're not reading the behavior like thirty
Speaker 1: minutes a day, because reading is to your mind what
Speaker 1: exercises to your body, maybe you don't have the capability
Speaker 1: the third floor. Capability is how you read, right, and
Speaker 1: so maybe you're reading like you were last todd which
Speaker 1: for most of us was when we're six years old,
Speaker 1: and that's the last time we took a class called reading.
Speaker 1: And the difficulty and demand has increased a lot. About
Speaker 1: how we read it is the same, so we have
Speaker 1: a lot of stress around that, right, So maybe we
Speaker 1: have to address the capability. Or somebody wants to play
Speaker 1: musical instrument, but learning how to play that musical instrument.
Speaker 1: Right above capability, though, is another floor which people can
Speaker 1: imagine is the fourth floor, and that would be the
Speaker 1: beliefs and the values. Right, So somebody could want a
Speaker 1: behavior of remembering names, right, what we teach they can
Speaker 1: even learn how because they went through one of our
Speaker 1: programs or read the book. But maybe they don't value
Speaker 1: rumering people's names, and that's going to affect the change,
Speaker 1: right or lack thereof, because they don't value it beliefs
Speaker 1: and values, or they don't believe it's even possible for
Speaker 1: them to remember names because it's a belief issue. So
Speaker 1: belief and values in the fourth floor and on the
Speaker 1: fifth floor, you have identity, because the identity again is
Speaker 1: your I am because somebody you're right, that behavior won't shift.
Speaker 1: Let's say they want to do this, you know, make
Speaker 1: ten sales calls a day. That's the behavior, right, and
Speaker 1: their identity is I am a procrastinator, and so that's
Speaker 1: me really hard to maintain that change. Just like if
Speaker 1: somebody is smoking the example you use, that's a behavior
Speaker 1: on the second floor, but their identity on the top
Speaker 1: floor is I am a smoker. That's not going to change, right,
Speaker 1: And then the first floor is also important because that's
Speaker 1: your environment, and the environment plays a big role in
Speaker 1: our habits and who we are, right, and so like
Speaker 1: maybe somebody wants to change the behavior of whatever eating
Speaker 1: and now yet the nighttime, but their environment is they
Speaker 1: have a lot of snacks by their bedside, right, that's
Speaker 1: going to be really hard to reconcile. So I just
Speaker 1: want to show people that there are very logical levels
Speaker 1: that we need to be able to address to be
Speaker 1: able to affect change. And notice, like we talked about
Speaker 1: the power of questions in this conversation that questions are
Speaker 1: the answer that if you ask a new question, you're
Speaker 1: going to automatically get a new answer. And there's six
Speaker 1: questions that we're taught in school, right, five w's and
Speaker 1: an H, so six questions. So the identity is answering
Speaker 1: the question of who the top level, Right, when you
Speaker 1: go down one level, beliefs and values are your why
Speaker 1: to answering the question of why you go down a
Speaker 1: level of capabilities, that's the how you go down to
Speaker 1: a level of the second floor behavior and that's the what.
Speaker 1: And then if you go in the environment, the environment
Speaker 1: is the when and the where. So it's just in
Speaker 1: order to create consistent change, or let's say, let's call
Speaker 1: it a transformation, we have to address all those different
Speaker 1: floors because then you're in integrity, right, you're in some
Speaker 1: kind of alignment. Everything is integrated, and you're not battling
Speaker 1: floor to floor. Yeah, because you're out of alignment, if
Speaker 1: that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a stunningly good analogy. Actually, I've done
Speaker 2: a lot of studies of behavior change, and I know
Speaker 2: all these different pieces, but putting it in the analogy
Speaker 2: of a building is really really helpful. That's bravo. That's
Speaker 2: really good. It's really good. Every once in a while
Speaker 2: you see a model and you're like, that really makes
Speaker 2: a lot of sense, And this one makes a lot
Speaker 2: of sense. It reminds me a little. And I know
Speaker 2: you are familiar with this. We've had them on a
Speaker 2: couple times. BJA fog, the fog behavioral model is really helpful.
Speaker 2: But this is right up there. Nice work. So we
Speaker 2: don't have a ton of time, and there's a bunch
Speaker 2: of things I would love to get to, but what
Speaker 2: I'd like to talk about right now is the fourth floor. Values, right,
Speaker 2: Because we often have a lot lot of values, or
Speaker 2: a lot of things we're trying to value. So let's
Speaker 2: just take your example of learning people's names. I may
Speaker 2: value it, but I may not value it as much
Speaker 2: as I don't know. My point is we have competing
Speaker 2: values often, right, we have competing values I want to
Speaker 2: meditate in the morning, but I also want to work
Speaker 2: out in the morning, and I also want to do X,
Speaker 2: Y and Z in the morning. And there's only so
Speaker 2: much time in my morning, right if I've got kids
Speaker 2: and I've got to get to work. So we've got
Speaker 2: these competing values, which in my experience is very problematic.
Speaker 2: It causes us to jump around a lot. It causes
Speaker 2: us to do this, and then a couple days later
Speaker 2: we're like, wait, I'm going to value that, and that
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be doing what I want three days later,
Speaker 2: so I'm going to value this. Talk to me about
Speaker 2: sorting all that out, or as psychologists would call it,
Speaker 2: these competing commitments is another word for it.
Speaker 1: So a value for me is something that you treasure, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things you can do is first you
Speaker 1: need to know what you value. And probably a tool
Speaker 1: you could use to be able to decide on your
Speaker 1: values or uncover those values is asking the question and
Speaker 1: not not necessarily what do I value, but maybe putting
Speaker 1: it a different way, like what's most important to me
Speaker 1: in whatever context, what's most important to me in a career,
Speaker 1: what's most important to me with family, what's most important
Speaker 1: to me in a relationship, because what's most important to
Speaker 1: you in a relationship might be different than what's most
Speaker 1: important to your partners what they value in a relationship.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And so everyone's different because we all had different environments,
Speaker 1: different experiences, and we learn to associate, you know, positive
Speaker 1: things to different values and more than others, right, and
Speaker 1: pain towards other things. And so what I would say
Speaker 1: is ask yourself this question, and everyone could do this now,
Speaker 1: what's most important to me in life? And you're going
Speaker 1: to get a bunch of answers. And when you have
Speaker 1: those answers, then you put it into some kind of hierarchy, right,
Speaker 1: because you might come up with a lot of answers. So, Eric,
Speaker 1: what's most important to you in life? What's one of
Speaker 1: the things that you value? What's most important to you
Speaker 1: in life? Being kind kindness?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what else is really important to you in life
Speaker 1: besides kindness?
Speaker 2: Growth?
Speaker 1: Growth? And then maybe one more? What's one more value
Speaker 1: you have in terms of what else is besides of
Speaker 1: kindness and growth? What else is important to you in life?
Speaker 2: This is where values always trip me up, because about
Speaker 2: fifteen different things come to mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, pick one that's just something you value. I mean,
Speaker 1: if there's no right or wrong loyalty, loyalty, and then
Speaker 1: so if you're looking at these, then when you're looking
Speaker 1: at things like kindness, growth and loyalty, what's more important
Speaker 1: in the context of a let's say a relationship, kindness
Speaker 1: or loyalty or growth kindness, kindness. So people could go
Speaker 1: through this and have different answers, and it gives you
Speaker 1: an idea. You know, in the matrix where Neo goes
Speaker 1: see the oracle for the first time, and I don't
Speaker 1: like if someone saw the matrix state it's in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: There's a sign up on the top of the kitchen
Speaker 1: in the doorway says know thyself. And I think a
Speaker 1: big part of our happiness or fulfillment is having the
Speaker 1: curiosity to know ourselves, right, and then the other part
Speaker 1: is having the courage to be ourselves, because that's a
Speaker 1: different game. Right, You get to know yourself because you
Speaker 1: do assessments, you go to therapy, you journal, you meditate,
Speaker 1: or you go through you reflect right introspection, get to
Speaker 1: know yourself. And then a different game is being that
Speaker 1: person having the courage to do that in spite of
Speaker 1: other people's opinions and their expectations and everything else. So
Speaker 1: I think that like you ask somebody, they could value love,
Speaker 1: they can value freedom, they can love you, safety, they
Speaker 1: can value all these things and the values they're going
Speaker 1: to determine how they behave in the building, right, Because
Speaker 1: if somebody values safety and not somebody other people value
Speaker 1: riveting adventure, They're going to make very different decisions in
Speaker 1: their life, going to invest differently, They're going to travel differently.
Speaker 1: You know, they're gonna spend time with different people, right,
Speaker 1: But then imagine those two people are married, right, and
Speaker 1: so you have these value conflicts, and we also have
Speaker 1: the conflicts within ourselves certainly and to our ability to
Speaker 1: reconcile that. I'm not saying suggesting any of this is easy,
Speaker 1: but anything starts with awareness, right, any kind of change,
Speaker 1: we need to realize, like what the situation is and
Speaker 1: have some self awareness to know where we are, because
Speaker 1: you need some kind of baseline, right, you can manage
Speaker 1: something unless you could kind of know what the situation is.
Speaker 1: For me, I would be thinking about get clear on
Speaker 1: your values, Like my values are love, growth, contribution, adventure,
Speaker 1: an adventure. Interesting, It's only something I added the past
Speaker 1: few years me too. Yeah, So I was just like, well,
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna do this, I want to have fun too.
Speaker 1: And so I make my decisions based on family and
Speaker 1: friends and my relationships based on well this helped me
Speaker 1: to evolve, and what do I want to grow? So
Speaker 1: my third value is so I have more to contribute
Speaker 1: and I want to have some fun in the process,
Speaker 1: because having had a couple of near death experiences, it
Speaker 1: just makes me think about, you know, the kind of
Speaker 1: things that would regret, and so try to bring more
Speaker 1: joy to what I do. Find that joy and look
Speaker 1: for it even though and it's hard to find. So
Speaker 1: I don't have an easy answer on how you could
Speaker 1: just be in total integrity all the time, but I
Speaker 1: just still know I wish I maybe you could ask
Speaker 1: AI how to be to be able to do that
Speaker 1: all the time. But that's my superpower. But I do
Speaker 1: believe that our values shape our behaviors, and how it
Speaker 1: also provides the behaviors the evidence that we are the
Speaker 1: person we say we are, and we always have a choice.
Speaker 1: We could look at the things that we're doing wrong,
Speaker 1: and some people are really good at beating themselves up
Speaker 1: when they don't follow through, or they do a bad
Speaker 1: behavior they know they shouldn't do, and then it imposes
Speaker 1: on their identity saying I'm not this person. Or they
Speaker 1: could also look for evidence and shine a spotlight on
Speaker 1: the things that they're doing well as evidence that they
Speaker 1: are the person that they want be yep right, And
Speaker 1: big part of that is asking questions because primarily your
Speaker 1: brain will delete most everything, and the things that it
Speaker 1: will pay attention to are the things that you ask
Speaker 1: questions about, because then you put a spotlight there. So
Speaker 1: if your dominant question is why is this always happen
Speaker 1: to me, that's not a very empowering question because you're
Speaker 1: going to come up with the answers because you ask
Speaker 1: and you receive for all the reasons why this is
Speaker 1: happening to you, as opposed to saying, where's the gift
Speaker 1: in this? What's the best use of this moment? Who
Speaker 1: should I decide to be? You know? Right right now?
Speaker 1: Just put a different focus and flair on the things
Speaker 1: that are ready around us, and then our focus becomes
Speaker 1: our reality, right, and what we are we focus on
Speaker 1: we feel, and however we feel determines what we're going
Speaker 1: to think and what we're going to do and ultimately
Speaker 1: the results we're going to have in our life are
Speaker 1: lack thereof.
Speaker 2: Yep, thank you for that. I recognize I've taken you
Speaker 2: into a whole bunch of questions that aren't necessarily your
Speaker 2: brain coaching stuff. Right, So I want to put a
Speaker 2: plug in for you, know, like if you want to
Speaker 2: learn how to learn and learn how to take care
Speaker 2: of your brain and all these different things. You've got
Speaker 2: tons of great resources on that. I'd like to talk
Speaker 2: about though. Brain type. I think that's what you call it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: talk to me about brain type, because you told me
Speaker 2: before we started you think this is one of the
Speaker 2: most and practical pieces, and I know we don't have
Speaker 2: a ton of time, so yeah, this is very practical
Speaker 2: and a great way to kind of put an exclamation
Speaker 2: point on this on this conversation, and it's extremely useful.
Speaker 1: So I help people with their focus, their memory, their
Speaker 1: ability to read faster, but also their mindset, all the
Speaker 1: stuff that we're talking about, their belief systems, their personal
Speaker 1: motivation to overcome self sabotage and procrastination. That's what I
Speaker 1: mean that could keep you limited as opposed to more limitless.
Speaker 1: I realized though everyone thinks differently, and everybody leads differently,
Speaker 1: they hire differently, they buy differently, they learn differently. So
Speaker 1: we've identified four buckets where our brains got cognitive types.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to make this really simple. We made
Speaker 1: an assessment in the book. You people could also get
Speaker 1: it online for free. It's at my brainanimal dot com
Speaker 1: my brain Animal and we made them fun animals and
Speaker 1: it's kind of like you take a test on this,
Speaker 1: like a quiz online and what Game of Thrones character
Speaker 1: are you like or something like that, and when you do,
Speaker 1: you find out how you really learn, lead and live
Speaker 1: and communicate the best that you do because you understand
Speaker 1: and you also understand the people around you. So it's
Speaker 1: a brain code code and I'll go through really fast.
Speaker 1: If you're a C, you're a cheetah, and the cheetah
Speaker 1: is fast acting. They really implement. Some of you may
Speaker 1: be cheetahs. You have strong intuition and you apply things
Speaker 1: and you adapt very quickly in fast paced environments. If
Speaker 1: you're an O in the code, you're an owl. And
Speaker 1: owls love logic, they love data, they love facts and
Speaker 1: figures and interesting. Right, a cheetah and an owl would
Speaker 1: act differently. They buy differently, right, they communicate differently. Also,
Speaker 1: then they learn differently. Also they read differently and remember differently. Also,
Speaker 1: the D and code are your dolphins, and your dolphins
Speaker 1: are your creative visionaries. These are individuals that are creative
Speaker 1: problem solving pattern recognition. They often can see a future
Speaker 1: that other people can yet perceive. And finally, the E
Speaker 1: and code are your elephants, and they're defining trade is
Speaker 1: their empathy. They could feel what other people are feeling.
Speaker 1: Because of it, they have strong bonds in the really
Speaker 1: good community builders and collaborators also as well. So once
Speaker 1: you take the quiz at my Brain animal dot Com
Speaker 1: or the quizzes in the new book, and plus we
Speaker 1: pull from personality types, left brain, right brain, dominance, learning styles,
Speaker 1: multiple intelligence. They're like, we built this. Once you do,
Speaker 1: you get a report and based on your animal, this
Speaker 1: is how you could perform better. It's you could read better,
Speaker 1: improve your memory, remember names, learn languages, also communicate better
Speaker 1: because everybody they communicate different. Right, A cheetah is just
Speaker 1: direct to the point. Right, Owls are looking for the facts. Right,
Speaker 1: they ask questions. They do take more time because they
Speaker 1: do research. Right, they're trying to organize everything. Dolphins, you know,
Speaker 1: speak in very vivid terms and creative terms because the
Speaker 1: picture is worth a thousand words. And you know, obviously
Speaker 1: elephants have high levels of empathy, so they're amazing listeners.
Speaker 1: They're really good at conflict resolution. That's an example of
Speaker 1: how it could play out in communication, but it plays
Speaker 1: out in hiring, in management, and parenting and teaching and
Speaker 1: so much more. So, Yeah, people could take the quiz.
Speaker 1: There's nothing to buy. It takes about four minutes, and
Speaker 1: not only you take it, but have your friends and
Speaker 1: family members take it because it will give them the
Speaker 1: gift of knowing more of themselves also as well.
Speaker 2: Wonderful, Well, Jim, thank you so much for taking the
Speaker 2: time to come on. I've really enjoyed this conversation. And
Speaker 2: we'll have links in the show notes to my brain
Speaker 2: animal dot com and other things you've done.
Speaker 1: The book is just limitlessbook dot com. We're donating all
Speaker 1: the proceeds to charity Children's charity and Alzheimer's research and
Speaker 1: if gets any kind of value when you go there,
Speaker 1: you also get some free brain training on speed reading
Speaker 1: and memory. My gift to kind of celebrate the launch
Speaker 1: of the book, but Ary, I want to thank you
Speaker 1: for grabbing me and thank you everyone took the time
Speaker 1: to listen to this conversation. Maybe screenshot it and post
Speaker 1: it online and share, like just kind of one takeaway.
Speaker 1: Maybe have your values, maybe you're your dominant question on
Speaker 1: maybe something that you're going to put into action. Tag
Speaker 1: us both so we get to see it. And I'll
Speaker 1: actually repost a couple because you'll tag us so I
Speaker 1: get to see it, and then I'll gift out a
Speaker 1: couple of copies of the book to your community. It's
Speaker 1: just some random people, just as a thank you for
Speaker 1: grabbing me on your show.
Speaker 2: Wonderful. Thanks so much, Jim and I hope our past
Speaker 2: cross again soon.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Thanks sir.
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